Rob Roy's Grave

It isn’t natural for a man to be

Remembered past a century or so –

His children dead, his earthly wealth all spent,

His lands in hands he would not recognize.

Have done with me, as I have long had done.

The Highland glens will know my step no more.

The river that I forded as a boy,

A man, a fugitive, now chills me not,

Nor can my wife’s loved fingers warm me now.

Forget me, then; but never, please, forget

The wild and the rushing of the stream,

And how the fire welcomes home the ghost –

The weary traveler, who ghostlike seems.

And if it helps you to remember these,

Remember Rob; it’s all the same to me.

Song for the New Year

It’s just another day, they say, the people who

Seem to forget that meaning is a game,

And games are therefore everything to those

Who live on meaning more than bread or air.

Let’s face it: we’re a superstitious breed.

Feel free to slaughter all the gods you want;

You’ll still find people praying – to themselves,

The Universe, or very pretty rocks.

So let’s all have a new year.  We need one.

We need to bury all the old mistakes,

And start again afresh, and even though

We’ll likely make the same mistakes again,

Let’s make them newly, with a new aplomb.

This world’s a mess, but we can make it tame,

If only in our small deluded ways,

If only for a moment, when champagne,

A falling ball, and gales of joyful noise,

Make us feel equal to those gods we slew,

Who after all are not so very dead,

But live inside us, in our private hearts,

With hope, delusion, and bright fresh new years.

Early Snow

Winter crept right up on fall,

Slugged it with a blackjack, took its cash,

And left it bleeding in the snowy street,

Still dressed for a party that was over now.

It was an ambush. It was beautiful -

The shock of white against the blazing leaves.

Thank Heaven for surprises, even those

That catch us gormless and make fools of us.

Fall fell, but spring will spring up; spring will take revenge,

And color, coming back in triumph, will

Make mincemeat of its bragging frozen foe,

Who, knowing when he’s licked, will lick his wounds,

And dream in dark places of his next attempt.

Thank Heaven, too, for rivals; without them,

How would we know what secret stuff was ours?

How would we forge the straight shaft of a soul,

If not in fires meant to vanquish us?

Let us be tempered by what means us ill,

And that which does not kill us, let us kill.

Stan Lee

Really sad to hear about the passing of Stan Lee – shameless huckster, unrepentant cheeseball, ham-fisted prose stylist, inveterate limelight-hogger, and stone-cold genius. His creations will endure as long as pop culture exists, and his imagination brought color, vibrancy, and gosh-wow excitement to an all-too-often gray and serious world.

In the words of The Man himself: "Marvel is a cornucopia of fantasy, a wild idea, a swashbuckling attitude, an escape from the humdrum and the prosaic."

Thank you for living, Stan Lee. Excelsior.

Small Talk

People who hate small talk just don’t understand subtext.

Witness

Everyone in New York is on the phone.

They are all having conversations

They want me to overhear.

They follow me on the streets and into cafés;

They talk on subway platforms, even subway cars.

It is all very urgent. It cannot wait one moment.

It has already been put off too long.

Most urgently, I have to overhear it;

It must be at such a volume

That I can't miss a word.

I guess I must be everyone's alibi –

Their conscience, maybe, or their chronicler.

I must be somebody very important,

Or else anybody else would do.

I hear you, New York City.

None of this is lost on me.

I will remember the time of your dentist appointment

And what an asshole your landlord is;

I will remember your sister's birthday

And how much you've always hated her,

And every detail of your hip surgery,

And why Carlos can go fuck himself.

And in return I ask for nothing.

There's nothing to remember about me.

I'll be slipping out of here like a ghost this evening

And making my phone calls tomorrow in Connecticut,

Where only the river can overhear me –

The river that does not care at all.

Stress

 

The kind of stress where people want things from you is better than the kind of stress where you want things from other people.