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Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Bouteloua black grama grass red chino side- oats blue grama grass hairy buffalo- grass toboso three-awn land’s dawn 旦 sun over sand, tumble wind- mill witch- cup- saltgrass plains love- indiangrass, prairie cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle- top green knotroot bristle, bluestem, tangle- head, sacaton panicles open, golden drop- seed blooms desert winter- grass, awns twist, un- twist,such syllables flicker out of grass : Nanissáanah thirst, ghost dance native spirits, active roots, footstalks to soil as to site, stems bend, range- lands wave, seiche fields sway, clouds pass over- grazed grass staked, fenced dries, weakens, dies, fallen crowns, the grasslands what comes to pass, ranch- hand lands, live- stock livelihood wildlife gone, displaced, migrations impeded, scales im- balanced the years spread, each itself hitched to everything else in the universe nodes hollowed, drought- land years, drops on the hardpan nature is endless regeneration trichloris, muhly, switch- grass, wind misses 沙 沙shasha through the pass- es, whispering seeds will pass, will pass within leaves listening grasses,not only the revelation but the nature behind

So still at heart, They respond like water To the slightest breeze, Rippling as one body, And, as one mind, Bend continually To listen: The perfect confidants, They keep to themselves, A web of trails and nests, Burrows and hidden entrances— Do not reveal Those camouflaged in stillness From the circling hawks, Or crouched and breathless At the passing of the fox.

To My Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton O thou that swing’st upon the waving hair Of some well-fillèd oaten beard, Drunk every night with a delicious tear Dropped thee from heaven, where now th’ art reared; The joys of earth and air are thine entire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly; And, when thy poppy works, thou dost retire To thy carved acorn-bed to lie. Up with the day, the sun thou welcom’st then, Sport’st in the gilt-plats of his beams, And all these merry days mak’st merry men, Thyself, and melancholy streams. But ah, the sickle! Golden ears are cropped; Ceres and Bacchus bid good night; Sharp, frosty fingers all your flowers have topped, And what scythes spared, winds shave off quite. Poor verdant fool, and now green ice! thy joys, Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass, Bid us lay in ’gainst winter rain, and poise Their floods with an o’erflowing glass. Thou best of men and friends! we will create A genuine summer in each other’s breast, And spite of this cold time and frozen fate, Thaw us a warm seat to our rest. Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally, As vestal flames; the North Wind, he Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly This Etna in epitome. Dropping December shall come weeping in, Bewail th’usurping of his reign: But when in showers of old Greek we begin, Shall cry he hath his crown again! Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip From the light casements where we play, And the dark hag from her black mantle strip, And stick there everlasting day. Thus richer than untempted kings are we, That, asking nothing, nothing need: Though lords of all what seas embrace, yet he That wants himself is poor indeed.

This is not a waiting room for souls. It is modern, totally unwindowed. The sun threw a ray away, lost two rays it’s raining here in the room. On the beach it looks very evening already, money removed from the world: if one travels somewhere and back again, one is always different—we are not separated on the journey. My mouth keeps spr- inging open. Everything does not have to have a limit : varnish out, dooryear—winter ice is caught in winter, I plunged myself but not under. (I can’t pull it out of my head, can I.) Godthrough: a word with a star tied around it, it has to hit someone. Was such a storm the trees fell over, there was a storm against. I have got a lot more songs in my mouth: Shudderhorror. Souldoll. Shiverbeard, is there much enough snow? is that supposed to be lakes for the chessmen have reached the bank? Mother shakes the little tree. Otherwise the darkness will read it and will remain dark forever. A dream falls off, a little shirt— the sky is red. And blue. How do the bones get into my foot? Ung-Ung-train, Puff-Puff train afraided me away. No everything does not have a limit: I saw that I lived here. That there is a spider in the window here. That there is a mirror here. Twinslight, the tongue, the garden flowers painted —almostyou: to walk where it is very dark and the small bell is already hanging in the air—

There are those who feed only on oranges. — S.Y. Agnon Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. It stands alone, with luster in a far tinge. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. On Saturday it’s blue like an orange Or like a surrealist sight rhyme in a garage. Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. But rime riche is rich enough for an orange. Still my doorman sings, Put it away in storage! It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. Orange replies: I’m drunk from my last bar-binge Half-rhymes like hangovers suddenly impinge. But nothing rhymes in English with an orange. While my wife in French eats one in her nude linge Playwrights Synge and Inge flap forward on a car-hinge. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. Pronounce it orange and then expunge. So ends the story of the very violet orange. Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.

As if he had been poured in tar, he lies on a pillow of turf and seems to weep the black river of himself. The grain of his wrists is like bog oak, the ball of his heel like a basalt egg. His instep has shrunk cold as a swan's foot or a wet swamp root. His hips are the ridge and purse of a mussel, his spine an eel arrested under a glisten of mud. The head lifts, the chin is a visor raised above the vent of his slashed throat that has tanned and toughened. The cured wound opens inwards to a dark elderberry place. Who will say 'corpse' to his vivid cast? Who will say 'body' to his opaque repose? And his rusted hair, a mat unlikely as a foetus's. I first saw his twisted face in a photograph, a head and shoulder out of the peat, bruised like a forceps baby, but now he lies perfected in my memory, down to the red horn of his nails, hung in the scales with beauty and atrocity: with the Dying Gaul too strictly compassed on his shield, with the actual weight of each hooded victim, slashed and dumped.

In the harsh glare of an easily reprehensible life. The channel changer is lost in the crack of an infinite sofa. Everything falls apart, everything breaks down, torn into a million fragments, Jericho everyday. I want to be the blameless victim in this canceled puppet show, the marionette every mother loves, the one souvenirs are modeled from. (In that lifetime, Elton John will write mushy ballads just for me. Michael Jackson will want to be my best friend. He’d take me to the Neverland Ranch, and by the llama feeding trough, he’d say something like, “You’re a great guy, don’t give up, stay positive!” And I’d say, “Michael, you fucking idiot, I am positive!” And he’d say, “Oh, you’re so funny! Would you like to touch Bubbles?” And I would.) In the crux of my hollow innocent youth, I believed that my teddy bears had feelings. To cure me of this, my guardians made me give them to the church missionaries’ children. Scrubbed-clean rosy-cheeked blonde kids who smelled of sweat and talc, who were in constant wide-blue-eyed bewilderment as to why they were profusely perspiring in the tropics, instead of living out some winter wonderland Bobsey Twins fantasy, who were oblivious to their parents’ desperate efforts to save the dusky masses, ignorant enough to believe in the secret lives of stuffed animals. I could not eat animal crackers because I did not want to hurt the poor things; but, braised the right way, I could eat any part of a pig, starting with the head, working on the soft flesh around the eyes, savoring its raspy tongue with a dipping sauce of ginger, chilies and lime. Oh blameless innocent victim. What measures a lifetime? I used to have this theory about how much life a human body could hold. It all had to do with the number of heartbeats. Each human is assigned a number determined by an unknown power cascading over the dark waters of the unformed Earth. For some, it was a magnificently high number, seen only in Richie Rich comics, and for others, it was frightfully low, like twenty-six. No bargaining, no coupons, no White Flower Day sale, no specials. Once you hit your number, you croak. I imagined the angels in heaven and the demons in hell gathering to watch the counters turn, like how I enjoyed watching the speedometer line up to a row of similar numbers, and especially when the row of nines turned into the row of zeros. Oh blameless innocent victim. What measures eternity? An eternal damnation. An everlasting love. I could not imagine the night sky stretched out forever, so I decided that it came to an end at some point, by a velvet rope it ended and beyond that rope were row after row of cushioned seats, a majestic cosmic theater, playing every movie I can remember. I want to be able to evoke those blameless and innocent days, to revel in their ignorance and goodness as if they have the power to protect and to heal, and to strengthen, and to bring me to safety long after all other resources were exhausted. But I emerge anew in the wreckage, blinking in the sunlight, the residue of salt water in my belly. You know what they say, God never closes a door before making sure that the windows are barricaded and the fire escape is inaccessible. I used to know how to stop the revolution of planets. I used to know how to save the world. Now, I don’t know anything anymore.

Once, as I was burying one of my dead selves, the grave-digger came by and said to me, “Of all those who come here to bury, you alone I like.” Said I, “You please me exceedingly, but why do you like me?” “Because,” said he, “They come weeping and go weeping—you only come laughing and go laughing.”

Carnations are best. Or roses, tight, before they go blowsy. Daffodils last. Tulips are no good — go limp soon as you look at ’em. Lilies are OK, but mark us with rust you can’t shift. Mam asks too many questions. We leave the lilies. Doug and me — we’re quick. When the earth is fresh we circle in to harvest. This is our meadow. Stem first into plaggy bags we ribbon from our pockets, then off, running the back way to the village. To the florist, past wreaths and In Memoriam s, where the old lady will peer at our haul, sniff, mebbe give us change from her pouch. Her sleeve is more snot-streaked than mine. And nails blacker. Some days Mam says she don’t understand why I leave me tea but other times I’ve hollow legs. I shrug. Tongue the toffee in a back tooth.