SUB TERRA

Where shall I find you,
you my grotesque fellows
that I seek everywhere
to make up my band?
None, not one
with the earthly tastes I require;
the burrowing pride that rises
subtly as on a bush in May.

Where are you this day,
you my seven year locusts
with cased wings?
Ah my beauties how long_!
That harvest
that shall be your advent_
thrusting up through the grass,
up under the weeds
answering me,
that will be satisfying!
The light shall leap and snap
that day as with a million lashes!

Oh, I have you; yes
you are about me in a sense:
playing under the blue pools
that are my windows, _
but they shut you out still,
there in the half light.
For the simple truth is
that though I see you clear enough
you are not there!

It is not that_it is you,
you I want!
_God, if I could fathom
the guts of shadows!

You to come with me
poking into negro houses
with their gloom and smell!
in among children
leaping around a dead dog!
Mimicking
onto the lawns of the rich!
You!
to go with me a-tip-toe,
head down under heaven,
nostrils lipping the wind!



Pastoral

When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel-staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best
of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.



Chicory and Daisies

List your flowers
(poem forthcoming...)




Metric Figure

There is a bird in the populars!
It is the sun!
The leaves are little yellow fish
swimming in the river.
The birds skims above them,
day is on his wings.
Phoebus!
It is he that is making
the great gleam among the populars!
It is his singing
outshines the noise
of leaves clashing in the wind.





Woman Walking

An oblique cloud of purple smoke
(poem forthcoming...)




Gulls

My townspeople, beyond in the great world,
Are many with whom it were far more
Profitable for me to live than here with you.
These whirr about me calling, calling!
And for my own part I answer them loud as I can,
But they, being free pass!
I remain! Therefore, listen!
For you will not soon have another singer

First I say this: You have seen
The strange birds, have you not, that sometimes
Rest upon our river in winter?
Let them cause you to think well then of the storms
That drive many to shelter. These things
Do not happen without reason.

And next thing I say is this:
I saw an eagle once circling against the clouds
Over one of our principal churches
Easter, it was a beautiful day!
Three gulls came from above the river
And crossed slowly seaward!
Oh, I know you have your own hymns, I have heard them
And because I knew they invoked some great protector
I could not be angry with you, no matter
How much they outraged true music

You see, it is not necessary for us to leap at each other,
And, as I told you, in the end
The gulls moved seaward very quietly.



Appeal

You who are so mighty,
Crimson salamander,
Hear me once more.
I lay among the half-burned sticks
At the edge of the fire.
The fiend was creeping in.
I felt the cold tips of fingers

O crimson salamander!

Give me one little flame,
one!
That I may blond it
Protectingly about the wrist
Of him that flung me here,
Here upon the very center!

This is my song.



In Harbor

Surely there, among the great docks, is peace, my mind,
(poem forthcoming...)




Winter Sunset
(poem forthcoming...)




Apology

Why do I write today?
(poem forthcoming)




Pastoral

The little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.
Meanwhile,
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
and his tread
is more majestic than
that of the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.
These things
astonish me beyond words.





Love Song

Daisies are broken
petals are new of the day
stems lift to the grass tops
they catch on shoes
part in the middle
leave the roots and leaves secure

Black branches
carry square leaves
to the wood’s top.
They hold firm
break with a roar
show the white!

Your moods are slow
the shedding of leaves
and sure
the return in May!

We walked
in your father’s grove
and saw the great oaks lying with roots
ripped from the ground.




M. B.
Winter has spent this snow
(poem forthcoming...)




Tract
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral
for you have it over a troop
of artists--
unless one should scour the world--
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black--
nor white either--and not polished!
Let it be weathered--like a farm wagon--
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out!
My God--glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them--
or what?
To keep the rain and snow fom him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass--
and no upholstery, phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom--
my townspeople what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
No wreaths please--
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes--a few books perhaps--
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople--
something will be found--anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.
For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down--bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at all--damn him--
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind--as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly--
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What--from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us--it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.





Promenade

I

Well, mind, here we have
(poem forthcoming)




El Hombre

It’s a strange courage
ytou give me ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!




Hero

Fool,
put your adventures
into those things
which break ships—
not female flesh.

Let there pass
over the mind
the waters of
four oceans, the airs
of four skies!

Return hollow-bellied,
keen-eyes, hard!
A simple scar or two.

Little girls will come
bringing you
roses for your button-hole.




Liberdad! Iguilidad! Fraternidad!

You sullen pig of a man
you force me into the mud
with your stinking ash-cart!
Brother!
—if we were rich
we'd stick our chests out
and hold our heads high!
It is dreams that have destroyed us.
There is no more pride
in horses or in rein holding.
We sit hunched together brooding
our fate.
Well—
all things turn bitter in the end
whether you choose the right or
the left way
and—
dreams are not a bad thing.





Canthara

The old black-man showed me
(poem forthcoming...)




Mujer
Oh, black Persian cat!
(poem forthcoming...)




Summer Song
Wanderer moon
(poem forthcoming)




Love Song
Sweep the house clean
hang fresh curtains
in the windows
put on a new dress
and come with me!
The elm is scattering
its little loaves
of sweet smells
from a white sky!
Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a burst of fragrance
from black branches.





Foreign
Artsybashev is a Russian
(poem forthcoming)




A Prelude
(I know only the bare rocks of today.
(poem forthcoming...)




History


1

A wind might blow a lotus petal
Over the pyramids but not this wind.

Summer is a dried leaf.

Leaves stir this way then that
On the baked asphalt, the wheels
Of motor cars rush over them,
Gas smells mingle leaf smells.

Oh, Sunday, day of worship!!!

The steps to the museum are high.
Worshippers pass in and out
Nobody comes here today.
I come here to mingle faience dug
From the tomb, turquoise-colored
Necklaces and wind belched from the
Stomach; delivately veined basins
Of agate, cracked and discolored and
The stink of stale urine!

Enter! Elbow in at the door.
Men? Women?
Simpering, clay fetish-faces counting
Through the turnstile.

Ah!


2

This sarcophagus contained the
body of Uresh-Nai, priest to the goddess Mut,
Mother of All

Run your finger against this edge!
Here went the chisel! And think
Of an arrogance endured sic thousand years
Without a flaw!

But love is an oil to embalm the body.
Love is the packet of spices, a strong-
Smelling liquid to be squirted into
The thigh. No?
Love rubbed on a blad head will make
Hair and after? Love is
A live comber!
Gnats on dung!

“The chisel is in your hand, the block
Is before, cut as I shall dictate:
This is the coffin of Uresh-Nai,
Priest to the sky goddess, built
To endure forever!
Carve the inside
With the image of my death in
Little lines of figure three fingers high.
Put a lid on it cut with Mut bending over
The earth, for my headpiece, and in the year
To be chosen I shall rouse, the lid
Shall be lifted and I will walk about
The temple where they have rested me
And eat the air of the place:

Ah these walls are high! This
Is in keeping”


3

The priest has passed into his tomb.
The stone has taken up his spirit!
Granite over fresh: who will deny
Its advantages?

Your death? Water
Spilled upon the ground
Though water will mount again into rose-leaves
But you? Would hold life still,
Even as a memory, when it is over.
Benevolence is rare

Climb about this sarcophagus, read
What is writ for you in these figures
Hard as the granite that had held them
With so soft a hand the while
Your own flesh has been fifty times
Through the guts of oxen, read!
“I who am the one flesh say to you,
The rose-tree will have its donor
Even though he give stingily.
The gift of some endures
Ten years, the gift of some twenty
And the gift of some for the time a
Great house rots and is torn down.
Some give for thousand years to men of
One face, some few to all men
While granite holds granite am edge against the weather.
Judge then of love!”


4

“My flesh turned to stone. I
Have endured my summer. The flurry
Of falling petals is ended. Lay
The finger upon this granite. I was
well desired and fully caressed
by many lovers but my flesh
withered swiftly and my heart was
never satisfied. Lay your hands
upon the granite as a lover lays his
hand upon the thigh and upon the
round breast of her who is beside
him, for now I will not wither,
now I have thrown off secrecy, now
I have walked naked into the street,
Now I have scattered my heavy beauty
In the open market.
Here I am with head high and a
Burning heart eagerly awaiting
your caresses, whoever it may be,
for granite is not harder than
my love is open, runs loose among you!

I arrogant against death! I
Who have endured! I worn against
The years!”


5

But it is five o’clock. Come!
Life is good_enjoy it!
A walk in the park while the day lasts.
I will go with you. Look! this
northern scenery is not the Nile, but_
these benches_the yellow and purple dusk_
the moon there_these tired people_
the lights on the water!

Are not these Jews and_Ethiopians?
The world is young, surely! Young
and colored like_a girl that has come upon
a lover! Will that do?




Winter Quiet
Limb to limb, mouth to mouth
(poem forthcoming)




Dawn
Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings--
beating color up into it
at a far edge,--beating it, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,--
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,--
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself--is lifted--
bit by bit above the edge
of things,--runs free at last
out into the open--!lumbering
glorified in full release upward--
songs cease.





Good Night

In brilliant gas light
I turn the kitchen spigot
and watch the water plash
into the clean white sink.
On the grooved drain-board
to one side is
a glass filled with parsley
crispen green.
Waiting
for the water to freshen
I glance at the spotless floor
a pair of rubber sandals
lie side by side
under the wall table
all is in order for the night

Waiting, with a glass in my hand
three girls in crimson satin
pass close before me on
the murmurous background of
the crowded opera
it is
memory playing the clown
three vagues, meaningless girls
full of smells and
the rustling sound of
cloth rubbing on cloth and
little slippers on carpet
high-school French
spoken in a loud voice!

Parsley in a glass,
still and shining,
brings me back. I take my drink
and yawn deliciously.
I am ready for bed.




Danse Russe

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?





Portrait of a Woman in Bed

There’s my things
(poem forthcoming)




Virtue

Now? Why–
(poem forthcoming)




Conquest

Hard, chilly colors:
(poem forthcoming...)




Portrait of a Young Man
With a Bad Heart

Have I seen her?
Only through the window
across the street.

If I go meeting her
on the corner
some damned fool
will go blabbing it
to the old man and
she’ll get hell.
He’s a queer old bastard!
Every time he sees me
you’d think
I wanted to kill him.
But I figure it out
it’s best to let things
stay as they are_
for a while at least.

It’s hard
giving up the thing
you want most
in the world, but with this
damned pump of mine
liable to give out . . .

She’s a good kid
and I’d hate to hurt her
but if she can get over it_

it’d be the best thing.




Keller Gegen Dom

Witness, would you—
(poem forthcoming)




Smell!
Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedreggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?





Ballet

Are you not weary,
(poem forthcoming...)




Sympathetic Portrait of a Child

The murderer’s little daughter
who is barely ten years old
jerks her shoulder
right and left
so as to catch a glimpse of me
without turning around.

Her skinny little arms
wrap themselves
this way then that
reversely about her body!
Nervously
she crushes her straw hat
about her eyes
and tilts her head
to deepen the shadow
smiling excitedly!

As best as she can
she hides herself
in the full sunlight
her cordy legs writhing
beneath the little flowered dress
that leaves them bare
from mid-thigh to ankle

Why has she chosen me
for the knife
that darts along her smile.






The Ogre

Sweet child,
(poem forthcoming...)




Riposte

Love is like water or the air
(poem forthcoming)




The Old Men

Old men who have studied
every leg show
in the city
Old men cut from touch
by the performed music_
polished or fleeced skulls
that stand before
the whole theater
in silent attitudes of attention,_
old men who have taken precedence
over young men
and even over dark-faced
husbands whose minds
are a street with arc-lights.
solitary old men for whom
we find no excuses_
I bow my head in shame
for those who malign you.
Old men
the peaceful beer of impotence
be yours!




Pastoral

If I say I have heard many voices
(poem forthcoming...)




Spring Strains
In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
(poem forthcoming...)




Trees

Crooked, black tree
(poem forthcoming...)




A Portrait in Greys

Will it never be possible
(poem forthcoming...)




Invitation

You who had the sense
(poem forthcoming...)




Divertimiento

Miserable little women
(poem forthcoming...)




January Morning
Suite

I

I have discovered that most of
the beauties of travel are due to
the strange hours we keep to see them:
the domes of the Church of
the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken
against a smoky dawn -- the heart stirred --
are beautiful as Saint Peters
approached after years of anticipation.
II
Though the operation was postponed
I saw the tall probationers
in their tan uniforms
hurrying to breakfast!
III
-- and from basement entries
neatly coiffed, middle aged gentlemen
with orderly moustaches and
well-brushed coats
IV
-- and the sun, dipping into the avenues
streaking the tops of
the irregular red houselets,
and
the gay shadows drooping and drooping.
V
-- and a young horse with a green bed-quilt
on his withers shaking his head:
bared teeth and nozzle high in the air!
VI
--and a semicircle of dirt-colored men
about a fire bursting from an old
ash can,
VII
-- and the worn,
blue car rails (like the sky!)
gleaming among the cobbles!
VIII
-- and the rickety ferry-boat "Arden"!
What an object to be called "Arden"
among the great piers, -- on the
ever new river!
"Put me a Touchstone
at the wheel, white gulls, and we'll
follow the ghost of the Half Moon
to the North West Passage -- and through!
(at Albany!) for all that!"
IX
Exquisite brown waves -- long
circlets of silver moving over you!
enough with crumbling ice crusts among you!
The sky has come down to you,
lighter than tiny bubbles, face to
face with you!
His spirit is
a white gull with delicate pink feet
and a snowy breast for you to
hold to your lips delicately!
X
The young doctor is dancing with happiness
in the sparkling wind, alone
at the prow of the ferry! He notices
the curdy barnacles and broken ice crusts
left at the slip's base by the low tide
and thinks of summer and green
shell-crusted ledges among
the emerald eel-grass!
XI
Who knows the Palisades as I do
knows the river breaks east from them
above the city -- but they continue south
-- under the sky -- to bear a crest of
little peering houses that brighten
with dawn behind the moody
water-loving giants of Manhattan.
XII
Long yellow rushes bending
above the white snow patches;
purple and gold ribbon
of the distant wood:
what an angle
you make with each other as
you lie there in contemplation.
XIII
Work hard all your young days
and they'll find you too, some morning
staring up under
your chiffonier at its warped
bass-wood bottom and your soul --
out!
-- among the little sparrows
behind the shutter.
XIV
-- and the flapping flags are at
half-mast for the dead admiral.
XV
All this --
was for you, old woman.
I wanted to write a poem
that you would understand.
For what good is it to me
if you can't understand it?
But you got to try hard --
But --
Well, you know how
the young girls run giggling
on Park Avenue after dark
when they ought to be home in bed?
Well,
that's the way it is with me somehow.





To a Solitary Disciple

Rather notice, mon cher,
(poem forthcoming...)




Dedication for a Plot of Ground

This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in a Brooklyn boarding house,
went with him to Puerto Rico
bore three more children, lost
her second husband, lived hard
for eight years in St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed
the oldest son to New York,
lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"
seized the two boys of
the oldest son by the second marriage
mothered them -- they being
motherless -- fought for them
against the other grandmother
and the aunts, brought them here
summer after summer, defended
herself here against thieves,
storms, sun, fire,
against flies, against girls
that came smelling about, against
drought, against weeds, storm-tides,
neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,
against the weakness of her own hands,
against the growing strength of
the boys, against wind, against
the stones, against trespassers,
against rents, against her own mind.
She grubbed this earth with her own hands,
domineered over this grass plot,
blackguarded her oldest son
into buying it, lived here fifteen years,
attained a final loneliness and --
If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.





K. McB.

You exquisite chunk of mud
(poem forthcoming...)




Love Song

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world-

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!




The Wanderer
A Rococo Study

Advent

Even in the time when as yet...













Poems by John Burroughs
_______________________________________________________________

TO E. M. A.

A change has come over natures
Since you and June were here;
The sun has turned to the southward
Adown the steps of the year.

The grass is ripe in the meadow,
And the mowers swing in rhyme;
The grain so green on the hillside
Is in its golden prime.

No more the breath of the clover
Is borne on every breeze,
No more the eye of the daisy
Is bright on meadow leas.

The bobolink and the swallow
Have left for other clime_
They mind the sun when he beckons
And go with summer’s prime.

Buttercups that shone in the meadow
Like rifts of golden snow,
They, too, have melted and vanished
Beneath the summer’s glow.

Still at evenfall in the upland
The vesper sparrow sings,
And the brooklet in the pasture
Still waves its glassy rings.

And the lake of fog to the southward
With surges white as snow_
Still morn away in the distance
I see it ebb and flow.

But a change has come over nature,
The youth of the year has gone;
A grace from the wood has departed,
And a freshness from the dawn.




The Return

He sought the old scenes with eager feet
The scenes he had known as a boy;
“Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet,
And a taste of that vanished joy!”

He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams,
His school-boy paths essayed to trace;
The orchard ways recalled his dreams,
The hills were like his mother’s face.

Oh, sad, sad hills! Oh cold, cold hearth!
In sorrow he learned this truth
One may return to the place of his birth,
He cannot go back to his youth.




Loss and Gain

The ship that drops behind the rim
Of sea and sky, so pale and dim,
Still sails the seas
With favored breeze,
Where other waves chant ocean’s hymn.

The wave that left this shore so wide,
And led away the ebbing tide,
Is with its host
on fairer coast,
Bedecked and plumed in all its pride.

The grub I found encased in clay
When next I came had slipped away
On golden wing,
With birds that sing,
To mount and soar in sunny day.

No thought or hope can e’re be lost_
The spring will come in spite of frost.
Go crop the branch
Of maple stanch,
The root will gain what you exhaust.

The man is formed as ground he tills_
Decay and death lie ‘neath his sills.
The storm that beats,
And solar heats,
Have helped to form whereon he builds.

Successive crops that lived and grew,
And drank the air, the light, the dew,
And then deceased,
His soil increased
In strength, and depth, and richness, too.

From slow decay the ages grow,
From blood and crime the centuries blow,
What disappears
Beneath the years,
Will mount again as grain we sow.