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Lugging my exploded home And trampling on my own name, I trek to a yearned deformation. Imperial chaos hacks flesh, Sends the unmeshed toward a Capsized horizon. They dream Of clean graphic design, houses That don’t collapse onto cribs. Invaded, the invaded invade The invaders’ kitchens and, Soon enough, bedrooms. Look, They’re invading each other. Shut up, smug face, you know Nothing of ugliness, even that Which you’ve long bankrolled.

LOVING friend, the gift of one, Who, her own true faith, hath run, Through thy lower nature ; Be my benediction said With my hand upon thy head, Gentle fellow-creature ! Like a lady's ringlets brown, Flow thy silken ears adown Either side demurely, Of thy silver-suited breast Shining out from all the rest Of thy body purely. Darkly brown thy body is, Till the sunshine, striking this, Alchemize its dulness, — When the sleek curls manifold Flash all over into gold, With a burnished fulness. Underneath my stroking hand, Startled eyes of hazel bland Kindling, growing larger, — Up thou leapest with a spring, Full of prank and curvetting, Leaping like a charger. Leap ! thy broad tail waves a light ; Leap ! thy slender feet are bright, Canopied in fringes. Leap — those tasselled ears of thine Flicker strangely, fair and fine, Down their golden inches Yet, my pretty sportive friend, Little is 't to such an end That I praise thy rareness ! Other dogs may be thy peers Haply in these drooping ears, And this glossy fairness. But of thee it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Day and night unweary, — Watched within a curtained room, Where no sunbeam brake the gloom Round the sick and dreary. Roses, gathered for a vase, In that chamber died apace, Beam and breeze resigning — This dog only, waited on, Knowing that when light is gone, Love remains for shining. Other dogs in thymy dew Tracked the hares and followed through Sunny moor or meadow — This dog only, crept and crept Next a languid cheek that slept, Sharing in the shadow. Other dogs of loyal cheer Bounded at the whistle clear, Up the woodside hieing — This dog only, watched in reach Of a faintly uttered speech, Or a louder sighing. And if one or two quick tears Dropped upon his glossy ears, Or a sigh came double, — Up he sprang in eager haste, Fawning, fondling, breathing fast, In a tender trouble. And this dog was satisfied, If a pale thin hand would glide, Down his dewlaps sloping, — Which he pushed his nose within, After, — platforming his chin On the palm left open. This dog, if a friendly voice Call him now to blyther choice Than such chamber-keeping, Come out ! ' praying from the door, — Presseth backward as before, Up against me leaping. Therefore to this dog will I, Tenderly not scornfully, Render praise and favour ! With my hand upon his head, Is my benediction said Therefore, and for ever. And because he loves me so, Better than his kind will do Often, man or woman, Give I back more love again Than dogs often take of men, — Leaning from my Human. Blessings on thee, dog of mine, Pretty collars make thee fine, Sugared milk make fat thee ! Pleasures wag on in thy tail — Hands of gentle motion fail Nevermore, to pat thee ! Downy pillow take thy head, Silken coverlid bestead, Sunshine help thy sleeping ! No fly 's buzzing wake thee up — No man break thy purple cup, Set for drinking deep in. Whiskered cats arointed flee — Sturdy stoppers keep from thee Cologne distillations ; Nuts lie in thy path for stones, And thy feast-day macaroons Turn to daily rations ! Mock I thee, in wishing weal ? — Tears are in my eyes to feel Thou art made so straightly, Blessing needs must straighten too, — Little canst thou joy or do, Thou who lovest greatly. Yet be blessed to the height Of all good and all delight Pervious to thy nature, — Only loved beyond that line, With a love that answers thine, Loving fellow-creature !

Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike: One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

O now you come in rut, in rank and black desire, to beat the brush, to lash the wind with your long hair. Ha! I am afraid, exceedingly afraid. But see? her path goes there, along the swaying tops of trees, up to the hills. Too long she is alone. Bypass our fields, and mount your ravages of fire and rain on higher trails. You shall have her lying down upon the smoking mountains.

How will you cut off from Zions, fall on your knees among the lions? What if you cut off from hymns confound worksong with anthem Cut off from Scripture find sense suspect and worship incoherence— distrust the laces and adore the tangled thread? What of you without a holy thing, but every sacrilege of the sacrileged class? Godsave your unsuspecting fists grasping the fiery ladder bare, your forehead fighting a wordless solitaire. Without some future language how can I ask you? If I could ask in Euphorese, Moonskrit, in Ecolow.... What will you do with Grandma’s savings — those relics atticked in your head of  effort, vision? On pain of  death, scratch pictures in the dust as she did — I fear my after-thirst.

To go to Lvov. Which station for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew gleams on a suitcase, when express trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September or in March. But only if Lvov exists, if it is to be found within the frontiers and not just in my new passport, if lances of trees —of poplar and ash—still breathe aloud like Indians, and if streams mumble their dark Esperanto, and grass snakes like soft signs in the Russian language disappear into thickets. To pack and set off, to leave without a trace, at noon, to vanish like fainting maidens. And burdocks, green armies of burdocks, and below, under the canvas of a Venetian café, the snails converse about eternity. But the cathedral rises, you remember, so straight, as straight as Sunday and white napkins and a bucket full of raspberries standing on the floor, and my desire which wasn’t born yet, only gardens and weeds and the amber of Queen Anne cherries, and indecent Fredro. There was always too much of Lvov, no one could comprehend its boroughs, hear the murmur of each stone scorched by the sun, at night the Orthodox church’s silence was unlike that of the cathedral, the Jesuits baptized plants, leaf by leaf, but they grew, grew so mindlessly, and joy hovered everywhere, in hallways and in coffee mills revolving by themselves, in blue teapots, in starch, which was the first formalist, in drops of rain and in the thorns of roses. Frozen forsythia yellowed by the window. The bells pealed and the air vibrated, the cornets of nuns sailed like schooners near the theater, there was so much of the world that it had to do encores over and over, the audience was in frenzy and didn’t want to leave the house. My aunts couldn’t have known yet that I’d resurrect them, and lived so trustfully; so singly; servants, clean and ironed, ran for fresh cream, inside the houses a bit of anger and great expectation, Brzozowski came as a visiting lecturer, one of my uncles kept writing a poem entitled Why, dedicated to the Almighty, and there was too much of Lvov, it brimmed the container, it burst glasses, overflowed each pond, lake, smoked through every chimney, turned into fire, storm, laughed with lightning, grew meek, returned home, read the New Testament, slept on a sofa beside the Carpathian rug, there was too much of Lvov, and now there isn’t any, it grew relentlessly and the scissors cut it, chilly gardeners as always in May, without mercy, without love, ah, wait till warm June comes with soft ferns, boundless fields of summer, i.e., the reality. But scissors cut it, along the line and through the fiber, tailors, gardeners, censors cut the body and the wreaths, pruning shears worked diligently, as in a child’s cutout along the dotted line of a roe deer or a swan. Scissors, penknives, and razor blades scratched, cut, and shortened the voluptuous dresses of prelates, of squares and houses, and trees fell soundlessly, as in a jungle, and the cathedral trembled, people bade goodbye without handkerchiefs, no tears, such a dry mouth, I won’t see you anymore, so much death awaits you, why must every city become Jerusalem and every man a Jew, and now in a hurry just pack, always, each day, and go breathless, go to Lvov, after all it exists, quiet and pure as a peach. It is everywhere.

Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm. It hurts to love wide open stretching the muscles that feel as if they are made of wet plaster, then of blunt knives, then of sharp knives. It hurts to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch ; to love and let go again and again. It pesters to remember the lover who is not in the bed, to hold back what is owed to the work that gutters like a candle in a cave without air, to love consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively. I can’t do it, you say it’s killing me, but you thrive, you glow on the street like a neon raspberry, You float and sail, a helium balloon bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing on the cold and hot winds of our breath, as we make and unmake in passionate diastole and systole the rhythm of our unbound bonding, to have and not to hold, to love with minimized malice, hunger and anger moment by moment balanced.

Good and great God, can I not think of thee But it must straight my melancholy be? Is it interpreted in me disease That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease? Oh be thou witness, that the reins dost know And hearts of all, if I be sad for show, And judge me after; if I dare pretend To ought but grace or aim at other end. As thou art all, so be thou all to me, First, midst, and last, converted one, and three; My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state My judge, my witness, and my advocate. Where have I been this while exil'd from thee? And whither rap'd, now thou but stoop'st to me? Dwell, dwell here still. O, being everywhere, How can I doubt to find thee ever here? I know my state, both full of shame and scorn, Conceiv'd in sin, and unto labour borne, Standing with fear, and must with horror fall, And destin'd unto judgment, after all. I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t' inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul, lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land!

which he must cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts, to help him I sit with my rifle on a platform high in a tree, same side of the river as the hungry monkey. How does this assist him? When he swims for it I look first upriver: predators move faster with the current than against it. If a crocodile is aimed from upriver to eat the monkey and an anaconda from downriver burns with the same ambition, I do the math, algebra, angles, rate-of-monkey, croc- and snake-speed, and if,if it looks as though the anaconda or the croc will reach the monkey before he attains the river’s far bank, I raise my rifle and fire one, two, three, even four times into the river just behind the monkey to hurry him up a little. Shoot the snake, the crocodile? They’re just doing their jobs, but the monkey, the monkey has little hands like a child’s, and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile.