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For Hai-Dang Phan I have no doubt where they will go. They walk the one life offered from the many chosen. — Robert Lowell They are all also, it should be remembered, West German artists, with the partial exception of Penck, and are all male. — John-Paul Stonard He was born in the countryside / the provinces / the blameless sticks in (false) Waltersdorf (recte) Dresden in what is now Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic (laughs) / Czechia, if it ever catches on what’s it to you. Stripped of his East German citizenship, he fled on foot with a handful of pop music cassettes in a pantechnicon mit Kind und Kegel

You let your shirt hang down putting on airs of cuffs at the edge of ending night like the end of a java with double ritournelles or the way the canaries in the cage of still-closed mornings were singing that it mattered little to them that their windows were open the stones the paving stones the door-frames the armatures the window-frames the sheets of the bed clothes in their colors were beating the dawn along with us better drums than your belly better drumsticks than my fingers and the trees and the roofs the river and its bridges the clear distances of the city the factories without smoke bathed as at their birth stammered a trial hello that only ended however in this word round as a doubloon placed on the edge of that day by a considerate friend the sun on your arms naked against my cheeks hello I said to you the day of quatorz’juillet

At evening, sitting on this terrace, When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ... When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing Brown hills surrounding ... When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio A green light enters against stream, flush from the west, Against the current of obscure Arno ... Look up, and you see things flying Between the day and the night; Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together. A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches Where light pushes through; A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air. A dip to the water. And you think: "The swallows are flying so late!" Swallows? Dark air-life looping Yet missing the pure loop ... A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight And serrated wings against the sky, Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light, And falling back. Never swallows! Bats! The swallows are gone. At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats By the Ponte Vecchio ... Changing guard. Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp As the bats swoop overhead! Flying madly. Pipistrello! Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe. Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive; Wings like bits of umbrella. Bats! Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep; And disgustingly upside down. Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags And grinning in their sleep. Bats! In China the bat is symbol for happiness. Not for me!

Quickly and quietly, the bat patrols the night, sending an invisible song echoing like ripples on a pond, chasing moths around a streetlight. Quickly and quietly, the bat patrols the night.

She mops a washcloth down his spine and scrubs until his bones glow with the inner light of porcelain and when his Haloed hair bursts forth into foam he holds his nose and dunks beneath the soapy gloom ears flooding with signals the pipes transmit like microphones. The boy can hear another city, the one below where wind coils when it isn’t howling, one can hear Purgatory boil up through the manholes, a river flushing souls into the underworld, tomorrow’s news bawled at the crossroad of subway and sewer. If he were accidentally to swallow here the water would taste like silver off a dead man’s eyes. Upstairs, the mute émigré waitress he secretly adores sings naked in the shower, the newlyweds from Mexico rage about dinero, next door a newborn wails like a Black Maria, while in a hidden room, a crazy old man won’t stop repeating “the goddamn, the goddman!” And the boy comes up for air, eyes burning, rinsed hair silky, his hands wrinkled,Busha says, as prunes. Overhead, the bare bulb fogs with steam. She jerks the plug, the drain gulps a vortex of gray bathwater. It’s time to rinse before it sucks him down, to stand calf-deep, lacquered with Ivory, smoldering before a faucet that trickles a cool stream at which Busha washes him first gently in front and then behind in a way that no one else will ever wash him. The moon, too, must be fogged above misted lamps that bleed into reflections on the marbled pane. He swipes abstractions in the sweat, finger painting night while Busha towels his hair as if reviving a drowned sailor the sea has graciously returned. Don’t worry,Busha, your grandson is clean for Saturday night: ears, navel, nails, inspected, teeth unstained, cleansed as baptism leaves the soul, pure enough to sleep— as you instruct him—with the angels, cleaner than he’ll ever be again.

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air. The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light. Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

Washing Kai in the sauna, The kerosene lantern set on a box outside the ground-level window, Lights up the edge of the iron stove and the washtub down on the slab Steaming air and crackle of waterdrops brushed by on the pile of rocks on top He stands in warm water Soap all over the smooth of his thigh and stomach “Gary don’t soap my hair!” —his eye-sting fear— the soapy hand feeling through and around the globes and curves of his body up in the crotch, And washing-tickling out the scrotum, little anus, his penis curving up and getting hard as I pull back skin and try to wash it Laughing and jumping, flinging arms around, I squat all naked too, is this our body? Sweating and panting in the stove-steam hot-stone cedar-planking wooden bucket water-splashing kerosene lantern-flicker wind-in-the-pines-out sierra forest ridges night— Masa comes in, letting fresh cool air sweep down from the door a deep sweet breath And she tips him over gripping neatly, one knee down her hair falling hiding one whole side of shoulder, breast, and belly, Washes deftly Kai’s head-hair as he gets mad and yells— The body of my lady, the winding valley spine, the space between the thighs I reach through, cup her curving vulva arch and hold it from behind, a soapy tickle                a hand of grail The gates of Awe That open back a turning double-mirror world of wombs in wombs, in rings, that start in music, is this our body? The hidden place of seed The veins net flow across the ribs, that gathers milk and peaks up in a nipple—fits our mouth— The sucking milk from this our body sends through jolts of light; the son, the father, sharing mother’s joy That brings a softness to the flower of the awesome open curling lotus gate I cup and kiss As Kai laughs at his mother’s breast he now is weaned from, we wash each other, this our body Kai’s little scrotum up close to his groin, the seed still tucked away, that moved from us to him In flows that lifted with the same joys forces as his nursing Masa later, playing with her breast, Or me within her, Or him emerging, this is our body: Clean, and rinsed, and sweating more, we stretch out on the redwood benches hearts all beating Quiet to the simmer of the stove, the scent of cedar And then turn over, murmuring gossip of the grasses, talking firewood, Wondering how Gen’s napping, how to bring him in soon wash him too— These boys who love their mother who loves men, who passes on her sons to other women; The cloud across the sky. The windy pines. the trickle gurgle in the swampy meadow this is our body. Fire inside and boiling water on the stove We sigh and slide ourselves down from the benches wrap the babies, step outside, black night & all the stars. Pour cold water on the back and thighs Go in the house—stand steaming by the center fire Kai scampers on the sheepskin Gen standing hanging on and shouting, “Bao! bao! bao! bao! bao!” This is our body. Drawn up crosslegged by the flames drinking icy water hugging babies, kissing bellies, Laughing on the Great Earth Come out from the bath.

They billow from a hillside in Cha’am. Together, they are more than plural: the planet’s darkest song, a tongue, a serpent muscling air apart, a dire banner come unfurled, a river flowing wholly from the old, mute mountain’s desperate heart, the last confession of the world. Conceive of each one singly, if you can.

Not a sign of life we rouse In any square close-shuttered house That flanks the road we amble down Toward far trenches through the town. The dark, snow-slushy, empty street ... Tingle of frost in brow and feet ... Horse-breath goes dimly up like smoke. No sound but the smacking stroke Of a sergeant flings each arm Out and across to keep him warm, And the sudden splashing crack Of ice-pools broken by our track. More dark houses, yet no sign Of life ... An axle’s creak and whine ... The splash of hooves, the strain of trace ... Clatter: we cross the market place. Deep quiet again, and on we lurch Under the shadow of a church: Its tower ascends, fog-wreathed and grim; Within its aisles a light burns dim ... When, marvellous! from overhead, Like abrupt speech of one deemed dead, Speech-moved by some Superior Will, A bell tolls thrice and then is still. And suddenly I know that now The priest within, with shining brow, Lifts high the small round of the Host. The server’s tingling bell is lost In clash of the greater overhead. Peace like a wave descends, is spread, While watch the peasants’ reverent eyes ... The bell’s boom trembles, hangs, and dies. O people who bow down to see The Miracle of Calvary, The bitter and the glorious, Bow down, bow down and pray for us. Once more our anguished way we take Toward our Golgotha, to make For all our lovers sacrifice. Again the troubled bell tolls thrice. And slowly, slowly, lifted up Dazzles the overflowing cup. O worshipping, fond multitude, Remember us too, and our blood. Turn hearts to us as we go by, Salute those about to die, Plead for them, the deep bell toll: Their sacrifice must soon be whole. Entreat you for such hearts as break With the premonitory ache Of bodies, whose feet, hands, and side, Must soon be torn, pierced, crucified. Sue for them and all of us Who the world over suffer thus, Who have scarce time for prayer indeed, Who only march and die and bleed. * The town is left, the road leads on, Bluely glaring in the sun, Toward where in the sunrise gate Death, honour, and fierce battle wait.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His Day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.” He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat: Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.