A New Version: 1980 What is that little black thing I… in the white? Walt Whitman One

The night still frightens you. You know it is interminable And of vast, unimaginable dimensio… “That’s because His insomnia is p… You’ve read some mystic say.

Extraordinary efforts are being ma… To hide things from us, my friend. Some stay up into the wee hours To search their souls. Others undress each other in darke…

The brightly-painted horse Had a boy’s face, And four small wheels Under his feet, Plus a long string

There was a melon fresh from the g… So ripe the knife slurped As it cut it into six slices. The children were going back to sc… Their mother, passing out paper pl…

In my great grandmother’s time, All one needed was a broom To get to see places And give the geese a chase in the… •

Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.

Boss of all bosses of the universe… Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, w… And whatever else you’re good at. Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonig… Dip in ink the comets’ tails.

The truth is dark under your eyeli… What are you going to do about it? The birds are silent; there’s no o… All day long you’ll squint at the… When the wind blows you’ll shiver…

Father studied theology through th… And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly wit… Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the fa…

A world’s disappearing. Little street, You were too narrow, Too much in the shade already. You had only one dog,

Here come my night thoughts On crutches, Returning from studying the heaven… What they thought about Stayed the same,

To find clues where there are none… That’s my job now, I said to the Dictionary on my desk. The world… My window has grown illegible, And so has the clock on the wall.

The mad and homeless take shelter Against the cold weather In tombs of the fabulously rich, Where they huddle in their rags And make themselves scarce only

With only his dim lantern To tell him where he is And every time a mountain Of fresh corpses to load up Take them to the other side