Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

It is winter and the new year.
Nobody knows you.
Away from the stars, from the rain of light,
you lie under the weather of stones.
There is no thread to lead you back.
Your friends doze in the dark
of pleasure and cannot remember.
Nobody knows you. You are the neighbor of nothing.
You do not see the rain falling and the man walking away,
the soiled wind blowing its ashes across the city.
You do not see the sun dragging the moon like an echo.
You do not see the bruised heart go up in flames,
the skulls of the innocent turn into smoke.
You do not see the scars of plenty, the eyes without light.
It is over. It is winter and the new year.
The meek are hauling their skins into heaven.
The hopeless are suffereing the cold with those who have nothing to hide.
It is over and nobody knows you.
There is starlight drifting on the black water.
There are stones in the sea no one has seen.
There is a shore and people are waiting.
And nothing comes back.
Because it is over.
Because there is silence instead of a name.
Because it is winter and the new year.

Were you close? Im asked, as if grief
Would sting less deeply were we friends
As well as son and father. Further apart
Two men could never meet, though blood bends

Through arteries, veins and capillaries
Summoned into Presence by his pleasure.
On that I could have grown more slowly -
Remember being held, and cradled like treasure

No Living in Parked Vehicles

- from a street sign in Bayfield, Wisconsin


Only the dead may park, all others
must stay on the move. All drive-ins
are henceforth drive-thrus. Length

and purpose of stopping determines
severity of penalty: to plant a seed
forfeits a hand, to sketch a flower,

an eye. Dumping your ashtray,
however, is everywhere permitted.
The jurisdiction of this statute

extends to all rivers and the Great
Lakes, covers all mineral claims
except strip mines, goes out to sea

three hundred miles, and vertically to
infinity, the North Star having a waiver.
Fishermen must troll, becalmed schooners

will be sunk, innertubes, confiscated.
For your comfort, mobile gas-food-
restroom facilities have been dispatched

to circle at all interstate highway
cloverleaves, Three million square miles
of pavement will shortly be added,

as soon as the apartments come down.
The Director cordially wishes everyone
happy motoring. Now, make it snappy.

BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA


The war had turned inward until it resembled
suicide. The only soothing thing was water.
I passed the sentries, followed the surf out of sight.
I would sink into the elements, become simple.

Surf sounds like erasure, over and over.
I lay down and let go, the way you trust an animal.
When I opened my eyes, all down the strand
small crabs, the bright yellow of a crayon,

had come out onto the sand. Their numbers, scattered,
resembled the galactic spill and volume of the stars.
I, who had lain down alone, emptied,
waked at the center of ten thousand prayers.

Who would refuse such attention. I let it sweeten me
back into the universe. I was alive, in the midst
of great loving, which is all I've ever wanted.
The soldiers of both sides probably wanted just this.

Advice was nice
And so was prayer,
But in your long love
God was there.

Wedding Poems