Emotions and Feelings

The Weed

I dreamed that dead, and meditating,
I lay upon a grave, or bed,
(at least, some cold and close-built bower).
In the cold heart, its final thought
stood frozen, drawn immense and clear,
stiff and idle as I was there;
and we remained unchanged together
for a year, a minute, an hour.
Suddenly there was a motion,
as startling, there, to every sense
as an explosion. Then it dropped
to insistent, cautious creeping
in the region of the heart,
prodding me from desperate sleep.
I raised my head. A slight young weed
had pushed up through the heart and its
green head was nodding on the breast.
(All this was in the dark.)
It grew an inch like a blade of grass;
next, one leaf shot out of its side
a twisting, waving flag, and then
two leaves moved like a semaphore.
The stem grew thick. The nervous roots
reached to each side; the graceful head
changed its position mysteriously,
since there was neither sun nor moon
to catch its young attention.
The rooted heart began to change
(not beat) and then it split apart
and from it broke a flood of water.
Two rivers glanced off from the sides,
one to the right, one to the left,
two rushing, half-clear streams,
(the ribs made of them two cascades)
which assuredly, smooth as glass,
went off through the fine black grains of earth.
The weed was almost swept away;
it struggled with its leaves,
lifting them fringed with heavy drops.
A few drops fell upon my face
and in my eyes, so I could see
(or, in that black place, thought I saw)
that each drop contained a light,
a small, illuminated scene;
the weed-deflected stream was made
itself of racing images.
(As if a river should carry all
the scenes that it had once reflected
shut in its waters, and not floating
on momentary surfaces.)
The weed stood in the severed heart.
"What are you doing there?" I asked.



It lifted its head all dripping wet
(with my own thoughts?)
and answered then: "I grow," it said,
"but to divide your heart again."

The Man-moth

Here, above,
cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight.
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,
and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.
He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,
feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,
of a temperature impossible to records in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth
pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,
the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges
from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.
He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,
proving the sky quite useless for protection.
He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

Up the façades,
his shadow dragging like a photographer's cloth behind him
he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage
to push his small head through that round clean opening
and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.
(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)
But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although
he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

Then he returns
to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

Each night he must
be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.
Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie
his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,
for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,
runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease
he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep
his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

If you catch him,
hold up a flashlight to his eye. It's all dark pupil,
an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens
as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids
one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips.
Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention
he'll swallow it. However, if you watch, he'll hand it over,



cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

The Man-moth

Here, above,
cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight.
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,
and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.
He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,
feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,
of a temperature impossible to records in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth
pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,
the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges
from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.
He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,
proving the sky quite useless for protection.
He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

Up the façades,
his shadow dragging like a photographer's cloth behind him
he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage
to push his small head through that round clean opening
and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.
(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)
But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although
he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

Then he returns
to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

Each night he must
be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.
Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie
his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,
for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,
runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease
he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep
his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

If you catch him,
hold up a flashlight to his eye. It's all dark pupil,
an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens
as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids
one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips.
Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention
he'll swallow it. However, if you watch, he'll hand it over,



cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

The Man-moth

Here, above,
cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight.
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,
and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.
He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,
feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,
of a temperature impossible to records in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth
pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,
the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges
from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.
He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,
proving the sky quite useless for protection.
He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

Up the façades,
his shadow dragging like a photographer's cloth behind him
he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage
to push his small head through that round clean opening
and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.
(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)
But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although
he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

Then he returns
to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

Each night he must
be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.
Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie
his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,
for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,
runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease
he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep
his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

If you catch him,
hold up a flashlight to his eye. It's all dark pupil,
an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens
as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids
one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips.
Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention
he'll swallow it. However, if you watch, he'll hand it over,



cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader



with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Sonnet (1928)

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!


There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Sonnet (1928)

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!


There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Sonnet (1928)

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!


There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Songs for a Colored Singer

I


A washing hangs upon the line,
but it's not mine.
None of the things that I can see
belong to me.
The neighbors got a radio with an aerial;
we got a little portable.
They got a lot of closet space;
we got a suitcase.


I say, "Le Roy, just how much are we owing?
Something I can't comprehend,
the more we got the more we spend...."
He only answers, "Let's get going."
Le Roy, you're earning too much money now.


I sit and look at our backyard
and find it very hard.
What have we got for all his dollars and cents?
--A pile of bottles by the fence.
He's faithful and he's kind
but he sure has an inquiring mind.
He's seen a lot; he's bound to see the rest,
and if I protest


Le Roy answers with a frown,
"Darling, when I earns I spends.
The world is wide; it still extends....
I'm going to get a job in the next town."
Le Roy, you're earning too much money now.


II


The time has come to call a halt;
and so it ends.
He's gone off with his other friends.
He needn't try to make amends,
this occasion's all his fault.
Through rain and dark I see his face
across the street at Flossie's place.
He's drinking in the warm pink glow
to th' accompaniment of the piccolo.


The time has come to call a halt.
I met him walking with Varella
and hit him twice with my umbrella.
Perhaps that occasion was my fault,
but the time has come to call a halt.


Go drink your wine and go get tight.
Let the piccolo play.



I'm sick of all your fussing anyway.
Now I'm pursuing my own way.
I'm leaving on the bus tonight.
Far down the highway wet and black
I'll ride and ride and not come back.
I'm going to go and take the bus
and find someone monogamous.


The time has come to call a halt.
I've borrowed fifteen dollars fare
and it will take me anywhere.
For this occasion's all his fault.
The time has come to call a halt.


III


Lullaby.
Adult and child
sink to their rest.
At sea the big ship sinks and dies,
lead in its breast.


Lullaby.
Let mations rage,
let nations fall.
The shadow of the crib makes an enormous cage
upon the wall.


Lullaby.
Sleep on and on,
war's over soon.
Drop the silly, harmless toy,
pick up the moon.


Lullaby.
If they should say
you have no sense,
don't you mind them; it won't make
much difference.


Lullaby.
Adult and child
sink to their rest.
At sea the big ship sinks and dies,
lead in its breast.


IV


What's that shining in the leaves,
the shadowy leaves,
like tears when somebody grieves,
shining, shining in the leaves?



Is it dew or is it tears,
dew or tears,
hanging there for years and years
like a heavy dew of tears?


Then that dew begins to fall,
roll down and fall,
Maybe it's not tears at all.
See it, see it roll and fall.


Hear it falling on the ground,
hear, all around.
That is not a tearful sound,
beating, beating on the ground.


See it lying there like seeds,
like black seeds.
see it taking root like weeds,
faster, faster than the weeds,


all the shining seeds take root,
conspiring root,
and what curious flower or fruit
will grow from that conspiring root?


fruit or flower? It is a face.
Yes, a face.
In that dark and dreary place
each seed grows into a face.


Like an army in a dream
the faces seem,
darker, darker, like a dream.
They're too real to be a dream.

Sleeping on the Ceiling

It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It is the Place de la Concorde.
The little crystal chandelier
is off, the fountain is in the dark.
Not a soul is in the park.


Below, where the wallpaper is peeling,
the Jardin des Plantes has locked its gates.
Those photographs are animals.
The mighty flowers and foliage rustle;
under the leaves the insects tunnel.


We must go under the wallpaper
to meet the insect-gladiator,
to battle with a net and trident,
and leave the fountain and the square
But oh, that we could sleep up there...

Roosters


At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock


just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo


off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,


grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.


Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,


where in the blue blur
their rusting wives admire,
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare


with stupid eyes
while from their beaks there rise
the uncontrolled, traditional cries.


Deep from protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,


the many wives
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;


deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town. A rooster gloats


over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,


over our churches
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,


making sallies
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Rand McNally's:



glass-headed pins,
oil-golds and copper greens,
anthracite blues, alizarins,


each one an active
displacement in perspective;
each screaming, "This is where I live!"


Each screaming
"Get up! Stop dreaming!"
Roosters, what are you projecting?


You, whom the Greeks elected
to shoot at on a post, who struggled
when sacrificed, you whom they labeled


"Very combative..."
what right have you to give
commands and tell us how to live,


cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?


The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood


Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that vulgar beauty of iridescence


Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,


and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.


And one has fallen
but still above the town
his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down;


and what he sung
no matter. He is flung
on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung


with his dead wives
with open, bloody eyes,
while those metallic feathers oxidize.



St. Peter's sin
was worse than that of Magdalen
whose sin was of the flesh alone;


of spirit, Peter's,
falling, beneath the flares,
among the "servants and officers."


Old holy sculpture
could set it all together
in one small scene, past and future:


Christ stands amazed,
Peter, two fingers raised
to surprised lips, both as if dazed.


But in between
a little cock is seen
carved on a dim column in the travertine,


explained by gallus canit;
flet Petrus underneath it,
There is inescapable hope, the pivot;


yes, and there Peter's tears
run down our chanticleer's
sides and gem his spurs.


Tear-encrusted thick
as a medieval relic
he waits. Poor Peter, heart-sick,


still cannot guess
those cock-a-doodles yet might bless,
his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,


a new weathervane
on basilica and barn,
and that outside the Lateran


there would always be
a bronze cock on a porphyry
pillar so the people and the Pope might see


that event the Prince
of the Apostles long since
had been forgiven, and to convince


all the assembly
that "Deny deny deny"
is not all the roosters cry.



In the morning
a low light is floating
in the backyard, and gilding


from underneath
the broccoli, leaf by leaf;
how could the night have come to grief?


gilding the tiny
floating swallow's belly
and lines of pink cloud in the sky,


the day's preamble
like wandering lines in marble,
The cocks are now almost inaudible.


The sun climbs in,
following "to see the end,"
faithful as enemy, or friend.

Roosters


At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock


just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo


off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,


grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.


Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,


where in the blue blur
their rusting wives admire,
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare


with stupid eyes
while from their beaks there rise
the uncontrolled, traditional cries.


Deep from protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,


the many wives
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;


deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town. A rooster gloats


over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,


over our churches
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,


making sallies
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Rand McNally's:



glass-headed pins,
oil-golds and copper greens,
anthracite blues, alizarins,


each one an active
displacement in perspective;
each screaming, "This is where I live!"


Each screaming
"Get up! Stop dreaming!"
Roosters, what are you projecting?


You, whom the Greeks elected
to shoot at on a post, who struggled
when sacrificed, you whom they labeled


"Very combative..."
what right have you to give
commands and tell us how to live,


cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?


The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood


Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that vulgar beauty of iridescence


Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,


and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.


And one has fallen
but still above the town
his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down;


and what he sung
no matter. He is flung
on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung


with his dead wives
with open, bloody eyes,
while those metallic feathers oxidize.



St. Peter's sin
was worse than that of Magdalen
whose sin was of the flesh alone;


of spirit, Peter's,
falling, beneath the flares,
among the "servants and officers."


Old holy sculpture
could set it all together
in one small scene, past and future:


Christ stands amazed,
Peter, two fingers raised
to surprised lips, both as if dazed.


But in between
a little cock is seen
carved on a dim column in the travertine,


explained by gallus canit;
flet Petrus underneath it,
There is inescapable hope, the pivot;


yes, and there Peter's tears
run down our chanticleer's
sides and gem his spurs.


Tear-encrusted thick
as a medieval relic
he waits. Poor Peter, heart-sick,


still cannot guess
those cock-a-doodles yet might bless,
his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,


a new weathervane
on basilica and barn,
and that outside the Lateran


there would always be
a bronze cock on a porphyry
pillar so the people and the Pope might see


that event the Prince
of the Apostles long since
had been forgiven, and to convince


all the assembly
that "Deny deny deny"
is not all the roosters cry.



In the morning
a low light is floating
in the backyard, and gilding


from underneath
the broccoli, leaf by leaf;
how could the night have come to grief?


gilding the tiny
floating swallow's belly
and lines of pink cloud in the sky,


the day's preamble
like wandering lines in marble,
The cocks are now almost inaudible.


The sun climbs in,
following "to see the end,"
faithful as enemy, or friend.

North Haven

In Memoriam: Robert Lowell


I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse¹s tail.


The islands haven't shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have-drifting,
in a dreamy sort of way,
a little north, a little south, or sidewise-and
that they¹re free within the blue frontiers of bay.


This month our favorite one is full of flowers:
buttercups, red clover, purple vetch,
hackweed still burning, daisies pied, eyebright,
the fragrant bedstraw's incandescent stars,
and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.


The goldfinches are back, or others like them,
and the white-throated sparrow's five-note song,
pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.
Nature repeats herself, or almost does:
repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.


Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first "discovered girls"
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had "such fun," you said, that classic summer.
("Fun"--it always seemed to leave you at a loss...)


You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,
afloat in mystic blue...And now--you've left
for good. You can't derange, or rearrange,
your poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)
The words won't change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.

Giant Snail

The rain has stopped. The waterfall will roar like that all
night. I have come out to take a walk and feed. My body--foot,
that is--is wet and cold and covered with sharp gravel. It is
white, the size of a dinner plate. I have set myself a goal, a
certain rock, but it may well be dawn before I get there.
Although I move ghostlike and my floating edges barely graze
the ground, I am heavy, heavy, heavy. My white muscles are
already tired. I give the impression of mysterious ease, but it is
only with the greatest effort of my will that I can rise above the
smallest stones and sticks. And I must not let myself be distracted
by those rough spears of grass. Don't touch them. Draw
back. Withdrawal is always best.

The rain has stopped. The waterfall makes such a noise! (And
what if I fall over it?) The mountains of black rock give off such
clouds of steam! Shiny streamers are hanging down their sides.
When this occurs, we have a saying that the Snail Gods have
come down in haste. I could never descend such steep escarpments,
much less dream of climbing them.

That toad was too big, too, like me. His eyes beseeched my
love. Our proportions horrify our neighbors.

Rest a minute; relax. Flattened to the ground, my body is like
a pallid, decomposing leaf. What's that tapping on my shell?
Nothing. Let's go on.

My sides move in rhythmic waves, just off the ground, from
front to back, the wake of a ship, wax-white water, or a slowly
melting floe. I am cold, cold, cold as ice. My blind, white bull's
head was a Cretan scare-head; degenerate, my four horns that
can't attack. The sides of my mouth are now my hands. They
press the earth and suck it hard. Ah, but I know my shell is
beautiful, and high, and glazed, and shining. I know it well,
although I have not seen it. Its curled white lip is of the finest
enamel. Inside, it is as smooth as silk, and I, I fill it to perfection.

My wide wake shines, now it is growing dark. I leave a lovely
opalescent ribbon: I know this.

But O! I am too big. I feel it. Pity me.

If and when I reach the rock, I shall go into a certain crack
there for the night. The waterfall below will vibrate through
my shell and body all night long. In that steady pulsing I can
rest. All night I shall be like a sleeping ear.

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!


There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!


There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!


Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.


Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and greaseimpregnated
wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.


Some comic books provide
the only note of color-of
certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.


Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)


Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO


to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

Chemin De Fer

Alone on the railroad track
I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
or maybe too far apart.


The scenery was impoverished:
scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
I saw the little pond


where the dirty old hermit lives,
lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
lucidly year after year.


The hermit shot off his shot-gun
and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
The pet hen went chook-chook.


"Love should be put into action!"
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
tried and tried to confirm it.

Chemin De Fer

Alone on the railroad track
I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
or maybe too far apart.


The scenery was impoverished:
scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
I saw the little pond


where the dirty old hermit lives,
lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
lucidly year after year.


The hermit shot off his shot-gun
and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
The pet hen went chook-chook.


"Love should be put into action!"
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
tried and tried to confirm it.

Chemin De Fer

Alone on the railroad track
I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
or maybe too far apart.


The scenery was impoverished:
scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
I saw the little pond


where the dirty old hermit lives,
lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
lucidly year after year.


The hermit shot off his shot-gun
and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
The pet hen went chook-chook.


"Love should be put into action!"
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
tried and tried to confirm it.

Conversation


The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.


Uninnocent, these conversations start,
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to.
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense;


until a name
and all its connotation are the same.

Conversation


The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions.
And then it stops and undertakes to answer
in the same tone of voice.
No one could tell the difference.


Uninnocent, these conversations start,
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to.
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense;


until a name
and all its connotation are the same.

Anaphora


Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
such white-gold skies our eyes
first open on, such brilliant walls
that for a moment we wonder
"Where is the music coming from, the energy?
The day was meant for what ineffable creature
we must have missed?" Oh promptly he
appears and takes his earthly nature

instantly, instantly falls
victim of long intrigue,
assuming memory and mortal
mortal fatigue.


More slowly falling into sight
and showering into stippled faces,
darkening, condensing all his light;
in spite of all the dreaming
squandered upon him with that look,
suffers our uses and abuses,
sinks through the drift of bodies,
sinks through the drift of vlasses
to evening to the beggar in the park
who, weary, without lamp or book

prepares stupendous studies:
the fiery event
of every day in endless
endless assent.

A Prodigal

The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare-even
to the sow that always ate her young-till,
sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.


But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern--like the sun, going away-laid
on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make up his mind to go home.