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ATAHUALPA SAID
--AAH
A NATURE LOVER TO HIS LOVE
A diadem of dewdrops crowned a rose one breathless night Reflecting myriad moons and stars that vanished with the light. One time a vagrant sunbeam cast a rainbow on my floor Its burnished beauty briefly burned then dimmed forevermore. My senses sang an ecstasy to see cloud shadows glide In phantom chase across the bright and chequered countryside. And so I sing the fragile things of sweet but short duration That hover lightly as a sigh 'twist dying and creation. I hail the beautiful but doomed: The falcon-hunted dove, Fair sights that fade, sweet sounds that still, blown blooms, And oh,---your love. --RMH (2nd Prize, 1962, Calif. Fed. of Chaparral Poets, Alpha Chapter)NEVER IS TOMORROW
Whose lot is caste, he is to wait, endure his tract of time. The smell is now, and half of yesterday, the lies have lain for ages on ten thousand tongues. Tomorrow does not wait, but taunts instead, as carrots hung before the ass's nose. Trudging shades and color vary, soldiers come and pass, tomorrow is aloof. --AAHLOCKED UP
Barricaded
goats,
wood
corral in Nayarit,
where
it is cold on winter night--
the
rain drove's din
like
ice.
Peyones
tread by road
as
if they didn't know.
Having
passed thereby on two
occasions, my
remembrance is
sharp. --AAH
TO A
DEPARTING WATERFOWL
(with
half-hearted apologies to William Cullen Bryant)
RACING STRIPES FOR MY BRAND-NEW SURFBOARD
God,
man, racing stripes are really
groovey.
I'm
going to have them on my next surfboard,
man.
Shit;
if
I had cobalt blue stripes,
(Three
of them,
two
thin, and one wide,
the
two thin ones paired.
One
on the left hand side.
Slanting
diagonally from
right
to left, downwards.)
and
a saffron fin.
Wow,
that'd be really boss,
man.
--AAH
RECURRENT DREAM
Four names she spoke in the darkened room, Like stones cast from the heart-- Embers of hopes she'd lost and dreams that died-- Colder than ashes of the dead fire she lay beside On that clouded night in November When the naked stranger hovered above her, Breathing hard. When he pushed into her she said his name too, Not into the impersonal darkness, But into his ear, so he'd hear it. The dream was beginning again. That's about when the clouds parted And the lightning flashed down and hit them both. They writhed and screamed in its blue heat, Gasped for breath, hearts bursting, and cursed this dream As strange and wrong! They'd make it die, as dreams must, To leave in time no trace, not even a name to speak Some night by a dead fire. She throttled the dream with her bare hands, Not once, but many times. He kicked and stomped it with big male feet. They both left it for dead. They awoke many mornings thereafter, Often enough in strangers' arms, to feel The dream still tugging at them, insistently, Like an abandoned bastard child of their brief soul-mating. Until, with wide-open eyes, they finally saw: If it's still there when you wake up, It wasn't a dream. --RHEVENING: HYDE PARK
The
park folds
with
first fall of rain:
tugging
lead,
side
to side
turning,
brite
kites flutter down.
fold
tite into
brown
canvass bags
reels
wound.
Under
arm
flapping
white sails
plucked
from wave crest--
with
cracking of storm;
bring
dalmatians and children
retrieved.
Bobbing,
umbrellas
depart. --AAH
ALL ABOUT HONEY (on a photo of his wife with a honey jar)
The sweetest honey is not in the jar. The sweetest honey's wherever you are. As bees follow nectar, I follow my star: Not dim in the darkness, nor seen from afar, But bright in my heart, where always you are. --RPH SEQUOIA GIGANTEA When chariots clattered 'round the walls of Troy They say that you already throve. By human reconing, you were a boy, One of a large and lusty grove. The gnawing and the boring Brotherhood Passed by and left your musty bark entire. Anon, the swords of lightning scythed the Wood, To seal your Kingship with a Crown of Fire. How fractional, the breath and deeds of Man. What Monuments of his have had short stay. Still flourishes amain your verdant span While all else that is Earth-borne feels decay. Life-hoarder! Can it be your destiny When man has charred his world with Solar blast, That in the wrack not only will you be The oldest and the largest, but the last? --RMH (2nd Prize, 1961, Calif. Fed. of Chaparral Poets, Alpha Chapter)