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Flaunting in the atrium, ostentatious at the gates I saw a shooting star thru a window on Alcatraz Ave & cladding struck up against those who demand We stomach the stick and tend the commode They're selling trees in the paint store! trees in the paint store Datebook chips in the soft skin of our wrists On NBC, CNN, and NPR broken windows are weeping We'll have 35 apples and shrieking in the thickets Aloft in the air golden and golden the dial among the mounds So much is stunted in understanding of what a light can be They storm the scrimmage line and clear-cut bran and germ We want the petal unto itself, the unalterable vessel The arc end of the precipice grows 1.9% annually What was popular music like before the crisis?

A blue and green city, with the sun rising behind it, just not swiftly enough Don’t worry about being perfect. Just make sure you have some juice left in the pump I have many other remedies on hand, not just history’s bags of sumptuous soot Hello, I am beauty’s representative; I work in the self-improvement sector Don’t worry about being perfect. Just make sure you have some juice left in the pump How do you see yourself on the material plane of observed 
phenomena Hello, I am beauty’s representative; I work in the self-improvement sector Have you ever been sideswiped by a bad investment in love How do you see yourself on the material plane of observed 
phenomena You might need a reevaluation, an estimate, or an era to expire Have you ever been sideswiped by a bad investment in love Before you decide that you are nothing more than a clump or splatter You might need a reevaluation, an estimate, or an era to expire Have you learned how to remove yourself from every mirror you pass Before you decide that you are nothing more than a clump or splatter Let me tell you about the palm trees on the horizon of your future Have you learned how to remove yourself from every mirror you pass A blue and green city, with the sun rising behind it, just not swiftly enough Let me tell you about the palm trees on the horizon of your future I have many other remedies on hand, not just history’s bags of sumptuous soot

Go, lovely rose! Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that’s young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee; How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Make and be eaten, the poet says, Lie in the arms of nightlong fire, To celebrate the waking, wake. Burn in the daylong light; and praise Even the mother unappeased, Even the fathers of desire. Blind go the days, but joy will see Agreements of music; they will wind The shaking of your dance; no more Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell Confusion of the blessing given. Only and finally declare Among the purest shapes of grace The waking of the face of fire, The body of waking and the skill To make your body such a shape That all the eyes of hope shall stare. That all the cries of fear shall know, Staring in their bird-pierced song; Lines of such penetration make That shall bind our loves at last. Then from the mountains of the lost, All the fantasies shall wake, Strong and real and speaking turn Wherever flickers your unreal. And my strong ghosts shall fade and pass My love start fiery as grass Wherever burn my fantasies, Wherever burn my fantasies. April 1955

I found my muster station, sir. My skin is patent leather. The tourists are recidivists. This calm is earthquake weather. I’ve used up all the mulligans. I’d kill to share a vice. The youngster reads a yellowed Oui. The socialite has lice. The Europe trip I finally took was rash and Polaroid, was gilt, confit, and bathhouse foam. And I cannot avoid the end: I will not die in Paris, won’t rest for good behind a painted mausoleum door. The purser will not find me mummified beneath your tulle, and Paris will not burn. Today is Thursday, so I’ll die. Come help me pick my urn.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook. Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of yet another summer loath to go Although the scythes hang in the apple trees. Now that I have your face by heart, I look. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read In the black chords upon a dulling page Music that is not meant for music’s cage, Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed. The staves are shuttled over with a stark Unprinted silence. In a double dream I must spell out the storm, the running stream. The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves; The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

Love has crept into her sealed heart As a field bee, black and amber, Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start. Love has crept into her summery eyes, And a glint of colored sunshine brings Such as his along the folded wings Of the bee before he flies. But I with my ruffling, impatient breath Have loosened the wings of the wild young sprite; He has opened them out in a reeling flight, And down her words he hasteneth. Love flies delighted in her voice: The hum of his glittering, drunken wings Sets quivering with music the little things That she says, and her simple words rejoice.

Maybe my soul is straight and good, but she’s got to lug my heart, my blood, which all hurts because it’s crooked; its weight sends her staggering. She has no bed, she has no home, she merely hangs on my sharp bones, flapping her terrible wings. And my hands are completely shot, shriveled, worn: here, take a look at how they clammily, clumsily hop like rain-crazed toads. As for all the other stuff, it’s all used up and sad and old— why doesn’t God haul me out to the muck and let me drop. Is it because of my mug with its frowning mouth? So often I would itch to be luminous and free of fog but nothing would approach except big dogs. And the dogs got zilch.

Either the world is coming together, or else the world is falling apart — here — now — along these letters, against the walls of every heart. Today, tomorrow, within its weather, the end or beginning’s about to start — the world impossibly coming together or very possibly falling apart. Now the lovers’ mouths are open — maybe the miracle’s about to start: the world within us coming together, because all around us it’s falling apart. Even as they speak, he wonders, even as the fear departs: Is that the world coming together? Can they keep it from falling apart? The image, gradually, is growing sharper; now the sound is like a dart: It seemed their world was coming together, but in fact it was falling apart. That’s the nightmare, that’s the terror, that’s the Isaac of this art — which sees that the world might come together if only we’re willing to take it apart. The dream, the lure, is the prayer’s answer, which can’t be plotted on any chart — as we know the world that’s coming together without our knowing is falling apart.

Here’s your mom, here’s your dad. Welcome to being their flesh and blood. Why do you look so sad? Here’s your food, here’s your drink. Also some thoughts, if you care to think. Welcome to everything. Here’s your practically clean slate. Welcome to it, though it’s kind of late. Welcome at any rate. ____ Here’s your paycheck, here’s your rent. Money is nature’s fifth element. Welcome to every cent. Here’s your swarm and your huge beehive. Welcome to the place with its roughly five billion like you alive. Welcome to the phone book that stars your name. Digits are democracy’s secret aim. Welcome to your claim to fame. ____ Here’s your marriage, and here’s divorce. Now that’s the order you can’t reverse. Welcome to it; up yours, Here’s your blade, here’s your wrist. Welcome to playing your own terrorist; call it your Middle East. Here’s your mirror, your dental gleam. Here’s an octopus in your dream. Why do you try to scream? ____ Here’s your corncob, your TV set. Your candidate suffering an upset. Welcome to what he said. Here’s your porch, see the cars pass by. Here’s your shitting dog’s guilty eye. Welcome to its alibi. Here are your cicadas, then a chickadee, the bulb’s dry tear in your lemon tea. Welcome to infinity. ____ Here are your pills on the plastic tray, your disappointing, crisp X-ray. You are welcome to pray. Here’s your cemetery, a well-kept glen. Welcome to a voice that says “Amen.” The end of the rope, old man. Here’s your will, and here’s a few takers. Here’s an empty pew. Here’s life after you. ____ And here are your stars which appear still keen on shining as though you had never been. They might have a point, old bean. Here’s your afterlife, with no trace of you, especially of your face. Welcome, and call it space. Welcome to where one cannot breathe. This way, space resembles what’s underneath, and Saturn holds the wreath.