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Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

Down from another planet they have settled to mend The Hampton Institute banisters. They wear bow ties and braces. The flutings they polish with a polished hand. Wingless, they build and repair The mansions of what we have thought to be our inheritance. Caution and candor they labor to maintain. They are out of phase. I prepare To burn all gentle structures, greek or thatch, Under the masterful torch of my president here and abroad, Till stubble outsmolders, and muslim and buddhist crack In the orbit of kiln. A smoke To some calm Christian plant will drift, To where they are mending their mansions, beside of whose doors They are standing at ease, they are lifting the fans Of unburdenable wings.

It was her first time coming home from college. She headed downtown for a drink or two. Her girlfriend went home early. That was Christmas. Now, under sapling pine trees in the clearing, snowdrops are coming back to their old places. They had been gone a lifetime. Now they stand, poised like a choir on the verge of singing: Nature is just. There’s nothing left to fear. The worst thing that can happen happened here.

falling into unearthed light or something like that is who I was last night. you brought me a drink you didn’t know the name of & told me I could get it. you not the drink which I downed even though it was my 9th of the night the drink not you. dancehall. always dancehall. a manner of movement learned & not easily lost so I wind my hips anyway & something is happening to you.you bout to start some shit& I say good. not because it would be. I haven’t been touched in a while. don’t start something you can’t finish is maybe the worst advice I’ve ever heard as you drop a handful of my ass thudding down a small flight of stairs. that’s what I am. a small flight of stairs, a small flight, down.

Scarred hemlock roots, Oaks in mail, and willow-shoots Spring’s first-knighted; Clinging aspens grouped between, Slender, misty-green, Faintly affrighted: Far hills behind, Somber growth, with sunlight lined, On their edges; Banks hemmed in with maiden-hair, And the straight and fair Phalanx of sedges: Wee wings and eyes, Wild blue gemmy dragon-flies, Fearless rangers; Drowsy turtles in a tribe Diving, with a gibe Muttered at strangers; Wren, bobolink, Robin, at the grassy brink; Great frogs jesting; And the beetle, for no grief Half-across his leaf Sighing and resting; In the keel’s way, Unwithdrawing bream at play, Till from branches Chestnut-blossoms, loosed aloft, Graze them with their soft Full avalanches! This is very odd! Boldly sings the river-god: ‘Pilgrim rowing! From the Hyperborean air Wherefore, and O where Should man be going?’ Slave to a dream, Me no urgings and no theme Can embolden; Now no more the oars swing back, Drip, dip, till black Waters froth golden. Musketaquid! I have loved thee, all unbid, Earliest, longest; Thou hast taught me thine own thrift: Here I sit, and drift Where the wind’s strongest. If, furthermore, There be any pact ashore, I forget it! If, upon a busy day Beauty make delay, Once over, let it! Only, — despite Thee, who wouldst unnerve me quite Like a craven,— Best the current be not so, Heart and I must row Into our haven!

Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame That at the whisper of Love’s name, Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze? Poor Bombard-captain, sworn to reach The ravelin and effect a breach – Indifferent what you storm or why, So be that in the breach you die! Love may be blind, but Love at least Knows what is man and what mere beast; Or Beauty wayward, but requires More delicacy from her squires. Tell me, my witless, whose one boast Could be your staunchness at the post, When were you made a man of parts To think fine and profess the arts? Will many-gifted Beauty come Bowing to your bald rule of thumb, Or Love swear loyalty to your crown? Be gone, have done! Down, wanton, down!

Empty cattle trailers Rumbled dummy thunder Down the road all day, and now tonight, Heat lightning flashes more of the same fake rain. It’s just as well. I couldn’t get to sleep, And now it ricochets across the sky With empty loads of light. We’ve had a month Of drought that tightens dirt around my pond. The local wells are dry. But I’ve retired, Threw out my wand. I hate this time of year. Roux can burn if flour Sticks in skillet butter. I’ve been cooking up a storm myself, My Daddy’s filé gumbo recipe. He used to be a chef on oil rigs Until the hurricane. I heard the waves That killed him, and I hear them every year. It’s emptiness that fills me. That’s my skill. I hear the vacant rain before it falls. It’s like the murmur of a spiraled shell. Hurricane weather, stewing Deep for landfall, spewing Rain-a-plenty in the Gulf and here In Tennessee they always have a lack Of something. Two men called today for wells. I told them both to go to hell, and now They think I’m sinful, not to use my skill. They stand to lose so much, but don’t we all. I lost a lot in Hurricane Camille And even now can’t hear the end of it. More heat lightning flashes, Absent rain that passes Over clouds, and I can make it out, Each gurgling current under withered fields, Down kitchen drains. The neighbors think I’m crazy, Up all hours, but they’ll never know The screaming voice inside a breaker’s rage Or how it simmers in my ear. I hate The sound of water. Give me one good chance To make it silent. I’d be right as rain.

’Tis strange indeed to hear us plead For selling and for buying When yesterday we said: “Away With all good things but dying.” The world’s ago, and we’re agog To have our first brief inning; So let’s away through surge and fog However slight the winning. What deeds have sprung from plow and pick! What bank-rolls from tomatoes! No dainty crop of rhetoric Can match one of potatoes. Ye orators of point and pith, Who force the world to heed you, What skeletons you’ll journey with Ere it is forced to feed you. A little gold won’t mar our grace, A little ease our glory. This world’s a better biding place When money clinks its story.

(On this date, Goebbels moved into the lowest level of the bunker, taking a room opposite Hitler’s.) Stand back, make way, you mindless scum, Squire Voland the Seducer’s come— Old Bock from Babelsberg whose tower Falls silent now, whose shrunken power For lies or lays comes hobbling home Into this concrete catacomb. Here’s Runty Joe, the cunt collector Who grew to greatness, first erector Of myths and missions, fibs and fables, Who pulled the wool then turned the tables: He piped the tunes and called the dance Where shirtless countries lost their pants. Goatfooted Pan, the nation’s gander To whom Pan-Germans all played pander, The jovial cob-swan quick to cover Lida Baarova, his check-list lover; Swellfoot the Tyrant, he could riddle Men’s minds away, hi-diddle-diddle. Our little Doctor, Joe the Gimp Comes back to limpness and his limp: Hephaistos, Vulcan the lame smith Whose net of lies caught one true myth: His wife, the famous beauty, whored By numbskull Mars, the dull warlord. What if I took my little fling At conquest, at adventuring. Pried the lid of Pandora’s box off— There’s nothing there to bring your rocks off. I never saw one fucking day So fine I courted it to stay. If I got snarled in my own mesh Of thighs and bellies, who wants flesh? I never hankered after matter. Let Hermann swell up, grosser, fatter, Weighed down by medals, houses, clothing; They leave me lean, secured in loathing. As a young man, I pricked the bubble Of every creed; I saw that rubble And offered myself the realms of earth Just to say Yes. But what’s it worth? No thank you, Ma’am. Behold the Ram Of God: I doubt, therefore I am. Here I forsake that long pricktease Of histories, hopes, lusts, luxuries. I come back to my first Ideal— The vacancy that’s always real. I sniffed out all life’s openings: I loved only the holes in things. So strip down one bare cell for this Lay Brother of the last abyss. To me, still, all abstractions smell; My head and nose clear in this cell Of concrete, this confession booth Where liars face up to blank truth. My tongue lashed millions to the knife; Here, I’ll hold hands with my soiled wife. My lies piped men out, hot to slaughter; Here, I’ll read stories to my daughter Then hack off all relations, choose Only the Nothing you can’t lose, Send back this body, fixed in its Infantile paralysis. I was born small; I shall grow less Till I burst into Nothingness, That slot in time where only pure Spirit extends, absent and sure. I am that spirit that denies, High Priest of Laymen, Prince of Lies. Your house is founded on my rock; Truth crows; now I deny my cock. Jock of this walk, I turn down all, Robbing my Peter to play Paul. I give up all goods I possess To build my faith on faithlessness. Black Peter, I belie my Lord— You’ve got to die to spread the Word. Now the last act; there’s no sequel. Soon, once more, all things shall be equal.

Protruding, rebelling against the lips, the long, pointed, ill-fated fang stared at me, (in spite of awkward attempts to hide it). Stealing adolescent glances, I dreamed it pierced me, pushing deep in the base of my neck. I bit my lower lip, flushed, but not before blushing under its spell. Yesterday, Yesterday when he smiled at me, with teeth in perfect alignment (dentistry can work miracles), I turned my apostate face, and squinting, pretended to watch passersby.