the sky rejects my scream.
All I know is this: my nostrils drip with dreams
the hounds lap us up, the fools laugh out,
the clock ticks out the dead.
All I know is this: my feet are sorrow here,
my words are less than lilies, my words are clotted now:
the ravens kiss my mouth.
On Going Back to the Street after Viewing an Art Show
they talk down through
the centuries to us,
and this we need more and more,
the statues and paintings
in midnight age
as we go along
holding dead hands.
and we would say
rather than delude the unknowing:
a damn good show,
but hardly enough for a horse to eat,
and out on the sunshine street where
eyes are dabbled in metazoan faces
I decide again
that in these centuries
they have done very well
considering the nature of their
brothers:
it’s more than good
that some of them,
(closer really to field-mouse than
falcon)
have been bold enough to try.
Anthony
and the hedges wet in the rain, flaking in a sheet of wind,
and for a moment everything working: rusty bells, April
birds, unblushing brides, anything you can name that has not
died, so exactly, and even the wind like a lover’s hand,
a somehow important wind, something too like sleep or slain
enemies,
and the feet move through paths not restricted by the
bull-goaded mind,
and see—all and everywhere—hedges in the rain
like great cathedrals now, new Caesars, cats walking,
new gods without plug or wire, love without wasps,
new Christians, bulls, Romes, new new leaves, new rain
now splashing through the fire; and I close the door, old room,
I fall upon the couch, I sweat
and I cough I cough small words
lions bearing down through coffee cups and puddles, I
sigh, Cleopatra. Not for either of us, but for the rest.
Layover
Making love in the sun, in the morning sun
in a hotel room
above the alley
where poor men poke for bottles;
making love in the sun
making love by a carpet redder than our blood,
making love while the boys sell headlines
and Cadillacs,
making love by a photograph of Paris
and an open pack of Chesterfields,
making love while other men—poor fools—
work.
That moment—to this…
may be years in the way they measure,
but it’s only one sentence back in my mind—
there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.
I pass the hotel at 8
and at 5; there are cats in the alleys
and bottles and bums,
and I look up at the window and think,
I no longer know where you are,
and I walk on and wonder where
the living goes
when it stops.
The Dogs of Egypt
the dirty dogs of Egypt stride down my bones
the cat goes home in the morning
and I think of agony when there’s little else to
do, and there’s usually little else to do
except think the agony might kill us—
but, perhaps, what really saves us from it
is our being able to luxuriate in it—
like an old lady putting on a red hat.
yet my walls are stained where broken glass has
pissed its liquor.
I see agony in a box of kitchen soap
and the walls want their flatness to be my
flatness, o the dirty dogs of Egypt,
I see flatirons hanging from hooks
the eagle is a canary in the breakfastnook
eating dry seed and cramped by the dream.
I want so much that is not here and do not know
where to go.
Old Man, Dead in a Room
this thing upon me is not death
but it’s as real
and as landlords full of maggots
pound for rent
I eat walnuts in the sheath
of my privacy
and listen for more important
drummers;
it’s as real, it’s as real
as the broken-boned sparrow
cat-mouthed, uttering
more than mere
miserable argument;
between my toes I stare
at clouds, at seas of gaunt
sepulcher…
and scratch my back
and form a vowel
as all my lovely women
(wives and lovers)
break like engines
into steam of sorrow
to be blown into eclipse;
bone is bone
but this thing upon me
as I tear the window shades
and walk caged rugs,
this thing upon me
like a flower and a feast,
believe me
is not death and is not
glory
and like Quixote’s windmills
makes a foe
turned by the heavens
against one man;
…this thing upon me,
great god,
this thing upon me
crawling like a snake,
terrifying my love of commonness,
some call Art
some call Poetry;
it’s not death
but dying will solve its power
and as my grey hands
drop a last desperate pen
in some cheap room
they will find me there
and never know
my name
my meaning
nor the treasure
of my escape.
Love Is a Piece of Paper Torn to Bits
all the beer was poisoned and the capt. went down
and the mate and the cook
and we had nobody to grab sail
and the N.wester ripped the sheets like toenails
and we pitched like crazy
the hull tearing its sides
and all the time in the corner
some punk had a drunken slut (my wife)
and was pumping away
like nothing was happening
and the cat kept looking at me
and crawling in the pantry
amongst the clanking dishes
with flowers and vines painted on them
until I couldn’t stand it anymore
and took the thing
and heaved it
over
the side.
Big Bastard with a Sword
listen, I went to get a haircut, it was a perfectly good day
until they brought it to me, I mean I sat waiting my turn in the
chair and I found a magazine—the usual thing: women with their
breasts hanging out, etc., and then I turned the page and here
were photos of Orientals in a field, there was a big
bastard with the sword—the caption said he had a very good
swing, plenty of power and the picture showed him getting ready
with the sword, and you saw an Oriental kneeling there with his
eyes closed, then—ZIP!—he was kneeling there without a head
and you could see the neck clean, not yet eve
n
spurting blood, the separation having been so astonishingly
swift, and more photos of beheadings, and then a photo of these
heads lolling in the weeds without bodies, the sun shining on
them.
and the heads looking still almost alive as if they hadn’t
accepted the death—and then the barber said
next!
and I walked over to the chair and my head was still on
and his head said to my head,
how do you want it?
and I said, medium.
and he seemed like a nice sensible fellow
and it seemed nice to be near nice sensible fellows
and I wanted to ask him about the heads
but I thought it would upset him
or maybe even give him ideas
or he might say something that wouldn’t help at
all
so I kept quiet.
I listened to him cut my hair
and he began talking about his baby
and I tried to concentrate on his
baby, it seemed very sane and logical
but I still kept thinking about the
heads.
when he finished the cutting
he turned me in the chair so I could look into the
mirror. my head was still on.
fine, I told him, and I got out of the chair, paid, and
gave him a good tip.
I walked outside and a woman walked by and she had her
head on and all the people driving cars had their heads
on.
I should have concentrated on the breasts, I thought,
it’s so much better, all that hanging out, or
the magic and beautiful legs, sex was a fine thing
after all, but my day was spoiled, it would take a night’s sleep
anyway, to get rid of the heads. it was terrible to be a human
being: there was so much going
on.
I saw my head in a plateglass window
I saw the reflection
and my head had a cigarette in it
my head looked tired and sad
it was not smiling with its new
haircut.
then
it disappeared
and I walked on
past the houses full of furniture and cats and
dogs and people
and they were lucky and I threw the cigarette
into the gutter
saw it burning on the asphalt
red and white, a tender spit of smoke,
and I decided that the sun
felt good.
About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter
he lives in a house with a swimming pool
and says the job is
killing him.
he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to
get rid of
him. his novel keeps coming
back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams
“go to New York and pump the hands of the
publishers?”
“no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a
small room and do the
thing.”
“but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to
go by, some word, some sign!”
“some men did not think that way:
Van Gogh, Wagner—”
“oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him
paints whenever he
needed them!”
“look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and
this guy walks in. a salesman. you know
how they talk. drove up in this new
car. talked about his vacation. said he went to
Frisco—saw Fidelio up there but forgot who
wrote it. now this guy is 54 years
old. so I told him: ‘Fidelio is Beethoven’s only
opera.’ and then I told
him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he
asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and
you don’t know anything!’”
“what happened
then?”
“I walked out.”
“you mean you left him there with
her?”
“yes.”
“I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a
job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and
they think right away, ah ha! he’s too intelligent for
this job, he won’t stay
so there’s really no sense in hiring
him.
now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble:
you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a
job and they look at you and they think:
ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire
him he’ll stay a long time and work
HARD!”
“do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a
writer, that you write poetry?”
“no.”
“you never talk about
it. not even to
me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d
have never known.”
“that’s right.”
“still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a
writer!”
“don’t.”
“I’d still like to
tell them.”
“why?”
“well, they talk about you. they think you are just a
horseplayer and a drunk.”
“I am both of those.”
“well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel
alone.
I’m the only friend you
have.”
“yes.”
“they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell
them you write
poetry.”
“leave it alone. I work here like they
do. we’re all the same.”
“well, I’d like to do it for myself then. I want them to know
why
I travel with
you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—”
“forget it.”
“all right, I’ll respect your
wishes. but there’s something else—”
“what?”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a
piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a
violin too but I can’t make up my
mind!”
“buy a piano.”
“you think
so?”
“yes.”
he walks away
thinking about
it.
I was thinking about it
too: I figure he can always come over with his
violin and more
sad music.
Not Quite So Soon
in the featherbeds of grander times
when Kings could call their shots,
I rather imagine on days like this
that concubines were sought,
or the unspoiled genius
or the chopping block.
how about a partridge or a grouse
or a bound behind the merry hounds?
Maybe I’ll phone Saroyan in Malibu
or eat a slice of toast…
the trees shake down September
like dysentery, and churches sit on their
corners and wait, and the streetcars are slow,
and everywhere
birds fly, cats walk, people ruefully
exist…
the charmers are gone, the armies have put down
their arms, the druid’s drunk, the horses have tossed
their dice; there are no fires, the phone won’t ring,
&nbs
p; the factory’s closed, tenesmus, everything…
I think
even the schizomycetes are sleeping;
I think
the horror of no action is greater
than the scorch of pain; death is the
barker, but things
may get better
yet. I’ll use the knives for spreading
jam, and the gas to warm
my greying love.
Counsel
as the wind breaks in from the sea again
and the land is marred with riot and disorder
be careful with the sabre of choice,
remember
what may have been noble
5 centuries
or even 20 years ago
is now
more often than not
wasted action
your life runs but once,
history has chance after chance
to prove men fools.
be careful, then, I would say,
of any seeming noble
deed
ideal
or action,
be for this country or love or Art,
be not taken by the nearness of the minute
or a beauty or politic
that will wilt like a cut flower;
love, yes, but not as a task of marriage,
and beware bad food and excessive labor;
live in a country, you must,
but love is not an order
either of woman or the land;
take your time; and drink as much as is needed
in order to maintain continuance,
for drink is a form of life
wherein the partaker returns to a new chance
at life; furthermore, I say,
live alone as much as possible;
bear children if it happens
but try not to bear
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 Page 4
