Box of Glass Eyes Revisited

Box of Glass Eyes : Rewrite

               i.

A box of glass eyes
At the Harvard Museum

Glass eyes that look at me
with tenderness like
the glass sea anemone

That echo the whimsy
Of the visible golden rod dirty

That carry the pacing meanness
of Dingoes in the zoo

The eyes like dreaming butterflies cased
before Jerry Lewis comes dusting
eyes
for the big day waiting.

               ii.

Like the bones in the valley
set to jump up
and start dancing

The glassine eyeballs
too
will fly

Until that day
they rest the pleasant rest of chocolates
In a box

Eyes that were made by Von Meyer
The glass shop pipette wizard
Visage manifester alchemist of
a mélange  hearty transparent and fragile

People will visit and eye
Until the great day of rumbling.
Of great spirit dancing

The day of glass eyes
leaving their box.
                                  - Jack Vaughan

Original 

The Shadow, Cecelia Estrada Vaughan and Jeff Hull, ca 2009

In most all the things that we did with Jeff Hull there was often an aspect of being incredible. Even a simple trip to the Harvard Natural History Museum took on some kind of aura. We did up the town. We bounced down Hanover street one time with the rest of the crew with a giant pink squid of paper mache aloft. It was our own parade. It was done to repay the favor of the Daily Catch people who transported his paintings through to the opening when the Great Blizzard made driving verboten -except for food vendors. Every object, any object could be alive with lyrics. The day on Hanover street I wrote a poem about sea urchins. We roamed the North End. There was Stone Soup Poets Ed Sanders and Charles St Meeting House (where I read a poem about Jerry Lee. Central Square. Harvard's halls as shown here. All over town.