Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser
Page 8
All night I returned to the places of my love.
My love escaped me. May not the blood's frail drums
ever pulse healing in wrists and lips made known
whispering convalescence through a mist of sleep?
Let me approach infinity in love and sorrow, waiting
with the doubled strength of my own will and love,
burning with copper-spun electric fire, unconsumed,
a bush upon a barren darkening plain.
My blood must be fed on foreign substance, lacking
the knowledge of those gestures, roots of words, unfeeling
the wet intestinal movings of another body, starving
not knowing the muscles' flexing.
Shall we losing our ego gain it, saddening
after no response and a turning away? Sheer
the skyscrapers stand, pure without meaning, single
in desire rising to touch the sky :
the diver waits, arms thrust in white dihedral
to air and next moment's water : the flash of shock
travels through diver lover tower plane reaching
sky, a contact in desire, leaving
bondage in flight. Sever the cords binding our bones,
loosen us to each other, approach, night, return me love :
unblind me, give me back myself, touch me now :
slide, night, into the climates of the mind.
3
The cattle-trains edge along the river, bringing morning on a white vibration
breaking the darkness split with beast-cries : a milk-wagon proceeds
down the street leaving the cold bottles : the Mack truck pushes
around the corner, tires hissing on the washed asphalt. A clear sky
growing candid and later bright.
Ceiling unlimited. Visibility unlimited.
They stir on the pillows, her leg moving, her face swung windowward
vacant with sleep still, modeled with light's coming ; his dark head
among the softness of her arm and breast, nuzzled in dreams,
mumbling the old words, hardly roused. They return to silence.
At the airport, the floodlights are snapped off.
Turning, he says, “Tell me how's the sky this morning?” “Fair,” she answers,
“no clouds from where I lie; bluer and bluer.” “And later and later—
god, for some sleep into some noon, instead of all these mornings
with my mouth going stiff behind the cowling and wind brushing
away from me and my teeth freezing against the wind.”
Light gales from the northwest : tomorrow, rain.
The street is long, with a sprinkling of ashcans ; panhandlers
begin to forage among banana-peels and cardboard boxes.
She moves to the window, tall and dark before a brightening sky,
full with her six-months' pregnancy molded in ripeness.
Stands, watching the sky's blankness.
Very soon : “How I love to see you when I wake,” he says,
“How the child's meaning in you is my life's growing.”
She faces him, hands brought to her belly's level, offering,
wordless, looking upon him. She carries his desire well.
Sun rises : 6:38 a.m. Sun sets….
“Flying is what makes you strange to me, dark as Asia,
almost removed from my world even in your closenesses :
that you should be familiar with those intricacies
and a hero in mysteries which all the world has wanted.”
Wind velocity changing from 19 to 30.
“No, that's wrong,” and he laughs, “no personal hero's left
to make a legend. Those centuries have gone. If I fly,
why, I know that countries are not map-colored, that seas
belong to no one, that war's a pock-marking on Europe : “
The Weather Bureau's forecast, effective until noon.
“Your friends sleep with strange women desperately,
drink liquor and sleep heavily to forget those skies.
You fly all day and come home truly returning
to me who know only land. And we will have this child.”
New York to Boston : Scattered to broken clouds.
“The child will have a hard time to be an American,”
he says slowly, “fathered by a man whose country is air,
who believes there are no heroes to withstand
wind, or a loose bolt, or a tank empty of gas.”
To Washington : Broken clouds becoming overcast.
“It will be a brave child,” she answers, smiling.
“We will show planes to it, and the bums in the street.
You will teach it to fly, and I will love it
very much.” He thinks of his job, dressing.
Strong west northwest winds above 1000 feet.
He thinks how many men have wanted flight.
He ties his tie, looking into his face.
Finishes breakfast, hurrying to be gone,
crossing the river to the airport and his place.
Broken clouds to overcast.
She does not imagine how the propeller turns
in a blinding speed, swinging the plane through space;
she never sees the cowling rattle and slip
forward and forward against the grim blades' grinding.
Cruising speed 1700 R.P.M.
Slipping, a failing desire ; slipping like death
insidious against the propeller, until the blades shake,
bitten by steel, jagged against steel, broken,
and his face angry and raked by death, staring.
Strong west northwest or west winds above 2000 feet.
She watches the clock as his return time hurries,
the schedule ticking off, eating the short minutes.
She watches evening advance ; she knows the child's stirring.
She knows night. She knows he will not come.
Ceiling unlimited. Visibility unlimited.
The rough skin dusty with coal on the slack hands ;
lover trailing regret through the evening streets
uncomforted, walking toward destruction :
the mouth of the young pilot stiffening
(I love to see you when I wake at morning)
hurtling, spiralling that plucks the breath from the throat
in a long chute to gauged mechanic death.
Greyly our vigor seeps away, the fingers
weak and the lips unspeaking, somberly
devoid of wholeness are we drowned again
mumbling death as our cheeks stiffen
as we go down these maelstroms : dissolution.
Harsh blue screams summer from behind the plane
the sea stiffens under it sculpturally.
Split space, monotonous and even-winged,
continue toward despair methodically.
Destruction and a burning fill these lives
unloved incompetent they compromise
with death and the bases of emotion fearing
the natural calm inclusiveness of time.
Tigers follow in a splendor of motion
sleek death treads unperturbed among these things,
time rages like a tiger and the
savage defeat swallows the fallen wings
plunging
O Icarus accurate white into the sea
the wax support too trusted ; the white pride
in sovereignty collapsed ; go down to harbor,
go down, plane, to the water's eagerness
engulfed, plunging
We have prayed torrents of humility, open
in anguish to be hurt, in terror to be fooled.
We are beyond demand, waiting a minute
unconscious in attendance : here is strength to be used
delicately, most subtly on the controls and levers.
&nb
sp; They begged that time be condensed. Extend space for us,
let us include this memory in ourselves,
time and our dividend of history.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLANE
1 THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLANE
Kitty Hawk is a Caesar among monuments ;
the stiff bland soldiers predestined to their death
the bombs piled neatly like children's marbles piled
sperm to breed corpses eugenically by youth
out of seductive death.
The hill outdoes our towers
we might treasure a thistle grown from a cannon-mouth
they have not permitted rust and scum and blossoms
to dirty the steel,
however we have the plane
the hill, flower among monuments.
“To work intelligently” (Orville and Wilbur Wright)
“one needs to know the effects of variations
incorporated in the surfaces…. The pressures on squares
are different from those on rectangles, circles, triangles, or ellipses…
The shape of the edge also makes a difference.”
The plane is wheeled out of the hangar. The sleeves shake
fixing the wind, the four o'clock blue sky
blinks in the goggles swinging over his wrist.
The plane rests, the mechanic in cream-colored overalls
encourages the engine into idling speed.
The instructor looks at his class
and begins the demonstration.
“We finally became discouraged, and returned to kite-flying.
But as we grew older we had to give up this sport,
it was unbecoming to boys of our ages.”
On the first stroke of the piston the intake valve opens,
the piston moves slowly from the head of the cylinder,
drawing in its mixture of gas and air. On the second stroke
the piston returns, the valve closes. The mixture is compressed.
A spark occurs, igniting America, opening India,
finding the Northwest Passage, Cipango spice,
causing the mixture to burn, expanding the gases
which push the piston away on the power stroke.
The final exhaust stroke serves to release the gases,
allowing the piston to scavenge the cylinder.
We burn space, we sever galaxies,
solar systems whirl about Shelley's head,
we give ourselves ease, gentlemen, art and these explosions
and Peter Ronsard finger-deep in roses ;
gentlemen, remember these incandescent points,
remember to check, remember to drain the oil,
remember Plato O remember me
the college pathways rise
the president's voice intoning sonnets
the impress of hoofmarks on the bridle path
the shining girls the lost virginities
the plane over a skeletal water-tower
our youth dissolving O remember
romantically dissolving remember me.
Blue smoke from the exhaust signifies too much oil.
Save yourselves from excesses, dirt, and tailspins.
These are the axioms : stability, control,
and equilibrium : in a yaw, in a roll, or pitch.
Here, gentlemen, are the wings, of fabric doped and painted
here is the rudder
here the propeller spins
: BE hammers in the brain
FLY and the footbeat of that drum
may not be contradicted
must be mine
must be made ours, say the brothers Wright together
although the general public had been invited
few dared a cold December
in order to see another plane not fly.
The helmet is strapped tight, orders are shouted
the elbows of steel move in oil
air is forced under the ship, the pilot's hand
is safe on the stick, the young student sits
with the wind mottling his eyelashes, rigidly.
Centuries fall behind his brain, the motor
pushes in a four-beat rhythm, his blood moves,
he dares look at the levels mounting in clouds
the dropping fields of the sky the diminishment of earth ;
now he thinks I am the child crying Mother
this rim is the threshold into the hall's night
or the windowsill livened with narcissus.
The white edge of the bath a moment before
slipping into watery ease, the windowsill
eager for the jump into the street
the hard stone under my back, the earth
with its eyes and hands its eyes and hands
its eyes
fixed eyes on the diminishing
take me back the bath had fronds of steam
escaping the hands held my head
my eyes slipped in oil looking along your beauty
earth is painful the distance hurts
mother the night, the distance, dear
he is standing with one look of hate upon him
screams at the pilot you bastard, you bastard, jumps
trailing a long scream above him, the plane yaws down,
the motor pulls heavily, the ground is dark November,
his parachute opens a bright plume surrendering downward,
the plane heads up again, no good in following,
continues unfascinated by night or land or death.
2 THE STRIKE
“Well,” he said, “George, I never thought you were with us.
You walked out of the shaft as if you'd spent years of your life
planning some day to walk out once without blinking
and not stop for a smoke but walk over to our side.”
“No,” he said, “I never expected to. It was only the last cut:
before that, I'd have worked no matter who starved first.”
The snow was stamped down with black nailprints
the stamping was a drum to warm them, stiff veins, crusted hands.
“Carrying guns, boys!” said the director. “Now, boys;
I'll speak to the others and see what I can do.”
The heavy-set miner spat on the peel of snow.
The fingers weighed on the triggers. December bit
into the bone, into the tight skulls, creaking one word.
Tell how the men watched the table, a plate of light,
the rigid faces lit around it, the mouths
opening and clamping, the little warmth
watched against the shafts of the breakers.
Tell how the men watched.
Tell how the child chewed its shoe to strips.
That day broke equal grey, the lockers empty,
the cages hanging in a depth of silence.
Shall we say : there were two lines at last :
death played like a current between them, playing,
the little flames of death ran along those eyes : ?
Death faced the men with a desperate seduction,
lifted a hand with the skill of a hypnotist.
They were so ready in khaki with bayonets.
“George!” he heard. That had once been his name.
Very carefully he had stepped from his place,
walked over his ground, over the last line.
It seemed impossible he should not die.
When a gun faces you, look down the bore,
that is the well of death : when it confronts you
it is not satisfied, it draws you steadily
more loving than love, eagerer than hunger,
resolving all unbalance. He went to it.
However, the line held. The plump men raised themselves
up from the chairs in a dreary passion of wrath,
hoisted themselves to the doorway. Spoke.
There was his body, purpl
ed, death casing him
in ice and velvet and sleep. Indeed, they spoke,
this was unwarranted. No, they conceded. No.
Perhaps the strike might equal victory,
a company funeral, and the trucks of coal
ladled up from the earth,
heaped on this grave.
3 THE LOVER
Answer with me these certainties
of glands swelling with sentiment
the loves embittered the salts and waters mixing
a chemic threatening destruction.
Answer the men walking toward death
leaping to death meeting death in a kiss
able to find of equilibrium none
except that last of hard stone kissing stone.
Answer the lover's questioning in the streets
the evenings domed with purple, the bones
easing, the flesh slipping perfume upon the air :
all surfaces of flight are pared to planes
equal, equilibrated, solid in fulfilment. No way
is wanted to escape, no explosions craved,
only this desire must be met, this motion
be balanced with passion ;
in the wreaths of time given to us what love
may reach us in the streets the books the years
what wreaths of love may touch our dreams,
what skeins of fine response may clothe our flesh,
robe us in valor brave as our dear wish
lover haunting the ghosts of rivers, letting time
slide a fluid runner into darkness
give over the sad eyes the marble face of pain
do not mourn : remember : do not forget
but never let this treason play you mate,
take to yourself the branches of green trees
watch the clean sky signed by the flight of planes
know rivers of love be flooded thoroughly
by love and the years and the past and know
the green tree perishes and green trees grow.
Knock at the doors ; go to the windows ; run,
you will not find her soon who, lost in love,
relinquished last month to that silver music
repeating in her throat forsaken tunes.
Rigid and poised for the latest of these lovers
she stretches acute in waiting on the bed
most avaricious for the length of arms
the subtle thighs and heavy confident head.
Taut with a steel strut's singing tautness she
clinches her softness anguished at postponement
hardening all her thought she swears to be
unpacified by minutes of atonement.
The ticking of an ormolu clock taxes
her body with time's weight. The opened door
adjusts such things ; responsive, she relaxes