Poemunity — your poem community

Crumbling is not an instant's Act A fundamental pause Dilapidation's processes Are organized Decays — 'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul A Cuticle of Dust A Borer in the Axis An Elemental Rust — Ruin is formal — Devil's work Consecutive and slow — Fail in an instant, no man did Slipping — is Crashe's law —

Crying, my little one, footsore and weary? Fall asleep, pretty one, warm on my shoulder: I must tramp on through the winter night dreary, While the snow falls on me colder and colder. You are my one, and I have not another; Sleep soft, my darling, my trouble and treasure; Sleep warm and soft in the arms of your mother, Dreaming of pretty things, dreaming of pleasure.

Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and rearing. We can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-renewing sump of corpse-flesh. But in this valley the snow falls silently all day, and out our window We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in our little house, We see earth smoothened and beautified, made like a fantasy, the snow-clad trees So graceful. In our new bed, which is big enough to seem like the north pasture almost With our two cats, Cooker and Smudgins, lying undisturbed in the southeastern and southwestern corners, We lie loving and warm, looking out from time to time. “Snowbound,” we say. We speak of the poet Who lived with his young housekeeper long ago in the mountains of the western province, the kingdom Of cruelty, where heads fell like wilted flowers and snow fell for many months Across the pass and drifted deep in the vale. In our kitchen the maple-fire murmurs In our stove. We eat cheese and new-made bread and jumbo Spanish olives Which have been steeped in our special brine of jalapeños and garlic and dill and thyme. We have a nip or two from the small inexpensive cognac that makes us smile and sigh. For a while we close the immense index of images that is our lives—for instance, The child on the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico sitting naked in 1966 outside his family’s hut, Covered with sores, unable to speak. But of course we see the child every day, We hold out our hands, we touch him shyly, we make offerings to his implacability. No, the index cannot close. And how shall we survive? We don’t and cannot and will never Know. Beyond the horizon a great unceasing noise is undeniable. The machine, Like an immense clanking vibrating shuddering unnameable contraption as big as a house, as big as the whole town, May break through and lurch into our valley at any moment, at any moment. Cheers, baby. Here’s to us. See how the curtain of snow wavers and then falls back.

Sometimes they are the only thing beautiful about a hotel. Like transients, come winter they have a way of disappearing, disguised as dirty light, limp beside a puttied pane. Then some April afternoon a roomer jacks a window open, a breeze intrudes, resuscitates memory, and suddenly they want to fly, while men, looking up from the street, are deceived a moment into thinking a girl in an upper story is waving.

It wasn’t a man That knocked me down With the thrill of a slice Of my will. She was mannish, Chilled, flung Her will across Mine then laughed At my shock, when she Gripped my neck while Lingering over a request For the evening meal. Later I sliced a tomato Close to my wrist. The door was open. She had warned me: Never shut it against Her. Otherwise I was free to come And go. Maybe she was Right: I was zero To the bone. Meanwhile, I had left the hose In the pond. The goldfish Cowered in the reeds. Whose side were they on? I am ill, I thought, Slogging across Soggy green. If I bow any lower I will be looking up At moss.

After Francesco Clemente ’ s Indian Miniature #16 The sun-face looms over me, gigantic-hot, smelling of iron. Its rays striated, rasp-red and muscled as the tongues of iguanas. They are trying to lick away my name. But I am not afraid. I hold in my hands (where did I get them) enormous blue scissors that are just the color of sky. I bring the blades together, like a song. The rays fall around me curling a bit, like dried carrot peel. A far sound in the air—fire or rain? And when I’ve cut all the way to the center of the sun I see flowers, flowers, flowers.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright.

The cypress is the tree’s grief and not the tree, and it has no shadow because it is the tree’s shadow —Bassam Hajjar The cypress broke like a minaret, and slept on the road upon its chapped shadow, dark, green, as it has always been. No one got hurt. The vehicles sped over its branches. The dust blew into the windshields ... / The cypress broke, but the pigeon in a neighboring house didn’t change its public nest. And two migrant birds hovered above the hem of the place, and exchanged some symbols. And a woman said to her neighbor: Say, did you see a storm? She said: No, and no bulldozer either ... / And the cypress broke. And those passing by the wreckage said: Maybe it got bored with being neglected, or it grew old with the days, it is long like a giraffe, and little in meaning like a dust broom, and couldn’t shade two lovers. And a boy said: I used to draw it perfectly, its figure was easy to draw. And a girl said: The sky today is incomplete because the cypress broke. And a young man said: But the sky today is complete because the cypress broke. And I said to myself: Neither mystery nor clarity, the cypress broke, and that is all there is to it: the cypress broke!

Set up curbside, jewelry tray entanglement with things looking up, but nothing sells unless there is someone looking down, and who might that be? For the moment it’s not raining and off-coast in pods the gray whales parade south. Photographs sprout with the season. The gray whale’s spout is heart shaped, enough said. Just listen for the icon’s intake of breath and see what you can see. Yes, but that was yesterday and which way are prices going to go? There is a pack forming and they will need a leader. It’s then you kick the snot out of them, not before, and make it believable this one last time; but don’t depend on it, auditors, even though it’s turned out like this so many times before. There may be an image whose mind has changed. Sorry, no rain checks in this scheme of things, the windows are broken and boards keep out the light, it’s the cheapest thing to do and then forget it, as has been done before, before, etc. Could you pick out of a lineup who is the culprit here? The mirror is one-way and there’s no way to be sure which side you’re on, but so what? Go on making faces anyway, but be sure, now and then, to check your hand before your face, if just to say Wheaties, the best is yet to be. Our inventions, gods and needles, for instance, are built to say this to us ever and forever. It’s obvious why we can’t give them up, they’re ours, for ourself self’s sake! We live in the afterlife of what, unalterable, has already taken place. The minute you start acting like Robinson Crusoe it’s plain to see you’ve lost your hold on the world. There are many such, so many, washed up on our island shores! They end up sleeping over grates and in doorways at night, far distant from tree ripe fruit and warm sand. The dumps of our artifacts bewilder them. They probe, not knowing what to expect from excess. They act out an experiment, a hairline calculation for survival: is the expenditure of energy to dig up carrots from the frozen ground more than their return in calories? Did you notice the price tag when the wine was poured, the cool chardonnay, the special cabernet, white and red absurdities of words? The motion lights are set to react outside the house but, tell me, did you see the clutter in the study, one would think! Those catalogs, the cave, shadows.

See, the grass is full of stars, Fallen in their brightness; Hearts they have of shining gold, Rays of shining whiteness. Buttercups have honeyed hearts, Bees they love the clover, But I love the daisies' dance All the meadow over. Blow, O blow, you happy winds, Singing summer's praises, Up the field and down the field A-dancing with the daisies.