Suzanne Nixon
Bloomsday 2003
june seventeenth in the spring
morn o'clock
and all the celebrants of yestern's bye gone bloomsday
are raising heavy heads from off their beds
footsore from walking through the hours with bloom
singing in the streets
city upon city all rubadubdub dublinized
citation upon citation memorized
the corpus deliri
poked and prodded
here a parse there a gloss
everywhere glossalalia tossed
in the babble of a thousand tongues
all singing from the jymnal
their liquific turfiffic resound abroad abounded
a song alewd enough to wake the deed
agrog aglogg agutteral aglottal.
stop.
I marked the passage of the day
in my own way
beneath the boughs
of oak and ash and elm
on the left bank of my little brook
a rose a lily in my hair
I daydreamed of lovers lost,
before the sun;
I leafyspeafed aravin’
in lilting lithp some favorite pathages
before a feathered avid avian audience:
assourdid mourning doves
four owlish masters
three crows
two j’s
and one
fiery phoenix
parked tree top high
to whom I waved hallooow
and turned my back
and raised my skirts
and squatting
mythy pithed my mari micturate
I rained I reigned
in the everwatchful peerless
laughing silent
wakened quakened
would