When singing from the song sings
day away the singing and treads lightly there and
from then on, by ending feared and ending in the
singing seen, so fears the movement—and wren, the wren
with white dust-birds plays while dirt-
swans quaff-drink hard water in their
black stayings.

And lo by whiles there drips something, from
the dirt or high-dirt come and to dust returned, to
dust returned again—self and to self they
want and a self, what of it, a self though what
of it, a self though what of it—and it softly repeats
and softly uttered fails to do anything, oh anything, and falls
this tortured and the
fallings, these fallings and that
which stays down, beneath myself
and the drying sunflower—but ah but ah
lo and lo the sunflower dries still and notwithstanding,
and my words broken fingers, broken fingers,
fingers broken, please and please.

Had I a sire the sire
says and weeps for he
was dead and he
was dying and he is and
he is here and here—
here and here I find and
let fall and again let
fall that which I
don’t know which is
what, which is what, the hard
and past-forth going, the
passed—a dirt-swan goes
off with wider wings though
from the day no bread against
the falling and the dead, the sun,
the passed behind—and it and even
this it is behind knowing by want
and by its dirt.

By a sea we buried and
came home and sat and drank
and went away by morning
going there and quickly coming
here with sunflowers and in leagues,
we there or here, we proud in our quick
leagues, running down and down away.

Pardon oh pardon that I cannot—and I cannot and I cannot—please you—please.

Please.

Nickolas Vaccaro (he/him) is a first-year at Columbia College and intends to major in Philosophy and Drama and Theatre Arts. Poetry, for him, is perhaps the truest, at once most individual and universal, expression of the good and of the tragedy of the human. He has found that poetry fulfills the human need for myth, for symbolism, and for meaning, and becomes the domain where both poet and audience realize the great magnitude of their humanity. He can be found on Instagram and on poeticviolence.com and poeticviolence.substack.com.