***Before you read, go to Riceboy Sleeps on my top 40, and listen to the
song, "All the Big Trees", while reading this little passage that I wrote.  It'll
bring out the passage more.  Thank you, enjoy.***

All the Big Trees

Whistling of the wind,frozen leaves walk on the ground,heading south.
Grey sheets hang loosely over my head and the tall naked trees. It's cold.
Where are you? Walking in circles isn't so fun you know, but I do find it
interesting. Everywhere I go, I see something. Something different. Something
strange to the eyes. [sigh] You're not here, so there is nothing for you
to see...so please do hurry. I feel that the day is getting old and
my breath is getting thick as it collides with the air. Oh how the
day shines in white. These twisted old twigs, they lay at my feet. People in
the distance, in their warm coats, conversations are getting quiet. The birds
have gone away. I'm standing here, before a lake, it's getting colder. Where are you?


Inspired by the song, "All the Big Trees" by Riceboy Sleeps.
Just a vision I saw in my head as I was listening to it. Hope you've
enjoyed this little vision in your head and get the same feeling that
I did. It was very serene and just depressing to me. The song is
really something.



--May Xiong.

from Philip Levine that is...I came across his work from a Writer's conference today..so I thought I'd punch this poem in by Philip Levine:

On The Meeting Of Garca Lorca And Hart Crane

Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
The young man who brought them
together knows both Spanish and English,
but he has a headache from jumping
back and forth from one language
to another. For a moment's relief
he goes to the window to look
down on the East River, darkening
below as the early light comes on.
Something flashes across his sight,
a double vision of such horror
he has to slap both his hands across
his mouth to keep from screaming.
Let's not be frivolous, let's
not pretend the two poets gave
each other wisdom or love or
even a good time, let's not
invent a dialogue of such eloquence
that even the ants in your own
house won't forget it. The two
greatest poetic geniuses alive
meet, and what happens? A vision
comes to an ordinary man staring
at a filthy river. Have you ever
had a vision? Have you ever shaken
your head to pieces and jerked back
at the image of your young son
falling through open space, not
from the stern of a ship bound
from Vera Cruz to New York but from
the roof of the building he works on?
Have you risen from bed to pace
until dawn to beg a merciless God
to take these pictures away? Oh, yes,
let's bless the imagination. It gives
us the myths we live by. Let's bless
the visionary power of the human
the only animal that's got it,
bless the exact image of your father
dead and mine dead, bless the images
that stalk the corners of our sight
and will not let go. The young man
was my cousin, Arthur Lieberman,
then a language student at Columbia,
who told me all this before he died
quietly in his sleep in 1983
in a hotel in Perugia. A good man,
Arthur, he survived graduate school,
later came home to Detroit and sold pianos right through the Depression.
He loaned my brother a used one
to compose his hideous songs on,
which Arthur thought were genius.
What an imagination Arthur had!

Philip Levine