Hal O'Brien

pecunium posted this, but as a .JPG image. Me, I'd rather have it searchable. :)

Hoover is my Shepherd, I am in want,
He maketh me to lie down on park benches,
He leadeth me by still factories,
He restoreth my doubt in the
Republican Party.
He guided me in the path of the 
Unemployed for his party's sake,
Yea, though I walk through the alley of soup kitchens,
I am hungry.
I do not fear evil, for thou art against me;
Thy Cabinet and thy Senate, they do discomfort me;
Thou didst prepare a reduction in my wages;
In the presence of my creditors thou anointed my income with taxes,
So my expense overruneth my income.
Surely poverty and hard times will follow me
All the days of the Republican administration.
And I shall dwell in a rented house forever.
Amen.

E. J. Sullivan, "The 1932nd Psalm,"
Seamen's Journal, 1932

"Cherry Blossoms Blowing In Wet, Blowing Snow"
by James Galvin

In all the farewells in all the airports in all the profane dawns.

In the Fiat with no documents on the road to Madrid.
                                                     At the
corrida.
         In the Lope de Vega, the Analena, the Jerome.
                                                      In time
past, time lost, time yet to pass.
                                  In poetry.
                                            In watery deserts, on
arid seas, between deserts and seas.
                                    In sickness and in health.
                                                              In
pain and in the celebration of pain.
                                    In the delivery room.
                                                         In the
garden.
       In the hammock under the aspen.
                                      In all the emergencies.
                                                             In
the waterfall.
              In toleration.
                            In retaliation.
                                           In rhyme.
                                                    Among cherry
blossoms blowing in wet, blowing snow, weren't we something?

-- The New Yorker, 7 May 2001

*^*^*^*

That one's been going through my head a lot, lately. So today I went to the UW library to hunt it down. And now, in a flagrant violation of copyright, I give it to you... and encourage you to go to, say, Open Books and buy some of Mr. Galvin's books.

So there.