[stylist] Poem - "David" - ??? Draft

[William L Houts]

HI Jackie,

Thanks for giving "David" a read, and for your kind comments. It's been 
good to have a place to fire off poems, what with you and Chris and all 
the others to offer your keen commentary.  My writing life is going 
really well lately;  I deeply hope the same is for you, and for everyone 
here.


--Bill






On 11/19/2014 9:25 AM, Jackie Williams wrote:
> Bill,
> This poem is both sensitive and strong. I marvel at your use of similes so
> effectively in all of your poetry.
>
> Jackie
>
> Time is the school in which we learn.
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> Delmore Schwartz	
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts via stylist
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 6:14 AM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: [stylist] Poem - "David" - ??? Draft
>
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
> Here's a kind of eulogy for my friend David, who died about twenty years
> ago.
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
> ---
>
>
> *David*
>
> Lightning bright, his mindfire gave wonder
>
> to snailslow teachers, snug
>
> in their certainties. There were a swarm of us,
>
> high flyers, ace brained and mocking,
>
> and David, mad as a candlestar moth,
>
> heard light lucid choirs, as sure
>
> in their cadence as marching drums.
>
> We were, half of us, gay as chimes,
>
> and pelted half laughing, half dance
>
> through gasping yards, while parents hummed
>
> over beers, so baffled drunk high:
>
> that one's mine, O see how he wins the air prize,
>
> his black besalted hair so thick
>
> it catches hickory smoke and spring,
>
> and he so blond, and he so brown, and he so quick
>
> it shudders the lungs.
>
> But David the fleet was mad as a purple
>
> eclipse:sun-bright behind, and moon-dark before,
>
> and Orion belt stars between.
>
> He was dark, and strange, and prince of dreams
>
> and fevers; and in our day, together we ruled
>
> old Starling Street; but afterward he fell
>
> into plague and drained away, he drained away.
>
> My fevers cooled, I think, and write, and take my meds,
>
> and count my sainted laughing dead.
>
>
>
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>


-- 


"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"