TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Carpe Diem by Madison Julius Cawein

Blow high, blow low!
No longer borrow
Care of tomorrow:
Take joy of life, and let care go!

by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN (1865-1914)
Public Domain Poetry

blowing horn

shadows played out on the wall of days
sand hissed from the dead giant’s ear
i did its mind like a line of cocaine
(blood of the polterchrist compelled me)
then a unicorn defied what we thought we knew
wrecked itself on all we’d formerly eschewed

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

yoga pants

you wore these
and now i too
to feel close to you

when i open up my lungs
it’s you i’m breathing for
a pranayama for two

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

your field of reeds

i don’t think i’d ever have been old enough
to be the equal of you in our younger days
to the fullness of all our summers i lived
i know you have tried to remember them all

and of course we could never have been forever
here merely for the term of our natural lives
the naïve hope was to simply not die
how’s not to reason why

for as long as my shadow’s here at your side
your regret will be a coma of dreaming
and that blanket of night will smother you
so that all you’ll feel is the pain of now

love is a beautiful hideous thing
i miss you my dear, and thank you for trying
if we could we’d kick the whole damn sky in
i’m nowhere forever and you’re haunted more
grief is a beautiful hideous thing
miss you my dear, and screw me for dying
but tomorrow things will work out somehow
you’ll smile again in the reeds at morningside

we thought we held all the keys didn’t we
to lock all the doors to mutual oblivion
but no matter how far and vain you wander
in this hall of echoes you’ll never find me

and of course you remain to remember now
how we railed at the stalking geist of death
though i wish i had not crumbled, dear
you should not yearn to have died with me

and you’re old enough now to be scared of forgetting
but the end, as we’ve seen, is a broad church
and the road there is an arduous song
so for now be resigned to the sunshine my dear (i won’t mind)

love is a beautiful hideous thing
miss you my dear, and screw me for flying
if we could we’d kick the whole damn sky in
i’m nowhere forever and joy will return
grief is a beautiful hideous thing
i miss you my dear, and thank you for crying
but tomorrow things will work out somehow
you’ll smile again in the sunshine at morningside

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Stream’s Song by Lascelles Abercrombie

Make way, make way,
You thwarting stones;
Room for my play,
Serious ones.

Do you not fear,
O rocks and boulders,
To feel my laughter
On your broad shoulders?

So you not know
My joy at length
Will all wear out
Your solemn strength?

You will not for ever
Cumber my play:
With joy and son
I clear my way.

Your faith of rock
Shall yield to me,
And be carried away
By the song of my glee.

Crumble, crumble,
Voiceless things;
No faith can last
That never sings.

For the last hour
To joy belongs:
The steadfast perish,
But not the songs.

Yet for a while
Thwart me, O boulders;
I need for laughter
Your serious shoulders.

And when my singing
Has razed your quite,
I shall have lost
Half my delight.

by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE (1881-1938)
Public Domain Poetry