The Penguin Book of American Verse

by Geoffrey Moore

  Or do the other days enrich the one?

  And is the queen humble as she seems to be,

  The charitable majesty of her whole kin?

  The bristling soldier, weather-foxed, who looms

  In the sunshine is a filial form and one

  Of the land’s children, easily born, its flesh,

  Not fustian. The more than casual blue

  Contains the year and other years and hymns

  And people, without souvenir. The day

  Enriches the year, not as embellishment.

  Stripped of remembrance, it displays its strength –

  The youth, the vital son, the heroic power.

  VI

  The rock cannot be broken. It is the truth.

  It rises from land and sea and covers them.

  It is a mountain halfway green and then,

  The other immeasurable half, such rock

  As placid air becomes. But it is not

  A hermit’s truth nor symbol in hermitage.

  It is the visible rock, the audible,

  The brilliant mercy of a sure repose,

  On this present ground, the vividest repose,

  Things certain sustaining us in certainty.

  It is the rock of summer, the extreme,

  A mountain luminous half way in bloom

  And then half way in the extremest light

  Of sapphires flashing from the central sky,

  As if twelve princes sat before a king.

  VII

  Far in the woods they sang their unreal songs,

  Secure. It was difficult to sing in face

  Of the object. The singers had to avert themselves

  Or else avert the object. Deep in the woods

  They sang of summer in the common fields.

  They sang desiring an object that was near,

  In face of which desire no longer moved,

  Nor made of itself that which it could not find …

  Three times the concentred self takes hold, three times

  The thrice concentred self, having possessed

  The object, grips it in savage scrutiny,

  Once to make captive, once to subjugate

  Or yield to subjugation, once to proclaim

  The meaning of the capture, this hard prize,

  Fully made, fully apparent, fully found.

  VIII

  The trumpet of morning blows in the clouds and through

  The sky. It is the visible announced,

  It is the more than visible, the more

  Than sharp, illustrious scene. The trumpet cries

  This is the successor of the invisible.

  This is its substitute in stratagems

  Of the spirit. This, in sight and memory,

  Must take its place, as what is possible

  Replaces what is not. The resounding cry

  Is like ten thousand tumblers tumbling down

  To share the day. The trumpet supposes that

  A mind exists, aware of division, aware

  Of its cry as clarion, its diction’s way

  As that of a personage in a multitude:

  Man’s mind grown venerable in the unreal.

  IX

  Fly low, cock bright, and stop on a bean pole. Let

  Your brown breast redden, while you wait for warmth.

  With one eye watch the willow, motionless.

  The gardener’s cat is dead, the gardener gone

  And last year’s garden grows salacious weeds.

  A complex of emotions falls apart,

  In an abandoned spot. Soft, civil bird,

  The decay that you regard: of the arranged

  And of the spirit of the arranged, douceurs,

  Tristesses, the fund of life and death, suave bush

  And polished beast, this complex falls apart.

  And on your bean pole, it may be, you detect

  Another complex of other emotions, not

  So soft, so civil, and you make a sound,

  Which is not part of the listener’s own sense.

  X

  The personae of summer play the characters

  Of an inhuman author, who meditates

  With the gold bugs, in blue meadows, late at night.

  He does not hear his characters talk. He sees

  Them mottled, in the moodiest costumes,

  Of blue and yellow, sky and sun, belted

  And knotted, sashed and seamed, half pales of red,

  Half pales of green, appropriate habit for

  The huge decorum, the manner of the time,

  Part of the mottled mood of summer’s whole,

  In which the characters speak because they want

  To speak, the fat, the roseate characters,

  Free, for a moment, from malice and sudden cry,

  Complete in a completed scene, speaking

  Their parts as in a youthful happiness.

  The World as Meditation

  J’ai passé trap de temps a travailler mon violon, a voyager. Mais l’exercice essentiel du compositeur – la méditation – rien ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi … Je vis un rêve permanent, qui ne s’arrête ni nuit ni jour.

  – Georges Enesco

  Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,

  The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.

  That winter is washed away. Someone is moving

  On the horizon and lifting himself up above it.

  A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,

  Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.

  She has composed, so long, a self with which to welcome him,

  Companion to his self for her, which she imagined,

  Two in a deep-founded sheltering, friend and dear friend.

  The trees had been mended, as an essential exercise

  In an inhuman meditation, larger than her own.

  No winds like dogs watched over her at night.

  She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.

  She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace

  And her belt, the final fortune of their desire.

  But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun

  On her pillow? The thought kept beating in her like her heart.

  The two kept beating together. It was only day.

  It was Ulysses and it was not. Yet they had met,

  Friend and dear friend and a planet’s encouragement.

  The barbarous strength within her would never fail.

  She would talk a little to herself as she combed her hair.

  Repeating his name with its patient syllables,

  Never forgetting him that kept coming constantly so near.

  William Carlos Williams 1883–1963

  From Al Que Quiere!

  SPRING STRAINS

  In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds

  crowded erect with desire against the sky

  tense blue-grey twigs

  slenderly anchoring them down, drawing

  them in –

  two blue-grey birds chasing

  a third struggle in circles, angles,

  swift convergings to a point that bursts

  instantly!

  Vibrant bowing limbs

  pull downward, sucking in the sky

  that bulges from behind, plastering itself

  against them in packed rifts, rock blue

  and dirty orange!

  But –

  (Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)

  the blinding and red-edged sun-blur –

  creeping energy, concentrated

  counterforce – welds sky, buds, trees,

  rivets them in one puckering hold!

  Sticks through! Pulls the whole

  counter-pulling mass upward, to the right

  locks even the opaque, not yet defined

  ground in a terrific drag that is

  loosening the very ta
p-roots!

  On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds

  two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,

  at full cry! Now they are

  flung outward and up – disappearing suddenly!

  Overture to a Dance of Locomotives

  Men with picked voices chant the names

  of cities in a huge gallery: promises

  that pull through descending stairways

  to a deep rumbling.

  The rubbing feet

  of those coming to be carried quicken a

  grey pavement into soft light that rocks

  to and fro, under the domed ceiling,

  across and across from pale

  earthcolored walls of bare limestone.

  Covertly the hands of a great clock

  go round and round! Were they to

  move quickly and at once the whole

  secret would be out and the shuffling

  of all ants be done forever.

  A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing

  out at a high window, moves by the clock;

  discordant hands straining out from

  a center: inevitable postures infinitely

  repeated –

  two – twofour – twoeight!

  Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.

  This way ma’am!

  – important not to take

  the wrong train!

  Lights from the concrete

  ceiling hang crooked but –

  Poised horizontal

  on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders

  packed with a warm glow – inviting entry –

  pull against the hour. But brakes can

  hold a fixed posture till –

  The whistle!

  Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!

  Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating

  in a small kitchen. Taillights –

  In time: twofour!

  In time: twoeight!

  – rivers are tunneled: trestles

  cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating

  the same gesture remain relatively

  stationary: rails forever parallel

  return on themselves infinitely.

  The dance is sure.

  Spring and All

  By the road to the contagious hospital

  under the surge of the blue

  mottled clouds driven from the

  northeast – a cold wind. Beyond, the

  waste of broad, muddy fields

  brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

  patches of standing water

  the scattering of tall trees

  All along the road the reddish

  purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

  stuff of bushes and small trees

  with dead, brown leaves under them

  leafless vines –

  Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

  dazed spring approaches –

  They enter the new world naked,

  cold, uncertain of all

  save that they enter. All about them

  the cold, familiar wind –

  Now the grass, tomorrow

  the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

  One by one objects are defined –

  It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

  But now the stark dignity of

  entrance – Still, the profound change

  has come upon them: rooted, they

  grip down and begin to awaken

  The Red Wheelbarrow

  so much depends

  upon

  a red wheel

  barrow

  glazed with rain

  water

  beside the white

  chickens.

  Poem

  As the cat

  climbed over

  the top of

  the jamcloset

  first the right

  forefoot

  carefully

  then the hind

  stepped down

  into the pit of

  the empty

  flowerpot

  This Is Just to Say

  I have eaten

  the plums

  that were in

  the icebox

  and which

  you were probably

  saving

  for breakfast

  Forgive me

  they were delicious

  so sweet

  and so cold

  To a Poor Old Woman

  munching a plum on

  the street a paper bag

  of them in her hand

  They taste good to her

  They taste good

  to her. They taste

  good to her

  You can see it by

  the way she gives herself

  to the one half

  sucked out in her hand

  Comforted

  a solace of ripe plums

  seeming to fill the air

  They taste good to he

  The Term

  A rumpled sheet

  of brown paper

  about the length

  and apparent bulk

  of a man was

  rolling with the

  wind slowly over

  and over in

  the street as

  a car drove down

  upon it and

  crushed it to

  the ground. Unlike

  a man it rose

  again rolling

  with the wind over

  and over to be as

  it was before.

  Philomena Andronico

  With the boys busy

  at ball

  in the worn lot

  nearby

  She stands in

  the short street

  reflectively bouncing

  the red ball

  Slowly

  practiced

  a little awkwardly

  throwing one leg over

  (Not as she had done

  formerly

  screaming and

  missing

  But slowly

  surely) then

  pausing throws

  the ball

  With a full slow

  very slow

  and easy motion

  following through

  With a slow

  half turn –

  as the ball flies

  and rolls gently

  At the child’s feet

  waiting –

  and yet he misses

  it and turns

  And runs while she

  slowly

  regains her former

  pose

  Then shoves her fingers

  up through

  her loose short hair

  quickly

  Draws one stocking

  tight and

  waiting

  tilts

  Her hips and

  in the warm still

  air lets

  her arms

  Fall

  Fall

  loosely

  (waiting)

  at her sides

  From Paterson

  THE FALLS

  What common language to unravel?

  The Falls, combed into straight lines

  from that rafter of a rock’s

  lip. Strike in! the middle of

  some trenchant phrase, some

  well packed clause. Then …

  This is my plan. 4 sections: First,

  the archaic persons of the drama.

  An eternity of bird and bush,

  resolved. An unraveling:

  the confused streams aligned, side

  by side, speaking! Sound

  married to strength, a strength

  of falling – from a height! The wild

  voice of the shirt-sleeved

  Evangelist rivaling, Hear

  me! I am the Resurrection

  and the Life!
echoing

  among the bass and pickerel, slim

  eels from Barbados, Sargasso

  Sea, working up the coast to that

  bounty, ponds and wild streams –

  Third, the old town: Alexander Hamilton

  working up from St Croix,

  from that sea! and a deeper, whence

  he came! stopped cold

  by that unmoving roar, fastened

  there: the rocks silent

  but the water, married to the stone,

  voluble, though frozen; the water

  even when and though frozen

  still whispers and moans –

  And in the brittle air

  a factory bell clangs, at dawn, and

  snow whines under their feet. Fourth,

  the modern town, a

  disembodied roar! the cataract and

  its clamor broken apart – and from

  all learning, the empty

  ear struck from within, roaring …

  EPISODE 17

  Beat hell out of it

  Beautiful Thing

  spotless cap

  and crossed white straps

  over the dark rippled cloth –

  Lift the stick

  above that easy head

  where you sit by the ivied

  church, one arm

  buttressing you

  long fingers spread out

  among the clear grass prongs –

  and drive it down

  Beautiful Thing

  that your caressing body kiss

  and kiss again

  that holy lawn –

  And again: obliquely –

  legs curled under you as a

  deer’s leaping –

  pose of supreme indifference

  sacrament

  to a summer’s day

  Beautiful Thing

  in the unearned suburbs

  then pause

  the arm fallen –

  what memories

  of what forgotten face

  brooding upon that lily stem?

  The incredible

  nose straight from the brow

  the empurpled lips

  and dazzled half-sleepy eyes

  Beautiful Thing

  of some trusting animal

  makes a temple

  of its place of savage slaughter

  revealing

  the damaged will incites still

  to violence

  consummately beautiful thing

  and falls about your resting

  shoulders –

  Gently! Gently!

  as in all things an opposite

  that awakes

  the fury, conceiving