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In post—World War II America there were several loosely affiliated, overlapping strands of poets who began publishing—poets rejecting the epistemological and anglophile models of W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot. They were known variously as the New York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats, and the Black Mountain poets. They came up on the heels of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, and along the spur of the Objectivists, aka Zukofsky, Reznikoff, Niedecker, et al. Robert Creeley was the bridge. He distributed the differences and sounded parallel concerns. He began corresponding with Pound and Williams in 1949. He and John Ashbery were seated two desks apart at Harvard. In Majorca, his Divers Press published Robert Duncan and Paul Blackburn. He typed Allen Ginsberg's Howl, which was then mimeographed in an edition of twenty-five. At the now legendary and gone Black Mountain College, he studied with Charles Olson and "earned" his successorship. At Black Mountain Creeley edited the Black Mountain Review(initially from Majorca) and picked up the degree he had managed not to complete at Harvard. Over the years he would edit works of Charles Olson and George Oppen (and Robert Burns and Walt Whitman), as well as anthologies of new American writing. His correspondence was carried on at a rate and level not to be believed. The Olson/Creeley letters alone consume ten volumes (if e-mail had been available to those two the number of volumes might have been squared). He wrote tense stories and a superb short novel along with scores of word-perfect essays. Overall he published in the vicinity of seventy books. Checking a familiar book site, 227 titles are instantly identified with his name. His collaborations with artists including Francesco Clemente, Elsa Dorfman, Sol LeWitt, R.B. Kitaj, and Susan Rothenberg were the occasion of fine-edition books and traveling exhibitions. His collaborations with musicians such as Steve Lacy and Steve Swallow were performed for packed, hip audiences and are featured on numerous recordings. He could and did fill Albert Hall, but he had no qualms about reading to a crowd of four. No qualms, either, about talking extemporaneously in lieu of giving the promoted reading. He was not there to accommodate anyone's prepackaged expectations—he was there to discover the direction of his own thinking. And in that lies, as he often quoted William Carlos Williams, the profundity.

Today I became King of the Court w/out a diamond- encrusted crown thrust upon my sweaty head. Instead my markings of royalty were the t-shirt draping my body like a robe soaked in champagne & the pain in my right knee — a sign of a battle endured, my will tested & bested by none as the ball flew off my hands as swift as an arrow toward the heart of a target — my fingers ringless yet feeling like gold.

1. How account for dimming of the lights baggage of old age tagged and waiting? or light tricks in snow at sun-up? waiting in line waiting in line come sundown watching the horizon eyes glowing. 2. Who not the other myself my prisoner night flesh ear-skewered music in natural air screams   well-deep seep to the brain-root days Treblinka nights guilt guts the ferret in my cage sanity puddles the floor. 3. In memory sickness eyes unlace open as last night’s boots a glacier of light saps the air remember the torturer’s tinnitus starts the day. 4. The   irrationality of it mob noise angels struck from the block of darkness a sunlit sky breaks through in shrapnel hard screaming night feather touch troops improvising for the kill panic my enemy my nail-hold. 5. Of the texture of elbows shattered and stairwell falls hallucinations of confession rush to stop pain. 6. Andean snow-stats blind me the flashlight of the Burglar of Death flares and holds on my eyes. 7. In the Feast Halls ghosts linger feeding avoiding dogs and the memory of cracked bones. 8. Present danger colors hiss from a blue masque bone-bonded Autumn in no year’s season a nerve twitches across the path. 9. Planets by lamplight street laughter embraced in being parallel lines collapse curbside cornices fall from a stranger’s dream moon-sand ears the inhabitants lean in to hear.

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste, I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday; I dare not move my dim eyes any way, Despair behind, and death before doth cast Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. Only thou art above, and when towards thee By thy leave I can look, I rise again; But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, That not one hour I can myself sustain; Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

Is this a holy thing to see, In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reducd to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine. And their fields are bleak & bare. And their ways are fill'd with thorns. It is eternal winter there. For where-e'er the sun does shine, And where-e'er the rain does fall: Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.

Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean The children walking two & two in red & blue & green Grey-headed beadles walkd before with wands as white as snow, Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door

Ours was a play-filled childhood; irrigation ditches ran deep during the summers. We played in the water and dirt, then inscribed ABCs and numbers onto the smooth ground. Our cat Polly died of rabies; then all the pets had to be shot, some in the rib cage as they thrashed in panic. There was a pink bruise on my forehead from pressing against the wall. We couldn't figure out how such a thing could happen. The dogs were steadfast figures around the farm. They chased strange cars and sometimes invoked deep panic among visitors and passersby. They had cuts and bruises from scuffles with roaming packs. No tags were inscribed with their random Navajo names. Snazzy was skinny; his rib cage obvious through thin fur. He looked as if he might die from hunger, but he ate like nobody's business. Who knew he would die of rabies with the rest? The main thing was to figure out how they contracted it, my parents said. We cried until our rib cages ached; our eyes stayed swollen. This first loss was too deep to even talk about. Decades later, I can finally describe how that summer led us into a grief that felt like a bruise that would last forever. But our neighbor suffered worse bruises: their huge dog, named Dog, was the first to die and was the cause of all this. Their home and fields are inscribed in our memories as "the rabies place." Over time, they must have figured it was too much to live down. Childhood losses run deep, even though we are grandparents now. The memory is an invisible cage of anguished sobs, gunshots, yelping howls, canine rib cages exploding. Sometimes we reminisce and notice that the bruises of grief have turned pale like smoothed-over scars. That initial deep hurt was the start, we found, of how love could die right before us, even as we watched: stunned figures pleading for mercy, urgent prayers saying, "Let God's scribe mark this down. We've paid our dues. Our hearts are inscribed with loss after loss." For some reason, after everything, our rib cages held up and continued to cradle tender hearts. They must have figured that all the prayers and careful teachings would prevent bruises that would weaken us. Our love for those homely animals was deep and would figure in the knowledge that such bruises aren't endless, and that our rib cages are not mere bones. One can die from grief, so now we can describe loss and love as the Holy Twins.

Venerable black women You of yesterday, you of today. Black mothers of tomorrow yet to be These lines are homage to you, for you. Magnificent black women The poets and singers have been remiss Have sung too few poems and songs of you And the image makers have not recorded your beauty. Sheba, Nefertiti, Zaiditu, Cleopatra. Black women, Mothers of humanity, Mother original Your black children here salute you. You, bartered, sold, insulted, raped and defiled, Debased and debauched for four centuries. Strong women, Gannet, Tubman and Truth. Weary black women Your breasts gaunt from nurturing theirs first And later sustaining yours, caring for theirs At the same instance providing for yours also. Women forgotten, Mandy, Melindy, Cindy, and Lisa. Gentle black women While being hated, yet teaching love Being scorned, yet teaching respect Being humiliated and teaching Compassion. Humble women, Bessie, Mattie, Lucey, Ann and Willie Mae. Resourceful black women, with tact Managing to make do, alter clothing, Stretch meals, Making room, Prodding, Bolstering Nudging us on, Protecting, teaching survival. Laney, Bethune, Keckley, Terrel and Brown. Militant black women, defending yours with fury Standing firm, picketing and demonstrating Kneeling in, sitting in and wading in Standing, walking, marching and boycotting. Parks, Wells, Pleasant and Louvestre. Discerning black women, women of genius Setting your children a proper example Teaching that each generation must do its part To improve life for those coming after. Nannie, Gaines, Burroughs, Maggie Walker. Courageous black women, brave and fearless Seeking to make a home among the unfriendly Sending your children off to school To pass unscathed through walls of hate. Lucy, Bates, Richardson, and Hamer. Angry black women and understanding Aware of efforts to stunt your men Yet urging them manhood again. Diana, Gloria, Thelma, Ethel, Eva and Marion. Heroic black women, women of glory Not turning back, never giving up Equalling, surpassing the stature Of any race of women, anywhere, any time. Billie, Ella, Dinah, Sis-Sirretta, Mahalia. Black women of genius, brilliant women Walking through the hateful valleys In dignity, strength and such serene composure That even your enemies tremble insecure. Hansberry, Talbert, Bonds and Baker. Magnificent black women, hopeful women Believing that trouble doesn't last always Knowing this truth, that those who are slaves today May well be the masters tomorrow, even sooner. Sisters with all women, black women Your sufferings echo those of all the oppressed. Join together all of you in a universal cry For Peace and the good life for all. The world listens.

1 Nowhere is all around us, pressureless, A vacuum waiting for a rupture in The tegument, a puncture in the skin, To pass inside without a password and Implode us into Erewhon. This room Is dangerously unguarded: in one wall An empty elevator clangs its doors, Imperiously, for fodder; in the hall, Bare stretchers gape for commerce; in the air Outside, a trembling, empty brightness falls In hunger on those whom it would devour Like any sparrow hawk as darkness falls And rises silently up the steel stairs To the eleventh and last floor, where I Reside on sufferance of authorities Until my visas wither, and I die. 2 Where is my friend, Rodonda Morton Schiff, Whose hulk breasts, cygnet-like, the Totensee, Shrilling her bosun’s whistles, piping Death— The Almirante of the Doldrums in His black cocked hat and braided cape—aboard Her scuttling vessel with such poems as just Escape confounding his gaunt rape with lust? She should be singing my song at this hour. 3 It is a simple matter to be brave In facing a black screen with a white FIN— The final title—fading out as all Credits have faded in the final crawl, To which the audience has turned its back And mumbled, shuffled, struggled into coats On its way out to face a different night; It is far harder, in the light of day, Surrounded by striped student nurses, to Endure a slight procedure in which you Are the anatomy lesson in pink paint Splashed by some master on the tinctured air, Complete, in gross detail, to the grimace Denoted by a squiggle on your face As the bone-marrow needle sinks its fang Through atomies of drugged and dullard skin And subcutaneum to pierce the thin, Tough eggshell of the pelvic arch, wherein— After steam-hammer pressure—it will suck Up sips of specimen tissue with a pain Akin to an extraction under gas, All gravity against all hollowness. Affronted and affrighted, I can’t pass This episode in silent dignity Or bloodless banter; I must sweat and grunt And moan in corporal fear of corporal pain Too venial to be mortal, making a fool Of my lay figure in its textbook pose (Fig. 1) before these starched and giggling girls Too young to be let out of simpering school To meet live terror face to face and lose. 4 Why must the young male nurse who preps the plain Of my knife-thrower’s-target abdomen With his conversant razor, talking snicks Of scything into my sedated ears, Talk also in his flat and friendly voice, So far from showdowns, on a blasé note Of reassurance, learnt by classroom rote? It is that he must make his living, too. 5 If Hell abides on earth this must be it: This too-bright-lit-at-all-hours-of-the-day- And-night recovery room, where nurses flit In stroboscopic steps between the beds All cheek by jowl that hold recoverers Suspended in the grog of half-damped pain And tubularities of light-blue light. For condiment in this mulled mix, there are Assorted groans and screams; and, lest repose Outstrip the sufferer, there is his own Throat-filling Gobi, mucous membrane gone Dry as Arabia, as barren of Hydropsy as a sunburnt cage of bone Perched on parched rocks where game Parcheesian (A devil figure, this) went, wended his Bent way to harvest, for a shekel, rugs, And pack them back by camel over sands Of nightmare to transship to richer lands Where millions of small rills plash into streams That give rise to great rivers—such wet dreams Afflict the desiccate on their interminable way Up through the layers of half-light to day. 6 The riddle of the Sphinx. Man walks on three Legs at the last. I walk on three, one of Which is a wheeled I.V. pole, when I rise From bed the first time to make my aged way Into the toilet, where, while my legs sway And the pole sways, swinging its censer high, I wait to urinate, and cannot make My mortal coils distill a drop, as time Stumps past and leaves me swaying there. Defeat: I roll and hobble back to bed, to the Refrain of cheeping wheels. Soon the young man With his snake-handler’s fist of catheters Will come to see me and supply the lack Of my drugged muscles with the gravity Of his solution, and I’ll void into A beige bag clipped to the bedside, one of The bottles, bags, and tubes I’m tethered to As a condition of continuance. The body swells until it duns the mind With importunities in this refined, White-sheeted torture, practiced by a kind, Withdrawn white face trained in the arts of love. 7 Home, and the lees of autumn scuttle up To my halt feet: fat, sportive maple leaves Struck into ochre by the frost and stripped From their umbilic cords to skate across The blacktop drive and fetch up on my shoes As if including me in their great fall, Windy with rumors of the coming ice. Though fallen, frostbit, yellowed also, I Cannot participate in their late game But must leave them to hide and seek a place To decompose in, while I clamber up Long enneads of stairs to the room where I’ll recompose myself to durance in A world of voices and surprises, for As long as Clotho draws my filament— To my now flagging wonder and applause— From indefatigable spinnerets, Until her sister widows, having set The norms for length and texture of each strand And sharpened their gross shears, come cut it off And send me to befriend the winter leaves.

It’s alot like a cave full of pictures & black & white checked flags you may overdose on caffeine it’s the closest restaurant to our house maybe five miles, it’s very cheap you can go there when you have almost no money they let you use the telephone i can get steak tartare there for $2.25 but i’ve never called it that just raw hamburger with an egg yolk, pickle relish & garlic powder plus the celtic salt i bring along the owner, h (after whom the h-burger is named) is loquacious, surprising, has a santa claus belly & wears suspenders there’s ashtrays everywhere & a great old pinball machine it’s like east nassau but it’s in west lebanon i think you can always talk about the weather & hunting the clientele is open-minded as are the waitress & waiter who kneels when he takes your order during hunting season it opens at 4:30 a.m. it’s for sale but that’s not quite serious h’s wife thinks he spends too much time there (which he does) so she started calling him by their dog’s name, peaches h is a big fan of northern exposure, oh & i forgot to mention the biscuits & sausage gravy which are genuine, greyish & great. recently h got a smoker & this year we’ll go to the new year’s eve party & eat stuffed shrimp and/or lobster