Someone, I tell you, will remember us: the sound of your words, the shadow of my hand against your arm, the angle of your smile, the way we reached out to each other upon our parting.
I men are blind but gods see every sin
when swallow builds its house
coil your ropes
drag your anchors from their nests
let your ship’s wings spread to the wind
…dolphin will feed in the forest deer will forage in the sea…
life,
for the fortunate is brief
for the unfortunate one night can last forever
V enjoy your possessions as if you die tomorrow use them as if you live forever
VI from bed or from road the path to endless sleep is straight
At twenty-four Glaukos is as experienced as he wants to be.
Last night, a woman told him, there is more.
Her advice means little. He is skillful where she is worldly.
Ignorance will serve him as cosmetics serve her.
Trim your beard, Antínoös, the moon has caught you once too often with the scullery maid & your wife is whipping arsenic into the pastry.
By choosing those who lead you you’ve invited a tide of blood.
There is one consolation.
When time comes you’ll rest with them side by side on the threshing floor in a common, crimson pool.
Expect no quarter. Cornered, give no quarter in return.
If I see any god at all, I see a god in him Who sits across the room from you— eyes & audits
The sweet derision. Misering all— Pluck out my senses, Lesbia, at once. Nothing remains to me. My tongue dies
In my mouth; my bones splinter
At your glance; your laughter
Sings in my ears, quenching the twin flames of night.
To whom shall I give The freshly inked pages of my book, Cornelius, to you? No, to no one. Let the mice gnaw at the edges & cockroaches nest in the space Behind the sewn & folded signatures, For the world sets no store On words I’ve placed there In strict homage to secret thought.
A history of the world In a single volume? If only you held your ambition As well as your wine.
Delicate passerine, Calm in sinew, tenacious, Dead, still bird, Twice-imprisoned sparrow, More precious than the eyes That watched you, Caught by what No creature can escape, You rouge my lady’s Water-laden eyes.
Because of a wind in the leaves I left my home forever. For the sake of a rustling wing I chanced an endless road. Suns may rise & set. Once brief light flees, Nothing’s left but perpetual sleep.
I defended old men’s economies. I watched my own worth dwindle. Alive, I have nothing left to lose, except my sons.
Before sea, before overhanging sky, before earth Everything was one nature turning in its sphere. Call it chaos. A rude, indigestible mass, Nothing at all at bottom, but an inert congestion Within which move ill-joined discordant seeds of things. Yet, no bright sun shines upon the world. The moon’s waxing crescents don’t grow. No ponderous earth hangs in suffusing air, the sea’s arms Are not stretched along the margins of the land. Though there is dirt, water, & wind, Earth is unstable, waves, arrhythmic. Air, unillumined. Nothing maintains its form. All objects are at odds & within one body: Cold fights with hot, moist with dry, soft with hard & weightless things contend with weighty.
Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque moles nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem non bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.
nullus adhuc mundo praebebat lumina Titan, nec nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe, nec circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus ponderibus librata suis, nec bracchia longo margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite; utque erat et tellus illic et pontus et aer, sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, lucis egens aer; nulli sua forma manebat, obstabatque aliis aliud, quia corpore in uno frigida pugnabant calidis, umentia siccis, mollia cum duris, sine pondere, habentia pondus.
MS. OF ST. AUGUSTINE AT CANTERBURY # 155 Mediaeval Latin Lyrics by Helen Waddell
Wind blows lightly & sun grows warm. Earth unveils her breasts
To reveal her sweetest charms.
Imperial spring blooms
Into his purple garb
Scattering flowers
As each branch sprouts green.
Four-footed beasts make their dens & sweet birds their nests. Amid the greening wood A spell of joy is cast.
With my eyes I see. With my ears I hear. So much rejoicing Becomes so much sighing.
When I am by myself
As all this occurs, I pale. Even as I lift my head up I see & hear nothing at all.
You at least, for Spring’s sake, Observe & contemplate These flowers, grasses & leaves. As for me, my spirit dies on the vine.
Levis exsurgit Zephyrus, et sol procedit tepidus, iam terra sinus aperit, dulcore suo diffluit.
Ver purpuratum exiit, ornatus suos induit: aspergit terram floribus, ligna silvarum frondibus.
Struunt lustra quadrupedes, et dulces nidos volucres, inter ligna florentia sua decantant gaudia.
Quod oculis dum video et auribus dum audio, heu, pro tantis gaudiis tantis inflor suspiriis.
Cum mihi sola sedeo et hec revolvens palleo, si forte caput sublevo, nee audio nee video.
Tu saltim, Veris gratia, exaudi et considera frondes, flores ct gramine, nam mea languet anima.
Star child, suffer thunderbolt & lightning flash.
Drink icy water from memory’s spring, where cypress is.
Pass the vigilant to kneel at Persephone’s feet.
Slake your thirst. Unweave the net that caught your soul & forced you to pay a penalty of breath. Rise to the island of the blesséd. Become the god you were born to be.
Drown in heaven’s milk. Sit with the pure who have no need of toys to lure innocents to their dismemberment.
Zero hour misses you & your little oracular crow too.
Heart speaks to heart As we come or as we part.
Certain because impossible— believe Because it’s absurd to believe—
Peace because there’s war— Birth’s disgrace— divinity’s door.
Desire, distinguished in heaven, Expelled becomes hell’s leaven.
Contemplate depravity. Possess your humanity
Or be deprived of it In Satan’s pit.
all words are writ in sand
By burning & then by burning & then again by burning you’ll make the blade of the body strong.
Don’t drown In the lake of the heart.
Rise into The silence of the sun.
Embrace The emptiness within.
One life ends. Another will begin.
Guilt Becomes the sin.
- after François Villon
Where, tell me where, in what land, Is Flora, the fair Roman
Where is Archipiades, or Thais, her twin cousin. Where is Echo, answering the streams & the pools when they called, Echo, Whose beauty was inhuman? Where, where
Are the snows of the absent seasons?
Where is the wise Heloise
For whom Abelard was cut & tonsured at San Denis?
Likewise, where is the queen
At whose word Buridan was sewn In a sack & thrown in the Siene? Where, where
Are the snows of the absent seasons?
The queen as white as a lily
Who sang with the voice of a siren?
Roberta, her feet swollen, Beatrice, Alice, Arembourg who held Maine, the good Joan Of Lorraine, whom the flames consumed at Rouen, Where are they, where, Virgin, Sovereign? Where, where
Are the snows of the absent seasons?
Prince, ask not in a week
Where they are, nor in a year, Only these lines remain: Where, Where are the snows, The snows of the absent seasons?
-Who’s there? -Me. –Who?
-Your heart caught in a fragile net. Having no force, no substance, no spirit I watch you retreat: A lone dog squatting in circles. -You. You here, why? -Your pleasure. -What does it matter? -Mine the displeasure. -Leave me in peace. –Why? -I’ll tell you.
-When? -On the day I quit my childhood.
-I say no more. -No more will please me.
-The time… -…to be a man of valor.
-After thirty years? The age of a mule? Is this then childhood? -No. –Am I the fool Who holds you? -By what? By the collar?
-You know nothing. –I know something: The fly in the milk. One is blank, the other Black. There is a difference, -Nothing else?
-Did you want to argue? -You’re lost. -No end to it. I put up my guard.
-I say no more. –No more will please me.
-Mine the grief, yours the ache, the madness. If you’d been born with slaver on your lip I’d not condemn the outcome. You take no heed. All is one to you: The gold, the dross. Your head is pebble hard. Finding pleasure In the fall, you can’t even face me. -Death beats the game.
-God, what comfort. What sage eloquence. I say no more. –No more will please me.
-Who bore this evil? -He came in the hour Of my misfortune. When Saturn shoved the burden Down my craw I took them up. –Fool, You’re his master; you act the slave. Turn to Solomon. See his words: The wise man controls The planets & their influence. -That I can’t believe. What I am, I will be. -Hollow talk. –My belief.
-I say no more. –No more will please me.
-Did you want to continue? -God give me the power. -There is the necessity… -Of what? -Of remorse, The bite of remorse. To read without end. -In what? -To read in the books of knowledge, Leaving the fools behind. –I’m well advised.
-Or the capture. –I well remember it.
-Don’t wait on the wheel of pleasure. I say no more. –No more will please me.
You who paid me
For my hours of service I remember you well. You will each be paid in kind When the articles of my will are read After my muscles have stiffened on my bones.
To Martin, who made me his stock clerk & spoke of our futures together at Savon Drugs, I give you back your Timex watches & your cartons of tampons. I give you back The plastic pumpkins I stacked all October The fire-proof Superman suits & each kernel of candy corn.
To Bill, who watched me box Knife-sharp sheets of aluminum siding Through long summer evenings, I give you the scars on my hands, My useless gloves & the steel-toed shoes Alcan Aluminum reimbursed me for. I give you Angel, the Jamaican, deported After you fired him for squatting low & sneaking a joint On the far side of machine number nine.
To Art, who taught me how to ring up A sale, I give you back all the unwanted books You’ve pushed & the twenty cents Below minimum wage you failed to pay me For every hour I worked for you. I give you back the keys to your store & the one copy of Leaves of Grass I pinched from your shelves.
To Jim, who taught me how to cheat, I give you all my lies.
To Leo, who started his career
As a floor walker at May’s &, Never having read a book straight through, Came to manage a bookshop on Eighth Street, I give you my ignorance. I give you back The fear your gruffness couldn’t cover.
To Lewis, failed actor, who For twenty years from four to midnight Made sure the stacks of bestsellers Were straight on the first floor Of Doubleday Bookstore, I give you Back your ambition, your last audition, All your un-played parts.
To Saul, failed father, Inconstant husband, entrepreneur, I give you the charm you think you have I exempt you from the death You can’t face. I give you An empire you won’t mismanage & a bottle of Irish whiskey That never runs dry.
I
Sparse words, Bare branches. Scattered leaves, Dry season.
I am someone Other than who I was
My little sleep Contains a brief dream. Unknown to me One minnow Slips the net. A vision I had thought My own swims out To greet the wide-eyed, Wakeful world:
There is no virtue Folly cannot overcome.
We follow In death’s footsteps
I’m lost In the black & white Of your eyes.
You who’ve been Both inside & outside, Basilisk or swan, Peacock or phoenix, I will learn to love Like you do To bring forth fire From snow; heat From the deep cold Of water & ice.
Death gives Such strength.
I value gold & topaz Less than one touch Of your hand.
Dressed, not burdened, With humanity Her ship has turned To a better port.
Stones & trees Move to her music.
No lightning Ever comes to chide her. No wind, to make her bend.
Colder than snow, paler, She holds my heart In her hands.
Flames freeze. Ice smolders. She makes the river Flow uphill.
Truth walks in darkness
Beyond ancient cunning: Everything changes.
after Holbein http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein.htm
The Chairwoman in her boardroom On her leather chair, Chiding her directors, will greet, Whether or not she wants to, The lord of bones.
The CEO on his jet, rushing To a meeting, rushes, as well, Into the cold grip of the harvester Of men who waits for those Who will not wait for others.
The COO, berating his subordinates, Stops mid-word when His devil whispers come & death’s bony arms envelop him In endless calm.
The CFO wakes from her dream Of balanced books & predictable returns To smile into the face of the skull Who haunts her through divisible days Down to a final sum of sun.
No matter how massively parallel, Mirrored or redundant his distributed Systems are, the CIO, on duty as always, Will meet with the disaster From which there is no recovery.
The EVP, in her corner office, Will be cornered by the collector Of souls when she least expects to be Even though no budgets are due & everyone’s forecasts are dead on.
The VP, smiling at his superior, Will frown when the grim dismemberer Remembers him & every project He prosecuted will become Someone else’s victory.
The Director may face the face Others fear but the fearless reaper Has less to lose no matter How brave the aspirant he’ll claim. Cowards’ or heroes,’ all bones grind to ash.
The Manager, working late, Will hesitate when she looks up From whatever’s overdue To see the collector, who brooks No delay, ask her for her final pay.
The mere Employee is not exempt From what all others owe. He shoulders This burden as he has his others & willingly obeys when the last Commander asks for what none can refuse.
The Secretary’s secret remains a mystery Even as the eater of souls devours What she’s withheld from colleagues, Bosses, friends & lovers. This hunter Knows nothing & reveals less.
The Janitor has no time to clean His last latrine or order his jumbled closet When the prince of disorder makes his claim On him. The most disciplined practitioner Surrenders just as the laziest must.
The Unemployed are spared most everything But this. Free from all meetings, At their leisure to wander where they will, They come when recalled By he who will employ us all.
The Homeless, with nothing They can call their own, with neither Roof nor reference to their name, Will find their home in him Whose embrace none can escape.
Cunning cut purse—
All wisdom is folly—
All facility—inept— Whatever he found Was stolen—whatever He lost—he kept— All whimsy is quotidian—
All magic is mundane— Whatever he steals is worthless— Whatever is missing—he gains— The world’s an un-shucked oyster— The street—a boundless sea— His victims are locked boxes— His tongue— the missing key—
Azure, a wolf rampant, argent Impaling argent, a maunch sable…
Rare to be liveried In the Yorkist collar: The collar of suns & roses, A lion of march pendant.
For Memling Had come to England, Or England, in retreat, Had come to Memling, & in England’s train had come John of the turncoat family.
Then Memling, Without, the passion Of insight, the fanaticism Of belief, Frozen, or gliding, With no sudden turnings, changes.
All the while A triptych was misdated: St Catherine before Donne, Not after. Now Memling, Park-like, estival With undulant roads, changes, Because Kidwelly, enfeoffed by Gaunt, Rose, with Glendower & Wales, In rebellion against their King— survived To commission a painting.
Follow the growth in the child. Follow the arm
From diagonal to curve. Follow the hand plucking the ring
To the hand in midair. Follow the eyes. Follow the lips.
Details but the details consume us. No man can say when he was born. He died at Bruges on 11 August 1494
Then held to be the most skillful & most excellent painter
Of the whole Christian world. This, later, to be denied by scholars. Only a student of van der Weydan, they said, Brilliant but paralyzed. A burger, a townsman, one of the wealthiest In Bruges, of whose citizens Only one hundred & forty were taxed higher than he.
Inside thin walls, where sorrow never goes, this woman waits for sun to spring.
Ascending the green stair she braids an intricate braid.
She sees, without seeing, on the sloping bank, a willow frond. She turns. Somewhere, in such a kingdom, a widow is taken to wife.
I
cuckoo call— moonlight seeps through bamboo
II
crow— bare branch— red leaves below
III
bitter ice in a thirsty rat’s mouth
IV
month end— no moon— millennial cedars— storm bedeviled
V over black water— a wild duck’s voice— almost white
I
If not in you— where?
II Satori deep in bone—
III
A yellow leaf is gold to a crying child— IV Long or short— each branch blossoms—
Listen! You with your eyes closed— Listen! In the world to come Sons will murder fathers— Fathers will bury sons— Mothers will wield swords Forged from stolen plowshares— Daughters will wage useless war— Wake up—sleeper—listen! Your nightmares are here to be heard Under this morning’s silent sun—
…by his fire
The hermit sits alone. --Wordsworth
I broke the silence of the sun To understand what the dark had done—
I listened to divisive words— Heard the cackle of desert birds—
Walked until I couldn’t walk Beyond the sound of empty talk—
Truth is what we turn from When liars are all we can become—
The men & women I thought I understood I abandoned as I knew I should
To traverse the empty path I took Past ruin & dry riverbed & rock
To a country I could call my own— I found my name engraved upon a stone & Counted years until I could almost claim Endless silence beyond the frame
Of the days I filled With the senseless music of the words I’d spilled
Across those perfect distances of mortal space I had no choice but to embrace—
There is no place I’d rather be Then in this landscape more durable than me—
Fire or the portrait of a fire; absence or the inward art of absence; urge & urge unanswered.
I sat in open air when, at a little distance, a man, embossed on a gray sky, appeared to me, his head encircled with a dazzling light.
There is a moon. There is no moon. Soft metal runs in the mold, coin of the visible. I reach, bronze to the elbow to pluck that disk of light.
Not the turn of the wheel but the wheel turning. Not the wave against the shore but a number of waves against a number of shores. Not the light but the light, the pulse of the light against the landscape.
While the rouged saliva of airborne steel Hawks through the infinity of blue sky; While the scarlet or kaki, as the kings rail, Whither battalion by battalion in flame;
While an unpreventable madness gnashes & heaps a million men into a stinking pile; --Choice dead among summer blades, your joy Nature, you who consecrated these bodies…
--A God is laughing at the damask cloths
Of the altars, at the incense, at the chalices of gold. A God is slumbering in the lull of these Hosannas; A God, who wakes when mothers gather, Anxious eyes under worn black bonnets, To hand him a pittance twisted in their nose-rags.
It’s the repose of lightning; neither fever nor languor on the bed or on the lawn.
It’s the friend; neither ardent nor feeble; the friend.
It’s the belovéd; neither tormenting nor tormented; the belovéd.
-Air & world undiscovered. Life.
-Was that it then?
-& the dream freezes.
Illumination returns to the hewn wood of the house. From the two extremities of the room scattered decors, harmonic elevations join. The mural opposite the watcher is a psychological succession of partitioned images, jet streams, geologic upheavals— a dream, intense & rapid of sentimental groups with beings of all character among all appearances.
The vigil lamps & carpets make the sound of waves, along the night, the length of the keel & around steerage.
The sea of the vigil, like Emily’s breasts.
The tapestries, just at the midpoint, a tangle of emerald lace where cast the doves of the vigil.
The plaque of the dark hearth, of real suns on struck sands; O, the fosse of the magi, sole view of dawn, this once.
Leopardi
I’ve always loved this hermit hill & this green tangle obscuring my view of so much of the farthest horizon. When I sit & absorb the vast spaces beyond me, the inhuman silences, the profound calm I pretend I imagine it all & my heart’s almost brave. Like wind rustling through trees I’m the voice inside this infinite silence recollecting the eternal & the dead seasons & the present & the living & their sounds until thought is drowned by immensity & I’m happy to shipwreck in that sea.
IIn this dark the waking quake & sleepers harvest nightmares They can keep, ‘til dawn Dismembers them In crimson fire.
Hermes tips his hat to you & flips his cane Like a vaudeville hoofer Doing a soft shoe.
Still, she hesitates, in her Halfway world, undone But not yet dead; Not yet expecting The consequence Of a careless turn Of her beloved’s head.
Pale, she moves With muffled step, Who in life was livid At the thought that Orpheus Might sleep in another’s bed.
Why does mortal love mortal so?
I don’t care if they come or go. Guiding them to their end is an end for me Who breathes with all those death can’t set free. What chance the chance he won’t prove true To she whose future is meant for one, not two? When he fears her absence most He invites the void fallen angels toast— Makes her—nothing herself— Embrace the nothingness none can engulf.
One turn
Of my head & all my song Is naught.
I’d rather Be the one dead, Humility Untaught.
Pedestrians, no more than central gauzes of color, skewered by urbane lines leading to certain clear points.
Above those craning heads— swatches of cloud, bristling gaping profiles shaped by ulterior winds.
Under walker’s feet superficial cobblestones— almost damp— beneath that bright sky.
To one side— block-like, barren a wall, shadow-casting— windowed— one with shutters— & doored— that darkly open, empty.
Above, intruding against sky & street, the striated domes of a cathedral— too near to be monumental but awkwardly delicate— a skeletal white against blue.
Lastly, beside an aging tree, to complete & balance shape & shade, a bell tower, truly alien to the domes, gray-blank, un-filigreed in the sun, topped by a needle cross above passing faces, apart of the street, apiece with the dark, against cloud-white in the contrast of buildings.
fish is in the water water is in the fish
nothing with gills can drown
word & thought are one guide me to a sea of fire
where what will burn can swim
the fewer the days
the longer light lingers
inside an evolving eye—
weave from a thousand threads one rope to catch the blue fox
Homage à Monsieur VAfter Sartre here— no one— except whom you’d be when you become who you are when you’re you
Forget intellect’s echo. Follow light to dark’s heart.
When you walk in forest Become forest.
When you walk in the street, Street becomes you.
Welcome what envelops. Disappear to appear. Entangle to escape.
One sun set. A different sun rises. Tonight’s stars are not tomorrow’s.
The world we leave will not return. Birth buries. Death breathes.
Descend to ascend. Daylight Or darkness, don’t look back.
I know nothing. When I wake, shadows bare their teeth, dawn wears a frown. I know nothing. The ear of a cat is my companion; the tail of a dove, my enemy. I know nothing. Out of wry smiles & dainty hollows, I make machines & call them poems. Out of mahogany & sawdust, I make a woman & call her a machine. I know nothing. When I gather all my nothings together like stray buttons in a cigar box. Generous thieves confront me with zippers. I know nothing. The ache of the dandelion at the center of the skyscraper tells me nothing & the onion at the dandelion’s heart even when threatened with tears remains a silent bean.
after Arshile Gorky
If, in winter, when my city Rises out if itself For no good reason, I’ve stood on a dark corner & wept for all of you, Don’t think me more compassionate Than the man who sells you Your newspaper.
I hate you like the cop hates His beat, like the grocer Hates his vegetables. You will go bad. I will go bad. Traffic will keep moving.
If one day you stop at a curb When the light says WALK Or stand on a bridge Between Brooklyn & sunset With a knife in your hand or fail For good to return the call Of someone you’ve slept with, Then you’ll know how I feel Walking to work in my clean shirt Alongside all of you.
Iole wind rode outa nowhere didn’t know where it was goin’ found out quick tho liked it so much it never came back
only thing moves ‘round here is the river & that don’t go too quick neither
I grew up in an ashcan alley— liked it fine
good thing ‘bout this place is the dry clean—uken sleep where the heat comes up I know this butcher down Chinatown throws his scraps out every night
ya see this here used ta be a day-time bar getcha a beer fer a two-bit ‘n’ a shot fer a half
ole man died ‘n’ his son don’t wannit now ya gotta walk fer blocks if ya gunna wet yer whistle
O it ain’t so tough if yer tough enough just take me I don’t pay taxes & I even gotta grave
break my back fer a man like that what’s it get ya but a fast buck ‘n’ an early death night’s not long enough ‘n’ days’re too short count’em count’em slow tell me what they’re worth dollar fer dollar on the open market no man’s pride lasts fer ever even love has an interest ya think my labor ken buy me luck not like that from a man like him hang it up hang it up sun’s gone down & I’m go’in home to the wife & kids & act like a papa with my pick-me-up & the damn TV & the cold sardines she’ll serve fer supper
She was another’s before she was ours— After millennia when she belonged to no one— Those we supplanted inhabited her more gently Than we who came after to build What we had to build—to tear down What we had to tear down—to change what We had to change into something rich & strange— None could possess her who were not Possessed by her—who could only possess Without understanding so that by our withholding We were made weaker until we found That by ignoring what gifts she might have given We could conquer thereafter the depths Of her valleys—the widths of her fields— The heights of her mountains left undefended— Open to pillage—such as she is—such As she must become—as providence Would have it under our mandate—
Is it as the eye seizes?
Lion that lucked out, leopard Trapped in its own freedom, As if his brow burns Before roar, or Just after.
Tendoned neck, wrinkled breast, Ompholos cavernous, a cavern At the throat, mouth wide. You start here with this exit.
Words part lips. Beard radiates In wisps. Head tilts, torso Rocks from its center, A column of speech.
Work of the man, Almost a wife, Was the peach tree my grandfather Kept.
No branches to it but fruit Like breasts they were That big & pale.
True peaches in color— as flesh is At first I imagine— They grew close to the tree— Clutched trunk close by the last handfuls Of uncut leaves, violated each time
The wind blew, stump branches Starkly there, fruit uncovered Pink in the breeze, the shears-man, My grandfather, standing by, Smiling.
His one tree in a city garden Which, with grapes & cultivated Dandelions entertained a row Of starveling houses— the many-breasted Tree the attraction though; Its pendulous fruit the pleasure Of fat-faced Italian ladies; the envy Of brown-handed fellow gardeners; The chief delight, at night, Of hungry children.
