Jim McCrary

SOMEONE ASKED HAVE YOU READ THE SONNETS RECENTLY
YES I SAID ALL FIVE OF THEM.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
     LEAVE ME
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
  ALONE
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
   YOU BLOODY
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
      FUCK
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
 NO MEANS NO
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
      So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
      So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.



In the old age black was not counted fair,
   YOU CANNOT
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
   YOU KNOW
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
MAN
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
     SAY THAT SHIT
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,
   YOU THINK
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face
    IS SMART
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
NO BABY
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
     SONNET NOT IT
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
      Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
      That every tongue says beauty should look so.



Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
     YOU WHAT
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
     YOU SAY
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
 WHERE ARE YOU FROM
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
    AND
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
   DUDE
And given to time your own dear-purchased right;
      UNPUNCUATE FOR ONCE
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
 SOON
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise accumulate;
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate;
      Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
      The constancy and virtue of your love.




My love is as a fever longing still,
  LOOK LOVE
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
     NOBODY CARES
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
   HOW
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
    YOU FEEL
My reason, the physician to my love,
    MATTERS NOT
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
  YOUR KILLING
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
       ALL OF US OUT HERE
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
      For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
      Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.




Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
      CAREFUL
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
   WHAT YOU ASK
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
FOR BABE
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
MY THOUGHT YOU
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
    SHOULD HAVE SAID A CAT
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
  BUT WHAT DO
To follow that which flies before her face,
   I KNOW GETS YOU
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
      So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
      If thou turn back and my loud crying still.




Jim McCrary continues to live in Lawrence, Ks. Poems have appeared recently in Truck, House Organ, and Galatea Resurrects. Recent chapbooks include Po Doom; Not Not; M ental Texkt; and Es Verdad. The piece above will be included in a book coming out later this year from Steve Till's press theenk.
 
 
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