{"id":5248,"date":"2015-08-27T16:29:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T16:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/wordpress\/?p=5248"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:43","slug":"american-songbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/american-songbook\/","title":{"rendered":"American Songbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"THUMBNAIL_IMAGE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase from Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Renewing America in poetry<\/em><\/p>\n

by<\/p>\n

Gregg Glory<\/p>\n

Published by
\nBLAST PRESS<\/p>\n

EPIGRAPHS<\/h2>\n

\nI knew… that I must turn from that modern literature Jonathan Swift
\ncompared to the web a spider draws out of its bowels; I hated and still hate with an ever growing hatred the literature of the [confessional] point of view.
\n~~W.B. Yeats, The First Principle\n<\/p>\n

\nThere is one class of persons to which one speaks with difficulty,
\nand another to which one speaks in vain. The second, more numerous
\nand obstinate than… may at first appear.
\n~~T.S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society\n<\/p>\n

\r\nFreedom is like a man who kills himself\r\nEach night, an incessant butcher, whose knife\r\nGrows sharp in blood.  The armies kill themselves\r\nAnd in their blood an ancient evil dies--\r\nThe action of incorrigible tragedy.\r\n\r\nAnd you, my semblables, behold in blindness\r\nThat a new glory of new men assembles.\r\n~~Wallace Stevens, Dutch Graves in Bucks County\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nWriting in 1963, Friedan lamented the declining engagement of women in the life of the mind.  She recalled a visit back to her alma mater, Smith College, in the late 1950s.  Reading the college newspaper, she learned of a class in which “the instructor, more in challenge than in seriousness, announced that Western civilization [was] coming to an end,” and, in response, “the students turned to their notebooks and wrote ‘Western civ–coming to an end,’ all without dropping a stitch.”
\n~~Lauren Noble quoting Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique\n<\/p>\n
\nIt is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the … great value
\nof a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress that
\nis the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this
\nfreedom, to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and
\ndiscussed, and to demand this freedom is our duty to all coming generations.
\n~~Richard Feynman\n<\/p>\n
\nAs I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those
\nwho have not the light which makes plain the pathway.
\n~~Anne Hutchinson\n<\/p>\n
\nI contend that the Negro is the creative voice of America, is creative
\nAmerica, and it was a happy day in America when the first unhappy slave was landed on its shores.
\n~~Duke Ellington, We, Too, Sing America\n<\/p>\n
\nPassive suffering is not a theme for poetry.
\n~~W.B. Yeats\n<\/p>\n
\nA well-furnished mind is not a citadel of retreat, but an outpost
\nof advancing civilization.
\n~~Anon.\n<\/p>\n
\nHow does our polyglot nationality not break us into so many mosaic pieces?
\n~~Anon.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nAnd oh ye high flown quills that soar the skies,\r\nAnd ever with your prey still catch your praise,\r\nIf e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes,\r\nGive thyme or Parsley wreath, I ask no Bays.\r\n~~Anne Bradstreet\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Old Truculence<\/h2>\n

\nA note concerning the basic arc of this book of poems–to re-register grace and freedom as America’s primary metier.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
Freedom breeds elegance. Not the inbred elegance of aristocracy, where beautiful ladies eventually come to resemble their Russian wolfhounds. Nor, simply, the truculent elegance of that sly Benjamin Franklin who, as ambassador to the French Court, refused to bow before King Louis the 16th or doff his coonskin cap.<\/p>\n
Freedom breeds the desire to create one meaningful action with your entire life–the effortful elegance of the artist that James Joyce defined as the willingness to gamble your whole life on the wrong idea, a bad aesthetic, or, it may be, a genuine triumph. And America has created, and can still create, a unique scale of opportunity for such elegant “throws of the dice,” as Mallarme might say. A natty Fred Astaire (originally Austerlitz), gliding with the ease of an ice skater as he backs Rita Hayworth (a gal from Brooklyn) into immortality to a tune penned by the jewish Jerome Kern in an industry patented in the U.S.A. is but one example of the scale of that opportunity.<\/p>\n
When you are free to do anything, a desire grows in the breast not to do just anything, but to do the best thing–and that is an aesthetic dilemma. The mere accumulation of capital, or the arbitrary exercise of petty power by minor government regulators, are two classic examples of the desire for a meaningful expression of life-status that lack the aesthetic instinct. Such timid ambitions grow most strongly where the full range of light is narrowed, and the blossom of selfhood must twist around corners to open its ruby glory in a thinning patch of sunlight.<\/p>\n
Gregg Glory\r\nMarch, 2013\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n<\/pre>\n
Brief Dissertation<\/h2>\n
Go, little book, upon the wild and waving plains;\r\nEvade the pricks of critics with laughing disdain;\r\nPluck, here and there, a blooming reader,\r\nWhom, to thy father, there's no one dearer.\r\nGo, little book, your inmost self unveil\r\nNaked to the world's notice, who shall thy soul assail.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Come, My Dreams<\/h2>\n
Come gather round me, multitudinous dreams\r\nThat in the dim twilight are murmuring soft;\r\nCome lay by my head in the pillow-seam;\r\nCome carry my freighted heart aloft.\r\n\r\nO, I would dare dream as few men dream\r\nBeyond the cruel cudgel of the strong,\r\nBeyond the purpled tapestries of is and seems   \r\nHung before my eyes, beyond cold right or wrong.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Poet to His Countrymen<\/h2>\n
Inspiration's a silver ribbon of mist\r\nFallen thin from high Bridalveil;\r\nOnly a whim so cloud-soft can twist\r\nReality out of the high-fantastical.\r\nReal life begins in utter dream;\r\nIn utter dream our rebel rhyme began,\r\nThe fought-for fairytale of freedom,\r\nCloud-soft as the dreaming cheek of woman.\r\n\r\nCloud-soft as a woman's dreaming cheek,\r\nJefferson's quill spelled out the wild desire;\r\nSoft breath blew dry the shimmering ink\r\nThat tossed the regal tyrant to the fire.\r\nWho would dream with me by the fireside\r\nWhen the great gleeds glimmer and dim\r\nFirst must soften his headstrong pride\r\nAnd open his heart to the fire's whim.\r\n\r\nCome dream beside me by the gentle fire\r\nThat roared old monarchs to the brink;\r\nCome watch the red and yellow-red fire\r\nUntil our heads must nod and blink.\r\nSoftly, softly silver inspiration's mist\r\nFlies chiming from high Bridalveil peak;\r\nListen to what whispering winds insist,\r\nCloud-soft as dreaming woman's cheek.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
A Box of Worms<\/h2>\n
We grow the grass that Whitman trimmed and trod,\r\nUnder pilgrim boot and barefoot Indian, walkers for  war and God,\r\nWe seethed and twined our threads like a wave of the woven sea:\r\nBefore the first man gave cry or chant before firelit faces of his camp\r\nWe, beneath all the innumerable stories gathered there,\r\nBeneath word and deed and all, threaded buried breast and bone\r\nAnd sewed ourselves into the dirt that majesty might grow.\r\nThat majesty might grow and never look askance,\r\nOur bodies with the bodies of those gone before have  danced--\r\nGlittering naked selves, red with life, tongues churned in trance,\r\nWe mass among the buried roots that history might ascend;\r\nThat one good deed might come and rise above the rest\r\nAnd destiny be made manifest and not remain an empty dream,\r\nWe seethe and twine our threads like waves of the woven sea.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Van Winkle Awakens<\/h2>\n
The old dream is gone, and the grief is here.\r\nTwo hundred years has my white beard grown\r\nBefore the first car rolled, before aeroplane had flown.\r\nBut the dream like a madness still in my eyes appears--\r\nThat none dare touch, dare take what sweat had made\r\nWithout oaktree silver on a rough palm laid.\r\nThe old dream is gone, and new grief is here.     \r\n\r\nMy good girl's grown, and my helpmeet's fled.\r\nThunder-cracks clout the Catskills, wild and loud,\r\nWhere fairy folk drank and leapt like clouds.\r\nNow my love's still limbs lie buried and dead,\r\nAnd the wind blows the rain on foe and on friend\r\nAnd none are living who recall our fight to the end--\r\nThe old dream is gone, and my helpmeet fled.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Ichabod Dreams of Katrina Van Tassel<\/h2>\n
Her beauty stirred like mirrored fire,\r\nLike perfection etched in cloudless glass,\r\nUnstained by any but her own desire.\r\n\r\nThe dew that clung to her when she passed\r\n--Ignorant and beauteous as a summer morn--\r\nShook rainbows when she wheeled.\r\n\r\nLet love come wind his bitter horn\r\nAnd pierce the bitter heart of my desire,\r\nThe bitter dark where my dream is born!\r\n\r\nAlways I hear amid the battering hooves\r\nHer valorous laughter--echoes on stone worn smooth--\r\nAlways I see heedless sparks of her mirrored fire.\r\n\r\nNight winds that set the tree-shadows loose,\r\nOr upon the Old Dutch Bridge echo close,\r\nWail bleak knowledge the Headless Horseman and I\r\n\r\nRide to one desire.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
A Tale in Acadie<\/h2>\n
Saddled by an unearthly sadness,\r\nThe leaves and I lack all gladness:\r\nTo no more adore my divine,\r\nIntricate Evangeline.\r\n\r\nOld, dear world, formed before I fell\r\nTo your dim dust, speak the spell\r\nThat calls her back from spirit's brink;\r\nPour the resurrecting drink.\r\n\r\nI wander toward a dream recalled--\r\nA dream I dreamed before my fall--\r\nOf bangled arms that held me late:\r\nBeautiful, elaborate.\r\n\r\nBreak, old world caught in fiery winds\r\nLike a blown sailboat caught in irons;\r\nI'll drown my everlasting shame\r\nIn your watery, wavering flames.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The White Tower<\/h2>\n
A white tower beckons, and I slowly turn\r\nUp the helical stair, book in hand\r\nAnd book in mind, unwilling to return\r\nTo the grassy fields below, the wild lands--\r\nBecause she, whose white visage set my heart ablaze,\r\nHas turned aside to face another face.\r\n\r\nI walk alone in my tower proud,\r\nWreathed with incense out of old books\r\nAnd exchanging lightning with the clouds,\r\nWho knew the high dismissal of your look--\r\nAnd died to youth and carefree love\r\nAnd all the lies true lovers prove.\r\n\r\nAlthough you had me by your side,\r\nYou with love's allure were wroth,\r\nNever relenting to be my bride--never\r\nTo follow my footsteps and be guest in my house.\r\n\"Better friends forever than lovers severed,\"\r\nWere the bitter words of your mouth.\r\n\r\nNow you come out of the exhausted dread\r\nOf dreams, in the pale negligee of death;\r\nGreat agate stones set by ear and neck.\r\nMy days march by on grim battlements\r\nAnd grind out grim watches of the night.\r\nLove is gone that had been our right....\r\n\r\nThe vision fades like falling snow,\r\nFlakes disintegrating from my bandaged brow.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Three Trinkets<\/h2>\n
The phantom lover of Forepaugh’s<\/em><\/p>\n
\r\nMidnight comes and dims the mind,\r\nThe room composed and dark;\r\nWind in the curtain my soul unwinds\r\nUntil my thoughts are black.\r\n     Bell, book, and a candle-end.\r\n\r\nI watch myself and look at her,\r\nHer book but dust and polaroids;\r\nWhat ghostly bell is that I hear\r\nEchoes from the window-void?      \r\n     Bell, book, and a candle-end.\r\n\r\nA ghost sings in the lattice,\r\nAnd a cricket sings in the hedge;\r\nThey sing away what matters\r\nTill soul and mind grind edge.\r\n     Bell, book, and a candle-end.\r\n\r\nShe had loved me lovely\r\nWhen she had loved me once\r\n(Oh, all those cold years ago)\r\nWho now my midnight haunts. \r\n     Bell, book, and a candle-end.\r\n\r\nI speak her name and fear for sleep:\r\nA ghost is in the lattice;\r\nThe dark is dreary and the mind is deep:\r\nI sing away what matters.\r\n     Bell, book, and a candle-end.\r\n\t     \r\n     \t   \r\n     \t   \r\n     \t   \r\n<\/pre>\n
Ballad of Billy the Kid<\/h2>\n
Every man's a fighting man,\r\nBy women or whiskey made glad--\r\nLaw's no more than smoke from a gun,\r\nAnd luck the turn of a card.\r\n\r\nFor fourteen years desert dawn unfurled\r\nUp the cold hillside where my Ma died;\r\nGod plumb stole her merry soul\r\nThrough a pinprick in her side.\r\n\r\nThat Fall I got nabbed by a tin-star man\r\nFor a sour mouthful of cheese I stole and hid.\r\nThat sheriff sure laughed;  he called me a calf,\r\nAnd branded me \"Billy, the Kid.\"\r\n\r\nThe winds blew cruel, and wide night shook\r\nThe tumbledown sun from the skies;\r\nUp the jailhouse flue I climbed like smoke--\r\nA white rope thrown on high.\r\n\r\nNow the law and I are strangers\r\nCause the law ain't nobody's friend--\r\nI lit out for the open range\r\nAnd never looked back again.\r\n\r\n\"An outlaw's life's lonesome rough,\"\r\nDeclared Pat Garrett, roisterer and rustler.\r\n\"Kid,\" said he, \"there's cash on the hoof\r\nHigh up Rosaverde Mesa.\"\r\n\r\nGalloping nights chased hard-ridden days\r\nHigh up Rosaverde Mesa--\r\nMy soul grew spurs where the coyote bays\r\nAnd snowy stars bow low in answer.\r\n\r\nThose times were best, with Pat my guest\r\n--How sweet the senoritas danced!\r\nWe raised campfire cans to life's wry jest\r\nAnd tossed playing cards for the chance.\r\n\r\n* * * * *\r\nSleep lay deep on the bunkhouse keep,\r\nAnd soft stars curled slumberin' blue;\r\nA Mexican lady at my side lay sleeping,\r\nAnd sleep lay on my eyelids too.\r\n\r\nDid the darkness slide, that night I died,\r\nBlowed down by Patrick Garrett?\r\nPlugged in the back--despite his peacock pride--\r\nPaid two dollars by a tin-star sheriff.\r\n\r\nTall stars are nothin' but bullet holes\r\nShot in the fabric of Time.--\r\nThrough one such pinprick I send my soul--\r\nIt's to those stars I climb.\r\n\r\nIt's among those stars my story's writ\r\n(Now I am done with lying),\r\nThat others may learn by quickened wits\r\nWhat I have learned by dying:\r\n\r\nEvery man's a fighting man,\r\nBy women or whiskey made mad--\r\nLaw's no more than smoke from a gun,\r\nAnd luck the turn of a card.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Bonnie and Clyde<\/h2>\n
Cash is for rascals, and we've got none.\r\n--Hold me again till we feel as one.\r\nI'll juice up the car, now hand me that shooter.\r\n--Aslant hangs the moon like a ghostly lover.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Kansas Nights, 1859<\/h2>\n
Quiet as milked cattle the exhausted lovers lie,\r\nWheat-work and bushel-work and draft-plough laid by.\r\n\r\nLong the silo's sundial shadow falls \r\nEast upon farmstead house and wall.\r\n\r\nOld history is not new destiny yet:\r\nThe dawn which woke us has not made us complete.\r\n\r\nAs sunset descends, their dusky dreams arise\r\nWild among stars as the cook-fire dies.\r\n\r\nBarefoot among the Pleiades two dreamers dance\r\nWhere wrathful winds but kiss their face--\r\n\r\nAnd the world below them (that now is ours)\r\nRolls forgotten and green as they race the stars.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
To the North Star<\/h2>\n
A Pilgrim Prayer<\/em><\/p>\n
\r\nRed, red the holly seeds in the heart of winter;\r\nGreen, green the garland on the decorous door;\r\nBright, bright the berries as descending stars.\r\nChristmas is coming, as we have come from afar.\r\n\r\nKneel, kneel to the child adored,\r\nWho cried in a stable without any door.\r\n\r\nWeave the holy holly round, hoop the sharpened leaf;\r\nThe season of cold is here, the hour of deep belief.\r\nLook, look to the stars, and count the beats of your heart.\r\nDeep glows the heart's desire, bright burns our woven art.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Running in the Rye<\/h2>\n
Holden Caulfield’s sleepy murmurings<\/em><\/p>\n
\r\nAll night the dream returns, running through the rye;\r\nThe stars are high accusers and castigate my crime--\r\nMy hidden guilt I must acquit, or innocence must die;\r\nStarlight on young faces falls, cold as cunning Time;\r\nAll night I must be running, running through the rye.\r\n \r\nChildren dance at the cliff-edge, sleeping children lightly by;\r\nI race to where they're dancing, roll small sleepers from the ledge;\r\nFaces without deceit;  innocent they dance, innocent dream and lie.\r\n--Stalking like an alley cat, I keep my ancient pledge!\r\nRibbons of rye are wet, wet as a weeping eye.\r\n\r\nUnstained as stars they play, ignorant of their purity;\r\nThe moon's a rusty lamp hung up for them to sing and dance--\r\nWave-wild they are rushing, rushing through the rye.\r\nFreedom in their limbs so lingers, they see nor gate nor fence;\r\nAll night I must be running, running through the rye.\r\n\r\nSorrow mars them none;  no sorrow attends the dancers' eyes;\r\nBut the shepherd who runs among them is wounded to the core:\r\nWounded I wake in sweat, wounded race and curse--O why\r\nAre none saved by my running, no dancer of the starry floor?\r\nThe ribbons of rye are wet; wet my weeping eyes.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Aims<\/h2>\n
A brave saying\r\nCan halt all braying\r\nAnd make love real\r\n--From a last appeal\r\nResurrected--\r\n(If not misdirected.)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Praise<\/h2>\n
The bell's tongue\r\nStruck me dumb.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Johnny Appleseed<\/h2>\n
I walk among the dappled hills,\r\nI hike from crest to crest--\r\nIn each valley crease I spill\r\nSweet apple-seed for unmade nests.\r\n\r\nIn freedom's air, no kingly care\r\nWeighs down my brow or song;\r\nOver hill, over land, or down the rivers grand\r\nI sing my self-taught song.\r\n\r\nLong my stride, for the land is wide\r\nAs I plant the pioneer root;\r\nFree surge the seeds, and free springs the pride:\r\nGreen Eden must have fruit.\r\n\r\nOver hill, over land, or down the rivers grand\r\nI sing my self-taught song.\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n<\/pre>\n
Ballad of the Jersey Devil<\/h2>\n
Night came creeping, the wildlife sleeping\r\nBeneath the quiet laurel;\r\nBird and squirrel, young boy, young girl\r\nLay down without a quarrel.\r\n \r\nNo thunder clattered, it was utter still\r\nBy Batsto stream, by needled loam;\r\nThe wind swept chill through my window sill\r\nIn my dry Pine Barrens home.\r\n \r\nWho knows what flood the Devil stirs in the blood,\r\nOr what the Devil might bleed out?\r\n\"Pray,\" father said, \"to be good, be good,\r\nWith prayer most devout.\"\r\n \r\n\"Clasp hands together in sacred prayer,\"\r\nHe'd clamber to his knees;\r\n\"You hold unawares your holy soul there,\r\nDo the Devil what he please.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sing your prayers soon, my son, my son,\r\nSing them fast and loud and strong;\r\nTo Kingdom Come your words must run, must run,\r\nWe tarry here not long.\"\r\n \r\nThen a shadow strange on the window panes\r\nFell as I fell to my knees;\r\nA ragged coat flapped from the silent lane\r\nAnd stopped up the evening breeze.\r\n \r\nI raced to greet with naked feet\r\nThe apparition in the breeze;\r\nOnce through the door, no more, no more\r\nOf the stranger did I see.\r\n \r\nI slid through the brake where the snakes do glide;\r\nThe moon was new and blushing shy,\r\nSharp pines brushed my shirtless side\r\nAnd stars had deserted the sky. \r\n\r\nI did not want to meet that man, that man;\r\nI could not let him go;\r\nThat man in the black coat turning, turning,\r\nHis shadow following low.\r\n\r\nThrough midnight sweat and swamp we went, we went,\r\nAnd heard no bell grieve but the tinkling leaves--\r\nIn our swift descent, with heads down-bent,\r\nRunning past green graves of trees. \r\n \r\nO, father dead, my head was hurting, hurting!\r\nI prayed but no one came;\r\nAnd the dark stranger kept on running,\r\nRunning just the same.\r\n \r\nI'll see if he crosses the tossing waters,\r\nThe waters of Batsto stream;\r\nThat's a devil-test that will his race arrest,\r\nOr so my father deemed.\r\n \r\nHe passed the mark so lightly, lightly,\r\nI began to doubt my heart;\r\nWith his crooked step unsightly\r\nDid he but play a devil's part?\r\n\r\nLike a July rocket, my lead step he mocked;\r\nHe ran like crooked lightning;\r\nHe ran to the roar of the Jersey Shore,\r\nThe waves rose black and frightening.\r\n\r\nThen the man in the black coat turned once more,\r\nLeaping hill and hollow running;\r\nHis strange face glowed like a shadow's hole,\r\nAnd he stopped his turning.\r\n \r\nI stood forlorn on the moonless shore,\r\nThe windy pines were tragic;\r\nThe wanton moon waned and hid her face for shame, \r\nAnd the Devil did his magic.\r\n \r\n\"For you I have a place prepared.\"\r\nOld hoofprints circled the fire;\r\nBurnt logs arranged with symbols strange,\r\nAnd strange birds sang in choir.\r\n \r\nMy knees in the Devil's sand hit hard, hit hard,\r\nBut prayer I had none;\r\nJust these words my numb ears heard,\r\nSpoken by someone:\r\n \r\n\"Man spends his little life running, running,\r\nHe tarries here not long;\r\nMidnight comes, and comes a turning,\r\nAnd comes an end to song.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Columbus, The Emerald Admiral<\/h2>\n
The wind lay like enamel on the emerald waves,\r\nLike enamel the eyes that on that emerald gazed;\r\nThey couldn't tell, those old sailors, not tell at all\r\nThe green of the wave from the green of the hill;\r\nColumbus drew with practiced compass point upon \r\nThe monstered blank of nameless seas;  beyond \r\nHis circle-eye revolved a circle world.\r\nA crimson cross beat on the mainsail's square\r\nBarren as a cloud in the azure glare;\r\nOne miraculous push broke the sumptuous hush,\r\nNew world and new day born in the luminous surf;\r\nThey couldn't tell, those old sailors, not tell at all\r\nThe green of the wave from the green of the hill;\r\nWere it not for the fragrant tide, and the cry\r\nOf land-hungry gulls--broken crosses in brawny skies--\r\nNo midnight cove would bear a rowboat's divot\r\nFor all the Catholic gold Queen Isabella spent.\r\nThe old sailors in plangent prayer hung their heads;\r\nIn Santa Maria's oaken hold sang manacles and beads.\r\nThe land a blade at dawn past the hashing wash,\r\nDriven from Plato's Cave in one flash of truth;\r\nLand that'd been small as a green-fly in the spyglass\r\nGrown great beyond the circuit of the compass;\r\nThe Captain's edgeless map unfolded to a fantastic shape:\r\nA misty moon, a calm palmetto tree, a sandy cape.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Phillip Freneau Addresses Naked Liberty on His Knee<\/h2>\n
To one who is all love unbound\r\nI give the velvets of this voice--\r\nThe rounded syllables of this sound.\r\n\r\nFly past precincts of mere chance, mere choice!\r\nLet freezing History hiss silent arctic scholars,\r\nNot you, with its cool, histrionic noise.\r\n\r\nLet you come near as kisses on a collar;\r\nBe near, till breath inflicts on breath,\r\nBe near when hot breaths pant shallow.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Rockettes and Their Ilk<\/h2>\n
The beautiful ones, being by beauty besotted,\r\nFlatter none, as they care for none,\r\nA crew so graceful and cosseted,\r\nGrown cruel in the solitude of their own perfection.\r\n\r\nThey know as few can know that beauty must be forged:\r\nLong they toil with weighted wheel \r\nAnd mirror grim and shortened breath\r\nUntil their stride is that of a gazelle at morn,\r\nTheir shoulders red and set with a pride of steel,\r\nThe youngness of their faces a defeat for death.\r\nThey leap above the boards without burden or care\r\n--A long waver glowing mysterious in mid-air--\r\nBeauty flowing between the seen and the unseen.\r\n\r\nTime will melt their beautiful bodies like wax\r\nGone molten in the sun, shedding a sheerest sheen,\r\nA golden waver above the grim surfaces of fact.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Marilyn Monroe’s Wedding Night<\/h2>\n
Tonight I dreamed my marriage bed was pouring over Niagara Falls;\r\nGreen the Falls were pouring, green as a baseball field;\r\nDown my love for Joe was rushing, but my heart refused to yield,\r\nRushing like a catch-in-the-breath when you fall.\r\n\r\nGreen glow the diamond fields where Joe's the mounded thrower;\r\nDusty and dun come the men who run there,\r\nHitting and spitting and whittling defeat away there\r\nUntil all the field's laid out for a victory homer.\r\n\r\nUp with a deep up-pouring rose the mists upon the rocks;\r\nWhite tossed my wedding dress, white twined my twisted veil;\r\nOur hands locked in a lovers' knot as over the Falls we fell,\r\nRamming toward the roaring, raging, raucous rocks.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Spring is King<\/h2>\n
The daffodil's a lovely yellow,\r\nAnd lovely your eyes, too;\r\nA single lily makes the May complete,\r\nAnd lily-white thy feet.\r\n\r\nA rose is red as a drop of blood,\r\nRose-red your cheeks in bud;\r\nOn the bonnie bank pink sweet-peas peek,\r\nAnd I at your body sweet.\r\n\r\nI'll sing this song till songs are done,\r\nAnd all the colors of the flowers run;\r\nBeautiful bloom the things of spring,\r\nAnd golden grows my heart, darling.\r\n\r\nO I'll sing until all singing's one,\r\nYou the lily-moon and daisy-sun;\r\nAnd never a lovelier song'll be sung\r\nThan this I sing for you.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Hester’s Child<\/h2>\n
I\r\nHer scarlet \"A\" with rebel pride\r\nShe carried against intemperate hate;\r\n(And she carried me inside\r\nTill Love grew as great.)\r\n\r\nII\r\nThere's no script but loving,\r\nNo whip but being loved--\r\nOf all a Father has for giving,\r\nLove alone I crave.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Magnolias in New Jersey<\/h2>\n
Deep between the conifers dark as deacons,\r\nAnd near the thawp and clump and utter of new-born grackles,\r\nAnd back round the minarets of foxglove like a picket fence,\r\nThey slacken their buddings to stars.\r\n\r\nBut somehow it is vain, with the bloom of universe surrounding,\r\nAnd my feet cold and sunk in growth,\r\nAnd the spiritual white and pink-white leaves in bulbs fermenting,\r\nSomehow to lie and breathe into the upwards evening \r\nis vain.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Pocahontas Bids Despair Depart<\/h2>\n
Bid despair go haunt another breast\r\nAnd cut his shadows from paper hearts,\r\nFor I have heard the great Love calling\r\nWith sounds of the shore-pebbles rolling\r\nWhen the long wave retreats from the shore:\r\nUnsatiated lovers ever, ever crying 'More.'  \r\n\r\nAnd I have lain my head where his head had lain\r\nAnd felt the quick brightness of the world recede--\r\nAnd heard naught but the pebbles' plaint,\r\nAnd his high-wrought heart for all the sea.\r\n\r\nAll those who have heard great Love's call\r\nKnow wet desire survives the fire, its deep well\r\nIs ever-fresh, a portion of the imageless All\r\nWhose depths are rolling in the bluest eye\r\nForever, though a war-club block the sky.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Major Andre’s Bad Advice<\/h2>\n
Coil your heart and brood upon old wrong,\r\nMake that evil devastation all your cause;\r\nCry out in bitterness, and sing like Old Scratch\r\nUntil--in your heart--failure drags her claws,\r\nAnd rafts of doubt crowd ever at your back,\r\nAnd all hope before you lies glazed with loss.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Crucible<\/h2>\n
At the funeral of Thomas Paine, his landlady speaks<\/em><\/p>\n
\r\nGreyly rains sink in the low sandy hole.\r\nDeep-blue-dappled were the lively eyes of him\r\nWho, loud about the house, piggybacked my Pym,--\r\nOld Tom laid by like a lamp-man's pole.\r\n\r\nGreyly rains sink in an evening nearly come.\r\nHis light is out who lit the world awake,\r\nWho took on darkness for our sake--for our sake\r\nCrossed sharp words to press the crisis home.\r\n\r\nFaint lights around the world brighten in the pale.      \r\nTindered words fired like a shot in 'Common Sense,'\r\nWords to make frail hearts burn the more intense\r\nThat our infant crucible might not fail.\r\n\r\nWe bury him--those two black lads prayerfully by--\r\nWho know the worth of him we eulogize\r\nIn grey rains warm as unwiped eyes;\r\nBeside the battered box, few mourners;  none to cry.\r\n\r\nWords like torches gathered\r\nShine on the coffin's grain;\r\nIn the eyes about, a light\r\nInextinguishable by night.\r\n<\/em>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Vietnam in Washington, 1985<\/h2>\n
The impenetrable monument\r\nDoes not verge or angle\r\nIn a time made green by grass,\r\nNor does it lightly lack\r\nAn upright pointing finger\r\nTo implicate a God. It is not\r\nA comfortable spring; there is no\r\nUseless cherry blossoming.\r\n\r\nThere were those that said\r\nA people's greater than her nation;\r\nOr that war was a mask\r\nWe had put occasionally on\r\nTo learn our own true natures.\r\n\r\nThings were so confused \r\nIt seemed that some might burn \r\nUntil their aching hearts were new;\r\nAnd so the ignorant citizenry\r\nWalk like amicable young children taught\r\nTo know what is the past.\r\n\r\nThough there were those who spoke\r\nOf the uninstructed dead\r\nWho sought a hallowed road home,\r\nOther voices said its only\r\nStray names caught in a niche\r\nLike dirt beneath a nail.\r\n\r\nBy measured statements that proceed\r\nFrom a level look\r\nThere came at jeering last\r\nThe gaping multitudes, or a few,\r\nTo examine what had been done\r\nAbout what had been said.\r\nThey came murmuring names\r\nOr weeping, weeping,\r\nOr murmuring names.\r\n\r\nAnd to the uttermost of this\r\nStill uncertain heart\r\nI find I cannot confess\r\nThe imponderable waste of days.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Our Beloved Southland<\/h2>\n
Long the walk to my stopping place,\r\nBirmingham jail and a state of grace;\r\nOn a windy bridge we bared our faces--\r\nArms linked tight\r\nTo procure the right.\r\n\"My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.\"\r\n\r\nJohn Brown's body like a relic slept,\r\nWhich on the battlefield stood sore-tested;\r\nWhat light shone down from unearthly sources?\r\nNat Turner's neck\r\nJustice annexed.\r\n\"My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.\"\r\n\r\nShadrach, Meshach and Abednego first\r\nWalked the fires Nebuchadnezzar burst;\r\nThat disobedience might hatch from a holy nest,\r\nThose shadows strolled\r\nInto furnace-gold.\r\n\"My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Benedict Arnold to Peggy Shipton<\/h2>\n
\"Let these two pale travelers quit travail\r\nOn your two lips' ruby firmament;\r\nDear restful earth, let me stretch out\r\nMy full measure on thy white redoubt\r\nAs all mortal toil must finally lie,\r\nEven unto the last particle of desire.\r\nLet me eat the moiety of life's content\r\nThat stirs untasted on your cold continent,\r\nBeneath whose vital skies I'd idly settle\r\nAmong blushes, encamped among the little\r\nWildernesses of your careless glances.\r\nIf pilgrim prayer hath half a devil's chance,\r\nLet me lie at last beneath your summer rains\r\nListening to the dull whippoorwill's refrain,\r\nOr studying out the flowers how they bloom.--\r\nOn thy grass field that tombs up men\r\nAnd builds no further monument of doom\r\nBut wild everlasting weeds, I'll lie down\r\nAnd look into eternity as in a broken glass\r\nAnd become myself some substance of the grass.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Betsy Ross<\/h2>\n
In my room, by candles dim,\r\nFivefold stars I snip and trim;\r\nI lay seven stripes artery red,\r\nBandages pulled from a punished head,\r\nInterleave six white unbeaten blades,  \r\nEmblems of our union won.\r\nNext, for coronal--no, not that--\r\nNo crown;  no kingly, pointed hat,--\r\nBut a circlet of stars for constellation\r\nNewly risen above our new nation.\r\n\r\nThat naked Liberty might go gowned,\r\nSoldiers laugh and rally round-- \r\nThrough long nights I pull the thread,\r\nHoop tight what hopes have gathered.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Babe the Blue Ox Goes Snowblind<\/h2>\n
Long, long the way up the broken mountain slopes I trod;\r\nBunyan's plaid blazed blank in a bewilderment of snow.\r\nFollowing lowing the teardrop footsteps, even then odd,\r\nI stretched my young stride to gallop-up each hoof to each hole.\r\nNo one was there, where white earth to white heaven arose.\r\nNone tracked us above beyond the treeline's piny pale.\r\nBlind I tramped toward glowing dawn's pink unfolding rose\r\nWhere my blue legs broke alone the glittery powdery swale.\r\nHoofprint and footprint entranced had traced wild swirls below;\r\nThey changed that day to ten-thousand lakes of melted snow.<\/pre>\n
*This poem tells the legend of the creation of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes district.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
The Rebel Yell<\/h2>\n
My lank Abe stands commanding where coalblack shadows spar;\r\nHeavy Chaos covers us over, a blanket without stars--\r\nWar is folding over my heart, and over all my days;\r\nWar is wearing our beautiful country away.\r\nMen in thousands are marching, grey and shadowy,\r\nTheir roiling horses thundering, thundering from afar.\r\n\r\nAt silky midnight the medium returns, with crystal ball\r\nAnd long tin trumpet floating ghostly in the gaslit pall;\r\nAnd Willie's lisping voice buzzing there--to the life!\r\nEach dim word returns to my breast like a knife,\r\nEach dim dawn returns to the sound of the marchers' marshal fifes.\r\nThe coffin that carried my heart away was waxed and small.\r\n\r\nBattleside at noon in our folding chairs, we watch the long lines \r\nApproach and cross, blue and grey, threads on a loom divine;\r\nThreads red and mud soon enough, soon enough.\r\nAlways now my wronged, longing heart is crying out: enough!\r\nAlways it is Willie I see atop the high chargers, out riding in the rough;\r\nAlways I hear his hollow voice arising--in every Rebel yell.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Poet Abandons Hope for His Nation in Time of Minor War<\/h2>\n
Against Time's dull entombment of the dream\r\nShall I shout no mad, damned syllable to protest?\r\nLet me drain deathly Lethe's little dram,\r\nCold gift, that this heaviness might lift!\r\nLong I rooted for the rebel rhyme,\r\nLong dug up olden tales of patriot shades \r\nWho forged a Philly miracle in their time.\r\nMinute Men who assembled dusty laws\r\n(Long words whose shadows yet abide)\r\nCharmed no rhyme to rock to lullaby\r\nAn infant creature's ticking cradle,\r\nNor open a young boy's eyes to awe;\r\nThey gave no choral song to sing\r\nWith echoing loveliness on the lonely mountainside;\r\nOur Blue Ridge valleys and Rocky vales\r\nEcho naught of those old patriot tales;\r\nNo onward story among their aged seams repeats,\r\nNothing but blood is added to what was great.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Wartime Nativity<\/h2>\n
Died in a manger, Lord my Lord.\r\nHills of Afghan white,\r\nNights of Afghan cold;\r\nChristmas in a winter\r\nUnbearably old.\r\n\r\nDied in a manger, Lord my Lord.\r\nWhat child is this\r\nWho dies tonight?\r\nNights of Afghan cold,\r\nHills of Afghan white.\r\n\r\nDied in a manger, Lord my Lord.\r\nLarge-eyed grief as solemn\r\nAs Life's hard light:\r\nThis child is beautiful\r\nAnd quiet tonight.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Ragged Coat<\/h2>\n
I wear a ragged coat\r\nSewed of shapes of all the states--\r\nFrom the granite littlest\r\nTo the frozen giant.\r\n\r\nGreat Lakes the silver collar are\r\nAnd cool me when I'm riled;\r\nStars stitched round heart and hem\r\nShine a ragged anthem.\r\n\r\nI stir into a battered melting pot\r\nWhat scraps I scrape;\r\nAt midnight dance beneath\r\nThe moon's wormeaten face.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Jefferson Sequestered, 1776<\/h2>\n
Do you, merry bird bright upon the sill,\r\nWatch with quick eyes a twitching quill?  \r\nFor what do you sing, merry bird,             \r\nTrilling on the sill without a word?\r\nDo you trill for liberty while I toil,            \r\nBurnishing words by midnight oil             \r\nThat all men might sing in gathering night\r\nAs you do, careless and light?\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Mount Rushmore Colloquy<\/h2>\n
WASHINGTON\r\n\"I smoked my pipe on Mt. Vernon farm\r\nAnd would return, however war rages--\r\nNo foul, no harm;\r\nAnd for that I am Cincinnatus Redivivus.\"\r\n\r\nJEFFERSON\r\n\"I struck my bargain with bold Napoleon\r\nBefore ink well-dried on our Declaration;\r\nI prophesied no sunset should hem us in\r\nAnd made us all Louisianians.\"\r\n\r\nROOSEVELT\r\n\"I gave lady Liberty, for luck,\r\nA glittering necklace fetched out of the sea\r\nAnd hung rich round Panama's neck;\r\nIt sparkled for a century.\"\r\n\r\nLINCOLN\r\n\"I loved a fine lady who grew half mad;\r\nWe lost our beautiful son;\r\nBereft of every earthly gladness,\r\nWhat could I but save the Union?\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Song of Dan’l Boone<\/h2>\n
I've had enough of little men\r\nWho dreamed the opaque moon caroused,\r\nWho drain their whiskey dram, and then\r\nRefuse the frenzy such dreams arouse.\r\n\r\nThe silent moon herself's a huntress\r\nDipping her naked step through branch and leaf\r\nWith wild white wide eyes,\r\nHer hunter's bow taut with grief.\r\n\r\nI've had enough of townhall edicts,\r\nThe bartered brag of big men's boasts,\r\nAnd charming ladies' difficult minuets,\r\nAnd every matter that's matter-of-fact.\r\n\r\nNow I follow the silver leer of the moon\r\nThat pours in silence along a midnight stream\r\nOver rocky Cumberland Gap, and soon\r\nTo the remotest forest of a dream.\r\n\r\nAnd there, piled pelts of fine sleek rabbits,\r\nAnd there, a trusty hunting dog,\r\nAnd there no human scourges traffic,\r\nAnd there, the Kentucky of God.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Huck Finn Adrift<\/h2>\n
If I'd'a closed my eyes and wished,\r\nI wouldn't switch a whisker of our rig.\r\nDrift a bit, fish a bit.  Drift, fish.\r\nA sunset catfish came along as big....\r\nAnd we're still hopin' and hoppin' along,\r\nAlthough the free branch of the Ohio\r\nHas fair gone by like a faded song,\r\nAnd what we're up to we don't rightly know.\r\n\r\nSpringtime's 'bout down to the last dribble;\r\nClouds keep the moon from breaking out,\r\nAnd Jim's always goin' on about the Bible,\r\nAll them Pharaoh's men and whatnot.\r\nIt's a good raft, by Moses, tho' stolen--\r\nRudder-steady under drifting skies;\r\nAll the wisdom of old Solomon\r\nWrit in winking fireflies.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
‘Fats’ Waller Undoes the Dusk<\/h2>\n
A cinnamon wind in the bottletree\r\nBlows low through evening's branches;\r\nOther trees once leaned in a darker wind's lee,\r\n'Strange fruit' hanging in the beautiful boughs.\r\nMan-in-the-moon is old, and we are young;\r\nMan, that cat ain't got my tongue.\r\n\r\nSuch things of such despair were done\r\nIt seemed every heart must hurt and curse--\r\nSo joyless the song that man had wrung,\r\nIt seemed worse must give way to the worst.\r\nMan-in-the-moon is old, and we are young;\r\nMan, that cat ain't got my tongue.\r\n\r\nBluebirds tweet witty in the sad countryside,\r\nTwig-nests feathered with many-colored pride;\r\nWith eighty-eight keys, and a smile as wide, renowned\r\n'Fats' sat down without care or frown: \r\nMan-in-the-moon is old, and we are young;\r\nMan, that cat ain't got my tongue.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Ruby Slippers<\/h2>\n
Kansas dust and Kansas drab and dull\r\nLeft me rusty and kept me a girl--\r\nSo little air of loving, and of love less,\r\nNo gladness in my heart whirled.\r\nAnd Auntie Em forever protesting: \r\n\"There's no place like home.\"\r\n\r\nA burnt-black whirlwind shuddered through\r\nAnd blew me out of the world I knew,\r\nMy young heart straining like a sail;\r\nI was so glad to move, I flew;\r\nI skipped down the swirled yellow bricks like a gale:\r\n\"Here's no place like home.\"\r\n\r\nFlapping terror came and melting terror went,\r\nNew friends proved true in terror's despite;\r\nThe world's emerald ball rolls beneath my slippers....\r\nBut I no more am glad.\r\nI miss my Kansas;  I click, and must confess:\r\n\"There's no place like home.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Russian Ballet at the Basie<\/h2>\n
A stage contains the dancers' strength\r\nAs a smile's vise restrains white teeth:\r\n\r\nThe more perfectly form's confined,\r\nThe more radiantly 'tis expressed.\r\n\r\nHaughty exemplars eke toward definition;\r\nPatterned flesh repeats the rhythm's pattern.\r\n\r\nThe Milky Way herself's but a scrim of scum\r\nWhen she glitters without proscenium.\r\n\r\nIn spotlit stillness a wheaten sheaf,\r\nJuliet, whirls her golden wave of grief\r\n\r\nUndefined until, for embracing net,\r\nA blood-red curtain rings down on tears of jet.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Geronimo’s Bones<\/h2>\n
Three white ravens on their barren seat\r\nLooked out west when dawn rose east.\r\n\r\nGeronimo down in the damp dust lay;\r\nNo cold word did cold lips say.\r\n\r\nThe horse that threw him stood contrite;\r\nBetter horse had no knight.\r\n\r\nHis hound-dog lay quietly sleeping,\r\nHis master's feet in his safe-keeping.\r\n\r\nMay every lady be bright and fair\r\nAs his wine-dark widow grieving there.\r\n\r\nAnd may each man be as brave to go\r\nWhere went the brave Geronimo.\r\n\r\nThree white ravens came to meat their feast;\r\nWest is west and east is east.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
Advice for Fife Players<\/h2>\n
Keep white the shining city, nor trod\r\nOur high ideals into the sod,\r\nParthenon through demos become a clod;\r\nNor let the muses' dames be domesticated,\r\nBy committee voted out of greatness.\r\n\r\nUnsoil what history has made sordid:\r\nNoble aims that had been hoarded \r\nTime out of mind by haughty lords,\r\nChop to step-stools for our better art\r\nWhere each man plays Michelangelo's part.\r\n\r\nClimb to crags where eagles nest,\r\nWhere forward face by battling wind is pressed;\r\nGather what glory old inspiration left:\r\nBright feathers dropped from higher things,\r\nFit plumage for an eagle's wing.\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
The Old Truculence<\/h2>\n
Walking Walden Pond\r\nI feel the common day recede,\r\nThe common light that bred the greed;\r\nAnd, what's more, I feel the old\r\nTruculence that set trim Thoreau on,\r\nHad him clap sandals at the town\r\nAnd lie among the old leaves brown\r\nWhere his good wood borders a pond.\r\n\r\nThat my words, too, might live\r\nI'll lie down and die--and dead\r\nIn some low-laid hollow of the wood,\r\nInvisibly help spry insects thrive,\r\nBe indifferent to the common stamp,\r\nVie for beauty not yet born,\r\nCry pride, 'like that of the morn,'\r\nWhen the rooster mounts his stump.\r\nOnly the song no singer owns,\r\nAblaze with passion for the interred\r\n(Who hear no sigh or word)\r\nCan tread old havoc down.\r\n\r\nI would be buried by that still stream\r\nWhere mongrel dogs may maunder\r\nAnd secret lovers wander,\r\nAnd would whisper to their dreams:\r\n\"Tumble the careful monument,\r\nRake memorial gardens back to dirt;\r\nTake no trouble for their hurt\r\nBut, like the hidden dead, exult.\r\nSpare no sorrow for today\r\nWhich finds you battered, incomplete;\r\nCompose yourself and die, pure spirit\r\nIn the sun's declining ray--\r\nAnd, in that final sunset, say\r\nNo paltry words, but what\r\nSpirit alone deems permanent.\"\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Purchase from Amazon Renewing America in poetry by Gregg Glory Published by BLAST PRESS EPIGRAPHS I knew… that I must turn from that modern literature Jonathan Swift compared to the web a spider draws out of its bowels; I hated and still hate with an ever growing hatred the literature of the [confessional] point of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1732],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-songbook","category-1732-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7416,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248\/revisions\/7416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}