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When you are already here you appear to be only a name that tells of you whether you are present or not and for now it seems as though you are still summer still the high familiar endless summer yet with a glint of bronze in the chill mornings and the late yellow petals of the mullein fluttering on the stalks that lean over their broken shadows across the cracked ground but they all know that you have come the seed heads of the sage the whispering birds with nowhere to hide you to keep you for later you who fly with them you who are neither before nor after you who arrive with blue plums that have fallen through the night perfect in the dew

you want to eat me out. right.what does it taste like

Adorable images, Plaster of Paris Lilies of the field, You are not alive, therefore Pathos will be out of place. But I have learned A strange fact about your fate, And it is this: After you go out of fashion Beneath your many fashions, Or when your elbows and knees Have been bruised powdery white, So that you are no good to anybody— They will take away your gowns, Your sables and bathing suits, Leaving exposed before all men Your inaccessible bellies And pointless nubilities. Movers will come by night And load you all into trucks And take you away to the Camps, Where soldiers, or the State Police, Will use you as targets For small-arms practice, Leading me to inquire, Since pathos is out of place, What it is that they are practicing. November 1961

Farewell, too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near ally'd; and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike: To the same goal did both our studies drive, The last set out the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, While his young friend perform'd and won the race. O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more? It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. A noble error, and but seldom made, When poets are by too much force betray'd. Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. Once more, hail and farewell; farewell thou young, But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue; Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound; But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such As neither man nor muse can praise too much; 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For seeliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd or whore Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more? But thou art proof against them, and indeed, Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need. I therefore will begin. Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give. That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses, For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee, I would not seek For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles to us; Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Tri'umph, my Britain, thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines, Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please, But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of Nature's family. Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion; and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame, Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn; For a good poet's made, as well as born; And such wert thou. Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turned, and true-filed lines; In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanc'd, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage; Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

It is all right. All they do Is go in by dividing One rib from another. I wouldn’t Lie to you. It hurts Like nothing I know. All they do Is burn their way in with a wire. It forks in and out a little like the tongue Of that frightened garter snake we caught At Cloverfield, you and me, Jenny So long ago. I would lie to you If I could. But the only way I can get you to come up Out of the suckhole, the south face Of the Powhatan pit, is to tell you What you know: You come up after dark, you poise alone With me on the shore. I lead you back to this world. Three lady doctors in Wheeling open Their offices at night. I don’t have to call them, they are always there. But they only have to put the knife once Under your breast. Then they hang their contraption. And you bear it. It’s awkward a while. Still, it lets you Walk about on tiptoe if you don’t Jiggle the needle. It might stab your heart, you see. The blade hangs in your lung and the tube Keeps it draining. That way they only have to stab you Once. Oh Jenny. I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy And disastrous place. I Didn’t, I can’t bear it Either, I don’t blame you, sleeping down there Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring, Muse of black sand, Alone. I don’t blame you, I know The place where you lie. I admit everything. But look at me. How can I live without you? Come up to me, love, Out of the river, or I will Come down to you.

God washes clean the souls and hearts of you, His favored ones, whose backs bend o’er the soil, Which grudging gives to them requite for toil In sober graces and in vision true. God places in your hands the pow’r to do A service sweet. Your gift supreme to foil The bare-fanged wolves of hunger in the moil Of Life’s activities. Yet all too few Your glorious band, clean sprung from Nature’s heart; The hope of hungry thousands, in whose breast Dwells fear that you should fail. God placed no dart Of war within your hands, but pow’r to start Tears, praise, love, joy, enwoven in a crest To crown you glorious, brave ones of the soil.

With what stillness at last you appear in the valley your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all then the voice of a dove calls from far away in itself to the hush of the morning so this is the sound of you here and now whether or not anyone hears it this is where we have come with our age our knowledge such as it is and our hopes such as they are invisible before us untouched and still possible

yo chocolate milk for breakfast kid. one leg of your sweatpants rolled up scrounging at the bottom of your mama’s purse for bus fare and gum pen broke and you got ink on your thumb kid what’s good, hot on the cement kid White Castle kid tongue stained purple cussin on the court till your little brother shows up with half a candy bar kid got that good B in science kid you earned it kid etch your name in a tree hug your granny on her birthday think of Alaska when they shootin curled-up dreams of salmon safety tundra the farthest away place you ever saw in a book polar bears your new chess partners pickax in the ice Northern Lights kid keep your notebook where your cousins won’t find it. leave it on my desk if you want shuffle under carbon paper and a stamp that screams late yellow and red to draw the eye from the ocean you keep hidden in a jacked-up five star. your mama thought there was a secret in there thought they would laugh but that ain’t it. it’s that flows and flows and flows and lines like those rip-roaring bits you got bars till the end of time you could rap like helium bout to spring all of it down to you none left in the sun — fuelless while the last light pushes from your belly climbing your ribs and you laugh into the microphone and who is ready for that?

You are invulnerable. Didn’t they deliver (those forces that control your destiny) the certainty of dust? Couldn’t it be your irreversible time is that river in whose bright mirror Heraclitus read his brevity? A marble slab is saved for you, one you won’t read, already graved with city, epitaph, dates of the dead. And other men are also dreams of time, not hardened bronze, purified gold. They’re dust like you; the universe is Proteus. Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead, the fatal shadow waiting at the rim. Know this: in some way you’re already dead.