Life and Existence

I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed.

There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner.

The moment of change is the only poem.

Piece by piece I seem to re-enter the world.

I am an instrument in the shape of a woman trying to translate pulsations into images for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind.

I am an instrument in the shape of a woman trying to translate pulsations into images for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind.

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumor, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact.

History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, but if faced With courage, need not be lived again.

Something like living occurs, a movement Out of the dream into its codification.

The seasons are no longer what they once were, But it is the nature of things to be seen only once, As they happen along, bumping into other things, getting along Somehow. That’s where Orpheus made his mistake.

As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises.

For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake at last. “No, go I must, they’re calling me.” “Who are they?” Rising he said, “Some day you’ll know. They’re calling to you too.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

If anyone was looking for me I hid behind a tree and cried out “I am an orphan.” And here I am, the center of all beauty! writing these poems! Imagine!

Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.

Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.

I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

How can I die alone. Where will I be then who am now alone, what groans so pathetically in this room where I am alone?

You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last. Alone. With others. On the right. On the left. Because it was raining. Because of the shade. Because the day was sunny.

Time has passed like a courier with urgent news. But that’s just our simile. The character’s invented, his haste is make-believe, his news inhuman.

The pebble is a perfect creature equal to itself mindful of its limits filled exactly with a pebbly meaning

God has pity on kindergarten children. He has less pity on school children. And on grownups he has no pity at all, he leaves them alone, and sometimes they must crawl on all fours in the burning sand to reach the first-aid station covered with blood.