The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley

by Robert Creeley

Necessity, the mother of invention,

  father of intention,

  sister to brother to sister, to innumerable others,

  all one as the time comes,

  death’s appointment,

  in the echoing head, in the breaking heart.

  21

  In self one’s place defined,

  in heart the other find.

  In mind discover I,

  in body find the sky.

  Sleep in the dream as one,

  wake to the others there found.

  22

  Emptying out

  each complicating part,

  each little twist of mind inside,

  each clenched fist,

  each locked, particularizing thought,

  forgotten, emptying out.

  23

  What did it feel like

  to be one at a time—

  to be caught in a mind

  in the body you’d found

  in yourself alone—

  in each other one?

  24

  Broken hearts, a curious round of echoes—

  and there behind them the old garden

  with its faded, familiar flowers,

  where all was seemingly laced together—

  a trueness of true,

  a blueness of blue.

  25

  The truth is in a container

  of no size or situation.

  It has nothing

  inside

  Worship—

  Warship. Sail away.

  As If

  As if a feeling, come from nought,

  Suspended time in fascinated concentration,

  So that all the world therein became

  Of that necessity its own reward—

  I lifted to mind a piece

  Of bright blue air and then another.

  Then clouds in fluffy substance floated by.

  Below I felt a lake of azure waited.

  I cried, Here, here I am—the only place I’ll ever be . . .

  Whether it made a common sense or found a world,

  Years flood their gate, the company dispersed.

  This person still is me.

  Possibilities

  FOR SUSAN ROTHENBERG

  What do you wear?

  How does it feel

  to wear clothes?

  What shows

  what you were or where?

  This accident, accidental, person,

  feeling out, feelings out—

  outside the box one’s in—

  skin’s resonances, reticent romances,

  the blotch of recognition, blush?

  It’s a place one’s going,

  going out to, could reach

  out just so far to be at the edge

  of it all, there, no longer inside,

  waiting, expectant, a confused thing.

  One wanted skin to walk in,

  be in. One wanted each leg to stand,

  both hands to have substance,

  both eyes to look out, recognize,

  all of it, closer and closer.

  Put it somewhere, one says.

  Put it down. But it’s not a thing

  simply. It’s all of it here,

  all of it near and dear,

  everywhere one is, this and that.

  Inside, it could have been included.

  There was room for the world.

  One could think of it, even be simple, ample.

  But not “multitudes,” not that way in—

  It’s out, out, one’s going. Loosed.

  Still—wistful in heaven, happy in hell?

  Sky was an adamant wall,

  earth a compact of dirty places,

  faces of people one used to know.

  Air—smell, sound and taste—was still wonderful.

  One dreamed of a thoughtless moment,

  the street rushing forward, heads up.

  One willed almost a wave of silence

  to hear the voices underneath.

  Each layer, each particular, recalled.

  But now to be here?

  Putting my hand on the table,

  I watch it turn into wood,

  Fibrous, veins like wood’s grain,

  But not that way separated—all one.

  I felt a peace come back.

  No longer needed to say what it was,

  nothing left somehow to name only—

  still was each each, all all,

  evident mass, bulky sum, a complex accumulation?

  My mother dying sat up, ecstatic,

  coming out of the anesthetic, said,

  “It’s all free! You don’t have to pay

  for any of it . . .” It’s there

  if you can still get to it?

  Come closer, closer. Come as near

  as you can get. Let me know

  each edge, each shelf of act,

  all the myriad colors, all the shimmering presences,

  each breath, finger of odor, echoed pin drop.

  Adumbrate nature. Walk a given path.

  You are as much its fact as any other.

  You stand a scale far smaller than a tree’s.

  A mountain makes you literal as a pebble.

  Look hard for what it is you want to see.

  The sky seems in its heavens, laced with cloud.

  The horizon’s miles and miles within one’s sight.

  Cooling, earth gathers in for night.

  Birds quiet, stars start out in the dark.

  Wind drops. Thus life itself can settle.

  Nothing’s apart from all and seeing is

  the obvious beginning of an act

  can only bring one closer to the art

  of being closer. So feeling all there is,

  one’s hands and heart grow full.

  For Anya

  An “outside” was always what I wanted

  to get to, the proverbial opening

  in the clearing, plain church with massed,

  seated persons, the bright water

  dense with white caps and happy children.

  Was I late, stupid, to arrive always

  as It’s me!—somehow still alone,

  however I’d thought myself present,

  muted the persistent self-concerns,

  took requisite chances, trying to let go?

  Evening’s clouds seem a dynasty,

  an end forever to such confusion.

  Birds sing still at the edges of hearing.

  Night settles itself comfortably

  far—and once and for all—beyond me.

  I think and therefore I am self-conscious.

  There are no mirrors here to look into,

  No answering reassurances one’s sufficient.

  The “outside” is empty but vast, I think.

  It’s everywhere around me and still there.

  There (1)

  I left the wagon far too soon—

  too particular, too big

  or small for my britches.

  I got off too early,

  was too impatient to get there

  and didn’t even know where I was going.

  I wouldn’t let the company

  count me in, take me with them,

  even to a clearly pleasant place.

  One by one was for me a confusion.

  It was one period

  I wanted—just me, just you—no more.

  How does one get back on, brother?

  Wherever you’re going is fine with me.

  Anything I’ve got is yours and always was.

  There (2)

  FOR DOUG MESSERLI

  Well if ever,

  Then when never—

  House’s round,

  Sound’s sound.

  Here’s where

  Comes there

  If you do,

  They will too.

  Three

  Thinking

  FOR ALEX

 
; Thought feels the edges.

  Just so far it was only yesterday?

  So far it seems now till tomorrow.

  Time isn’t space.

  Away for the day, one says—

  gone fishing. Now and again.

  The sounds echo in the quiet morning—

  such faint edges of place, things, not yet quite seen.

  But one knows the familiar presences.

  The world will be as one left it,

  still there, to reappear again perhaps

  where it always is.

  Cambridge, Mass 1944

  Sister remembers

  night she’d come down

  to meet me in town

  my friends then told her

  I’d jumped in the river

  and hadn’t returned.

  —But once in the water

  I’d kept on swimming

  across to far shore

  where police fished me out

  and put me in jail

  where I stayed the night

  naked in cell

  so clothes could dry out.

  Next morning the judge

  gave me dime to get home.

  Place to Be

  Days the weather sits

  in the endless sky,

  the clouds drifting by.

  The winter’s snow,

  summer’s heat,

  same street.

  Nothing changes

  but the faces, the people,

  all the things they do

  ’spite of heaven and hell

  or city hall—

  Nothing’s wiser than a moment.

  No one’s chance

  is simply changed by wishing,

  right or wrong.

  What you do is how you get along.

  What you did is all it ever means.

  Pictures

  FOR PEN

  1

  This distance

  between pane of glass,

  eye’s sight—

  the far waving green edge

  of trees, sun’s

  reflection, light

  yellow—and sky there too

  light blue.

  2

  I will sit here

  till breeze, ambient,

  enfolds me and I

  lift away. I will

  sit here as sun

  warms my hands, my

  body eases, and sounds

  grow soft and intimate

  in my ears. I will sit

  here and the back of the house

  behind me will at last

  disappear. I will sit here.

  3

  Harry’s gone out for pizza.

  Mabel’s home all alone.

  Mother just left for Ibiza.

  Give the old man a bone?

  Remember when Barkis was willing?

  When onions grew on the lawn?

  When airplanes cost just a shilling?

  Where have the good times gone?

  4

  If one look back

  or thinks to look

  in that uselessly opaque direction,

  little enough’s ever there.

  What is it one stares into,

  thinks still to recover

  as it all fades out—

  mind’s vagary?

  I call to you brutally.

  I remember the day we met

  I remember how you sat, impatient

  to get out.

  Back is no direction . . .

  Tout passe?

  Life is the river

  we’ve carried with us.

  5

  Sun’s shadows aslant

  across opening expansive

  various green fields down

  from door

  here ajar on box tower’s

  third floor—

  look out on

  wonder.

  This morning.

  6

  I never met you afterward

  nor seemingly knew you before.

  Our lives were interfolded,

  wrapped like a present.

  The odors, the tastes, the surfaces

  of our bodies were the map—

  the mind a distraction,

  trying to keep up.

  I could not compare you to anything.

  You were not like rhubarb

  or clean sheets—or, dear as it might be,

  sudden rain in the street.

  All those years ago, on the beach in Dover,

  with that time so ominous,

  and the couple so human,

  pledging their faith to one another,

  now again such a time seems here—

  not to fear

  death or what’s been so given—

  to yield one’s own despair.

  7

  Like sitting in back seat,

  can’t see what street

  we’re on or what the

  one driving sees

  or where we’re going.

  Waiting for what’s to happen,

  can’t quite hear the conversation,

  the big people, sitting up front.

  8

  Death, be not proud . . .

  Days be not done.

  Air be not gone.

  Head be not cowed.

  Bird be not dead.

  Thoughts be not fled.

  Come back instead,

  Heart’s hopeful wedding.

  Face faint in mirror.

  Why does it stay there?

  What’s become

  Of person who was here?

  9

  Wet

  water

  warm

  fire.

  Rough

  wood

  cold

  stone.

  Hot

  coals

  shining

  star.

  Physical hill still my will.

  Mind’s ambience alters all.

  10

  As I rode out one morning

  just at break of day

  a pain came upon me

  unexpectedly—

  As I thought one day

  not to think anymore,

  I thought again,

  caught, and could not stop—

  Were I the horse I rode,

  were I the bridge I crossed,

  were I a tree

  unable to move,

  the lake would have

  no reflections,

  the sweet, soft air

  no sounds.

  So I hear, I see,

  tell still the echoing story

  of all that lives in a forest,

  all that surrounds me.

  Supper

  Shovel it in.

  Then go away again.

  Then come back and

  shovel it in.

  Days on the way,

  lawn’s like a shorn head

  and all the chairs are put away

  again. Shovel it in.

  Eat for strength, for health.

  Eat for the hell of it, for

  yourself, for country and your mother.

  Eat what your little brother didn’t.

  Be content with your lot

  and all you got.

  Be whatever they want.

  Shovel it in.

  I can no longer think of heaven

  as any place I want to go,

  not even dying. I want

  to shovel it in.

  I want to keep on eating,

  drinking, thinking.

  I am ahead. I am not dead.

  Shovel it in.

  “Short and Clear”

  FOR GREGORY, WHO SAID IT

  Short and clear, dear—

  short and clear.

  No need for fear.

  All’s here.

  Keep it

  short and clear.

  You are the messenger,

  the message, the way.

  Shor
t and clear, dear,

  all the way.

  Scholar’s Rocks

  FOR JIM DINE

  1

  What has been long pondered,

  become encrusted,

  grown into itself—

  colored by world, by echoed

  independence from world,

  by all that it wasn’t—

  what had been thought,

  what had been felt,

  what was it?

  2

  As in a forest

  as if as if

  one had come to

  as in a forest

  to a wall of the heart

  a wall

  of the heart

  3

  glass

  enclosing including

  stuck into

  these insistent

  Things

  4

  Ghosts of

  another wall—

  childhood’s—

  all hung

  in order

  elegant and particular

  hands handed

  hand tools

  5

  What happens when

  the house is at last

  quiet and the lights

  lowered, go finally out?

  Then is it all silent?

  Are the echoes still,

  the reflections faded,

  the places left alone?

  6

  As fingers round a stick,

  as a pen’s held,

  a thumb can help grip,

  so a wrench’s extension,

  a hammer’s force,

  meticulous cutting clippers,

  hatchet’s sharpened edge

  one could not cut without.

  7

  I love the long wrench,

  whose gears permit a tension

  ’twixt objects fixed

  tight between its iron teeth.

  So locked, one can twist

  and so the object turns,

  loosens, at last comes out.

  This is life’s bliss!

  8

  Which

  one

  did

  it?

  Do you recognize

  the culprit,

  is your own heart

  full?

  9

  Sometimes it’s like looking at orphans—

  and no one will come.

  No one seems to want them.

  There’s a patience, which seems awful—

  inhuman to be left,

  to have no place on earth?

  The heart alone holds them.

  Minds made them.

  10

  Seeing’s believing. Beyond eyes, beyond the edges of things. The face of what’s out there is an adamant skin. One touches it, feels it. Coming, going, through the looking glass . . . Leaving marks, making a trail for the way back. One writes on the surface, sensing all that’s under it. Oceans of a common history. Things of the past.

  Bub and Sis