Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Colonel Roosevelt's Last Words

Please Put Out That Light, James

Hours after the Derby children ceased
to rambulate in the mansion in Oyster Bay,
James, the quiet negro, quiet for a quiet
house of sleep, put out the light
over Theodore and his bed.

After he had dictated letter
one hundred and fifty thousand,
after he had thoroughly protected
the shaking trees,
once Kettle Hill
had been exceedingly stormed.

TR was a tiger of a man, a carnivore.
If one needed anything
for the Feast of St. Rocco,
one merely presented oneself to him.

2 comments:

Reen said...

Your poems always make me happy. Yay.

Anonymous said...

Colonel Shafer is a poet goddess. I mean god.