Long Overmuch Poems

The Virginia Hermaphrodite
(Bennet’s Farm, Jamestowne, 1629)

Your Honors, Gentlemen of the Council,
Ask me– how it is that I am brought here?
Stepping out of church, bothering no one,
I was of a serene and peaceful mind–
When of a...

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The armies they are massing:
They line and ring every shore, every strand bristling with 
The deadliest of weapons;
The tocsin should be sounded, 
And every cannon is round at its bore.
Fires rage unchecked and unopposed throughout the 
Entire world,...

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As rains and the torrentialest of snows plummet, 
Filling all the skies and the area interstitial to earth and sky 
With a frenzy of flying flakes;
As gusty winds doth blow and toss the flakes this...

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3.

Death, the Master, wears a thousand faces.
The white smile of the skull
Lies behind the 5 O'Clock shadow
And beneath, perhaps, those laughing eyes
Looking your way across the bar.

When the shock begins to fade I turn off...

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He does not answer when I speak,
     the severed head in the picnic basket,
nor do the swarming flies on the muslin sack,
     buzzing on the dried blood,...

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I sat and watched the sea for hours,
The tidal waters rising higher,
Ignored inconsequential showers
To watch the white and height of spray,
To see the swell and surge of green,
To comprehend a friend’s display
Of innate power and...

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