Just Spring with Chaucer and Some Shriners

 

Whan in Aprille with its shoures soote,

The Dow declines, the staring Owl sings "Hoota Hoota,"

And I am bathed all in swich liquor:

Johnny Walker Red or sometimes Dewars

Then me lova lova to go um on pilgrimages

And ask a drunken Shriner where his lodge is

And wenden there to myken my complain

Singing nonney nonney hey the wind and rain!

And wanton, dally, smile and jest:

A summer-seeming sprag wit methought the best

That can be doone more than kith and oh! so much less than kind.

Here at the end of an awful century

In the Hungry Mind.

A knycht I am, a parfait gentle wight.

Bodeless my birkin and my pants are tight.

Fell is my feigning and I am rather tired.

My brainpan leaketh and my arms are wired.

Twa corbies natter over my ancient bones.

My leman is lumpish and lubbers low moans.

Ye scenes of childhood! When I ramped

Reckless of the objective world.

My little dust box delicate scamped

My fingers fashed my hair dew curled

My little earth! That one sweet look:

Crying “Abbadabba die welt zuruck.!”

Erkennt Ihr die Lieder?

My tiny Gluck my und so weider?

Oh, I have lost the important connexion to the land.

In a field I am not the absence of the field

And what can I do about it oh Mark Strand?

Ich glaube a clock there was with a sleepy baby face:

A dark veined darling all bedight in lace.

Langsamer war dee day. Komme nicht zuruck.

I saw the movie. I read the book.

The Shriners with their little Harleys,

The thereness, the isness, the beardy bar barley,

The sloppy slop! The happy hop!

Of Aprille when the birdes are braw:

The who shebangadey green green carnival.

And where is Christ with his little pony

And Mary makeless and the winter cherry

The albatross with his abalone

The ant king and the malt fairy?

Therey?

Not very.