Poemunity — your poem community

There is a change—and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need. What happy moments did I count! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, for that consecrated fount Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, What have I? shall I dare to tell? A comfortless and hidden well. A well of love—it may be deep— I trust it is,—and never dry: What matter? if the waters sleep In silence and obscurity. —Such change, and at the very door Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

(Double Sestina) DECAMERON, x. 7 There is no woman living that draws breath So sad as I, though all things sadden her. There is not one upon life's weariest way Who is weary as I am weary of all but death. Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower All day with all his whole soul toward the sun; While in the sun's sight I make moan all day, And all night on my sleepless maiden bed Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee, That thou or he would take me to the dead, And know not what thing evil I have done That life should lay such heavy hand on me. Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me? What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath, Or what shall my heart broken profit thee? O Love, O great god Love, what have I done, That thou shouldst hunger so after my death? My heart is harmless as my life's first day: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed: I am the least flower in thy flowery way, But till my time be come that I be dead Let me live out my flower-time in the sun Though my leaves shut before the sunflower. O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower! Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me, That live down here in shade, out of the sun, Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death? Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath? Because she loves him shall my lord love her Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way? I shall not see him or know him alive or dead; But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee That in brief while my brief life-days be done, And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed. For underground there is no sleepless bed: But here since I beheld my sunflower These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun. Wherefore if anywhere be any death, I would fain find and fold him fast to me, That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead, With her that died seven centuries since, and her That went last night down the night-wandering way. For this is sleep indeed, when labour is done, Without love, without dreams, and without breath, And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee. Ah, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee? Wilt thou not be as now about my bed There underground as here before the sun? Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead, Thy moving vision without form or breath? I read long since the bitter tale of her Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day, And died, and had no quiet after death, But was moved ever along a weary way, Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me, O my king, O my lordly sunflower, Would God to me too such a thing were done! But if such sweet and bitter things be done, Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee. For in that living world without a sun Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead, And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death. Yet if being wroth God had such pity on her, Who was a sinner and foolish in her day, That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath, Why should he not in some wise pity me? So if I sleep not in my soft strait bed I may look up and see my sunflower As he the sun, in some divine strange way. O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way This sore sweet evil unto us was done. For on a holy and a heavy day I was arisen out of my still small bed To see the knights tilt, and one said to me "The king," and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath, And if the girl spake more, I heard not her, For only I saw what I shall see when dead, A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower, That shone against the sunlight like the sun, And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee, The fire of love that lights the pyre of death. Howbeit I shall not die an evil death Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way, That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee. So when mine eyes are shut against the sun, O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower, Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead. And dying I pray with all my low last breath That thy whole life may be as was that day, That feast-day that made trothplight death and me, Giving the world light of thy great deeds done; And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed, That God be good as God hath been to her. That all things goodly and glad remain with her, All things that make glad life and goodly death; That as a bee sucks from a sunflower Honey, when summer draws delighted breath, Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way, And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day And night to night till days and nights be dead. And as she gives light of her love to thee, Give thou to her the old glory of days long done; And either give some heat of light to me, To warm me where I sleep without the sun. O sunflower made drunken with the sun, O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her, Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee. There is a weed lives out of the sun's way, Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed, That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath, A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day Will gaze her soul out on the sunflower For very love till twilight finds her dead. But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death, Knows not when all her loving life is done; And so much knows my lord the king of me. Aye, all day long he has no eye for me; With golden eye following the golden sun From rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed, From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death, From eastern end to western of his way. So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower, So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee, The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead, Trod underfoot if any pass by her, Pale, without colour of summer or summer breath In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done No work but love, and die before the day. But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day, Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me. Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way, That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee For grain and flower and fruit of works well done; Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower, Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed As like the sun shall outlive age and death. And yet I would thine heart had heed of her Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead. Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath. Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead; From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee, To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death Down the sun's way after the flying sun, For love of her that gave thee wings and breath, Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.

Night the First By Nature's law, what may be, may be now; There's no prerogative in human hours: In human hearts what bolder thought can rise, Than man's presumption on tomorrow's dawn? Where is tomorrow? In another world. For numbers this is certain; the reverse Is sure to none; and yet on this perhaps, This peradventure, infamous for lies, As on a rock of adamant we build Our mountain hopes; spin out eternal schemes, As we the fatal sisters would outspin, And, big with life's futurities, expire. Not even Philander had bespoke his shroud; Nor had he cause, a warning was denied; How many fall as sudden, not as safe? As sudden, though for years admonished home: Of human ills the last extreme beware, Beware, Lorenzo! a slow-sudden death. How dreadful that deliberate surprise? Be wise today, 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life: Procrastination is the thief of time, Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. If not so frequent, would not this be strange? That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, "That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born: All pay themselves the compliment to think They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise; At least, their own; their future selves applauds; How excellent that life they ne'er will lead? Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails; That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign; The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone; 'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool; And scarce in human wisdom to do more: All promise is poor dilatory man, And that through every stage: when young, indeed, In full content, we sometimes nobly rest, Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish, As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise: At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves:then dies the same.

And wherefore do the Poor complain? The rich man asked of me,— Come walk abroad with me, I said And I will answer thee. Twas evening and the frozen streets Were cheerless to behold, And we were wrapt and coated well, And yet we were a-cold. We met an old bare-headed man, His locks were few and white, I ask'd him what he did abroad In that cold winter's night: 'Twas bitter keen indeed, he said, But at home no fire had he, And therefore, he had come abroad To ask for charity. We met a young bare-footed child, And she begg'd loud and bold, I ask'd her what she did abroad When the wind it blew so cold; She said her father was at home And he lay sick a-bed, And therefore was it she was sent Abroad to beg for bread. We saw a woman sitting down Upon a stone to rest, She had a baby at her back And another at her breast; I ask'd her why she loiter'd there When the wind it was so chill; She turn'd her head and bade the child That scream'd behind be still. She told us that her husband served A soldier, far away, And therefore to her parish she Was begging back her way. We met a girl; her dress was loose And sunken was her eye, Who with the wanton's hollow voice Address'd the passers by; I ask'd her what there was in guilt That could her heart allure To shame, disease, and late remorse? She answer'd, she was poor. I turn'd me to the rich man then For silently stood he, You ask'd me why the Poor complain, And these have answer'd thee.

It was an icy day. We buried the cat, then took her box and set fire to it in the back yard. Those fleas that escaped earth and fire died by the cold.

That we await a blessed hope,& that we will be struck With great fear, like a baby taken into the night, that every boot, Every improvised explosive, Talon & Hornet, Molotov & rubber-coated bullet, every unexploded cluster bomblet, Every Kevlar & suicide vest & unpiloted drone raining fire On wedding parties will be burned as fuel in the dark season. That we will learn the awful hunger of God, the nerve-fraying Cry of God, the curdy vomit of God, the soiled swaddle of God, The constant wakefulness of God, alongside the sweet scalp Of God, the contented murmur of God, the limb-twitched dream- Reaching of God. We’re dizzy in every departure, limb-lost. We cannot sleep in the wake of God,& God will not sleep The infant dream for long. We lift the blinds, look out into ink For light. My God, my God, open the spine binding our sight.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

for my father Vivid and heavy, he strolls through dark brick kitchens Within the great house of Esterhazy: A deaf servant’s candle Is tipped toward bakers who are quarreling about The green kindling! The wassail is Being made by pouring beer and sherry from dusty bottles Over thirty baked apples in a large bowl: into The wassail, young girls empty their aprons of Cinnamon, ground mace, and allspice berries. A cook adds Egg whites and brandy. The giant glass snifters On a silver tray are taken from the kitchen by two maids. The anxious pianist eats the edges of a fig Stuffed with Devonshire cream. In the sinks the gallbladders Of geese are soaking in cold salted water. Walking in the storm, this evening, he passed Children in rags, singing carols; they were roped together In the drifting snow outside the palace gate. He knew he would remember those boys’ faces. . . There’s a procession into the kitchens: larger boys, each With a heavy shoe of coal. The pianist sits and looks Hard at a long black sausage. He will not eat Before playing the new sonata. Beside him The table sags with hams, kidney pies, and two shoulders Of lamb.A hand rings a bell in the parlor! No longer able to hide, he walks Straight into the large room that blinds him with light. He sits before the piano still thinking of hulled berries. . . The simple sonata which He is playing has little To do with what he’s feeling: something larger Where a viola builds, in air, an infinite staircase. An oboe joins the viola, they struggle For a more florid harmony. But the silent violins now emerge And, like the big wing of a bird, smother everything In a darkness from which only a single horn escapes— That feels effaced by the composer’s dream. . . But he is not dreaming, The composer is finishing two performances simultaneously! He is back in the dark kitchens, sulking and counting His few florins—they have paid him With a snuffbox that was pressed With two diamonds, in Holland! This century discovers quinine. And the sketchbooks of a mad, sad musician Who threw a lantern at his landlord who was standing beside A critic. He screamed:Here, take the snuffbox, I’ve filled It with the dander of dragons!

I still see those men haphazardly standing around the comps’ floor, mostly silent, lost in their latest urgent jobs, looking up and down as if nodding yes from what they call their composers’ sticks as they set inverse words and lines of each page that could be taken for Greek scripture, declaring: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made cold type and the Word was coldness, darkness, shiny greyness and light—and the Word dwelt amongst us. * Oh, I know these men would laugh this off. They’d say, if they simply didn’t throw their eyes to heaven, that they were just ordinary characters trying to keep the devil from the door, and with luck have enough left over each week to back a few nags, and go for a few jars. But they can’t say anything or set anything now. They are scattered from that place that’s not the same any more and many have left any place we know of in this life, calling to mind the old names for printing: The Mysterious Craft or simply The Mystery. * I set them up in another city, another country that’s as far away in distance from that city as it’s far in time. But they are still composing, cracking the odd joke above their sticks and galleys on some floor of some building that is eternally busy inside me even when I’ve forgotten that I’ve forgotten them; forgetting the world behind the word— every time I read the word world I wonder is it a typo and should I delete the l. * Now again I hanker to know the quality of each letter: the weight, the texture, the smell, the shiny new type, the ink-dark shades of old, the different types of type, the various sizes within the same font, the measures in ems, picas,  points and units. I’d set the words up, making something out of all this that stays standing—all set as masterly as the words those men set that reveal something of the mystery behind and within these letters and the wonder and the darkness, but with the lightest touch. * And the umpteen ways things can foul up are beyond telling. Maybe the type is off, or the typesetter may not be up to the work, if only out of a hangover setting an ! where there should be a ? or a b where there should be a d, or miss aspace or a line or dingbat. And the proofreaders don't catch the error, passing the copy on as clean, or the make-up man fouls the assembly page, or the stoneman errs as he fastens the page of cold type and furniture with the chase, turning the quoin’s key. * Not to speak of the evil eye cast by fellow composers ready to knock the words of others, or the bosses writing on the composition:Kill. Old Shades, keep my words from such eyes and fretting about that pied world and let me go on regardless. And even if I foul up and the stewards are right to set Kill on my last page and my words are distributed and thrown in the hellbox, the real achievement will be that I tried to set the words right; that I did it with much labor and not without a font of love. But that said, * grant me the skill to free the leaden words from the words I set, undo their awkwardness, the weight of each letter of each word so that the words disappear, fall away or are forgotten and what remains is the metal of feeling and thought behind and beyond the cast of words dissolving in their own ink wash. Within this solution we find ourselves, meeting only here, through The Mystery, but relieved nonetheless to meet, if only behind the characters of one fly-boy’s words.

There is magic in decay. A dance to be done For the rotting, the maggot strewn Piles of flesh which pile Upon the dung-ridden earth And the damp that gathers And rusts and defiles. There is a bit of this In even the most zoetic soul — The dancing child’s arms Flailing to an old ska song Conduct the day-old flies Away to whatever rank Native is closest. Just today I was walking along the river With my daughter in my backpack And I opened my email On my phone and Duffie Had sent me a poem Called “Compost.” I read it To my little girl and started To explain before I was three Words in Selma started Yelling, Daddy, Daddy, snake! In the path was a snake, Belly up and still nerve-twitching The ghost of some passing Bicycle or horse. Pretty, Selma said. Yes, I said. And underneath my yes Another yes, the yes to my body, Just beginning to show signs Of slack, and another, my grasping In the dark for affirming flesh That in turn says yes, yes Let’s rot together but not until We’ve drained what sap Is left in these trees. And I wake in the morning And think of the coroner Calling to ask what color My father’s eyes were, And I asked, Why? Why can’t You just look — and the coroner, Matter-of-factly says, Decay. Do you want some eggs, my love? I have a new way of preparing them. And look, look outside, I think this weather Has the chance of holding.