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john corigliano - poem on his birthday lyrics

in the mustardseed sun
by full tilt river and switchback sea
where the cormorants scud
in his house on stilts high among beaks
and palavers of birds
this sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave
he celebrates and spurns
his driftwood thirty+fifth wind turned age;
herons spire and spear

under and round him go
flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails
doing what they are told
curlews aloud in the congered waves
work at their ways to death
and the rhymer in the long tongued room
who tolls his birthday bell
toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
herons, steeple stemmеd, bless
in the thistledown fall
hе sings towards anguish; finches fly
in the claw tracks of hawks
on a seizing sky; small fishes glide
through wynds and sh+lls of drowned
ship towns to pastures of otters. he
in his slant, racking house
and the hewn coils of his trade perceives
herons walk in their shroud

the livelong river’s robe
of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
and far at sea he knows
who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
under a serpent cloud
dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust
the rippled seals streak down
to k!ll and their own tide daubing blood
slides good in the sleek mouth

in a cavernous, swung
wave’s silence, wept white angelus knells
thirty+five bells sing struck
on skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked
steered by the falling stars
and to+morrow weeps in a blind cage
terror will rage apart
before chains break to a hammer flame
and love unbolts the dark
and freely he goes lost
in the unknown, famous light of great
and fabulous, dear god
dark is a way and light is a place
heaven that never was
nor will be ever is alwas true
and, in that brambled void
plenty as blackberries in the woods
the dead grow for his joy

there he might wander bare
with the spirits of the horseshoe bay
or the stars’ seashore dead
marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
and wishbones of wild geese
with blessed, unborn god and his ghost
and every soul his priest
gulled and chanter in young heaven’s fold
be at cloud quaking peace

but dark is a long way
he, on the earth of the night, alone
with all the living, prays
who knows the rocketing wind will blow
the bones out of the hills
and the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
rage shattered waters kick
masts and fishes to the still quick stars
faithlessly unto him
who is the light of old
and air shaped heaven where souls grow wild
as horses in the foam:
oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
and druid herons’ vows
the voyage to ruin i must run
dawn ships clouted aground
yet, though i cry with tumbledown tongue
count my blessings aloud:

four elements and five
senses, and man a spirit in love
tangling through this spun slime
to his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
and the lost, moonshine domes
and the sea that hides his secret selves
deep in its black, base bones
lulling of spheres in the seash+ll flesh
and this last blessing most

that the closer i move
to death, one man through his sundered hulks
the louder the sun blooms
and the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
and every wave of the way
and gale i tackle, the whole world then
with more triumphant faith
than ever was since the world was said
spins its morning of praise

i hear the bouncing hills
grow larked and greener at berry brown
fall and the dew larks sing
taller this thunderclap spring, and how
more spanned with angels ride
the mansouled fiery islands! oh
holier then their eyes
and my shining men no more alone
as i sail out to die

- john corigliano lyrics

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