Songs based on "Creates in an Alphabet" by Djuna Barnes

B   Listen  (please open these audio links on a separate window, so you can read the poems)

When hovering, the Hummingbird

Its always going home (it's said)

By flying in a single spot

It's striving fast to think it's not

C  Listen

With cloen lip, with baleful eye,

The Camel wears the caliph high

But though he do the master's will

He himself's his habit will

D Listen

Why is it the Donkey haws,

And backs away (the mule) because

Although it has't said it's who,

It's practicing solfeggio.

E Listen

The reason that the Elephant

Is both detained and yet at ease,

Is because it is four trees

That the Lord forgot to plant.

J   Listen:

Though it be loud with auguries

Of summer sun, and happy days;

Nonetheless the Blue Jay is

Lined with insect agonies.

T  Listen:

"Thger! Tyger!"—Who wrote that?

You won't take it with your hat,

Nor lure it with a golden cage;

It won't leap its master's page.