UNDER THE HAT OF OHIO

When u check out this blog please leave a note what you liked and what you didn't like or post a question

UNDER THE HAT OF OHIO

A break in the weeds

lying in the marshes

his body lay

poured over another alcoholic bend

Chased away by another night of rivalry

Voices of anger taking turns pitching

Claims of his mouth ascending the bastions of mausoleums

of dead poets fame

You cannot tear history apart

No son of theirs could ever have been a grandfather of yours

No daughter of theirs could ever had been cousin to the generations of your

family

Scurrying clouds listen do not hesitate

Birds rush South get away from what is known to be coming

Under the Hat of Ohio is idle

Sullied in the twigs and debris

Here comes another wind brush it again on the head

Awaken the foul one

utter another word about the past

claim not just allegiance

claim not just reverence or appreciation

claim not just that you understand the words of the dead poets

claim that they came down the steps of the pyramids

visits from Mont Alegre and the Villa Diodati

What does it mean to know a woman

If a man knows a woman is it always intimate?

Have you not known a woman’s smile or her sassy talk

her fingers on piano keys stirring the imagination

lift the candle nearby and see if a lovers moan can be heard

there is a hand around the throat of a passerby

whispering

we are looking for him

the answer from the companion

a finger pointing to the sea

there is where I last seen him

So much for double talk

Friends will flip coins to remain free

It is easy to erase the past in the modern world

 The field is ripe with liars

They grow with the leaves

heaved the cutting edge of tie neck job placement

surviving corporate schemes twisted and mangled

the dream of newsmen folks with big tongues

splitting the truth as breaking news

did you hear about the descendant of Keats, Shelley, and Byron?

Believe that if you can.

A woman of a Sheppard son laid with one

Some from an inn of Geneva said it was two

There is not a man alive thought it could be three.

A child of sport came forth bearing words of trilogy

Some said the child named Harold was Unbound

Gave a gift of an ode to Rome   walk quietly for night has come

When the heavy foot of time touched America

Pounding on the ground

The roar and fire of cannon sent bones into the air

Skin was found hugging the trees

Dead eye sockets lay like roots exposed

Ripped from skulls exploded by war

A poet took a pen to paper

and showed us what the men were fighting for

for and against the Indian

for and against England

for and against Slavery

for and against gunslingers

and whores and bank robbers and horse thieves

reaching across time making bridges out of rainbows

and silk clothes to separate the shadows

and hands of dirt and hands of love

this child carried a story of who it was

a famous Hat dedicated to an ancestor

 inscribed by the three

So was this all just a misunderstanding

Two on a trail talking on the Lake Geneva

This maid of hire sent with the Hat to Italy

A late night affair none could see.

Signed with the symbols of legislature to govern and guide her

A bright spot in her life that made her mind freed

And when it was said she was pregnant was this the real seed

Down through the generation the story was told.

Did you hear about the descendant of Thoreau, Twain, and Crane

Also wakes up to the sounds of Langston, Toomer, and Hurston

Walks under the Hat of Ohio like an invisible man

Something was in the family

Walden Pond appeared on the list of recognition

Then came a great gathering

Shaking the nation of a dejected people

A new people, full of soul started a renaissance

Rome was the old city of the old world

This was New York and in it grew a Harlem, a requiem

A mass for rhythmic pioneers on a train moving heaven and earth

This Child slid in off stage swallowing the words whole

After many years the road tossed him up in Ohio

A fancy girl took him and the Hat   this past faded in her warm arms

The ugly Hat imprisoned on a shelf on the third floor

When he died she released the prisoner to an admiring child

Under the Hat of Ohio he became a stranger son

Signatures of dead poets scribbled on the inside

some had written verses of poetry

within months he stood for this family

said all these dead poets were his ancestors

Laughter chased him from America   Rome knew nothing about it

It was not a smart thing to say in England

Less wise in Scotland

The body of Child lies still in the marsh

No one is looking for him

You can’t change history

You can’t tear it apart

You can’t put yourself in everybody’s family

You can’t hide with a hat sticking up above the marsh

They’ll put your head under the water

And deny the signatures and verse as faded and fake

Under the Hat of Ohio you can only pretend

None of the original romantics lived past thirty four

Geniuses seldom get past forty most die young

O what light breaks up the morning peace

Comes with frenetic speed to finish all work

Carrying labor on trays stacked to the sky

Impatient for the wind to move

Genius knows that before the day ends

There will be no tomorrow for the thought it has today.

Where is leisure and play?

Why can’t the river stop or the clouds move backward across the sky

There is one moment of stillness

One step into a clearing where the elusive thing is born

Sitting next to the genius are valleys, mountains and a tree

Exchanging thoughts of what is to be.

And when that light breaks into pieces

It leaves the remains of a sculpture men can admire

From another of their long dead sons.

Give praise for the words of poets rocket us past the edge of today into

Tomorrow’s tomorrow

Under the Hat of Ohio signatures and verses of dead Poets go on living

Speaking in one voice: ”look at what we gave you, look at what we have done