skirt’s billowing pattern
all afterthought
there on the palm
destructive bored
perched on finger
else pulses behind
bird looks out
comes forward to find
secure in its doubt.
grabs on to my mind.
BODY
What twisting thought
I’d been taken
holds in place
held driven
parts of mind
brought fixed
body’s found
displaced in reflection
makes grace weight
love sounded
hangs head down
included secured
stands behind puts out
made me other
arms with their hands
than simplifying thought
whether up or down
broken out doubling cock
here come to rest
head hung faceless
one and another
down hands
at last together.
held me held me.
Inside My Head
INSIDE MY HEAD
Inside my head a common room,
a common place, a common tune,
a common wealth, a common doom
inside my head. I close my eyes.
The horses run. Vast are the skies,
and blue my passing thoughts’ surprise
inside my head. What is this space
here found to be, what is this place
if only me? Inside my head, whose face?
THE TOOLS
First there, it proves to be still here.
Distant as seen, it comes then to be near.
I found it here and there unclear.
What if my hand had only been
extension of an outside reaching in
to work with common means to change me then?
All things are matter, yet these seem
caught in the impatience of a dream,
locked in the awkwardness they mean.
THE SWAN
Peculiar that swan should mean a sound?
I’d thought of gods and power, and wounds.
But here in the curious quiet this one has settled down.
All day the barking dogs were kept at bay.
Better than dogs, a single swan, they say,
will keep all such malignant force away
and so preserve a calm, make pond a swelling lake—
sound through the silent grove a shattering spate
of resonances, jarring the mind awake.
THE ROSE
Into one’s self come in again,
here as if ever now to once again begin
with beauty’s old, old problem never-ending—
Go, lovely rose . . . So was the story told
in some extraordinary place then, once upon a time so old
it seems an echo now as it again unfolds.
I point to me to look out at the world.
I see the white, white petals of this rose unfold.
I know such beauty in the world grows cold.
THE SKULL
“Come closer. Now there is nothing left
either inside or out to gainsay death,”
the skull that keeps its secrets saith.
The ways one went, the forms that were
empty as wind and yet they stirred
the heart to its passion, all is passed over.
Lighten the load. Close the eyes.
Let the mind loosen, the body die,
the bird fly off to the opening sky.
THE STAR
Such space it comes again to be,
a room of such vast possibility,
a depth so great, a way so free.
Life and its person, thinking to find
a company wherewith to keep the time
a peaceful passage, a constant rhyme,
stumble perforce, must lose their way,
know that they go too far to stay
stars in the sky, children at play.
If I were writing this
One
The Way
Somewhere in all the time that’s passed
was a thing in mind became the evidence,
the pleasure even in fact of being lost
so quickly, simply that what it was could never last.
Only knowing was measure of what one could
make hold together for that moment’s recognition,
or else the world washed over like a flood
of meager useless truths, of hostile incoherence.
Too late to know that knowing was its own reward
and that wisdom had at best a transient credit.
Whatever one did or didn’t do was what one could.
Better at last believe than think to question?
There wasn’t choice if one had seen the light,
not of belief but of that soft, blue-glowing fusion
seemed to appear or disappear with thought,
a minute magnesium flash, a firefly’s illusion.
Best wonder at mind and let that flickering ambience
of wondering be the determining way you follow,
which leads itself from day to day into tomorrow,
finds all it ever finds is there by chance.
The American Dream
Edges and disjuncts, shattered, bitter planes,
a wedge of disconsolate memories to anchor fame,
fears of the past, a future still to blame—
Multiple heavens, hells, nothing is straight.
You earn your money, then you wait
for so-called life to see that you get paid.
Tilt! Again it’s all gone wrong.
This is a heartless, hopeless song.
This is an empty, useless song.
Names
Marilyn’s was Norma Jean.
Things are not always what they seem.
Skin she lived back of like some screen
kept her wonder in common view,
said what she did, you could too,
loved by many, touched by few.
She married heroes of all kinds
but no one seemed to know her mind,
none the secret key could find.
Scared kid, Norma Jean?
Are things really what they seem?
What is it that beauty means?
Twenty-five
Balling the Jack Down the Track
Won’t Be Back Too Late, Jack
See the rush of light—
Time’s flight, out of sight.
Feel the years like tears—
the days gone away.
(Lemons) Pear Appears
If it’s there, it’s something—
And when you see it,
Not just your eyes know it.
It’s yourself, like they say, you bring.
These words, these seemingly rounded
Forms—looks like a pear? Is yellow?
Where’s that to be found—
In some abounding meadow?
Like likes itself, sees similarities
Everywhere it goes.
But what that means,
Nobody knows.
Dried Roses
“Dried roses . . .” Were these from some walk
All those years ago? Were you the one
Was with me? Did we talk?
Who else had come along?
Memory can stand upright
Like an ordered row of stiff stems,
Dead echo of flowering heads,
Roses once white, pink and red.
Back of them the blackness,
Backdrop for all our lives,
The wonders we thought to remember
Still life, still life.
Drawn & Quartered
1
Speed is what’s needed.
Move quick bef
ore depleted
of more than a battered leg will prove.
Go for it—as in love.
2
Hold still, lion!
I am trying
to paint you
while there’s time to.
3
We have common sense
and common bond.
That’s enough
to get along.
4
Have you known each other long?
Long before you were born!
Have you both been happy in marriage?
I think it’s proven a commodious carriage.
5
Are they together?
Grandmother and granddaughter?
Is there some fact of pain
in their waiting?
6
Am I only material
for you to feel?
Is that all you see
when you look at me?
7
Image of self at earlier age—
when thoughts had gone inward,
and life became an emptying page—
myself moving toward nothing.
8
Why not tell
what you’ve kept a secret
not wait for it
to leap out?
9
Dear cat, I see you
and will attend
and feed you
now as then.
10
Here I sit
meal on lap
come to eat
just like that!
11
There’s someone
behind
black eye covers,
smothered.
12
Closes, as an echo—
The shoulder, mouth, rounded
head—Two more, to say
each wanted it that way?
13
We sat like this
the night we went away—
just us two, in this same place,
and the boat on the ocean blue.
14
For years I’d thought
such bliss as this could not be bought.
While I waited,
my desire itself abated.
15
Something hot to drink.
God knows what’s in it.
Waking or sleeping
in no one’s keeping.
16
You displaced me by your singing.
My ears were ringing!
My fingers were glue
as each note rang true.
17
“Man, this stuff
is rough!”
“What would you pay
to make it go way?”
18
Still asleep or else dead.
Take him to bed.
He’ll wake up in the morning
and I’ll be gone.
19
Angel holding up
the roof top—
else would fall
and kill us all!
20
One word
I heard
you said
you read.
21
Mabel had come
all the way to town
to stand as you see her
and jump up and down.
22
Mine it was
and mine it will be—
No because
and never a maybe!
Mine it was
and mine it will be . . .
23
My only horse is dead,
who was my whole farmstead,
its entire provenance and agent.
Life has no further occasion.
24
Beyond, I hope, desire—
free of the entangling fire—
I lay me down to sleep.
Read it and weep!
25
“Too deep for words”—
My weary hand was poised
Above the paper’s blank—
too white for thoughts, recalcitrant for tears.
26
What a complicated argument,
whether wrong or right!
Where’s the fun
in being simply one?
27
He says the enemy’s won—
and we can go home!
The drum beats
in the empty street.
28
Somewhere here it said
that life is like a river—
but look as hard as I can, I never
find it again—or anything else instead.
29
And have you read
my verses clear
and may I now
call you my dear?
30
All these pages
to turn,
all the bridges
to burn.
31
What I do
Is my own business.
No use looking.
You’ll see nothing.
32
If music be
enough for you
lend me ears
so I can hear too.
33
Let me try that too
and see if I sound like you—
or is it your body’s song
pulls things along?
34
When you are done
we can play!
Outside the day waits
until the sun goes down.
35
Oh little one,
what are you eating?
Bottle emptied beside you,
nought left but your thumb?
36
It was still in front of them
but soon began to be gone.
Look, said one, now it’s going!
Still, they thought, it will come again.
37
Statue? Hermione’s—
A Winter’s Tale—
in the garden fixed
sense of beauty’s evident patience.
38
Maybe this uniform’s better,
Maybe this time I’ll be the winner.
Maybe I’ll shoot straighter.
Maybe they’ll get dead first.
39
From the wars I’ve come,
following the drum,
cannon’s bombast,
the military brass asses.
40
Love’s the other
in the tunnel—
looks back
down the track.
41
Mother of her country,
keeping the dullards at bay,
forcing the boys to pay,
taking the fences away.
42
It’s two o’clock
but we can’t stop!
We couldn’t then
when we drank the gin.
43
If I had a cent you’d have it.
But I don’t.
If I knew what to do,
I’d tell you.
44
Your thought of me is so dear.
All I feel clears
in your own warm heart
and your eyes opened wide.
45
No animal would undertake
such a foolish isolation,
need to forgo a common dinner
so as not to be a common sinner.
46
Your cut, friend.
Is it, then?
Will you cheat again?
Let’s see who wins.
47
On such a night,
as I may have told you,
the moon shone bright
and I grew older.
48
What will you shoot with that?
A rabbit!
Well, where will you find it?
Behind you!
49
The tea’s cold,
>
cups still on other table.
The house is quiet
with no one inside it.
50
Like a circle,
uncoiling like a spring,
up and down and then around,
stairs are resourceful.
51
Summer’s over?
Where was I
when it first came
bringing such pleasure?
52
“Miles to go”
but no snow
at least nor is it too long
till I’m safe at home.
53
Here browse the cows.
The gentle herdsman stands apart.
So nature’s provenance
attends its art.
54
Finally to have come
to where one had so long wanted to visit
and then to stand
there and look at it.
Life
FOR GAEL
Where have we drifted,
Or walked and talked our way into,
When it was attention we both thought to offer
All that we came to?
I can see you with your wee brush poised
To make the first crucial dab
Will encompass the wondering desert,
Marveling to find such witness.
Seriousness is its own reward?
It wasn’t ever innocence,
Or a diffidence or indifference.
Not timidity ever.
Comment allez-vous, mate?
Like the last Canadian
Learned French at last to
Make friends too late?
But you had left long ago
And as all here I missed you,
Still acknowledging friend of my life,
Still true.
Millay’s Echoes
“All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood . . .”
Was three long mountains and a wood . . .
The emptying disposition stood,
The empty, echoing mind struck dumb,
The body’s loss of kingdoms come,
Of suns, too many, long gone down,
And on that place precise she’d stood
Little was left to tell of time
Except the proof she traced a line
To make a poem so with my eyes . . .
of the horizon, thin and fine . . .
The circle held and here again
One sees what then she’d pointed to—
“Three islands in a bay,” she said,
Much like that emptiness she knew,
The vaguest light, the softest mist
The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley Page 26
