| WE REAL COOL We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Think gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. ------------------ THE ARROW AND THE SONG I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth I know not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of a song? Long, long afterwards, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again, in the heart of a friend. ------------------ ON BUYING A HORSE One white foot, try him; Two white feet, buy him; Three white feet, put him in the dray; Four white feet, give him away; Four white feet and a white nose, Take off his hide and feed him to the crows. --------------------- INSOMNIA When I lay me down to sleep My waterbed says, �Gurgle gleep,� And when I readjustment crave it answers me with a tidal wave That lifts me like a bark canoe Adrift in breakers of Peru. Neap to my spring, ebb to my flow, It turns my pulse to undertow. It turns my thoughts to bubbles, it Still undulates when I would quit; Two bags of water, it and I In restless sympathy here lie. -------------------- THE FROG What a wonderful bird the frog are - When he stand he sit almost; When he hop, he fly almost. He ain�t got no sense hardly; He ain�t got no tail hardly either. When he sit, he sit on what he ain�t got almost. ----------------------- THE TERMITE Some primal termite knocked on wood And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today. ------------------- ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL On the way to school One morning long ago, I stopped to look At the sunrise. I looked too long, I missed my bus, I failed school, I got a crummy job, I spent my life Looking at sunrises And sunsets. I lived in poverty And died rich. |