Works

In all faith, we did our part:
generated punctually, prepared adequately,
ejected promptly,
and swam in the approved manner
in the appropriate direction;
did all instinctive things well,...

Why do we lie

'Why do we lie,' she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
'all afternoon wasted in bed like this?'
'Because we cannot lie all night together.'...

My son finds occupation
in almost nothing, in everything:
my soapy penitential toothpaste,
his mother's loosened hair
orts, containers, useless things;
watches as I pee
as at Victoria Falls,...

Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age;
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit!
Indicting and arraigning every day
Something they call a play....

Don Surly, to aspire the glorious name
Of a great man, and to be thought the same,
Makes serious use of all great trade he know.
He speaks to men with a Rhinocerotes' nose,...

Epitaphs I

Wouldst thou hear what Man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much Beauty as could die:
Which in life did harbour give...

Who says that Giles and Joan at discord be?
Th' observing neighbors no such mood can see.
Indeed, poor Giles repents he married ever,
But that his Joan doth too. And Giles would never...

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,
I thought to form unto my zealous Muse
What kind of creature I could most desire,
To honour, serve, and love; as poets use....

Here lies to each her parents' Ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth:
Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due,
It makes the father, less, to rue.
At six months' end, she parted hence...

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
...

A Child Of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel


Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
'Twas a child that so did thrive...

At court I met it, in clothes brave enough
To be a courtier, and looks grave enough
To seem a statesman: as I near it came,
It made me a great face. I asked the name....

He smashed his hand
in opening a door for her,
and less pain than
embarrassment shrieked through him.
Concealing both,
grimacing as if theatrically,
he asked himself...

Descended to the shore, odd how we left
the young girl with us to herself, and went
straight to examine the stratified cliffs,
forgot her entirely in our interest.
...

I have no children:

But tonight a poem came
in which a small child,
my daughter, appeared at the door
of a half-lit room
where late one night I wrote
at a heavy desk.
...

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
...

So breaks the sun earth's rugged chains,
Wherein rude winter bound her veins;
So grows both stream and source of price,
That lately fettered were with ice.
So naked trees get crisped heads,...

O, that joy so soon should waste!
Or so sweet a bliss
As a kiss
Might not for ever last!
So sugared, so melting, so soft, so delicious,
The dew that lies on roses,
When the Morn herself discloses,...

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,...

Follow a shaddow, it still flies you,
Seeme to flye it, it will pursue:
So court a mistris, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,...