1. La muse inspirant le poete
There I was all right, the groom in the suit
With a big white fronded quill
In my right hand, pointing down
And you with you schoolteacher's mother's
mother's
Finger pointing up
(Call it 'The School of Us Ones')
When behold I beheld in the quill
That lily of the valley Saint Joseph points
Athwart his brown-robed loins in holy pictures
(The meek shall inherit the wroth)
And in the bride a Solomon in drag -
But nowhere near as gloriously arrayed
As you - imitating you
Laying down the law for all you were worth.
2. 'L'enfant aux rochers'
In the beginning were the words 'Sois sage'
So in the end he could be nothing else:
Unyoung, infans, outlined in isolation,
Taken up to the mountain and shown all
To no avail, then left there unscandalised,
High and dry but never above himself
In his matelot stripes and dainty dumpty shoes
He's king of the castle again, alert to the first
Faint chant of the namecallers' chorus
Ganging up in the playground.
This poem appears in a special memorial supplement for Lar Cassidy in the current issue if the cultural review, Graph.