Poem Definitions XVI-XX

XVI., SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS, for Diana
What then shall I say?
There is nothing left to be said.
He left her although he loved her,
She's been abandoned, but also loved.
I've seen the same,
I've done the same as he,
When in truth I thought that I was she.
The dark night has sweet peace,
The birds singing in their own release
And I returned when they least believed
Surprise altering familiar faces
An ache of absence in a breath forgot
One word sums up what he hums out
Befuddled as an unexpected kiss
Bursting full on prospective lips
What was that storm one moment feared?
Now if it comes, we know so did this.

XVII. INDETERMINATE, for Putney
What was the future that he feared?
The one that married him to his sleeves,
The foreboding that haunted his daylight
And which hunted down his every dream.
What was less known than affection's fate?
As if he could have been successful
If fear had not conceived his failure
I believe it might have been so.
Perfectly happy or insufficient to the call
No matter, since now he is perfectly lonely.
All his suffered thoughts of treasure lost
Of battles less successful favored
Are as unknown and unfixed as every joy,
He was equally jailed up from pleasure and from pain.
Yet I pray love will overpower him, and remain.

XVIII. FICKLE, for Robert Blazer
I could tell you of all the sins
The ones that they thought they hid
As all my own grievances than other skins
But my broken heart will go on forgiving
And forgive a thousand scores
Even if again, with shaking hand
They cut the ropes that fasted me to shore
And I knew them as the reason I drifted
Still I'd hope to be returned again
If they did so every day I'd stay the same
Who then can say the other is inconstant?
We are loyal to a drastic loop
He retreats, I advance, G-d intervenes.
He might be fickle, my stubbornness makes me worse
For if I were merely "pliable"
I'd fit better in Divinely portioned hands.

XIX. DIZNOTOROS, for Gabor
The blade was sharp
Like the creature's squeal
But clean like David's harp
Melody soothing an anxious Saul
Appeasement was the blade's ambition
To follow orders from a calloused hand
Finding under the neck a firm position
Drawing out the life blood and final breath
Time would see it all in the grinder
A taste of Maccabean horror
Strung up in the market square
Soaking in the boiling stew
A habit for the instruments
But no compulsion for the hand
Though the pig wander through the door
Nem kenyszer a disznotor.

XX. APLOMB, For Psalm
Tell me how to bring about
The outward notion of my soul,
Or how to walk as stoutly here
As I have the sidewalks there!
Determination that I often feign
Let's have embedded in my frame
To be recalled "composed"
Not only by exterior eyes
But be truly such to my own
What a woman I might be,
If dishonest claims rolled off of me!
If words directed as taunting knives
Held no gall to sting my tender eyes.
If my poise proved an inward truth
Unacquainted my undaunting gaze
With memory of a tear-stained wound
If only my pride was unhumiliated
And my heart and soul of stone created.
Then my confidence might not be moved.