All That Possessed Us

Bobcat sits crouched on a flat granite rock,
Un-curles its yellow haunches and springs.
The little girl screams.
Bobcat, with a crown of tyrone berries recently gleaned,
stalks Indians with rocks, crushing acorns and
berries bursting with poisonous white powder.
She circles the teepee where it stands; a pyramid skeleton
of long sticks covered with dollar-size leaves.
There are tunnels full of pale crumpled foliage
Where we two lie, suffocated and swelling with
pink warpaint from breastbone to widow’s peak, and consider
all that drew us.

Pray becomes predator, with red half-moons on her
pale forearms.
Let’s go down, she says, to the fence
and walk through that tunnel we should stay away from,
and dig in the big anthill until we turn orange.
We’ll duck under the bushes until we come to that
green chapel with the tree that fell over
and climb on its flailing octopus limbs, high over
our heads. We feel them rising and bucking, and we wonder over
all that's moving us.

A hillside is for sparring bobcats
with plenty of daffodil prey
and crocus prey, and stickers that choke our socks
and give us thoughtful pause.
We lay,looking up, and feel ourselves falling
endlessly forward and Drowning. We snake our way
along the un-mown grass and slide through the
tearing underbrush, until we find that pine,
that massive trunk that towers like babel,and
soon we see above the green canopy. We look down,
far, far down, and for the first time, question
all that possessed us.

Recovery

Walk like a bird of paradise.
Rowdy hips cause the stirring eyes
pain. It goes unnoticed. Belt it
as the poppy pods well up, to
blast their kernels far. A blue
sound can’t be lost in a crowd. Sit

on a thousand-foot ledge, dangling
bare longings. You lost that knee-high
when breezes took you, a starling.
Blusters lift wisps of hair as you try
to rip that breast open, scatter drops
to melt the winds that never stop.

Jalapeno evenings fizzle
and steam in the citrus drizzle
of cumulous mops passing themselves
back now, over ruddy vistas.
You’re itching. You stoop low and delve,
and get your hands red. You’ve kissed a

wolf before; his black lips curled out
showing yellow bone splinters, stuck
there in his eely gums. So shout
jubilant songs to turn your luck.
Tuck red feathers behind your ear
and wait for pumice dust to clear.

Anaethema

Anathema

Take me up to the top of the hill
and set my heels in rifts
so wide with chancing, white with thrill
-ing. Mine looks down on faultless drifts.

My knees bend aching to be clean
in razor arcs. I know
a muddled track, a soil ravine
is always as I go.

Let wilding ice floods powder me
and bury to the knees
my jailbird boots. Please, I would be
migrant feathers in the trees.

Set blue peaks, slow moving, immense
to shadow weak flesh from
the rising heat that burns against
my shivering frame. Then let it come;

I’ll lance away my stagnant breath
with stabbing frost. I’ll wake
and freeze my doubting eyes to death
for his great white eye’s sake.

I walked three miles with Ghandi
along the silk road that runs
so respendantly around the city's shopping center.
Like the pictures in my history book He had a face
like a library, stilt-legs
and eyes shaped like peach nuts.

I asked him, just because he was there,
and I was there, and I had already bought my
falafel, wheat-bread and soy milk:

what do you think
a soft, blond person can
offer? I cannot braid or weave in
bright tapestries of beads, mud, or twine, or
jump and dance as the gymnast.My body
is made for sitting, my mouth for humming
my eyes for staring at a screen
my hands for picking up some socks or possibly
brewing a nice, radiant vat of Maccaroni.

My mind; too— I cannot remember a word
that my Great-Gradmother spoke. I cannot think
like a haiku poem; the words in between
are my crutches. What then, can I offer;
Me? With my silver-white hairs
and freckles and dish-red hands?

Ghandi turned then, and I smelled the sweet
scent of peaches. He waited for me, and I
walked up beside him. He placed a
liquid palm on the nape of my neck.
The round glass goggles hid his eyes. With his voice
full of dates, honey, and camel fur, he said:

Jehovah, with his golden limbs,
and his fire-blue eyes; his linen
face and hair like the black lamb's skin;
Jehovah himself, (for God's sake)
though he taught on the salt lakes of Abyssinia
and will one day stand on the tip of Megiddo

Even He, addressing those
with wide blue stripes at their hems;
claimed nothing more than that his fingers
were strong enough to divide bread and fish,
His eyes good to see those who touched his garments.

And his body, Ghandi said, was lean like
a scholar's and wanderer's (then, glancing at his own
railroad track of ribs)
A body of flesh and blood, and breakable bone
and stretchable sinew. It could stand no more than
six hours of hanging. Six hours, and no more.

Hallelujah: a sestina (not by me)

Hallelujah: A Sestina

A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father
And my father his tenth and final boy.
A baby and last, he had a baby's praise:
Red petticoats, red cheeks, and crow-black hair.

A boy has little to say about his hair
And little about a name like Ebenezer
Except that you can shorten either. Praise
God for that, for that shout Hallelujah.
Shout Hallelujah for everything a boy
Can be that is not his father or grandfather.

But then, before you know it, he is a father
Too and passing on his brand of hair
To one more perfectly defenseless boy,
Dubbing him John or James or Ebenezer
But never, so far as I know, Hallelujah,
As if God didn't need quite that much praise.

But what I'm coming to - Could I ever praise
My father half enough for being a father
Who let me be myself? Sing Hallelujah.
Preacher he was with a prophet's head of hair
And what but a prophet's name was Ebenezer,
However little I guessed it as a boy?

Outlandish names of course are never a boy's
Choice. And it takes some time to learn to praise.
Stone of Help is the meaning of Ebenezer.
Stone of Help - what fitter name for my father?
Always the Stone of Help however his hair
Might graduate from black to Hallelujah.

Such is the old drama of boy and father.
Praise from a grayhead now with thinning hair.
Sing Ebenezer, Robert, sing Hallelujah!

-Robert Francis

a few websites of interest

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
http://www.engrish.com/
http://www.petoffice.co.jp/catprin/english/
http://www.homestarrunner.com/
http://www.davesite.com/humor/top10/000.shtml

Favorite song lyrics

Hallelujah (Rufus Wainwright version)

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

There was a time you'd let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me do you?
Remember when I moved in you?
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Amazing (Aerosmith)

kept the right ones out
And let the wrong ones in
Had an angel of mercy to see me through all my sins
There were times in my life
When I was goin' insane
Tryin' to walk through
The pain
When I lost my grip
And I hit the floor
Yeah,I thought I could leave but couldn't get out the door
I was so sick and tired
Of livin' a lie
I was wishin that I
Would die

[Chorus:]
It's Amazing
With the blink of an eye you finally see the light
It's Amazing
When the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright
It's Amazing
And I'm sayin' a prayer for the desperate hearts tonight

That one last shot's a Permanent Vacation
And how high can you fly with broken wings?
Life's a journey not a destination
And I just can't tell just what tomorrow brings

You have to learn to crawl
Before you learn to walk
But I just couldn't listen to all that righteous talk, oh yeah
I was out on the street,
Just tryin' to survive
Scratchin' to stay
Alive
[Chorus]

Show Me a Little Shame (Ben Harper)

You, youve been looking at me just a little too long, now I can never look the same
Blindness and kindness, theres no difference in the two when I can no longer see the good in you

So wont you show me a little shame

Now cause im, Im a gentleman, lookin for a gentlewomen, so-called ladies keep breakin my heart
Show me a house, show me a home, show me how it could all fall apart

So wont you show me a little shame

cause now i wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through crying and Im sadder then before I wept
I get through thinking and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speaking and I cant remember not a word that I said

You change your mind so many times, I wonder if you have a mind at all
And Id rather be by myself than to have your lonesome company come to call

So wont you show me a little shame

Stuck in a Moment (U2)
I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just trynna' find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company

I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you. Ooh.
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight
'Cause tears are going nowhere baby


You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it


I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They just left you with nothing
I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see


You are such a fool
To worry like you do.. Oh
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep
I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

The Wind (Cat Stevens)
I listen to the wind

To the wind of my soul

Where I'll end up well I think,

Only God really knows

I've sat upon the setting sun

But never, never never never

I never wanted water once

No, never, never, never



I listen to my words but

They fall far below

I let my music take me where

My heart wants to go

I swam upon the devil's lake

But never, never never never

I'll never make the same mistake

No, never, never, never

Home Again (Carole King)
Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again
It's so far and out of sight.
I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else
knows how to comfort me tonight.
Snow is cold, rain is wet,
chills my soul right to the marrow.
I won't be happy till I see you alone again,
till I'm home again and Feelin' right.

Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)

Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off.

Oh, I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
'til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

The Girl With The Weight of the World in Her Hands (Indigo Girls)

She won’t recover from her losses
She’s not chosen this path
But she watches who it crosses
Maybe move to the right
Maybe move to the left
So we can all see her pain she wears
Like a banner on her chest
And we all say it’s sad
And we think it’s a shame
And she’s called to our attention
But we do not call her name
The girl with the weight
Of the world in her hands

Cause we’re busy with our happiness
And busy with our plans
I wonder if alone she wants it
Taken from her hands
But if things didn’t keep getting harder
She might miss her sacred chance
To go a consecrated martyr
The girl with the weight
Of the world in her hands

I wonder which saint
That lives inside a bead
Will grant her consolation
When she counts upon her need
It makes us all angry
Though we feign to care
But who will be the scale
To weigh the cross she has to bear
The girl with the weight
Of the world in her hands

Is the glass half-full or empty
I ask her as I fill it
She said it doesn’t really matter
Pretty soon you’re bound to spill it
With the half logic language
Of the sermon she delivers
And the way she smiles so knowingly
At me gives me the shivers
I pull the blanket higher
When I’m finally safe at home
And she’ll take a hundred with her
But she always sleeps alone
The girl with the weight
Of the world in her hands

American Hymn (as sung by Placido Domingo)


I have seen a summer day
that slowly opens like a rose
along a quiet road that wanders by
And I have smiled and wonder'd
Where it goes

I have stumbled through the night
Alone as any man can be
Then found a silent canyon full of stars
And in my heart I heard them telling me
I was home

The gentle winds, the rains that fall
The tallest trees, and I'm part of it all

I've seen the silver mountain tops
And golden prairies on my way
Now everywhere I go across the land
I stand so proudly in the sun and say
I am home

I've dreamed of eden all my life
I find it more and more each day
Now everywhere I go across the land
I stand so proudly in the sun and say
I am home.


Border Song (Elton John& Bernie Taupin)

Holy moses I have been removed
I have seen the spectre he has been here too
Distant cousin from down the line
Brand of people who aint my kind
Holy moses I have been removed

Holy moses I have been deceived
Now the wind has changed direction and Ill have to leave
Wont you please excuse my frankness but its not my cup of tea
Holy moses I have been deceived

Im going back to the border
Where my affairs, my affairs aint abused
I cant take any more bad water
Ive been poisoned from my head down to my shoes

Holy moses I have been deceived
Holy moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease
Theres a man over there whats his colour I dont care
Hes my brother let us live in peace

In Hetero

The proboscoed thing.
The needlenozzle, ballooning on
a skein of techno grass; and
the electric-blaring bibble-horn.
O, Caligula;

you, then, bested by a lepidottero,
are twittering on the brim of
all that Electro, Magneto, Resono,
will never describe with details.
The Gaius along the edge
of a pick-end (white matter
suffused with mucosa); see it agitate.

Welcome me, Gaius. No more of
those particles, prescriptions,
or steely wands.
Shiver me Lunar. I see the face
there, the blue chin
clockwise of the eyeless features.
Come, Rabid Cuculidae;
land on my own face.