Others

Beauty
I am as lovely as a dream in stone;
My breast on which each finds his death in turn
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As everlasting clay, and as taciturn.
Swan-white of heart, as sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movement that disturbs my pose;
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.
Before my monumental attitudes,
Taken from the proudest plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,
For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

Beauty
I am as lovely as a dream in stone;
My breast on which each finds his death in turn
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As everlasting clay, and as taciturn.
Swan-white of heart, as sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movement that disturbs my pose;
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.
Before my monumental attitudes,
Taken from the proudest plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,
For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

Be Drunk
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

Anywhere Out of the World
This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds;
one man would like to
suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health
beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not, and this
question of removal is one
which I discuss incessantly with my soul.
'Tell me, my soul, poor chilled soul, what do you think of going to live in Lisbon? It
must be warm there, and there
you would invigorate yourself like a lizard. This city is on the sea-shore; they say that
it is built of marble
and that the people there have such a hatred of vegetation that they uproot all the
trees. There you have a landscape
that corresponds to your taste! a landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to
reflect them!'
My soul does not reply.
'Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show of movement, would you like
to settle in Holland,
that beatifying country? Perhaps you would find some diversion in that land whose
image you have so often admired
in the art galleries. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts,
and ships moored at the foot of
houses?'
My soul remains silent.
'Perhaps Batavia attracts you more? There we should find, amongst other things, the
spirit of Europe
married to tropical beauty.'
Not a word. Could my soul be dead?
'Is it then that you have reached such a degree of lethargy that you acquiesce in your
sickness? If so, let us
flee to lands that are analogues of death. I see how it is, poor soul! We shall pack our
trunks for Tornio. Let us go
farther still to the extreme end of the Baltic; or farther still from life, if that is possible;
let us settle at the Pole. There
the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness
suppresses variety and
increases monotony, that half-nothingness. There we shall be able to take long baths
of darkness, while for our
amusement the aurora borealis shall send us its rose-coloured rays that are like the
reflection of Hell's own
fireworks!'
At last my soul explodes, and wisely cries out to me: 'No matter where! No matter
where! As long as it's out
of the world!'

Afternoon Song
Though your wicked eyebrows call
Your nature into question
(Unangelic's their suggestion,
Witch whose eyes enthrall)
I adore you still
O foolish terrible emotion
Kneeling in devotion
As a priest to his idol will.
Your undone braids conceal
Desert, forest scents,
In your exotic countenance
Lie secrets unrevealed.
Over your flesh perfume drifts
Like incense 'round a censor,
Tantalizing dispenser
Of evening's ardent gifts.
No Philtres could compete
With your potent idleness:
You've mastered the caress
That raises dead me to their feet.
Your hips themselves are romanced
By your back and by your breasts:
By your languid dalliance.
Now and then, your appetite's
Uncontrolled, unassuaged:
Mysteriously enraged,
You kiss me and you bite.
Dark one, I am torn
By your savage ways,
Then, soft as the moon, your gaze
Sees my tortured heart reborn.
Beneath your satin shoe,
Beneath your charming silken foot.
My greatest joy I put
My genius and destiny, too.
You bring my spirit back,
Bringer of the light.
Exploding color in the night
Of my Siberia so black.

Afternoon Song
Though your wicked eyebrows call
Your nature into question
(Unangelic's their suggestion,
Witch whose eyes enthrall)
I adore you still
O foolish terrible emotion
Kneeling in devotion
As a priest to his idol will.
Your undone braids conceal
Desert, forest scents,
In your exotic countenance
Lie secrets unrevealed.
Over your flesh perfume drifts
Like incense 'round a censor,
Tantalizing dispenser
Of evening's ardent gifts.
No Philtres could compete
With your potent idleness:
You've mastered the caress
That raises dead me to their feet.
Your hips themselves are romanced
By your back and by your breasts:
By your languid dalliance.
Now and then, your appetite's
Uncontrolled, unassuaged:
Mysteriously enraged,
You kiss me and you bite.
Dark one, I am torn
By your savage ways,
Then, soft as the moon, your gaze
Sees my tortured heart reborn.
Beneath your satin shoe,
Beneath your charming silken foot.
My greatest joy I put
My genius and destiny, too.
You bring my spirit back,
Bringer of the light.
Exploding color in the night
Of my Siberia so black.

Jimmy Wimbleton listened a first week in June. 
Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois
Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs.
Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke,
Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles.
They made his head ache with riddles of music.
They rested his head with beaten cadence.
Jimmy Wimbledon listened.

Who Am I?

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading "Keep Off."
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.

Who Am I?

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading "Keep Off."
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.

Who Am I?

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading "Keep Off."
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.


Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Under A Hat Rim

While the hum and the hurry
Of passing footfalls
Beat in my ear like the restless surf
Of a wind-blown sea,
A soul came to me
Out of the look on a face.


Eyes like a lake


Where a storm-wind roams


Caught me from under


The rim of a hat.
I thought of a midsea wreck
and bruised fingers clinging
to a broken state-room door.

Two Neighbors

Faces of two eternities keep looking at me.


One is Omar Khayam and the red stuff
wherein men forget yesterday and to-morrow
and remember only the voices and songs,
the stories, newspapers and fights of today.


One is Louis Cornaro and a slim trick
of slow, short meals across slow, short years,
letting Death open the door only in slow, short inches.


I have a neighbor who swears by Omar.
I have a neighbor who swears by Cornaro.
Both are happy.
Faces of two eternities keep looking at me.
Let them look.

Troths


Yellow dust on a bumble
bee's wing,
Grey lights in a woman's
asking eyes,
Red ruins in the changing
sunset embers:
I take you and pile high
the memories.
Death will break her claws
on some I keep.

To A Dead Man

Over the dead line we have called to you
To come across with a word to us,
Some beaten whisper of what happens
Where you are over the dead line
Deaf to our calls and voiceless.


The flickering shadows have not answered
Nor your lips sent a signal
Whether love talks and roses grow
And the sun breaks at morning
Splattering the sea with crimson.

They All Want to Play Hamlet

They all want to play Hamlet.
They have not exactly seen their fathers killed
Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill,
Nor an Ophelia lying with dust gagging the heart,
Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders,
Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers--O flowers, flowers slung
by a dancing girl--in the saddest play the inkfish, Shakespeare ever wrote;
Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad like all actors are sad and to stand by
an open grave with a joker's skull in the hand and then to say over slow and over slow
wise, keen, beautiful words asking the heart that's breaking, breaking,
This is something that calls and calls to their blood.
They are acting when they talk about it and they know it is acting to be particular
about it and yet: They all want to play Hamlet.

They All Want to Play Hamlet

They all want to play Hamlet.
They have not exactly seen their fathers killed
Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill,
Nor an Ophelia lying with dust gagging the heart,
Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders,
Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers--O flowers, flowers slung
by a dancing girl--in the saddest play the inkfish, Shakespeare ever wrote;
Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad like all actors are sad and to stand by
an open grave with a joker's skull in the hand and then to say over slow and over slow
wise, keen, beautiful words asking the heart that's breaking, breaking,
This is something that calls and calls to their blood.
They are acting when they talk about it and they know it is acting to be particular
about it and yet: They all want to play Hamlet.

The Answer

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
For the answer is:
Silence.


In the republic
Of the winking stars
and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there the answer
is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether
it is Sunday or any other day of
the week,


Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.


Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
out of the mulch
and mold
crawl
into a dusk
of velvet?
blur of yellow?


Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,
the future,
working.

The Answer

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
For the answer is:
Silence.


In the republic
Of the winking stars
and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there the answer
is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether
it is Sunday or any other day of
the week,


Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.


Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
out of the mulch
and mold
crawl
into a dusk
of velvet?
blur of yellow?


Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,
the future,
working.

Style


Style--go ahead talking about style.


You can tell where a man gets his style just
as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs
or Ty Cobb his batting eye.

Go on talking.


Only don't take my style away.
It's my face.
Maybe no good

but anyway, my face.
I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,
I know why I want to keep it.


Kill my style
and you break Pavlowa's legs,
and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye.

Style


Style--go ahead talking about style.


You can tell where a man gets his style just
as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs
or Ty Cobb his batting eye.

Go on talking.


Only don't take my style away.
It's my face.
Maybe no good

but anyway, my face.
I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,
I know why I want to keep it.


Kill my style
and you break Pavlowa's legs,
and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye.

Skyscraper


By day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and
has a soul.


Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into
it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are
poured out again back to the streets, prairies and
valleys.


It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and
out all day that give the building a soul of dreams
and thoughts and memories.


(Dumped in the sea or fixed in a desert, who would care
for the building or speak its name or ask a policeman
the way to it?)


Elevators slide on their cables and tubes catch letters and
parcels and iron pipes carry gas and water in and
sewage out.


Wires climb with secrets, carry light and carry words,
and tell terrors and profits and loves--curses of men
grappling plans of business and questions of women
in plots of love.


Hour by hour the caissons reach down to the rock of the
earth and hold the building to a turning planet.


Hour by hour the girders play as ribs and reach out and
hold together the stone walls and floors.


Hour by hour the hand of the mason and the stuff of the
mortar clinch the pieces and parts to the shape an
architect voted.


Hour by hour the sun and the rain, the air and the rust,
and the press of time running into centuries, play
on the building inside and out and use it.


Men who sunk the pilings and mixed the mortar are laid
in graves where the wind whistles a wild song
without words


And so are men who strung the wires and fixed the pipes
and tubes and those who saw it rise floor by floor.


Souls of them all are here, even the hod carrier begging
at back doors hundreds of miles away and the bricklayer
who went to state's prison for shooting another
man while drunk.


(One man fell from a girder and broke his neck at the
end of a straight plunge--he is here--his soul has
gone into the stones of the building.)


On the office doors from tier to tier--hundreds of names
and each name standing for a face written across
with a dead child, a passionate lover, a driving
ambition for a million dollar business or a lobster's
ease of life.



Behind the signs on the doors they work and the walls
tell nothing from room to room.


Ten-dollar-a-week stenographers take letters from
corporation officers, lawyers, efficiency engineers,
and tons of letters go bundled from the building to all
ends of the earth.


Smiles and tears of each office girl go into the soul of
the building just the same as the master-men who
rule the building.


Hands of clocks turn to noon hours and each floor
empties its men and women who go away and eat
and come back to work.


Toward the end of the afternoon all work slackens and
all jobs go slower as the people feel day closing on
them.


One by one the floors are emptied. . . The uniformed
elevator men are gone. Pails clang. . . Scrubbers
work, talking in foreign tongues. Broom and water
and mop clean from the floors human dust and spit,
and machine grime of the day.


Spelled in electric fire on the roof are words telling
miles of houses and people where to buy a thing for
money. The sign speaks till midnight.


Darkness on the hallways. Voices echo. Silence
holds. . . Watchmen walk slow from floor to floor
and try the doors. Revolvers bulge from their hip
pockets. . . Steel safes stand in corners. Money
is stacked in them.


A young watchman leans at a window and sees the lights
of barges butting their way across a harbor, nets of
red and white lanterns in a railroad yard, and a span
of glooms splashed with lines of white and blurs of
crosses and clusters over the sleeping city.


By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars
and has a soul.

Sixteen Months

On the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams.
It is a thin spiral of blue smoke,
A morning campfire at a mountain lake.


On the lips of the child Janet,
Wisps of haze on ten miles of corn,
Young light blue calls to young light gold of morning.

Sixteen Months

On the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams.
It is a thin spiral of blue smoke,
A morning campfire at a mountain lake.


On the lips of the child Janet,
Wisps of haze on ten miles of corn,
Young light blue calls to young light gold of morning.