The poetry of Al Liebson had a major effect on artistic development, both in written word and music, in the East during the 1970's. That introspective period between the community of the 60's and the resurection of the Corporation Man of the 80's had very few voices that spoke to the conflicting value sets. Liebson's poetry, in particular, bridged that gap. Teetering between the free love of the 60's and the Me-ism of the 70's, Liebson was able to capture and describe a zeitgeist that few were able to articulate.

The 60's were free expression, free love, free of responsibility for much of the artistic community. The experiments of the Beats were taken as de-facto standards for modern poetry, and the poets of the 60's chose to follow the freedom thread of the Beats, rather than undertand the results of the Beat experiments.

There was topicality, the war in Vietnam and the culmination of the Civil Rights movement generated their own poetry, indeed, however that tended to not stretch the bounds of art, rather it stretched the bounds of subject, of content. While important, it did little to advance art.

By 1971, when Liebson's early work first appeared in print, the failure of experimentation was come again, and free expression had sunk to abstract brinksmanship or commercialized pap. Like the Paris Commune, like the 1900's Free Love movements, like the Beat sellout, there was nothing to guide the art.

Liebson's works soon emerged as a ray of hope.

Liebson's approach was radical but sustainable. He embraces the change in morals that the 60's represented, and could articulate the spirit of sharing the Hiipies represented. But he understood the harsh realities of a dream dissolved, the blood of the war, the disgrace of the sellout. He recognized the dissonance of successful commercial culture and "Free" anything. Admittedly many others had, also, but he was one of the few to find a technique to write through that barrier. His combination of neo-classical style, modern subject, and jarring simile was the catalyst for a new breed of poets and artists, one that continues to affect the arts through the present day.

Sadly, this was also the period of transition from print to digital, and many lost track of the best of Leibson's work. Leibson himself became disenchanted, both his personal and professional life had transitioned away from an ability to express himself clearly through poetry. A brief career in popular music did little to encourage him, the realities of Disco and the early entry of electronica into the popular culture overpowered the more artistic efforts of anyone working in New York City.

Though a strong influence on a generation, the actual lines of verse have been missing from the American literatry landscape for almost 20 years.

We here at Ravenware are very proud to be able to announce that this drought is now over. We have at last made contact with the poet of the post-commune, and by special and exclusive permission are able to present to the world the works of Al Leibson.

Please check back regularly for more detailed analysis.

Please note that all works are copyright © AL Liebson, and used with his gracious permission. No other reproduction is allowed without express consent. If you would like to reference this body of work on your web site, please link to this page.

C.K. Haun, for Ravenware

The Works

"The Squirrel and Fallacious Monk"

The fallacious monk and squirrel are

in Neverland, and beasties know

of folly, what they have to say

of nothingness; their knowledge can't grow

to speak of their own thoughts and how

the fallacious monk and squirrel cry

that we are good and that we say

to live is not to have to die.

They've frowns upon their withered brows,

and contemplate my chinly flow,

but what it is they have to say

is that of which they do not know.

And pray, why do you look upon them:

Is it that their boat has sunk?

No! cried they; angered, we say

to squirrel and fallacious monk.

These tens of thousands, buffoons are they:

Ten coats worn in July; you know

their pocket-watches, smashed are they

(the same wear nothing in the snow).

But beasties tell me what to think;

the monk confided in me: He said

there's nothing but to be able to think

these thoughts of taking his squirrel to bed.

Irrelevance; I shouted, hey!

to him and sadly he agreed

ëtwas something he had just brought up

to satisfy his fallacious greed.

What's there to do but live and die?

I asked him, and what he told me

was, Go, my son, to the land of Nod,

and in Quincy Cave find the Beasties Three.

Sometimes I look out the window and think,

What's life for me? What have I in store?

I came to feel that I needed some help

in research, so I went back for more

of the Beasties Three and their picket-fence

all laced with roses and barbed wire fun.

I asked them how I could find myself

which could be answered by Number One,

who told me that, in Neverland,

you are not a what, sir, but a who.

I thanked him and asked him, please, to go on,

but he grunted and took me to see Number Two.

Like the treasures of the pirateís map

he told me of the place to see

just who I am; he told me the name

of Akkerman; go to Number Three

who beckoned me (the fallacious monk),

Go to your squirrel; for miles you'll trod

with her to the Shire, and there you'll find

this Akkerman who, incidentally, is God.

We shuddered and bent in silent prayer,

in waistcoats four and my golden fob

which hung so limp from the Holy Watch,

and I, the monk, began to sob.

So I stood, then danced in a frenzy so wild

with my squirrel who had shut down our shop

where we sold our wares that shined above

the others, then my hair did drop.

I think of the day when I'll reflect

on chinly flow, and I'll have her;

this squirrel whom I desire so

is just in my mind, she's merely a blur.

Truck on, you fool, to your native land

and see the changes in your monks

how they love their squirrels, and you'll see

the crocs that pull on elephants' trunks.

I thank you Beastie, oh Number One,

for informing me I'm not a what but a who.

The Beastie told me of Akkerman,

this not One but Number Two.

And most of all I take this time

to tell of him, how it is to be

with he who tells of Neverland,

oh prophet of Jan, rare Number Three

who opened wide the doors to see

upon the ocean the sailing ships

with cargoes of carrots and rubber rice

from the land of the sultry nips

who speak of life, sublime it is,

but reckon, thou, with those who know

of liver and gibbets and hooded flutes;

and then we met him: Laszlo the crow,

who spoke of life and obscurities

like the dreams of a thousand albino moies

who spend ail Saturday night in thought

of being themselves, retching in holes,

and trucking their masturbating minds

to the Lord of the Flies and Venetian Blinds,

who's shut up in his worldly tastes

with pistachio and some other kinds.

Laszlo, we learned, would confide in us;

then, seeking and probing into my head,

decided that my philosophy was

obscure these days: I should take her to bed

for the plain and simple reason that

these sexual fantasies are in the mind;

the squirrel can drive fallacious monks

to lunacy in her demian bind.

A life spent in her loving arms:

a dream that's one of this poet's own.

A life with somebody else would be like

I'd spent all of my years alone.

But, owing to stupidity

I won't have her, and so I cry

inside my dreams, but does she know

I'll live until the day I die?

I beseech the spirit that controls such things

to bring back she whom I desire so great.

Oh to have a magic lamp

which would erase this from my slate.

Through these years of searching in

the hills of Mongolia and in a cloud,

I met a young fallacious monk

who did things he was not allowed,

like floating in his own balloon

and dreaming that the day shall be:

us wed, the monk and squirrel, too.

This day shall come, you'll surely see.

I rode upon a French-bread reef

in the path of a perverted young rainbow trout

who inquired directions to Scarborough Faire;

I told him, My friend, there's one way out,

for you must find the sea of joy

to live; I had to cry so bad.

Responding to his shrug, I asked:

Oh, why does love have to be so sad?

You see, the others do not trust,

not in the way that's in your minds.

Perverted people are killing my soul

in my quest of these new found finds.

I'm shot down in my struggle to love

the squirrel, for I'm the fallacious monk.

I returned to the Beasties, and what did they say?

Advance to the topódon't forget your trunk.

I boarded a ship, and there I saw

the sailors were celíry, the captain a shrub.

So I climbed on top, and to my surprise

I was allowed to enter the sub,

and there I found, to my delight,

thousands of little green nasties oh joy!

So ent'ring through the holy door

I knew then she was not a toy.

Jumping and walking from the ship,

my mind was a jumble of carrot sticks.

Looking beneath the sheet, I found

good Laszlo, the crow, up to his old tricks.

'Tis a feeling of mixed emotions for me,

knowing that this floats within my head,

that of all the maidens I can take

none but you will share my bed.

I look in the sky and I see a cow

flying the course of a 707,

but here with Squirrel, in her arms,

I know I'm nowhere but in heaven.

Up in the clouds there lived a man

who lived on carobs and currant fruit,

spending days contemplating life

and playing on his Scottish lute,

singing of desks and table-legs,

stepping on toes and living off drunks,

walking the countryside, alone

but for fellow fallacious monks.

The end of all must come right now

for nothing at all is left to say

but greed brings sorrow; listen, heed:

I pray you'll save your squirrel today.

"The End of All Fallacious Monks"

The fallacious monk has left a tale

for whom the Beasties could not save.

If studied it, perhaps, might lead

the way to moss before the grave.

The cabbage that you plant today

may grow to be a boat to sail

the waves of amber-colored seas

in haste, though hopes you shouldn't fail

will come from squirrels lacking tact

who speak of future tales of woe

that they will cry for wasted times

they hadn't yet, but do they know

they're squirrels of a past report?

Though taken by unknowing fools,

they spoke the truth, and so we seek

admission to these monk-filled schools.

They knoweth not, but still they tell,

for knowing more might stunt their growth.

But they, though a fallacious class,

demand all monks-to-be swear oath

that, though remembered, they in fact

refuse to cater to their whims

as once they did in foolish hope

that wretched squirrels sing their hymns.

Fortune-hunting swabs may flash

their scabbards in a ruthless fight;

they still succumb, unchallenging,

when stricken by a squirrel night.

Embittered by a tragic loss,

thy scabbards drawn a final time,

but fate is nigh, and distant bells

reveal the swabbish deaths in chime.

Old salts can slap their knees in beat

with hearts once pounding love forlorn.

But Laszlo still remembers all

and yet prefers to munch his corn.

The crow, friend Laszlo, bent in age,

now stoops for kernels; in his prime

preferring swooping over ships

and talking Barth, and sucking lime

as Robin once had, in his chair

behind a smoke-filled Harding-room

where chosen were the friends of those

who longed returning to the womb.

Though old, good Laszlo knew his stuff

and spoke as straight as ever; he

denounced old French-bread reefs as rind

of limes he'd tossed in reverie

in celebrating his induction

into wearing waistcoats five.

In questioning his motives we

were told, though warm, he was alive

to fan the flames the Beasties Three

had once ignited from a chunk

of tinder rescued from the sea

by the revered fallacious monk.

We asked the crow, does he exist,

still naked of a logic mind?

Indeed, said Laszloóhe's the one

the cabbage sadly could not find.

If Moto is as Moto was

and he is me as I am him,

if they've grown old, then there's no hope

for middles fat and minds grown slim.

The Lords fade on and lose what once

they had in building minds of men.

They can't return as youthful crops

that sprouted high as they did then.

The lads no longer sing the truth...

or do they, as they've never died.

They'll roll in pig-sties' murkiness

and let their days approach their slide.

What ho! Reserves have taken posts

to guard potatoes' peelings well.

The leader spoke to save pigs' food

and never barbecue in hell.

Then Laszlo shook his beak in shame;

the crow'd been drifting in the day.

He alibied oncoming age

as causing frequent mind delay.

He spoke of Beasties Three and plots

that they'd devised to bleach him white.

What's crows, he asked, if feathers black

don't show? Perhaps one day they might.

He spoke then of another day,

another time, and other bunks

in which heíd slept; he lacked concern

for backs of poor fallacious monks

insisting he might take the cot,

the only bed betwixt the eight

of them; this night when he did lie,

and monks conspired and spoke of hate

for Laszlo; petty jealousies

obscured and clouded feathered minds.

Would Simon Bear claim mattress when

in company of crowlike kinds?

Indeed he would! cried Laszlo in

defense of actions of the crow

who beared the name he could not speak.

But, Laszlo, did the bruin know

of comfort he forsook in name

but not the honor of the thing?

Can innocence be rocked with guilt?

Could bears of wealth refuse to sing?

Oh monks! Return thine feathered caps

to feather ceremonies twice.

Refeathering's the reason why

the caps, upon return, are nice.

Have crows distinctions such as these?

I asked good Laszlo, so he spoke

of Akkerman, as did the Three

in Quincy Cave (from fire came smoke).

We've nothing, really (crows, that is),

that differs from a kidney pie

but feathers and a beak to match

and wings to lift us to the sky.

But reckon now, respective pies:

Tis true thou cannot glide alone;

but Yorkshire pudding Figgy, too

can cause your flight above the scone.

Now take into account the monk

who started all fallacious flow,

who fled to Nod and found the cave

where beasties told him where to go.

Reflect, thou, on the lessons learned;

heíd nothing at the end to say

but taken principles to feed

himself on any fateful day.

Keep what thou hast taken from

the words the monk composed from thought;

the chinly flow, released to those

whose songs the monk had sung had bought.

They see the world much clearer now,

the monk and Laszlo, too, we learned.

They speak now not of hooded flutes

but of the saints that ought been burned.

Albino moles mean nothing to

the crow and monk who've since grown wise;

dispelling myths as meaningless,

refusing now to fantasize.

But what say they of Akkerman

whom once was spoken of as God?

He still remains but looms obscure

in lands where once for miles weíd trod.

His word hangs high for those who'd seen

a year of sad fallacious monks,

and squirrels who were dearly loved

by those so set to pack their trunks

who now will do so, but alone.

They'll go to find awaiting stars,

there chewing rope and quaffing ale,

to and fro in cosmic cars,

and finding sand in Roblee shoes,

spitting blood once saved for love;

sadly then, regretting that

they have no hope to look above.

But Laszlo and his friend in life

will starve the others' souls to die,

telling searing stories that

will fear the body to the sky.

Dream, thou happy, toothsome babe,

of roses grown for only you.

For you carnations once were fine

but now they're dead, and buried, too.

I want to die, but fear I fear

will conquer those who shut the door

to life; the others, though, proclaim:

Fallacious monks we'll be no more!

"Return of the Fallacious Monk"

The fallacious monk has risen once

again for broken-hearted times.

There is but one, and so he seeks

throughout the skies for hidden rhymes.

Longer than his eight years he's

been living off the bark of trees

and crying over what was his

and laughing at the mice that freeze.

Like a volume of destruction

heíd been reading Rabelais

and storing well-preserved notes

and loving she of fish filet.

His broken-hearted mind cannot

remove the presence of the song

of what she is, so now he takes

his funds to bankers from Hong Kong.

The monk once spoke of scabbards, swabs,

and old salts that heíd never met.

He vows that though held never been

there he would travel one day yet.

If Adams chose to stunt his moral

growth, the monk would bury him.

The man himself had picked him up

but left him hanging on a limb.

In defiance, speaking not

of Laszlo, Simon, Quincy Cave,

or beasties, now the saddened monk's

forever on the midnight wave.

His destination, Pakistan,

wherein his heart now lies in wait,

and hopes that fears not realized

will find him as he lies in state.

No more pictures painted high

of moles so white their eyes are pink.

Now French-bread reefs are served in haste

with curry so the times may link.

The Beasties Three now represent

what once was four; he never knew

the sadness that he felt one night

as Chapman was aroused to do

the thing the monk had always felt

would pierce like arrows to the heart.

He was alone; finality

had caused the monk's fallacious start.

He has no visions, has no hopes

of ever finding love as fresh

as that he found while trekking through

the fields of far-off Bangladesh

and what lay nearbyóthere it was!

The treasure that the monk had sought

so long, but sadly, to his grief

he found that she, years back, was bought.

In questioning of life itself

he thought he'd found the missing piece.

The only truth he learned, it seemed,

was self-destruction cannot cease.

The kindest thought was offered him

while chinly flow began to sprout.

His heart was touched by Pakistan,

for she had found the one way out.

The monk, relieved, now felt a joy

within him that heíd never known.

He knew now, though a hermit monk,

that he would never be alone.

A nerve was struck, or so he thought:

Her beauty was enough to shine

as if a star, a galaxy;

but still heíd need another sign.

He thought now not of currant fruit

but Harvard Square and Little Joe.

The jota was a fellow monk:

the other one had hoped heíd go.

But if perchance his long-time friend

punked out and failed to follow through

in traveling New England then

the monk would not know what to do.

Regardless he would make the trip;

if neccesary run around

the country in an effort to

reveal that he could not be found.

Of his fallacious attributes

his love for Pakistan's atop

his list of quirksome irks that he,

above all others, hopes to drop.

It's such a feeling of respect

he finds for her that keeps him from

revealing his fallaciousness and

sends him back from whence heíd come.

He prays that pictures will appear

to keep him hidden from his pain;

it all leads back to fatal nights

of lying and ignoring rain.

Oh yes! the Squirrel! Does she still

remain to shackle helpless men?

Perhaps in life, but not the monk:

He cannot but remember when

she held him as if in a dream;

the monk looks back all bleary-eyed.

But now it's darker, hidden things:

He feels that fate's not on his side.

The broken-hearted words he speaks,

the crumble in his ashen face;

he's solid in declaring he's

resigning from the human race,

to live apart from silken hair

and eyes that burn right to his soul.

He issues statements to the press

and lives with the albino mole.

The monk's no different than he ever

was, and those who know him say

his genius lay not in his words

but brightening another's day.

He wants to hold and to be held

by those with whom heíll never live.

To she from distant, eastern lands

all that he has he wants to give.

Again to speak obscurities

and rhetoric like J.Q.A.

who'd never feel fallacious-bound

and would, no doubt, refuse to stay.

The happiness he sees in her

(from Pakistan is whence she came)

is proof of Schopenhauer's thought:

Fallacious monks are all the same.

Driven through the snow, across

the sun-baked, soaked Tomorrow-town,

he saw the Adams chair again

and then proceeded to sit down.

Heíd never seen such treachery,

what men could do to mortal soul.

His disappointment ran amuck

in his attempt to fill that hole

with kindness and a simple word

to separate a tortured mind

from beauty and its harmful smile

that otherwise appeared so kind.

The monk was quite mistaken in

his reckoning, and timing, too.

Apparently he jumped too quick

and landed in the witch's brew.

The brainlock that he knew that day

resulted not from any food

heíd taken, but from Pakistan:

Heíd found he wasn't in the mood.

And now, so lost: Decisions made

were not the best heíd ever found.

Instead of heaven, heíd resigned

himself to falling to the ground.

And after all was said and done

he sat alone, not quaffing ale

nor putting shot, nor shooting crows,

but in his own fallacious jail.

He knew not words of logic that

perchance might save him from his fate,

for love was strongest, so he sighed

that all that lay ahead was wait.

The powers that he felt could save

now faced him on that field of war.

The love that warmed him many times

now hoped that he would breathe no more.

Instead of facing up to it

he laid emotion to the side

and gaped about the sunsets heíd

revered while on the countryside.

Fallacious monks know not a time

when happiness had come to stay.

Their monastery breathes these words:

"Can you remain for just one day?"

(fragment)

In being the fallacious monk

I've found that there's no way to find

the reason for existence and

that there's no point in being kind.

The kindness that's of which I speak

is one that's twofold, and I know

the reasons are fallacious, too,

and now I have nowhere to go.

The images I lay behind me

serve no purpose but to peak

the curiosity of those

who find they've nothing else to seek.

I'm only me, and cannot be

quite otherwise, for this I know

would prove that I'm a fop, and then

I'd hope you'd all enjoy the show.

I cannot show but what I feel,

and this I've played 100 times.

The images projected are

but shades of future sucked-out limes

which breed the self-contempt that self-

destruction placed within my mold.

The heat of my resentment fans

the flames that keep me in the cold.

My mechanism of defense

remains the kindness that I weave

about those whom I hope to show

my kindness is but to deceive.

The pictures in my mind are now

quite different than the songs I sing.

My intuition's clear enough:

I plan to seek another thing.

The silken hair of which I spoke

remains the finest that I've seen

or felt; the latter in my heart:

I've never traveled in between

the two folds of my two-fold life

nor have I sat beneath the trees

that grow within the heartland which

is situated 'cross the seas.

In searching for the reasons that

I'm quite unlike the world's true norm,

I've puzzled minds which better mine,

yet I remain not even warm.

Perhaps my purpose lies so deep

within my heartswept, tattered brain,

for there are days so beautiful

when all my wishes lead to rain.

Confusion drives me to the wall:

Why decimate a new-formed plan?

The warmth her eyes emit can force

true logic to escape a man.

Well beneath the attitude

revolves a never-ending chain

of struggle ëtwixt my logic and

emotion, leading to the rain

again, which forms the puddles of

a muddled and bedraggled hope

of hopelessness: There's no escape

from life untouched by pills and soap.

Can images appear like fire

and dance across a sun-bright sky?

Can apprehension lead me to

the puzzlement to wonder why?

The actions of my intellect

appear throughout my written word,

a matter which, when coupled with

emotion, leads to the absurd.

My steady, studied logic looms

like lightbulbs filtered by the moon;

so bright it's deemed impossible

by those who hope to quell it soon.

They beg me, rest my wearied mind;

not with their words but in their eyes.

The love denied between us soon

will send us winging to the skies,

if there exists a heaven, truly,

as I've learned from blinded men

who try to teach the word of God

(who never learned to use the pen).

Despite my wide-eyed Adams thought,

despite my grandeur on the sly,

despite my heart-felt touchiness,

despite the twinkle in my eye,

despite the tenderness I boast,

despite my generosity,

despite my swagger dandified

and muffled mediocrity,

the melancholy still remains

and always will within my mind,

within my heart, throughout my life

unless another world I find

where, left alone, I'd tend to things

so distant from her piercing eyes

that I'd forgetóor so I think!

I'll never claim to be so wise.

"Farewell to Fallacies"

To understand fallacious monks

it's necessary first to read

betwixt the lines drawn down the road

to whence the monk had come must lead.

For he himself who has survived

for ten years in a mortal state,

emotion once was dust but now

he's grown to love and learned to hate.

Unwillingness to learn has drained

his body of its chance to love.

Heíd only be content to take

those naked to what he's made of.

Didactic discourse flows where once

bold image, bright with color, lay.

He breathes polemics; rhetoric

on toast awaits him on his tray.

He hopes to catch within his words

those symbols which define his life.

The compass and his turban, too,

sit, unbelieving, near his knife.

The monk's concrete; abstraction's but

a task for which he must be paid,

referring now not to his dreams but

back to cots on which held laid.

Mistakes he's made cannot be lost or

tossed about like dusty spools.

Repeated like a fallacy,

they're laughed upon by callous fools.

Remarking how the sun shines bright,

he's saddened by the lustful looks

exchanged by those amused to know

he's happiest among his books.

He dreams of sculpting halavah

and slicing off a massive hunk;

a monument decayed as is

the shackled and fallacious monk.

Returning oft times to the words

composed from flow of fluid red,

the monk considers monkdom's laws

as statements 'pon which Adams fed,

as gibbets which Villon did fear;

ah, Francois thou must never leave.

The wine consumed by fools at court

is that which serves but to deceive.

Francois, we hide behind our words:

French poets and Alsatian coal

are strangers but to wretched scenes

like those quite near the grassy knoll.

The tragic truth and sadness dwell

amidst the charges that prevail:

Fallacious monks are left alone

to crumble in a putrid jail

outside which wass'lers moan of pain,

not of their own but others' plight.

Their cantos soar so high that we

must decimate them in the night.

We give their waistcoats to the poor:

Pray, who are we to judge this case?

We ought consider who we are

and that the vests are trimmed with lace.

I pray I'd been Francois Villon,

not merely he of latter days.

I'd haunt the Court of Miracles

and learn of Beppoís wine-soaked ways.

To know the joy a keg of port

could offer fools electing kings

is thrice exalted than to own

the power that a scepter brings.

The rule of monarchs who are blind

to self-destruction hastens hate:

Who are these ìkingsî who theorize?

(Francois Villon awaits my fate.)

The words of Dale have opened wide

my eyes to read above the sound.

There's more to words than what we say,

more than enough there to astound

a budding Johnson, Quine, or Yeats

who seeks to grasp the world of art

as if it were the canon law

(which must be read before they start).

The dreams which linger to be dreamt

are chased through air by silent souls

resembling not an image of

Ferdousi nor albino moles.

A fawn so small and delicate

can represent its size ten-fold

in what it means to he who knows

he'll love her still when she's grown old.

My life disturbs my work at hand,

so much so that I shake my head,

for knowing that I haven't time

is testament to what I've said:

To rush about, neglecting that

which courtiers, in their study, read

while dining on a dainty fig,

content in knowing where words lead,

what signs mean, where logicians go

to pray, and aestheticians dance.

I'd do a jig some joyous morn,

annointing VILLON king of France!

To unify that thought with those

that thinkers dwell upon at sight

would prove ten volumes, nay, a score,

and keep me writing through the night....

As if it were dealt through command

of he, the ten years and four days

without whom would all but existó

poet and poem must go their ways

alone, but Francois, freed from chains

of exile, now returns to live

where foreign-cultured bones lay dry:

He'd never had the chance to give.

fragment II

early 1990

For two and thirty years fallacious

monks with staffs in hand had trod

the deserts of Arabia

but now sip wine and walk on sod

once dug and then replaced by men

who'd toil for half a day with sweat

upon their backs and brows--the lash

produced what stuff was not theirs yet.

The tricks and trades of those once trained

for lives of poetry now stand

aside and lay decayed, as dead,

for medicine and math take hand

and so provide a way for monks

to find their way back to a state

where statesmen sit and stare at more

than those who choose to only hate.

Remaining are the dreams the monk

had lying in his hold in case

the campaign he had waged had failed

and he had faltered in his race,

like playing in the clubs he'd seen

and reading Talmud through the night,

discovering that study was

for its own sake, and in its right.

It's happily ironic that

the monk will never realize

these dreams, for that regarding those

who've gained importance in his eyes

is now the image that he sees

through spectacles heíd ground by hand.

He won't allow himself a trip,

one way, back to Fallaciousland.

He's through committing fallacies

in arguing his stance on things

and right to live: He's won his case

(among that now of which he sings).

He lives now not in Pakistan,

nor Bangladesh, but in his home.

His travels take him far; his heart

now sets the course on which he'll roam,

and that course is a path that takes

a lifetime to traverse; he knows

the way by heart: Therein it lay,

and only he sees where it goes.

fragment III

2/4/92-2/12/92

To know the route fallacious monks

have trod for nearly twenty years

means studying the volumes writ

on knowing what the deaf man hears

when listening to the words of those

who speak of crutches men have used

to prop up that which needs no help

in knowing what should be refused.

The monk's own precepts, cut to shreds,

were published by monastic fools

whose ink and paper, fonts and paste

(which were reserved as stoic tools)

became part of a syndicate

committed to committing crime

against those who the monk adores

(for whom, he's found, he finds no time).

Capablancaís primer now

replaces Akkerman, although

the days of Jan remind the monk

of many things he needs to know

and what he's learned from Carlyle's pen,

from things heíd never read before;

for everything he's read, he's found

that there remains so many more

appointments to be made to see

the places where he'll never go;

he sees himself too serious

on points of law he'll never know:

He's never read his Prosser throughó

he had no Putnam there to rail

about abridgements, written in

great haste though not in great detail,

prostitutions of the law

which simply can't begin to teach

a deeper understanding of

the law which better minds can't reach.

The songs the monk will listen to

are chronicles of his own life,

each generating memories

of his top-notch Swiss Army knife;

top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art,

a masterpiece of Swiss detail

that serves to organize the laws,

complied with, monks will never fail

to master their Justinianó

obscure today in syllabi

devoted to the corporateó

indeed, John Adams now would cry

to learn the state his law is in,

that riding circuit has but ceased;

his standing while at "Colledgeî served

to prove his self-esteem increased.

To know the words of Adams is

the thing one should aspire to,

for what one needs to know before

deciding what one needs to do

is learning how to know thy self,

improving what one knows at sight,

what one can write about at length,

and teach fallacious monks at night.

To be affected by the words

John Adams wrote, most notably

to Skelton Jones and Cunningham,

is what can make blind beggars see

and is so good as to obtain

for all good men a thing to need,

then to be neededótherein lay

John Adams in the words we read.

But even he, at times, cannot

correct what's wrong when monks are sad.

They have no patience, tolerance,

nor care at all for what they had,

for that is old and meaningless,

not shiny, new, nor helpful in

the chronicling of what means more

or less the end of monkish sin

when monks get in their minds a thought

of taking what's not theirs; when friends

can't recognize the crime at hand

and means can't justify their ends.

Spring

(4/10/92-4/15/92)

(dedicated to the memory of the brother of Francois Villon II)

Spring, we learn, connotes rebirth

or birth for what had never been,

whose heart had yet to beat, and that

which none of us has ever seen.

To sleep upon the ocean is

the fate of one we know this spring.

The only solace is to know

what summer and the sun may bring.

The words lay on the paper; they

serve but to organize the grief

that lives within the hearts of those

who know for it there's no relief;

for he'll remain here for our eyes

to see, and for the tears we've shed

and those yet to be cried, for still

we can't believe that he is dead.

He cannot be replaced as such

but still his place is taken by

another as all ours will be

by others who will wonder why

as we do now; it doesn't seem

as real as the things we see

but looms more real the longer that

we know that life is what's to be.

The Bird & the Twig

(1974)

While sleeping one night

in a small bus depot

a little old man

and his senile young crow

came bounding on in

with a pumpkin in hand

saying, ìThis we had got

at a lemonade stand

where vendors would sell

pocket-watches and crepe

little nighties that they'd

sew together with tape.î

Then heard I a voice

from the little black crow

and when I turned around

he was white as the snow,

telling me he had seen

of a stubby young twig

who was three inches long

and in other ways big.

He was quite a mess

(a bit sticky from cake)

but complained to the crow,

"I have not seen a break.

Many people would look

and then turn me away

for I am quite a messó

does that change what I say?

Could a neat little man

be of cumbersome size

while a messy old fool

be the one who is wise?

Would it matter that one

is not pleasant to see?

To me it does not...

Oh, but I'm just a tree."

And in answer to this

the little black bird

in his chirpy-chirp voice

said but merely this word:

ìFools,î he said, ìfools

would look on this whim;

though loving, this person

would not be seen with him.î

While looking in the eyes of Bird

with tears from heaven-sent,

proclaimed the Twig of "the last of Earth;

indeed it is; I am content."1

John Quincy Adams

Shorter Poems

This life I've led I have not seen

what could have happened in between

the sheets with whom it may concern

who'd teach me all I'd have to learn

and now alone I think of what

I might have done upon a cot

with she for whom it may concern

for whom the fire in me doth burn.

If I have been so eloquent in stating trepidation,

I only mean to reproduce edition on edition.

If love would find me sleeping late then found me not residing,

it only means I spoke with he in whom I was confiding.

And if I feel a twinge of mellow grey for past contentment,

it only means I'm foolish for misleading my resentment.

It's for lack of worldly ways, perhaps,

that I've been dormant when

desires make their presence known;

I kick and dance as does my pen.

I waste, I waste! oh, haven't I

another art of which I'm proud?

Can I induce my pen to sin and

go where I am not allowed?

Woman's name is passion and her mother is the wind.

Born in paradise, her birthright angels did rescind.

Burning eyes so bright she holds a scepter like a pen,

why forever questioning who gave her one and ten.

The murder of romantic soulsótherein her passion lies,

so death remains for Cyrano who's taken to the skies.

If Yeats had not such a passion,

high among the clouds where none other could be,

would Maud have left him in despair to fight for liberty?

That Villon, I pray had not a guile, and desire

to retain romance and kick and dance through Louis' reign of fire,

he would have lived a sweeten'd life (for dry held under-rate!).

No bridges burning down his walls, but gibbets and wine, in the end

entombed him with his fate.

To dwell upon my yesteryear: a testament of folly!

I throw my vanity about

in ways of which I have no doubt

that old romantics (in their nineties)

staring at this starving soul

will kick and dance;

"The King of France

I'll be!" I cry, as did Villon.

Upon my seat of deviance

I'll wave my scepter as I please.

But, ah, Francois in slumber deep

I can feel the tears you weep

as I indulge these lines again.

T H E J A C K C A N T O S

The man was good,

the man is dead

he had red blood

flow from his head.

Oh JFK

we loved your hair;

it's sad to say

it's no longer there.

At your hair's peak

it was auburn red,

though matted and weak

when you were dead.

Mother couldn't be here

today, it's true,

but Oswald could and

that was bad for you.

Mother's rollers were

mammoth indeed

Kenneth wasted them on

that dried-up seed.

Jackie's hair was

teased and tossed

'twas more than a set

that she had lost.

I speak to you, oh Jack of life,

as if you were still here.

How large you loom, as though a storm,

and of your coif you took such care.

To know that you once stood with us

and played with Macaroni's nose;

when Patrick Bouvier gave out

also your tale came to a close.

Lee Harvey you broke

all our hearts that day,

and if Jack were here now

I know what he'd say:

"Get Mac Bundy on the horn

in this hour of grief and challenge;

take money for the plate from Red Fay;

get good jobs for Sarge and Sallinger

Could there have been another high-

powered rifle in the fray?

On the grassy knoll, perhaps,

as Dr Wecht was heard to say.

Regardless, Oswald's bullet smashed

that handsome, cinder block-like head.

The baggie filled with goop, and Jackie's

dress was sprayed a spattered red.

Her pillbox hat and roses all lay

scattered and all strewn around.

Johnson's complaint of obscurity was

shattered by a carbine's sound.

The missile was well-aimed and hit

its mark as if it were my heart.

Jack's head cracked open, and we knew

that Johnson's term would shortly start.

From which side of the boulevard

was Kennedy so disapproved?

I guess that Connally was wrong:

Was Jack in Dallas truly loved?

They killed the man: Suffice it to say

that someone wasn't fond of Jack.

His face, though, was so handsome that

they had to shoot him in the back.

The first of three shots rang out loud

and hit poor Jack right in the throat.

I wonder what his thoughts were then:

All this just to get a vote?

Could anyone have been so loved

that hate would surely find its way?

Would Oswald waste his time to try to

pick off Kick? Perhaps Red Fay?

Dave Powers said it best, I think:

"A nation died that afternoon."

But I think LBJ was glad,

and took the oath of offish soon.

It seems too clear-cut, cut-and-dried,

that Dallas was where he was dead.

Lyndon clued Lee Herbert inó

he took aim and shot off Jack's head.

Now Dr Wecht speaks of the slam,

the force of which appeared so great

to push his body forward and

that's why the president is late.

I loved that man, that handsome Jack:

He was so beautiful to me.

I loved when his head opened up:

There were so many things to see.

The nation, though, and Jackie, too,

lived on through those most frightening hours.

The ones I felt most sorry for

were Sallinger and David Powers.

They had to get real jobs when death

claimed Jack and robbed him of his soul.

His friends sat round and reminisced

of their beloved jelly roll.

*Moore/Jetta

L I N E S O N J A C K

Jack's red hair shone like a sheaf

of wheat in the warm, midday sun.

He piled it high upon his headó

it might have weighed an auburn ton.

It did no good, however, when

it might have proved its worth to Jack.

His head was human; now it's not,

and then they dumped it in a sack.

That all the evidence is hid

looms as insulting to Jack's name;

our Jack, who never would deceive,

now rests 'neath the Eternal Flame

which feeds on gas disgorged by those

who killed Jack in cold blood one day.

We shudder when we learn the cabal

took their oaths with LBJ.

Johnson would reward Clay Shaw

et al if he had had his druthers

and give their wives all Cabinet posts

unlike Jack (who named his brothers).

Jack's wife was sad when he was killed

from in the Book Deposit'ry,

but although hated, he was loved,

that man from Choate Jack Kennedy.

There are some theories stating that

Jack's head was blown to bits that day

by more than one we'll never know

whose blast had prompted Jack to say,

"My God, I've been hit!" and hit he was!

He knew that he'd been badly hurt,

and so his tie and suit were locked

away with his Jack-spattered shirt.

Then Jackie cried, "They shot my husband!"

But who were they? This word's been said

again, yet many times again

we'll ask, "Who broke apart that head?"

And what a head oh my! I think

that through the years that head will grow

in size if not importance, too,

and rise as if filled with bread doughó

his face was fat: We can't deny

the doughiness about his cheeks

had made the target large and caused

investigations of many weeks

and some that lasted months and years,

some yet ongoing, but I think

the truth can only come from men

like Cyril Wecht and Dr Finck,

men whose training served to prove

conspiracies on Kennedy:

The backbone of these truths must lie

in forensic pathology.

R A R E J O H N A D A M S

Adams, to whom was once referred

regarding law's decay of late,

wrote volumes on the elements

beneath the democratic state

and why said state cannot survive

on principles of Romish law

depicting people as if they

still sat in seats great Caesar saw.

Steeped in his Blackstone, Adams read

Dutch commentary through the night;

the continental writers all

backed Adams in his lifelong fight

to prove the statutes he applied

in cases of the Adm'r'lty,

where men were more than men and meant

much more if they had family,

like Adams; still, for lonely months

heíd ride the circuit on his horse

and plead the cases of unknowns

and gain him but a sense of course.

To wonder if to be was not

enough, but otherwise to friends,

who seemed content enough, but not

to one set to examine ends

and deem them worthy, questioning

the reasons he had set aground

on Earth; there must be reasons more

important than the ones he'd found.

That Fame, he learned, loomed largest of

the passions driving him to be

the finest lawyer of his day

and long rest in man's memory

was long the fault that others and

that he himself found in his breast;

to rid him of the vanity

and need for lac'd and silken vest

was all his years the thing he found

that served to spur him on to fame,

but not in his own lifetimeóhis

a relatively absent name

from rolls of honor and esteem

which for the undeserving ones

posterity built monuments,

but not for Adams and his sons.

The older man pronounced a wish,

nay, a command on those he sired:

Preserve all that they write so that

imaginations may be fired

and spurred to emulate the men

who filled their books with letters they

had written; volumes filled with thoughts

of those who felt they had to say

the things that needed to be said,

when others could not comprehend

significance in writing down

what otherwise they'd only send.

To bind in leather all the words

John Adams felt a need to write

is what another has in mind

to do, and will one day, despite

attacks from all redoubts well-manned

by French aristocrats who swore

that they were not themselves and now

prove less than when they proved much more.