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Swallows carve lake wind, trailers lined up, fish tins. The fires of a thousand small camps spilled on a hillside. I pull leeks, morels from the soil, fry chubs from the lake in moonlight. I hear someone, hear the splash, groan of a waterpump, wipe my mouth. Fish grease spits at darkness. Once I nudged a canoe through that water, letting its paddle lift, drip. I was sucked down smaller than the sound of the dropping, looked out from where I had vanished.

The skin of sleep is thin. It will not hold. Its contents stumble out. A nub of bone lodged in earth at the bottom of a pit. A stranger staring down from the rim. The skin of sleep is thin. It cannot hold. Lost names spill out. Children engraved in ash. A sea of blood. Only you, tenderness, stillborn, beneath the skin of sleep.

Gram of mania, animated pepper, shadow-monger dressed in panic, monitor of  ghostly footfalls, it concentrates in its essential tic the frog leg dropped into oil and the human shock at the verge. If  it would stop and let me look, I might imagine the tropic where it hangs in a hammock between two popsicle sticks admiring the iguana’s stealth, but it does not stop. Hawk- dodger, crow-pretzel, gallows’ twitch. Spider-shark. Porter of  readiness, miller of  the steady shudder, peripatetic rectitude, run by the power of   the sunlit rock, it fortifies Darwin and the idea of   being late and the missed appointment. With its blue tail, it reminds us: it will go on. It will not stop.

the streets of hell are also paved with fear of contagion I have been swimming in enough barbed-wire waters to know you’re not even safe on the beach it’s not just your “body fluids” it’s the grime of your skin those dirty things you think they are cleaning up the world again I can see the inflammation heartbreak & hunger scurry me down on the road to Damascus I want to be blinded like Saul for the sake of vision not just cause I can’t take it anymore are we talking burnt out here? burnt out is a reason for infection I hope I get the whole disease I am glad to be a speck / a piece of dirt the dark side of the earth they’re trying to clean I want to get in their pores want them to sweat my filth the way a wound hurts before the dope but then come the murderers on the road are we talking burnt out? they go in the camps looking for you cause you are hiding the sores you could be contagious after all in the postapocalypse movies you don’t even exist your survival is not required for history or hollywood in the movie Road Warrior everyone is antisocial on purpose human ties are burnt out & human intercourse is fatiguing & dangerous gratefully no one is traumatized anymore & unfortunately no one goes to school in the movie Blade Runner almost everyone lives 90 stories below almost no one else everyone is antisocial by accident due to overcrowding in L.A. but no one minds & there are still parties to go to everyone white is “off-world” more or less everyone 90 stories down is polymorphous colored more or less no one has attended school in decades in both films everyone dresses with panache which preserves their identities to audiences who know there is no grounds for indentity postworld personally I prefer the people in Titanic even though they got their minds blown when the unbelievable happened they still believed in life they were not burnt out & had grounds for clinging to lifeboats and a certain stylish way of dressing they could not imagine Jim Jensen intoning without horror that the body count goes on that no one needs the news to know what’s going on Beirut is one of the low levels Dante went on about available in ordinary life see the corpses if you will believe at the risk you may see it everywhere every body spreads infection unless you burn it out eyewitness news invites you to wait for the coverage because Jim Jensen is there & history is in the making or you can come skinny-dip in my gene pool the massacres were arbitrary when my people were hunted down the deaths still go on stretching over centuries of shades of brown baptist, moslem, mothers, children, fathers burnt out of homes but living I am not that desperate to be numb & dumb I’m walking 90 stories down I know I survive in some wretched moments of what men do but I am not that desperate I don’t give a shit if this is history in the making it should stop I am still alive I am still happy to be the dirt that can’t be cleaned up scorch my earth & I will grow from history up under the feet of the present burnt out is for the movies in which we don’t exist

what we have is what there is and who we are and who we is is love

Of all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme, — On Apuleius’s Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calender’s horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, Islam’s prophet on Al-Borák, — The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson’s, out from Marblehead! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Body of turkey, head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain: “Here ’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns’ twang, Over and over the Mænads sang: “Here ’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Small pity for him! — He sailed away From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay, — Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town’s-people on her deck! “Lay by! lay by!” they called to him. Back he answered, “Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!” And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur That wreck shall lie forevermore. Mother and sister, wife and maid, Looked from the rocks of Marblehead Over the moaning and rainy sea, — Looked for the coming that might not be! What did the winds and the sea-birds say Of the cruel captain who sailed away? — Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Through the street, on either side, Up flew windows, doors swung wide; Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, Treble lent the fish-horn’s bray. Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, Hulks of old sailors run aground, Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain: “Here’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” Sweetly along the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like an Indian idol glum and grim, Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear Of voices shouting, far and near: “Here’s Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr’d an’ futherr’d an’ corr’d in a corrt By the women o’ Morble’ead!” “Hear me, neighbors!” at last he cried, — “What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me, — I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!” Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead! Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, “God has touched him! why should we!” Said an old wife mourning her only son, “Cut the rogue’s tether and let him run!” So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin. Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead!

I don't want my legs to show I don't    want my legs    to show that I'm willing instead I ripped my skirt off the first story     (in which I am featured) my mother having forgotten the wooden clothespins which were my usual toys     not having them to gum & grip     instead I ripped my skirt off say    I'm willing more than    so I'm too    willing so say so more than say so much    than I'm willing to    say I don't want my legs to show    but my breasts are available      not motion but gravity     the steadfast pounding not motion    not pavement the pounding the skirt is the uniform    grey & sullen     in school    refusing to hold a pleat     wet wool on iron steaming     flung after lying in snow thighs red & icy sitting for yearbook pictures smart girls    honor    society our white panties showing every one if I show you my legs won’t you see that I’m leaving all life is a leaning slow dancing      eyes closed arms raised around his neck each girl     a view for some other girl’s partner they are not the feature    the breasts hide the heart or disclose it    the legs hide the opening the skirt hides the legs disguise enclosure in clothes my mother couldn't understand why I wouldn't wear a slip when standing in the light the outline of my legs shone the skirt matters    although it is see- through fear is a by-product do not be dissuaded this made more sense than that division into love & fear I began to see fear as a curtain    a scrim substantive as light evasive & theatrical but light     as a curtain it need not be skirted a skirt may be ripped    shredded or moved easily aside it need not be violated it can be adjusted

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations (For Elizabeth Bishop) Dedication Lowell’s poem is modeled on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Armadillo,” which Bishop had dedicated to Lowell. Nautilus Island’s Nautilus Island’s Lowell once remarked, “The first four stanzas are meant to give a dawdling more or less amiable picture of a declining Maine sea town.” hermit heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage; her sheep still graze above the sea. Her son’s a bishop. Her farmer is first selectman in our village; she’s in her dotage she’s in her dotage Echoes “the world is in its dotage”, from Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield(1766). . Thirsting for the hierarchic privacy of Queen Victoria’s century, she buys up all the eyesores facing her shore, and lets them fall. The season’s ill— we’ve lost our summer millionaire, who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean catalogue. His nine-knot yawl was auctioned off to lobstermen. A red fox stain covers Blue Hill A red fox stain covers Blue Hill Lowell wrote, “The red fox stain was merely meant to describe the rusty reddish color of autumn on Blue Hill, a Maine mountain near where we were living.” . And now our fairy decorator brightens his shop for fall; his fishnet’s filled with orange cork, orange, his cobbler’s bench and awl; there is no money in his work, he’d rather marry. One dark night One dark night Echoes The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic (1542-1591). In his talk “On ‘Skunk Hour,’” Lowell stated, "I hoped my readers would remember John of the Cross's poem. My night is not gracious, but secular, puritan, and agnostic. An existential night.” , my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull hill’s skull "When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus" (Luke: 23:33, NRSV). Both "Golgotha,” in Hebrew, and "Calvary," from Latin ("Calvaria") mean "skull". ; I watched for love-cars I watched for love-cars "watching the lovers was not mine, but from an anecdote about Walt Whitman in his old age" The notes in Robert Lowell: Selected Poems(2006) explains the anecdote: "In the early 1970s, Elizabeth Bishop told Frank Bidart that the source of the anecdote was Logan Pearsall Smith's Unforgotten Years(1939): Almost every afternoon my father would take Walt Whitman driving in the Park; it was an unfailing interest to them to drive as close as they could behind buggies in which pairs of lovers were seated, and observe the degree of slope towards each other, or "buggy-angle," as they called it, of these couples; and if ever they saw this angle of approximation narrowed to an embrace, my father and Walt Whitman, who had ever honored that joy-giving power of nature symbolized under the name of Venus, would return home with happy hearts. (p. 99) . Lights turned down, they lay together, hull to hull, where the graveyard shelves shelves Slopes down on the town. . . . My mind’s not right. A car radio bleats, “Love, O careless Love. . . .” “Love, O careless Love. . . . “A popular blues song of the time written by W.C. Handy and performed by Bessie Smith (1925), in which the narrator threatens to kill his or her wayward lover. The song was performed with slight variations of lyrics by many musicians before Lowell wrote this poem in 1959, including Fats Domino (1956). I hear my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell, as if my hand were at its throat. . . . I myself am hell I myself am hell An echo of Satan speaking in John Milton's Paradise Lost: “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell” (Book 4, line 75) ; nobody’s here— only skunks, that search in the moonlight for a bite to eat. They march on their soles up Main Street: white stripes, moonstruck eyes’ red fire under the chalk-dry and spar spar Nautical term for a mast spire of the Trinitarian Church. I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air— a mother skunk with her column column Figuratively, a military formation of kittens swills the garbage pail She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare.

Under the trees, where everything Is still possible in prescribed doses: Hundreds of accordion-like units Without edges. But there is no unwinding Of minutes to stay the execution Of a rain-shot weekend in early Beach weather, no elixir To revive the amputated flower Still kicking on its ghost-stem In a bowl of water, no direction In which to steer The hapless, puzzled out-of-towner Other than straight ahead, To the sheer drop-off Where his guidebook gutters Or deposits him, addressless, In thin air.

The sky is bright with stars After a hot day The coolness of my body Leaving finger by toe in the heat of the spa Looking through the garden lights At tall houses around me I thought, No, just happy The night is bright with stars, She told me She no longer missed her parents But you loved them, I said I did, said she, more than myself And now I’m free That was my friend Pipi Such a whore, I said to myself Like me, such a whore like me As I hear the roosters of Samoa In the laughing of coyotes