Soul

I hang limp on the Creator's pen

I hang limp on the Creator's pen
Like a large drop of lilac gloss-paint.


Underneath are dykes' secrets; the air
From the railways is sodden and sticky,
Of the fumes of coal and night fires reeking.
But the moment night kills sunset's glare,
It turns pink itself, tinged with far flares,
And the fence stands stiff, paradox-stricken.


It keeps muttering: stop it till dawn.
Let the dry whiting finally settle.
Hard as nails is the worm-eaten ground,
And the echo's as keen as a skittle.


Warm spring wind, spots of cheviot and mud,
Early naileries' hoots faraway,
On the grater of cobble-stones road,
As on radishes lavishly sprayed,
Tears stand out clearly at break of day.


Like an acrid drop of thick lead paint,
I hang on to the Creator's pen.

Hops


Beneath the willow wound round with ivy
we take cover from the worst
of the storm, with a greatcoat round
our shoulders and my hands around your waist.


I've got it wrong. That isn't ivy
entwined in the bushes round
the wood, but hops. You intoxicate me!
Let's spread the greatcoat on the ground.

Humble home. But rum, and charcoal...

Humble home. But rum, and charcoal
Grog of sketches on the wall,
And the cell becomes a mansion,
And the garret is a hall.


No more waves of housecoats: questions,
Even footsteps disappear;
Glassy mica fills the latticed
Work-encompassed vault of air.


Voice, commanding as a levy,
Does not leave a thing immune,
Smelting, fusing… In his gullet
Flows the tin of molten spoons.


What is fame for him, and glory,
Name, position in the world,
When the sudden breath of fusion
Blends his words into the Word?


He will burn for it his chattels,
Friendship, reason, daily round.
On his desk-a glass, unfinished,
World forgotten, clock unwound.


Clustered stanzas change like seething
Wax at fortune-telling times.
He will bless the sleeping children
With the steam of molten rhymes.

Hamlet


The murmurs ebb; onto the stage I enter.
I am trying, standing in the door,
To discover in the distant echoes
What the coming years may hold in store.


The nocturnal darkness with a thousand
Binoculars is focused onto me.
Take away this cup, O Abba Father,
Everything is possible to Thee.


I am fond of this Thy stubborn project,
And to play my part I am content.
But another drama is in progress,
And, this once, O let me be exempt.


But the plan of action is determined,
And the end irrevocably sealed.
I am alone; all round me drowns in falsehood:
Life is not a walk across a field.

Fairy Tale

Once, in times forgotten,
In a fairy place,
Through the steppe, a rider
Made his way apace.


While he sped to battle,
Nearing from the dim
Distance, a dark forest
Rose ahead of him.


Something kept repeating,
Seemed his heart to graze:
Tighten up the saddle,
Fear the watering-place.


But he did not listen.
Heeding but his will,
At full speed he bounded
Up the wooded hill;


Rode into a valley,
Turning from the mound,
Galloped through a meadow,
Skirted higher ground;


Reached a gloomy hollow,
Found a trail to trace
Down the woodland pathway
To the watering-place.


Deaf to voice of warning,
And without remorse,
Down the slope, the rider
Led his thirsty horse.


Where the stream grew shallow,
Winding through the glen,
Eerie flames lit up the
Entrance to a den.


Through thick clouds of crimson
Smoke above the spring,
An uncanny calling
Made the forest ring.


And the rider started,
And with peering eye
Urged his horse in answer
To the haunting cry.



Then he saw the dragon,
And he gripped his lance;
And his horse stood breathless
Fearing to advance.


Thrice around a maiden
Was the serpent wound;
Fire-breathing nostrils
Cast a glare around.


And the dragon's body
Moved his scaly neck,
At her shoulder snaking
Whiplike forth and back.


By that country's custom
Was a young and fair
Captive brought as ransom
To the dragon's lair.


This then was the tribute
That the people owed
To the worm-protection
For a poor abode.


Now the dragon hugged his
Victim in alarm,
And the coils grew tighter
Round her throat and arm.


Skyward looked the horseman
With imploring glance,
And for the impending
Fight he couched his lance.


Tightly closing eyelids.
Heights and cloudy spheres.
Rivers. Waters. Boulders.
Centuries and years.


Helmetless, the wounded
Lies, his life at stake.
With his hooves the charger
Tramples down the snake.


On the sand, together-
Dragon, steed, and lance;
In a swoon the rider,



The maiden-in a trance.


Blue the sky; soft breezes
Tender noon caress.
Who is she? A lady?
Peasant girl? Princess?


Now in joyous wonder
Cannot cease to weep;
Now again abandoned
To unending sleep.


Now, his strength returning,
Opens up his eyes;
Now anew the wounded
Limp and listless lies.


But their hearts are beating.
Waves surge up, die down;
Carry them, and waken,
And in slumber drown.


Tightly closing eyelids.
Heights and cloudy spheres.
Rivers. Waters. Boulders.
Centuries and years.

Feasts


I drink the gall of skies in autumn, tuberoses'
Sweet bitterness in your betrayals burning stream;
I drink the gall of nights, of crowded parties' noises,
Of sobbing virgin verse, and of a throbbing dream.


We fiends of studious fight a battle everlasting
Against our daily bread - can't stand the sober mood.
The troubled wind of nights is merely a toastmaster
Whose toasts, as like as not, will do no one much good.


Heredity and death are our guests at table.
A quiet dawn will paint bright-red the tops of trees.
An anapaest, like mice, will on the bread-plate scrabble,
And Cinderella will rush in to change her dress.


The floors have all been swept, and everything is dainty,
And like a child's sweet kiss, breathes quietly my verse,
And Cinderella flees-by cab on days of plenty,
And on shanks' pony when the last small coin is lost.

Definition of Creative Art

With shirt wide open at the collar,
Maned as Beethoven's bust, it stands;
Our conscience, dreams, the night and love,
Are as chessmen covered by its hands.


And one black king upon the board:
In sadness and in rage, forthright
It brings the day of doom.-Against
The pawn it brings the mounted knight.


In gardens where from icy spheres
The stars lean tender, linger near,
Tristan still sings, like a nightingale
On Isolde's vine, with trembling fear.


The gardens, ponds, and fences, made pure
By burning tears, and the whole great span,
Creation-are only burst of passion
Hoarded in the hearts of men.

Beloved, with the spent and sickly fumes...

Beloved, with the spent and sickly fumes
Of rumour's cinders all the air is filled,
But you are the engrossing lexicon
Of fame mysterious and unrevealed,


And fame it is the soil's strong pull.
Would that I more erect were sprung!
But even so I shall be called
The native son of my own native tongue.


The poets' age no longer sets their rhyme,
Now, in the sweep of country plots and roads,
Lermontov is rhymed with summertime,
And Pushkin rhymes with geese and snow.


And my wish is that when we die,
Our circle closed, and hence depart,
We shall be set in closer rhyme
Than binds the auricle and the heart.


And may our harmony unified
Some listener's muffled ear caress
With all that we do now imbibe,
And shall draw in through mouths of grass.

August


This was its promise, held to faithfully:
The early morning sun came in this way
Until the angle of its saffron beam
Between the curtains and the sofa lay,


And with its ochre heat it spread across
The village houses, and the nearby wood,
Upon my bed and on my dampened pillow
And to the corner where the bookcase stood.


Then I recalled the reason why my pillow
Had been so dampened by those tears that fellI'd
dreamt I saw you coming one by one
Across the wood to wish me your farewell.


You came in ones and twos, a straggling crowd;
Then suddenly someone mentioned a word:
It was the sixth of August, by Old Style,
And the Transfiguration of Our Lord.


For from Mount Tabor usually this day
There comes a light without a flame to shine,
And autumn draws all eyes upon itself
As clear and unmistaken as a sign.


But you came forward through the tiny, stripped,
The pauperly and trembling alder grove,
Into the graveyard's coppice, russet-red,
Which, like stamped gingerbread, lay there and glowed.


And with the silence of those high treetops
Was neighbour only the imposing sky
And in the echoed crowing of the cocks
The distances and distances rang by:


There in the churchyard underneath the trees,
Like some surveyor from the government
Death gazed on my pale face to estimate
How large a grave would suit my measurement.


All those who stood there could distinctly hear
A quiet voice emerge from where I lay:
The voice was mine, my past; prophetic words
That sounded now, unsullied by decay:


'Farewell, wonder of azure and of gold
Surrounding the Transfiguration's power:
Assuage now with a woman's last caress
The bitterness of my predestined hour!


'Farewell timeless expanse of passing years!
Farewell, woman who flung your challenge steeled



Against the abyss of humiliations:
For it is I who am your battlefield!


'Farewell, you span of open wings outspread,
The voluntary obstinacy of flight,
O figure of the world revealed in speech,
Creative genius, wonder-working might!'

A Walts With a Tear in It

Ah, how I love it in these first few days,
Fresh from the forest and out of the snow,
Awkwardness obvious still in every bough,
When every silver thread lazily sways
And every cone begins slowly to glow
In candlelight—and the white sheet below
Hides its sore stump from our eyes.


It will not bat an eye if you heap gold
And jewels on it-this shyest of fays
In blue enamel and tinfoil enfolded
Creeps in your heart of hearts—and there it stays.
Ah, how I love it all in these first days,
All golden finery and silver shades!


All in the making-stars, flags, lanterns, flares,
There are no chocolates yet in bonbonnieres.
Even the candles are no candles—they
Look more like dull sticks of makeup by day.
This is an actress still lighting stage fright
In the tumult of her benefit night.
Ah, how I love her on this opening day,
Flushed in the coulisses before the play!


Apples to appletrees, and kicks to firtrees.
Only not this one—no kicks for the beauty.
She has a different purpose and duty.
She's the select one, receiver of favours.
Her evening party will go on forever.
Others may fear proverb s-this one does not.


Her fate is only a few firtrees' lot.
Golden and fiery, she will soar high,
Like an old prophet ascending the sky.


Ah, how I love it all in these first days,
When all the world chats and fusses and plays!

Stars were racing; waves were washing headlands.
Salt went blind, and tears were slowly drying.
Darkened were the bedrooms; thoughts were racing,
And the Sphinx was listening to the desert.


Candles swam. It seemed that the Colossus'
Blood grew cold; upon his lips was spreading
The blue shadow smile of the Sahara.
With the turning tide the night was waning.


Sea-breeze from Morocco touched the water.
Simooms blew. In snowdrifts snored Archangel.
Candles swam; the rough draft of 'The Prophet'
Slowly dried, and dawn broke on the Ganges


Мчались
звезды. В
море
мылись
мысы.
Слепла
соль. И
слезы
высыхали.
Были темны
спальни.
Мчались
мысли,
И
прислушивk
2;лся сфинкс
к Сахаре.

Плыли
свечи. И
казалось,
стынет
Кровь
колосса.
Заплывали
губы
Голубой
улыбкою
пустыни.
В час
отлива
ночь пошла
на убыль.

Море


тронул
ветерок с
Марокко.
Шел самум.
Храпел в
снегах
Архангельl
9;к.
Плыли
свечи.
Черновик
'Пророка'
Просыхал, и
брезжил
день на
Ганге.

‘Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,’

Like a brazier’s bronze cinders,
the sleepy garden’s beetles flowing.
Level with me, and my candle,
a flowering world is hanging.

As if into unprecedented faith,
I cross into this night,
where the poplar’s beaten grey
veils the moon’s rim from sight.

Where the pond’s an open secret,
where apple-trees whisper of waves,
where the garden hanging on piles,
holds the sky before its face.

‘February. Take ink and weep,’

February. Take ink and weep,
write February as you’re sobbing,
while black Spring burns deep
through the slush and throbbing.

Take a cab. For a clutch of copecks,
through bell-towers’ and wheel noise,
go where the rain-storm’s din breaks,
greater than crying or ink employs.

Where rooks in thousands falling,
like charred pears from the skies,
drop down into puddles, bringing
cold grief to the depths of eyes.

Below, the black shows through,
and the wind’s furrowed with cries:
the more freely, the more truly
then, sobbing verse is realised.

The Only Day In Existence

The early sun is so pale and shadowy,
I could be looking up at a ghost
in the shape of a window,
a tall, rectangular spirit
looking down at me in bed,
about to demand that I avenge
the murder of my father.
But the morning light is only the first line
in the play of this day-the
only day in existence-the
opening chord of its long song,
or think of what is permeating
the thin bedroom curtains


as the beginning of a lecture
I will listen to until it is dark,
a curious student in a V-neck sweater,
angled into the wooden chair of his life,
ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,
quiet as a goldfish in winter,
serious as a compass at sea,
eager to absorb whatever lesson
this damp, overcast Tuesday
has to teach me,
here in the spacious classroom of the world
with its long walls of glass,
its heavy, low-hung ceiling.

The Iron Bridge

I am standing on a disused iron bridge
that was erected in 1902,
according to the iron plaque bolted into a beam,
the year my mother turned one.
Imagine--a mother in her infancy,
and she was a Canadian infant at that,
one of the great infants of the province of Ontario.


But here I am leaning on the rusted railing
looking at the water below,
which is flat and reflective this morning,
sky-blue and streaked with high clouds,
and the more I look at the water,
which is like a talking picture,
the more I think of 1902
when workmen in shirts and caps
riveted this iron bridge together
across a thin channel joining two lakes
where wildflowers blow along the shore now
and pairs of swans float in the leafy coves.


1902--my mother was so tiny
she could have fit into one of those oval
baskets for holding apples,
which her mother could have lined with a soft cloth
and placed on the kitchen table
so she could keep an eye on infant Katherine
while she scrubbed potatoes or shelled a bag of peas,


the way I am keeping an eye on that cormorant
who just broke the glassy surface
and is moving away from me and the iron bridge,
swiveling his curious head,
slipping out to where the sun rakes the water
and filters through the trees that crowd the shore.


And now he dives,
disappears below the surface,
and while I wait for him to pop up,
I picture him flying underwater with his strange wings,


as I picture you, my tiny mother,
who disappeared last year,
flying somewhere with your strange wings,
your wide eyes, and your heavy wet dress,
kicking deeper down into a lake
with no end or name, some boundless province of water.

Neither Snow

When all of a sudden the city air filled with snow,
the distinguishable flakes
blowing sideways,
looked like krill
fleeing the maw of an advancing whale.


At least they looked that way to me
from the taxi window,
and since I happened to be sitting
that fading Sunday afternoon
in the very center of the universe,
who was in a better position
to say what looked like what,
which thing resembled some other?


Yes, it was a run of white plankton
borne down the Avenue of the Americas
in the stream of the wind,
phosphorescent against the weighty buildings.


Which made the taxi itself,
yellow and slow-moving,
a kind of undersea creature,
I thought as I wiped the fog from the glass,


and me one of its protruding eyes,
an eye on a stem
swiveling this way and that
monitoring one side of its world,
observing tons of water
tons of people
colored signs and lights
and now a wildly blowing race of snow.

Nostalgia


Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.


Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.


The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.


I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.


Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.


As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

Man Listening To Disc

This is not bad -ambling
along 44th Street
with Sonny Rollins for company,
his music flowing through the soft calipers
of these earphones,


as if he were right beside me
on this clear day in March,
the pavement sparkling with sunlight,
pigeons fluttering off the curb,
nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.


In fact, I would say
my delight at being suffused
with phrases from his saxophone -some
like honey, some like vinegar -is
surpassed only by my gratitude


to Tommy Potter for taking the time
to join us on this breezy afternoon
with his most unwieldy bass
and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor
who is somehow managing to navigate


this crowd with his cumbersome drums.
And I bow deeply to Thelonious Monk
for figuring out a way
to motorize -- or whatever -- his huge piano
so he could be with us today.


This music is loud yet so confidential.
I cannot help feeling even more
like the center of the universe
than usual as I walk along to a rapid
little version of "The Way You Look Tonight,"


and all I can say to my fellow pedestrians,
to the woman in the white sweater,
the man in the tan raincoat and the heavy glasses,
who mistake themselves for the center of the universe -all
I can say is watch your step,


because the five of us, instruments and all,
are about to angle over
to the south side of the street
and then, in our own tightly knit way,
turn the corner at Sixth Avenue.


And if any of you are curious
about where this aggregation,
this whole battery-powered crew,
is headed, let us just say



that the real center of the universe,


the only true point of view,
is full of hope that he,
the hub of the cosmos
with his hair blown sideways,
will eventually make it all the way downtown.

Litany


You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.


However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.


It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.


And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.


It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.


I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.


I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Invention


Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,


and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look


like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.


But eventually -by
the end of the month,
I reckon -


it will waste away
to nothing,
nothing but stars in the sky,


and I will have a few nights
to myself,
a little time to rest my jittery pen.

I Go Back To The House For A Book

I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at
the doctor's office, and while I am inside, running the finger of inquisition along a shelf,
another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book heads out on his
own, rolls down the driveway, and swings left toward town, a ghost in his ghost car,
another knot in the string of time, a good three minutes ahead of me — a spacing
that will now continue for the rest of my life.

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?


It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside-leaves
gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.


But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.


No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles-each
a different height-are
singing in perfect harmony.


So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt-frog
at the edge of a pond-and
my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.

For Bartleby The Scrivener

"Every time we get a big gale around here
some people just refuse to batten down."

we estimate that


ice skating into a sixty
mile an hour wind, fully exerting
the legs and swinging arms


you will be pushed backward
an inch every twenty minutes.


in a few days, depending on
the size of the lake,
the backs of your skates
will touch land.


you will then fall on your ass
and be blown into the forest.


if you gather enough speed
by flapping your arms
and keeping your skates pointed


you will catch up to other
flying people who refused to batten down.
you will exchange knowing waves
as you ride the great wind north.

Fishing On The Susquehanna In July

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure -- if it is a pleasure -of
fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one -a
painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table -trying
to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.