For Teresa Stratas 1976 KB Lamb

I have not been more glad of writing
Then in watching you
Pouring out Salome's wrath
And heartbreak: it is true
You reached such scalding depths of sorrow
And heights of passion's pain
The devil ran hard from my daughters
And fears to lurk again.
For you unmasked his coiling evils
With your mirror and masque,
More perfect image of his poison,
No one sane could ask.
Such a marvel was your making
That image by my pen,
Though I in justice must be writing
Yet is effort in vain.
But still as artist knowing fear
To climb perfection's height
I think that next time you could use
The honour that I write.
And so I stumble here to find
Some tribute fit to measure
That could touch you in your trials
To find again your treasure.
To rise again such creation
Must prove you twice a star
I am grateful, if I help
To tell you what you are.

In a Library (For my favourite editor) KB Lamb

Opening Bliss Carmen at random
And seeing some silly couplets
I felt the shame of bad poetry
From a good imagination
Which is mainly the effect of
Not waiting for the silences
That worked before.

That was yesterday, in a moment's
Moment
As I already held some Greeks
And other classics in my arms
And was being asked advice
But I got the message,
It was: mutter not at being made to wait.

Today, from perhaps recollecting
Hemingway's promise that the candlelight
Was worth the wait
I took some further time,
A memory's many moments
To remember how you taught me
To spot the artist over eager
To disturb his own peace and mine
For cheap production.

I swallowed gall, of course.
And you were either brave or innocent,
Or strangely both but in the end
It seasons out to honey.

Gratitude, good lady, moves my pen;
And caution, for I will be galled again
But better pain to share between us two
Than a fool's long pleasures for all the world to view.

The Miner KB Lamb

How much longer must I go on searching
How many books do I have to probe
How many shelves do I have to dig through
Before I find my mother lode?

I've been flown into the north country
I've worked the hill creeks of the south
I've looked around the east and west
And even tried the wise man's mouth.

I'm not an ordinary miner,
Though sometimes I wish I were
For looking out for the philosopher's stone
Is not so easy to prefer.

Light In August by KB Lamb

Faulkner, take me to your country
Your roads somehow are also mine
Let us discourse in your backwoods
Puzzling through our break with time.
Somehow you and I together
Both found logs a throne for rest,
Heard the singing in the forest
Of the angels make us blest,
Laid our guns aside for psalters,
Though the guns would roar again
And found the way that closed eyes hunted
Was a wise way for men.
My songs need your baton for singing
I have to hear your lyric hand,
Should my listeners hear my message
Yours the honour we command.

KBLamb

Since I last saw you, Baby
You've got some lessons to learn
My eyes won't follow you too close
But I'll be waiting by the turn.























                                                                                                           Arthur Lakes 1913

Rationale December 1972 KB Lamb

What is this woman, but a waking song
That rises from my throat when'er she sings?
"Tis joy to be a poet when I know
But that I wrote she might be doomed to cling
To some crude notion of the creature she,
Some earth bound shrew of labours shorn of love,
The deadly round of kettles, pots and socks,
The worship of the fate she's victim of.
So let me write, and let her being sing;
She needs my verses sure to know her soul;
But know the gift I bring could never be
Were she not by to guide my searching pen.
And that's the gift of living, don't you see,
That women, being loved, must give to men.

Interlude December 1972 KB Lamb

Heaven having come, I'll not push on,
Or seek for struggle that would suit the stage.
If there's no combat where some angels sing,
If I would hear them I must quiet rage.
The storm on earth - I need not fear - goes on;
There will be tales to tell to whet my pen;
So in this hour let me see Your light
Beyond the darkness stirring blood in men.
Your home is peace to make this warfare dull.
Your silence makes the ocean's roar a whine.
My fascination for the battle dies.
I sigh to feel the firm defeat of time.
I don't forget outside the siren waits,
But for the time I hide within your gates.