Poemunity — your poem community

Think of a self-effacing missionary Tending the vices of a problem tribe. He knows the quickest cure for beri-beri And how to take a bribe. And so the mind will never say it’s beaten By primitive disturbance of the liver; Its logic will prevent its being eaten, Get it across the river. But faced with this assured inconsequence That damns the very method that is used, It leaves the heart unproselytised and hence Admits that it’s confused. I know I’m acting, but I still must act. I melt to foolishness, and want it ended. Why it continues is this simple fact: I’d hate to end it. For now the jungle moods assert their terms And there’s no way to check them if they lie: The mind attempts to solve the thing, but squirms And knows exactly why. The world is everything that is the case. You cannot see it if you are inside it. That’s why the tortoise always wins the race: the very terms decide it. I cannot help it if I am contented With being discontented that I falter: That’s why psychology was first invented So that we needn’t alter. It is a strange position to be in. It would be different if I didn’t know Why the unlikely animal should win, Which cannibal should row. You’d think there’d be a way of cutting out Those self-destructive layers of introspection. To reach the truth at last without a doubt Of making the connection. That’s why the missionary, on his guard, Is wondering why the cannibal’s so merry, And why it is so very very hard To be a missionary.

When you step through the back door into the kitchen father is still sitting at the table with a newspaper folded open in front of him and pen raised, working the crossword puzzle. In the living room mother is sleeping her peaceful sleep at last, in a purple robe, with her head back, slippered feet up and twisted knuckle hands crossed right over left in her lap. Through the south window in your old room you see leaves on the giant ash tree turning yellow again in setting sun and falling slowly to the ground and one by one all the questions you ever had become clear. Number one across: a four-letter word for no longer. Number one down: an eleven letter word for gone.

1 Those who hear the train they had better worry worry those who hear they had better worry worry. 2 No disgrace to worry to have the worried life blues might do some good to be worried in the hour of our need. 3 Run run run away going to run run run away there are those who think they’re going to run away. 4 To hear and to be facing and to be facing what is heard to hear and to be face to face with what is heard. 5 Run run run away they’re going to run run run away there are those who think they’re going to run away from the train. 6 Fort built to protect the community from desert raiders community thought to protect itself from raiders. 7 Those who hear the train they had better worry worry better worry worry about a gift of tears. 8 Those who are gathered in the fort had better learn they had better learn how to cure their wounds. 9 The train with its poison and its tongue the lurking train with its poison and its tongue. 10 Those who are gathered better learn to be insensitive learn how to put on a show of being insensitive. 11 Danger of its poison and of its tongue danger of its poison and of its tongue against our teeth. 12 Had better break the habit the habit of prayer better let the jokes come back to us when we’re at prayer. 13 What really kills me is standing in the need of prayer standing in a gathering in the need of prayer. 14 Don’t if we don’t if we don’t break the habit we will be made to climb all the steps of the ladder. 15 Brood over someone else’s dream: three-story red tower beneath the tower the train is always departing. 16 Danger of its tongue for those gathered like a group gathered like a group of all virgins with their downcast eyes. 17 There is this problem with cutting off the prayer hand there is this problem with the other hand. 18 How insensitive is how those who hear better be how insensitive how unmoved and cold they had better be. 19 You can call him you can call him up and ask him if we had only asked for “Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny. 20 Red tower green sky three-story tower against green sky beneath the tower the train is always departing. 21 Don’t break it be made to climb all the steps we don’t break it we’ll be made to climb all the steps. 22 Ant on the floor the small ant on the kitchen floor the small ant anticipates by sound or shadow. 23 Light turns out in the kitchen when somebody pulls on the string those gathered not able to anticipate the danger. 24 If we had only stayed in the school of the prophets in the school of the prophets who catch thoughts from words. 25 Ant on the floor the small ant on the kitchen floor those gathered not able to anticipate the danger. 26 Those who are gathered are fondled and taken by the hand taken by the hand and made to climb all the steps. 27 Perfectly built fort bound to make the community unhappy bound to make those in the community unhappy. 28 What really kills me is standing in the need of prayer I’m standing in the need of jokes that come back. 29 Standing in the need of prayer in a perfectly built fort bound to make you unhappy bound to make me unhappy. 30 Not broken the habit of prayer not been broken those who are gathered better learn how to cure their wounds.

All the time I pray to Buddha I keep on killing mosquitoes.

1 Imagine a big room of women doing anything, playing cards, having a meeting, the rattle of paper or coffee cups or chairs pushed back, the loud and quiet murmur of their voices, women leaning their heads together. If we leaned in at the door and I said, Those women are mothers,

The Devil’s tour of hell did not include a factory line where molten lead spilled into mouths held wide, no electric drill spiraling screws into hands and feet, nor giant pliers to lower you into simmering vats. Instead, a circle of light opened on your stuffed armchair, whose chintz orchids did not boil and change, and the Devil adjusted your new spiked antennae almost delicately, with claws curled and lacquered black, before he spread his leather wings to leap into the acid-green sky. So your head became a tv hull, a gargoyle mirror. Your doppelganger sloppy at the mouth and swollen at the joints enacted your days in sinuous slow motion, your lines delivered with a mocking sneer. Sometimes the frame froze, reversed, began again: the red eyes of a friend you cursed, your girl child cowered behind the drapes, parents alive again and puzzled by this new form. That’s why you clawed your way back to this life.

Slowing down your body enough to feel. Thought you were at a standstill but you were only slowing down enough to feel the pain. There are worse things than running to catch the train, twisting your ankle, the afternoon fucked. Running to get to or away from? the stranger who helps you up wants to know, you who are so used to anything scribbled on a prescription blank. Just want the pain to go away, you say, surprised to find yourself reaching for someone else's hand.

There doesn’t seem to be a crack. A higher pin cannot be set. Nor can you go back. You hadn’t even known the face was vertical. All you did was walk into a room. The tipping up from flat was gradual, you must assume.

I was given a city, with coffee and sunlight. “The coin-purse smell of the subway,” I wrote. In the mornings policemen would stand, lightstruck and pleasured, over trays of danish. Mornings I wrote and workmen raised up their nets. Hallelujah the brick, the debris! I was given a city. The city got between me and God. I was given a house. The curtains breathed over wide sills. There was a leaf in the middle of the floor, I loved the crispness of the leaf. I loved the privacy of sills. The sills sailed, I fell into the sills. The sills got between me and God. I was given a mud hut. The walls curved to meet the ceiling like a tongue curves to make a word. I was given God, with salt and sweet together. I was given a piece of meat. I loved the flesh. I was given bread only. I was given only water. I loved the coolness of the water. The water got between me and the feast. I had an empty plate and there was the color of it. I cannot even describe the color of it. I was given a cell with a window. There was a certain light at evening. I was given nothing but the air, and the air dazzled.

Say when rain cannot make you more wet or a certain thought can’t deepen and yet you think it again: you have lost count. A larger amount is no longer a larger amount. There has been a collapse; perhaps in the night. Like a rupture in water (which can’t rupture of course). All your horses broken out with all your horses.