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The secretive hart turns at bay, lowers his tines to the hounds’ cry. The sword enters the bull’s heart— still he stands, amazed on the red sand as the stony unbeliever might, who has seen God. Soon now horns will sound dedow for the unmaking. Beaters flush the grey heron like a coney from its warren, the peregrine’s jet eyes flash. They go ringing up the air, each in its separate spiral stair to the indigo rim of the skies, then descend swift as a murderer’s hand with a knife. Death’s gesture liquefies in bringing the priestly heron down. Her prize, the marrow from a wing-bone in which she delights, her spurred fleur-de-lys tongue stained gold-vermilion— little angel in her hangman’s hood.

some say I'm now almost extinct in this park but the people who say this don't know that by smelling the orchids in the trees they're sensing the fragrance of my chops that by hearing the rumbling of the waterfalls they're listening to my ancestors' great roar that by observing the constellations of the night sky they're gazing at the star spots on my fur that I am and always will be the wild untamed living spirit of this jungle

The startling pleasures all broke down, It was her first arthritic spring. Inside her furs, her bones, secure, Suddenly became a source of pain And froze on a Saturday afternoon While she was listening to “La Boheme.” Strength had been her weakness, and Because it was, she got to like The exhilaration of catastrophes That prove our lives as stupid as we think, But pain, more stupid than stupidity, Is an accident of animals in which, once caught, The distances are never again the same. Yet there was another Jane in Jane: She smelled the inside of a logarithm, And felt a Gothic arch rise in her chest, Her clavicle widening to bear the weight Of the two smooth plumb lines of her breasts, The blueprints forming an enormous skirt Around her body. Arch and star and cross Swung like little lights inside her head, A church and temple rising from the floor, Nave and transept and an altar where, Unbidden, she saw a kind of sacrifice; The knife was in her hand, the stick, the whip; She cried at her cruelty and cried to be Outside of her defenses. And just then, The windows buckled in, the paintings cracked, The furniture went walking by itself, All out of her control. And it was pain That let her know she was herself again: She wore a cloak of fire on her skin, And power, power floated up to her.

“A fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.” — northanger abbey I awoke from the tunnel to the fields of yellow rape, seventeenth-century buildings, and cobbled streets as she would have seen them. It was rainy; the rain came and went, came and went so that you could not escape its dampness. I understood the need for tea and the luxury of cremes and pastries and why the ladies longed for a strong shoulder to see them through the winter. The seagulls cried overhead, though there was no sea, only a muddy river from Bath to Bristol. The scavengers lived on the rooftops and if desperate enough would swoop down and take a sandwich from your hand. I secured my room at the Royal Bath Hotel. It was a hovel, really, with a carpet as old as the early century. Walking through the hotel, I sensed something lurid in the air, every eye upon me as if they knew I was a foreigner in a strange land. Over the bed, a burgundy bedspread dusty and faded as vintage wine, made me long for the bright color of red. In the next room, sleepless, I heard through thin walls the sounds of an un-tender coupling. I looked in the warped mirror and found myself ugly and when I turned from it, could not escape the vision. It lingered. The rain came and went, came and went. I took an umbrella and began my walk, hoping to come upon her quarters. I passed the Roman Baths, the statues not beautiful, but puckered and fossilled and the Pump Room where her protagonist, other self, doppelgänger, good, strong, loyal Catherine, longing for companionship, fell under the seduction of Isabella and her reprehensible brother. Even then her coming out seemed less magisterial, and Bath a representation of the emptiness and evils of society where a woman’s dowry might confine her forever, than a reprieve from country life. I gave up my search. Images were everywhere. And my mind had been made up. I perceived no romance in the wind, no comfort in the hard glances of strangers, girls with chipped nail polish, lads unkempt as if there were no hope of glory. The next morning I boarded the train to the modern world and it wasn’t until a sheet of blue slipped out like a love letter from its envelope of dark gray sky that I knew the journey had ended and, like Catherine, I was finally safe.

What if I know, Liebknecht, who shot you dead. Tiegarten trees unroll staggering shadow, in spite of it all. I am among the leaves; the inevitable voices have nothing left to say, the holed head bleeding across a heap of progressive magazines; torn from your face, trees that turned around, we do not sanctify the land with our wandering. Look upon our children, they are mutilated.

I think it is interesting though not exactly amusing how we go from day to day with no money. How do we do it, friends ask, suspecting we really have some stash stacked away somewhere. But we certainly do not and we also do not know how we do it either. You sure are lucky, some of our friends say. I am none too sure of that though, as I wait for the winning lottery numbers to be announced on CKLW. Thursday in Detroit is the day of dreams. We have been dreaming of a place in the country lately and I’m none too sure that is very healthy. And speaking of health that’s also been a problem that probably has something to do with no money, since we’ve all been sick lately, taking turns politely of course. Could you bring me some more tea one of us will ask, and the other will. In between the coughing and worrying our thoughts have often turned to crime. We seriously wonder how we can get away with a bundle with as little risk as possible. Last week we took our last $12 out of the bank and noticed how much more they had there though we had none. Of course we wouldn’t rob that bank, they know us there as the ones who bring the rolls of pennies in. And just yesterday they fish-eyed us for trying to cash our son’s xmas bond from his grandparents after only one month. So we wouldn’t try to rob that bank, but I do know of one up north that may be possible. . . I know this just seems like romantic dreaming but I practically make a career of reading detective stories, and God knows, I have no other. Anyway if the right opportunity comes along, we are more than ready to meet it. But this is a time of waiting, the I Ching says, though it does not say how we are to eat while waiting. And soon we will have another mouth to feed— Ann now in her seventh month, and that is often in our thoughts. Besides all that we are both over thirty, artist and poet, still waiting to cross the great water. Meanwhile, day after day, there is still Detroit to be dealt with — a small pond says our friend Snee. Big fish we used to answer him, but that was a while back. Now we think maybe Lake Erie is the great water referred to in the I Ching, and if we wait long enough we can walk across — to Buffalo or Cleveland. In a healthy person, says the philosopher, self-pity can be a forerunner to action: once the problem is seen clearly, a solution may be found at hand. And as I said, I think it is interesting though not exactly amusing.

Word of it comes whispered by a slippery thin section of the paper, where the models pantomime unruffled tête-à-têtes despite the absence of their blouses. Each year when my familiar latches on them so intently like a grand master plotting the white queen’s path, like a baby trying to suckle a whole roast beef, I ask: What, you salt block, are you dreaming about being clubbed by thunderheads?—but he will not say. Meanwhile Capricorn’s dark hours flabbed me, uneasy about surrendering to the expert fitter (even if the cupped hands were licensed and bonded)— I had August in mind, seeing the pygmy goats at the county fair. Now the sky is having its daily rain event and the trees are having their hibernal bark event, pretending they feel unruffled despite the absence of their leaves. And we forget how they looked all flouncy and green. Instead we regard fearfully the sway of their old trunks.

I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair, Borne, like a vapor, on the summer air; I see her tripping where the bright streams play, Happy as the daisies that dance on her way. Many were the wild notes her merry voice would pour. Many were the blithe birds that warbled them o’er: Oh! I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair, Floating, like a vapor, on the soft summer air. I long for Jeanie with the daydawn smile, Radiant in gladness, warm with winning guile; I hear her melodies, like joys gone by, Sighing round my heart o’er the fond hopes that die:— Sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain,— Wailing for the lost one that comes not again: Oh! I long for Jeanie, and my heart bows low, Never more to find her where the bright waters flow. I sigh for Jeanie, but her light form strayed Far from the fond hearts round her native glade; Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown, Flitting like the dreams that have cheered us and gone. Now the nodding wild flowers may wither on the shore While her gentle fingers will cull them no more: Oh! I sigh for Jeanie with the light brown hair, Floating, like a vapor, on the soft summer air.

Three dark buds for the Trinity On one twig I found in the lining of my coat Forgotten since I broke them from the tree That grows opposite the RSA building At the top of Vulcan Lane — there I would lay down my parka On the grass and meditate, cross-legged; there was a girl Who sat beside me there; She would hold a blue flower at the centre of the bullring While the twigs on the tree became black And then slowly green again — she was young — if I had said, ‘Have my coat; have my money’ — She would have gone away; but because I gave her nothing She came again and again to share that nothing Like a bird that nest in the open hand.

Moses, from whose loins I sprung, Lit by a lamp in his blood Ten immutable rules, a moon For mutable lampless men. The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy, With the same heaving blood, Keep tide to the moon of Moses. Then why do they sneer at me?