Poemunity — your poem community

(for the Barteks) up at 7, dress & cook an egg black with pan soot, eat with hot bread and butter binoculars, book, notebook, 2 baloney sandwiches & a peanutbutter english sparrows singing as I walk to Hotel Yancey pigeons wheel above grand island coffee & the world-herald Saturday 7:30 in their elegant warm cafe Vera Coons comes in her green car we pick up her friend Bea while speaking of Canada geese I hear a cardinal startling, we see a cardinal crows flying we’re driving south on highway 281 cornfields, bright day, temp. 21 hit the Platter Restaurant where George Stoppekotte sits in his pickup he climbs in, we all sit & talk & wait for Bill Schleicher “if they take all the water out of the Platte River, by God, we folks here are gonna sit with our fingers dry” Bill comes with Harley Kandish, shuffle around George & Bill lead off in the pickup, Harley rides with us cross the Platte, gray with ice sunlight heading west sparrow hawk on a low fence “when you talk about wild asparagus, those 2 guys spot it where no one else does” we stop, check out black blobs in the trees, George says they spotted wild geese a magpie, we all drive on — I train my binocs on the passing trees (black Angus in bright yellow corn) stop again, geese “ — put a spot of salt in everything she made” “your dipstick’ll boil that oil eventually then you can’t get the darn varnish out” 2 ducks — scaup? goldeneye? meadowlark in a tree we see an eagle white-headed, gargantuan, in cottonwood by river back — we drink coffee — high spirits — everybody talks at once of Spanish peanuts — postum — people killing eagles being sick — where we’re going — once Harley saw an eagle & a bluebird & a beaver all in the same spot in Colorado & another eagle! closer perched upright, dark-bodied turning its arctic head in the light drive on ducks (buffleheads?) on Bufflehead pond hundreds of geese flap into a field & mass there giant trucks whiz by we’re 49 miles from grand island, turn south pass piles of mallards in a pond goldfinches lilt by turn east pass restored Fort Kearney hey — great horned owl on a telephone pole now he’s sitting on a haystack! “there was a crippled pelican down on Steen Lake a long while” I’ve got pelicans on my socks stop & piss in a refuge Bill says “we saw an immature on a haystack once & he was dead — not a wound on him. maybe he at a poison mouse” thought I heard a woodpecker pecking but it was the pickup cooling off — but there is a fat little downy there, we look — english sparrows out here sounds erupt like a whale under the pond ice stop for lunch here last baloney sandwich, Vera’s coffee, cigarette at a red picnic table by the pond & more sandwiches, pickles, from Vera chickadee sings talk “there’s something about a deer — couldn’t shoot one” “this was back when the Prince of Wales toured the country, they entertained him at Swift & Company. my sister-in-law was secretary to Old Man Swift. well she saw the Prince standing there looking forlorn & took a glass of water up to him & asked if he was thirsty and he was” “I was Secretary of Equitable Finance for 47 years” talk of city politics & economics & ecological considerations, & we leave, drive east glittering corn 3 mergansers on a pond fly off another eagle Platte River iced with curving channels open brown islands, everywhere shit, beautiful round brick barn young bald eagle flapping & soaring up — 2 more, sitting in trees — another, white-headed, closer, sits in massive stillness, then takes off! soars! flashing snow light from tail & head — drive a bit, stop & 3 more are seen sitting among strings & bunches of brown ducks that continually pour into & out of some body of water there “majestic” we say in such majesty so multiplied still majestic in so much left & right of ducks? drive on blue lake changes from brown to silver as we pass “there’s somebody’s little broken dream” we walk into a sanctuary Bill hands out peanuts in the shell points out diamond willow (chipping sparrow), through woods I climb green tower & look out upon islands & channels of the Platte “that’s alkali, you put your finger in it & lick it & it’s just like salt” badger hole wild plum “I don’t stomp em, I just throw em in there stems & all” “ — that’s due process” back to the car — banana, chocolate warm day now talk about Greeks fixing lamb — too much midafternoon, sit & talk motors start “sunflower” “cherry wood” talk, east again loggerhead (?) shrike flies off flicker meadowlarks all over sides of the road chipping sparrow with his white line over eye, black-bordered chestnut cap George saw 7 robins in a tree nothern robin in a russian olive paved road windmills walk to river & scan black spots — all nests blue ice, blue sky straggled brown horizon white posts in the river purple & yellow black hawk hovering over a field marsh hawk?  no, red-tail — fox squirrel way off gray cliffs of snow in the ditch 2 hairies on a post “I wanted to go up to Baribou to see the circus museum” pumphouse with purple shingles shrike goblin shapes of field wood panoramic freight train view nameless little town wave at man burning stumps talk of water & we slowly drive through country wide cornfields keep us from the trees the eagles sit in “I just always have lip-ice” 2 hawks — complex identification discussion, or debate, and I maintain: ferruginous rough-leg nearing doniphan roads zigzag along the cardinal directions following slow northward Platte curve eagle again — flapping & soaring across our path, distant — field of lemon yellow cooling off, sunlight graying Swainson’s hawk above our heads, says Vera “there’s a policeman’s car & it says ‘Whites’ live there” ... “now they collect interest instead of apples” back to the Platter people split off north into city nearly five o’clock clouds lit yellow-gray in the west twelve eagles in our wake & legions not seen, motionless on cottonwood braches they don’t care & I care but it’s ok “beautiful day” “beautiful day” looking into the sun makes it all seem light & dark home — mara & sierra fed ducks today sierra showed me her new blue car

you lie in bed listening, waiting, fearing the moment your father returns home. you listen to voices talking in the next room and wonder why you are still afraid of the dark. his voice in the other room you would love to kiss. you cannot see your face in the dark but the blackness is there, like his back. if only he would open the door and look at you. maybe the light would be in his eyes, his voice.

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball. What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over—there it is in the water! No use to say 'O there are other balls': An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down All his young days into the harbour where His ball went. I would not intrude on him, A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now He senses first responsibility In a world of possessions. People will take balls, Balls will be lost always, little boy, And no one buys a ball back. Money is external. He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes, The epistemology of loss, how to stand up Knowing what every man must one day know And most know many days, how to stand up And gradually light returns to the street, A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight. Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere, I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move With all that move me, under the water Or whistling, I am not a little boy.

The whole ball of who we are presses into the green baize at a single tiny spot. An aural track of crackle betrays our passage through the fibrous jungle. It’s hot and desperate. Insects spring out of it. The pressure is intense, and the sense that we’ve lost proportion. As though bringing too much to bear too locally were our decision.

A Kansan plays cards, calls Marshall a crawdad, that barb lands that rascal a slap; that Kansan jackass scats, camps back at caballada ranch. Hangs kack, ax, and camp hat. Kansan’s nag mad and rants can’t bask, can’t bacchanal and garland a lass, can’t at last brag can crack Law’s balls, Kansan’s cantata rang at that ramada ranch, Mañana, Kansan snarls, I’ll have an armada and thwart Law’s brawn, slam Law a damn mass war path. Marshall’s a marksman, maps Kansan’s track, calm as a shaman, sharp as a hawk, Says: That dastard Kansan’s had and gnaws lamb fatback. At dawn, Marshall stalks that ranch, packs a gat and blasts Kansan’s ass and Kansan gasps, blasts back. A flag flaps at half-mast.

The burden of hard hitting. Slug away Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb. Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play? Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!” Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job. Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob— This is the end of every fan’s desire. The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight. Or in or out, or haply up or down, To puzzle him that standeth by the plate, To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun: Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown, So pitch that every man can but admire And offer you the freedom of the town— This is the end of every fan’s desire. The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds! The tumult and the shouting from the throats Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats. A mighty cheer that possibly denotes That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire; Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats— This is the end of every fan’s desire. The burden of a pennant. O the hope, The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear, The lengthy season and the boundless dope, And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.” O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear, O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher That next October it shall flutter here: This is the end of every fan’s desire. ENVOY Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase Be that to which most fondly we aspire! For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race— THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) “Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren’t good for a little child.” “But, mother, I won’t be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free.” “No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children’s choir.” She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet. The mother smiled to know her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face. For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child. She clawed through bits of glass and brick, Then lifted out a shoe. “O, here’s the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?”

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie, Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die — Whether he die in the light o’ day or under the peak-faced moon; In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon; On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw; In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by avalanche, fang or claw; By battle, murder or sudden wealth, by pestilence, hooch or lead — I swore on the Book I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead. For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized boneyard lot. And where he died or how he died, it didn’t matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone “epigram.” So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin (Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin). Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: “Here lies poor Bill MacKie,” And I hung it up on my cabin wall and I waited for Bill to die. Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange, Of a long-deserted line of traps ’way back of the Bighorn range, Of a little hut by the great divide, and a white man stiff and still, Lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill. So I thought of the contract I’d made with him, and I took down from the shelf The swell black box with the silver plate he’d picked out for hisself; And I packed it full of grub and “hooch,” and I slung it on the sleigh; Then I harnessed up my team of dogs and was off at dawn of day. You know what it’s like in the Yukon wild when it’s sixty-nine below; When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow; When the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood; When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit, And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit; When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill — Well, it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill. Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand, As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land; Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heartbreaking woes, And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows! North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain Passed like a dream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again. River and plain and mighty peak — and who could stand unawed? As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God. North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes, And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes, Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill, And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill. Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet, sheathing each smoke-grimed wall; Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed, ice gleaming over all; Sparkling ice on the dead man’s chest, glittering ice in his hair, Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare; Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread. I gazed at the coffin I’d brought for him, and I gazed at the gruesome dead, And at last I spoke: “Bill liked his joke; but still, goldarn his eyes, A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies.” Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut in the shadow of the Pole, With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can’t control? Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin, And that seems to say: “You may try all day, but you’ll never jam me in”? I’m not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I’d do. Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about, And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out. Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn’t seem no good; His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they was made of wood. Till at last I said: “It ain’t no use — he’s froze too hard to thaw; He’s obstinate, and he won’t lie straight, so I guess I got to —saw.” So I sawed off poor Bill’s arms and legs, and I laid him snug and straight In the little coffin he picked hisself, with the dinky silver plate, And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down; Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I started back to town. So I buried him as the contract was in a narrow grave and deep, And there he’s waiting the Great Clean-up, when the Judgment sluice-heads sweep; And I smoke my pipe and I meditate in the light of the Midnight Sun, And sometimes I wonder if they was, the awful things I done. And as I sit and the parson talks, expounding of the Law, I often think of poor old Bill —and how hard he was to saw.

Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a grievous thing, And many sorrows after each his wise For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve. O Love's lute heard about the lands of death, Left hanged upon the trees that were therein; O Love and Time and Sin, Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath, Three lovers, each one evil spoken of; O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine Came softer with her praise; Abide a little for our lady's love. The kisses of her mouth were more than wine, And more than peace the passage of her days. O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see. O Time, thou shalt not find in any land Till, cast out of thine hand, The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee, Another woman fashioned like as this. O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her Was made a goodly thing; Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss, With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier Than lips of amorous roses in late spring. By night there stood over against my bed Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black, Both sides drawn fully back From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red, And temples drained of purple and full of death. Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water And the sea's gold in it. Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth. Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her, And pearl and purple and amber on her feet. Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline Were painted all the secret ways of love And covered things thereof, That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine; Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves, And brides that kept within the bride-chamber Their garment of soft shame, And weeping faces of the wearied loves That swoon in sleep and awake wearier, With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame. The tears that through her eyelids fell on me Made mine own bitter where they ran between As blood had fallen therein, She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see If any glad thing be or any good Now the best thing is taken forth of us; Even she to whom all praise Was as one flower in a great multitude, One glorious flower of many and glorious, One day found gracious among many days: Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whom At kissing times across her stateliest bed Kings bowed themselves and shed Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb, And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering; Even she between whose lips the kiss became As fire and frankincense; Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king, Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame, Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence. Then I beheld, and lo on the other side My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead. Sweet still, but now not red, Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died. And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade, The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes. And sweet, but like spoilt gold, The weight of colour in her tresses weighed. And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes, The body that was clothed with love of old. Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair And all the hollow bosom of her gown— Ah! that my tears ran down Even to the place where many kisses were, Even where her parted breast-flowers have place, Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this? Ah! the flowers cleave apart And their sweet fills the tender interspace; Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart. Ah! in the days when God did good to me, Each part about her was a righteous thing; Her mouth an almsgiving, The glory of her garments charity, The beauty of her bosom a good deed, In the good days when God kept sight of us; Love lay upon her eyes, And on that hair whereof the world takes heed; And all her body was more virtuous Than souls of women fashioned otherwise. Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves Rain-rotten in rank lands, Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves And grass that fades ere any of it be mown; And when thy bosom is filled full thereof Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth, And say "My master that was thrall to Love Is become thrall to Death." Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan. But make no sojourn in thy outgoing; For haply it may be That when thy feet return at evening Death shall come in with thee.

Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years, First of us all and sweetest singer born Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears; When song new-born put off the old world's attire And felt its tune on her changed lips expire, Writ foremost on the roll of them that came Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre, Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name! Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn, That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears, And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears; Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire, When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar, Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name! Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn! Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears! Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn, That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears! What far delight has cooled the fierce desire That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame, But left more sweet than roses to respire, Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name? Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire, A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire; Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame. But from thy feet now death has washed the mire, Love reads out first at head of all our quire, Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.