Poemunity — your poem community

In the close covert of a grove By nature formed for scenes of love, Said Susan in a lucky hour: ‘Observe yon sweet geranium flower. How straight upon its stalk it stands, And tempts our violating hands, Whilst the soft bud, as yet unspread, Hangs down its pale declining head. Yet soon as it is ripe to blow, The stems shall rise, the head shall glow.’ ‘Nature,’ said I, ‘my lovely Sue, To all her followers lends a clue. Her simple laws themselves explain As links of one continued chain; For her the mysteries of creation Are but the works of generation. Yon blushing, strong, triumphant flower Is in the crisis of its power: But short, alas, its vigorous reign; He sheds his seed, and drops again. The bud that hangs in pale decay Feels not, as yet, the plastic ray. Tomorrow’s sun shall bid him rise, Then, too, he sheds his seed, and dies. But words, my love, are vain and weak; For proof, let bright example speak.’ Then straight before the wondering maid The tree of life I gently laid. ‘Observe, sweet Sue, his drooping head, How pale, how languid, and how dead. Yet let the sun of thy bright eyes Shine but a moment, it shall rise. Let but the dew of thy soft hand Refresh the stem, it straight shall stand. Already, see, it swells, it grows, Its head is redder than the rose, Its shriveled fruit, of dusky hue, Now glows—a present fit for Sue. The balm of life each artery fills, And in o’erflowing drops distils.’ ‘Oh, me!’ cried Susan, ‘When is this? What strange tumultuous throbs of bliss! Sure, never mortal till this hour Felt such emotion at a flower! Oh, serpent, cunning to deceive, Sure ’tis this tree that tempted Eve. The crimson apples hang so fair Alas! what woman could forbear?’ ‘Well hast thou guessed, my love,’ I cried, ‘It is the tree by which she died – The tree which could alone content her. All nature, Susan, seeks the centre. Yet let us still poor Eve forgive, It’s the tree by which we live. For lovely women still it grows, And in the centre only blows. But chief for thee it spreads its charms, For paradise is in thy arms …’ I ceased, for nature kindly here Began to whisper in her ear, And lovely Sue lay softly panting While the geranium tree was planting, ’Til in the heat of amorous strife She burst the mellow tree of life. ‘Oh, heaven!’ cried Susan with a sigh, ‘The hour we taste – we surely die. Strange raptures seize my fainting frame, And all my body glows with flame. Yet let me snatch one parting kiss To tell my love I die with bliss – That pleased thy Susan yields her breath; Oh, who would live, if this be death?’

At the mention of Gerard Manley Hopkins, my mild-mannered father — tender, abstracted — would exercise the right to revert to type. That is to say: devout; that is, proscriptive. He would rather we did not so bandy the good Jesuit’s name about in talk of “gay this” and “gay that” — just as he would rather my sister did not, from the library, request “sick”Lolita. Like tars on a stage deck, yo ho, we roll our eyes. Somebody snaps on the poisonous gas-fired heater — and I put off a year or two the hypothesis I’ll form, with a wave, to provoke him to these wobblers that all in such matters swing from pole to pole; as Hopkins was wont (his muse being bi[nsey] po[p]lar[s]) to swing from joy’s heights, alas, to the abyss and for whom the mind had “mountains; cliffs of fall.” • “O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne’er hung there....    ” Who’s not known the hell that fashions itself from the third night without sleep — the third or the fourth — in whose black margins crawl shrill horrors, and where breathless, poleaxed, pinned — as though in the teeth of an outrageous gale — the mind — sick — preys upon the stricken mind. And “worst, there is none” — no none — than this wild grief: Citalopram-wired. Our sweating selves self-cursed. Oh, “Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?” as Hopkins wrote — but, far gone, at its worst it’s her first form I want. Please stroke my hair. It’s alright now. I’m here, I’m here. There, there.

The coal-dust hushed parameters of the room. Outside, my mother stitched whole dresses for $3.00 a piece. I slept in a bedroom which faced the street. A cheerleader was killed in a drive-by that year. She died in her sleep. I watched the headlights sweep overhead. * It felt like skin. It did not feel obscene. When that boy tongue-kissed me and wiped his mouth, it was a coming into knowledge. * When my mother whispered, Has anyone touched you there? I had to pick. Alan, I said. I was seven. The training wheels were coming off. Between the couch and wall, the ceiling was white with popcorn bits. The boys stood and watched. I lay there, my eyes open like a doll’s. Someone said,Let me try. He pulled down his pants and rode on top, then abruptly stopped. The boys laughed, said Shhh and stood me up.

Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. I was neither at the hot gates Nor fought in the warm rain Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, Bitten by flies, fought. My house is a decayed house, And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner, Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. The goat coughs at night in the field overhead; Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds. The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea, Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter. I an old man, A dull head among windy spaces. Signs are taken for wonders.  ‘We would see a sign!’ The word within a word, unable to speak a word, Swaddled with darkness.  In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero With caressing hands, at Limoges Who walked all night in the next room; By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians; By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles Weave the wind.  I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty house Under a windy knob. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities.  Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving.  Gives too late What’s not believed in, or is still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion.  Gives too soon Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with Till the refusal propagates a fear.  Think Neither fear nor courage saves us.  Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism.  Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree. The tiger springs in the new year.  Us he devours.  Think at last We have not reached conclusion, when I Stiffen in a rented house.  Think at last I have not made this show purposelessly And it is not by any concitation Of the backward devils. I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use it for your closer contact? These with a thousand small deliberations Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, With pungent sauces, multiply variety In a wilderness of mirrors.  What will the spider do Suspend its operations, will the weevil Delay?  De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims, And an old man driven by the Trades To a sleepy corner. Tenants of the house, Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

for Gabriele Mintz As Billy goes higher all the balloons Get marooned on the other side of the Lunar landscape. The module’s broke— It seems like for an eternity, but who’s Counting—and Sally’s joined the Moonies So we don’t see so much of her anyhow. Notorious novelty—I’d settle for a good Cup of Chase & Sand-borne—though when The strings are broken on the guitar You can always use it as a coffee table. Vienna was cold at that time of year. The sachertorte tasted sweet but the memory burned in the colon. Get a grip, get a grip, before The Grippe gets you. Glad to see the picture Of ink—the pitcher that pours before Throwing the Ball, with never a catcher in sight. Never a catcher but sometimes a catch, or A clinch or a clutch or a spoon—never a Catcher but plenty o’flack, ’till we meet On this side of the tune.

My shadow followed me to San Diego silently, she never complained. No green card, no identity pass, she is wedded to my fate. The moon is a drunk and anorectic, constantly reeling, changing weight. My shadow dances grotesquely, resentful she can't leave me. The moon mourns his unwritten novels, cries naked into the trees and fades. Tomorrow, he'll return to beat me blue—again, again and again. Goodbye Moon, goodbye Shadow. My husband, my lover, I'm late. The sun will plunge through the window. I must make my leap of faith.

Here comes dawn and nothing rosy about her fingers — stove-flame blue and some hand must’ve turned the burner on: the little tongues licking, gradually, the teapot of  us aboil, cooking off a giardia of  stars, the dregs of our night- mares. Who will place his fingers in the nailmarks, come near enough to smell death in its hair? Already we’ve some of us slid back into our bodies, restirring the air our breaths stirred all night — whoever we are while we sleep — and gone about believing we are here. Ambulance sirens assure us, a plum’s sour skin, what’s become of  the poppies, dried all but greenless, etcetera. But the yearling child reaching into the lineaments of  sun lancing between his crib bars — how might this shame us, that they seem to seem graspable to him?

1914-1918 The Garden called Gethsemane In Picardy it was, And there the people came to see The English soldiers pass. We used to pass—we used to pass Or halt, as it might be, And ship our masks in case of gas Beyond Gethsemane. The Garden called Gethsemane, It held a pretty lass, But all the time she talked to me I prayed my cup might pass. The officer sat on the chair, The men lay on the grass, And all the time we halted there I prayed my cup might pass. It didn’t pass—it didn’t pass- It didn’t pass from me. I drank it when we met the gas Beyond Gethsemane!

Very sad, Having to Come out of nowhere, The rain We’ve been waiting for Is waiting too. Trees, By now, Have had enough daylight. They’d like, Please, To sleep it off. If nothing Else, nothing Else. Behind our backs Things mean themselves. Violins crack From wanting to exist. It’s hard, getting a word in. I’m waiting To arrive inside my clothes, If nothing else, Willing To be (having to Come out of nowhere) Very sad.

Isabella Whitney , The maner of her Wyll, 1573 1 We’re told it was mostly the soul at stake, its formal setting-forth, as over water, where, against all odds, the words-on-paper make a sort of currency, which heaven, against all odds, accepts. So Will, which is to say,May what I purpose, please, this once, and what will happen coincide. To which the worldly dispositions were mere after-thought: your mother’s ring and so forth. What the law considered yours to give. Which in the case of women was restricted—this was long ago, and elsewhere—so that one confessedly “weak of purse” might all the more emphatically be thought of as having little to say. Except about the soul. The late disturbance in religion having done that much, the each for each responsible, even a servant, even the poor. Wild, then—quite beyond the pale—to hustle the soul-part so hastily off the page. And turn, our Isabella Whitney, to the city and its faithlessness. Whose smells and sounds—the hawker’s cry, the drainage ditch in Smithfield—all the thick-laid, lovely, in-your-face-and-nostrils stuff of getting-by no woman of even the slightest affectation would profess to know, much less to know so well. As one would know the special places on his body, were the passion merely personal. 2 Wattle and brickwork. Marble and mud. The city’s vast tautology. No city without people and no people but will long for what the city says they lack: high ceilings, gloves and laces, news, the hearth-lit circle of friendship, space for solitude, enough to eat. And something like a foothold in the whole-of-it, some without-which-not, some little but needful part in all the passing- from-hand-to-hand of it, so every time the bondsman racks his debtor or the shoemaker hammers a nail or one un- practiced girl imagines she has prompted a look of wistfulness, a piece of it is yours because your seeing it has made it that much slower to rejoin the blank oblivion of never-having- been. The year was fifteen hundred seventy- three. The year of our Redeemer, as they used to say. That other circuit of always-in-your- debt. From which she wrested, in her open I-am-writing-not-for-fun-but-for-the-money way of authorship, a world not just of plenty but—and here’s the part of that’s legacy—of love.