Edgar Lee Masters and Carroll Cloar

The best thing I've read this week is Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology.  Coincidentally, the most interesting art I've happened across this week is Carroll Cloar, a southern surrealist. 

Fiddler Jones
~~~
THE EARTH keeps some vibration going   
There in your heart, and that is you.   
And if the people find you can fiddle,   
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.   
What do you see, a harvest of clover?            
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?   
The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands   
For beeves hereafter ready for market;   
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts   
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.     
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust   
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;   
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy   
Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”   
How could I till my forty acres     
Not to speak of getting more,   
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos   
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins   
And the creak of a wind-mill—only these?   
And I never started to plow in my life     
That some one did not stop in the road   
And take me away to a dance or picnic.   
I ended up with forty acres;   
I ended up with a broken fiddle—   
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,     
And not a single regret.   


Edmund Pollard
~~~
I WOULD I had thrust my hands of flesh   
Into the disk-flowers bee-infested,   
Into the mirror-like core of fire   
Of the light of life, the sun of delight.   
For what are anthers worth or petals            
Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows   
Of the heart of the flower, the central flame!   
All is yours, young passer-by;   
Enter the banquet room with the thought;   
Don’t sidle in as if you were doubtful     
Whether you’re welcome—the feast is yours!   
Nor take but a little, refusing more   
With a bashful “Thank you,” when you’re hungry.   
Is your soul alive? Then let it feed!   
Leave no balconies where you can climb;     
Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest;   
Nor golden heads with pillows to share;   
Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet;   
Nor ecstasies of body or soul,   
You will die, no doubt, but die while living     
In depths of azure, rapt and mated,   
Kissing the queen-bee, Life!