Poemunity — your poem community

After I.F. Annensky First the sky was yellow then white snow followed. On a hand was an amethyst: a cube of  lilac in hospital light. • Whose fault is it when no one visits? • Last night I dreamed I was in a peaceful place but woke up freezing and ashamed. On a side street (on my sheets) one I loved passed as a shadow. Maddish, reddish, his fist clenched for a fight. • I recalled his body color being soft like a child. The drunken nipples. • Honey I called. We were too late. God and the gods have moved outside the jeweled air and sun motes   ... to where a star is: an amethyst minus a poet.

Smudged here with betel juice, burnished there with aloe paste, a splash of powder in one corner, and lacquer from footprints embroidered in another, with flowers from her hair strewn all over its winding crumpled folds, the sheets celebrate the joy of making love to a woman in every position.

I found it in the wash, the orange shell I picked up on the beach that last time. One of my girls— the one named after you— must have found it in my room and wanted it. Clean calcareous curve, a palm open to nothing, reeking of sunshine and your death. For years I didn't know what to do with it. You would have liked this story: how a child slips grief into a careless pocket. Breaks it to pieces. Lets it go.

I could have anything I wanted from the maws of the vending machines that stood watch over the waiting room of my stepfather’s Shell station. Larry or Chubbs would fish out keys with grimy fingers, swing open the face of the machine, reveal its innards stacked columns of soda or candy bars. Outside the constant ding of the bell as cars pulled in for gas, directions, air in the tires, a clean windshield, drivers impatient for destination, and Chubbs or Larry would dash, leave me to choose: Planter’s Peanut Bar or Nestle’s Crunch, Coke or orange or chocolate pop. Grit covered that tiny room, layered on maps in their laddered racks, dusting the globe of the gumball machine, sifted over neat rows of motor oil in silver cans, smudging the white pages of homework I filled with painstaking script. I breathed the stink of petroleum, kicked at the legs of a yellow plastic chair with my black and white school oxfords, waiting for my stepfather who was supposed to watch me till my mother got off work. Nine was too young, she thought, to stay at home alone. But every day he’d disappear, banged-up Chevy gone from the lot, the men in oil-streaked uniforms shrugging excuses. “Anything she wants,” he’d instructed them, and I watched the clock as the sky darkened and the bright shell glowed against night. My new bra was too tight; I hugged my three-ring binder to hide my roll of belly from Larry, from Chubbs, and sucked the dregs of chocolate pop or lemon-lime.

Essentially, for some time, in an effort to determine whether I loved you or not, I've been praying to you, even though the inside of the tabernacle, as I thought, is empty: oxygen, carbon dioxide, brass, nickel, and a sheet, a sheet of gilded plywood. (And in the rectory, the housekeeper is cooking pasta, stamped in the shape of shells, all of a uniform size and color.) In an effort to determine, in an effort to determine whether I loved you, whether I loved you or not, I learned old lovers are christs or bodhisattvas. Slowly at first, and then with greater skill, in an effort to determine whether I loved you, I loved you or not, I've been praying without knowing it, in the daylight, in the white afternoon, and singing, and singing with records, my head tilted up into the black walnut, the windows alive with listening ravens to whom I sing about your boxy feet with rind of callus at the heel, (as elsewhere noted), your smiting eyes, your nose pugged slightly, like Socrates, your dark skin, your dark. Your voice like a woodwind, a basset clarinet; the wind you went out on, the wind you came in on, your hair the color of a violin, the unambiguous quality of many of your pronouncements, i.e., the time you said I was tortured by life, your eyes boring through me, right for the wrong reasons, again. The time in New Orleans you were so angry, I was so drunk, lurching in the curio shops full of shells. A shell grows around itself, folding over the first pattern, calcified into a whorled shape, not dissimilar to the whorl on the top of our two heads, the pattern of gorgeous irreplaceable error, and for a while the only assurance we belonged, we belonged to the same species. And the joy was piercing, this piercing joy came up in me, a whirring train, night, on the way home, somewhere before Memphis. The singing in my ears. A hurricane, a hurricane outside to my right was photographed from a satellite even as a criminal was being printed, his thumb whorl down, twisted clockwise, and the trees out in the dark strained, growing, forming knots, their flesh burled in the timedrift. I've wondered: does the twisting hurt them, and did all your turnings and hidings wound you as they did me, and did you notice my imprint, my concealment in that fold of air beside you, when into your boxy feet and brown hands nails, nails were driven, when you got into that car and went west, when you sat under that tree almost forever?

THENOT    &      HOBBINOLL Tell me good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete? What? hath some Wolfe thy tender Lambes ytorne? Or is thy Bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete? Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne? Or bene thine eyes attempred to the yeare, Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne? Like April shoure, so stremes the trickling teares Adowne thy cheeke, to quenche thy thristye payne. HOBBINOLL Nor thys, nor that, so muche doeth make me mourne, But for the ladde, whome long I lovd so deare, Nowe loves a lasse, that all his love doth scorne: He plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare. Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare, Hys pleasaunt Pipe, whych made us meriment, He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent. THENOT What is he for a Ladde, you so lament? Ys love such pinching payne to them, that prove? And hath he skill to make so excellent, Yet hath so little skill to brydle love? HOBBINOLL Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye: Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte. Whilome on him was all my care and joye, Forcing with gyfts to winne his wanton heart. But now from me hys madding mynd is starte, And woes the Widdowes daughter of the glenne: So nowe fayre Rosalind hath bredde hys smart, So now his frend is chaunged for a frenne. THENOT But if hys ditties bene so trimly dight, I pray thee Hobbinoll, recorde some one: The whiles our flockes doe graze about in sight, And we close shrowded in thys shade alone. HOBBINOLL Contented I: then will I singe his laye Of fayre Elisa, Queene of shepheardes all: Which once he made, as by a spring he laye, And tuned it unto the Waters fall. Ye dayntye Nymphs, that in this blessed Brooke doe bathe your brest, Forsake your watry bowres, and hether looke, at my request: And eke you Virgins, that on Parnasse dwell, Whence floweth Helicon the learned well, Helpe me to blaze Her worthy praise, Which in her sexe doth all excell. Of fayre Eliza be your silver song, that blessed wight: The flowre of Virgins, may shee florish long, In princely plight. For shee is Syrinx daughter without spotte, Which Pan the shepheards God of her begot: So sprong her grace Of heavenly race, No mortall blemishe may her blotte. See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, (O seemely sight) Yclad in Scarlot like a mayden Queene, And Ermines white. Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: Bayleaves betweene, And Primroses greene Embellish the sweete Violet. Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face, Like Ph{oe}be fayre? Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace can you well compare? The Redde rose medled with the White yfere, In either cheeke depeincten lively chere. Her modest eye, Her Majestie, Where have you seene the like, but there? I sawe Ph{oe}bus thrust out his golden hedde, upon her to gaze: But when he sawe, how broade her beames did spredde, it did him amaze. He blusht to see another Sunne belowe, Ne durst againe his fyrye face out showe: Let him, if he dare, His brightnesse compare With hers, to have the overthrowe. Shewe thy selfe Cynthia with thy silver rayes, and be not abasht: When shee the beames of her beauty displayes, O how art thou dasht? But I will not match her with Latonaes seede, Such follie great sorow to Niobe did breede. Now she is a stone, And makes dayly mone, Warning all other to take heede. Pan may be proud, that ever he begot such a Bellibone, And Syrinx rejoyse, that ever was her lot to beare such an one. Soone as my younglings cryen for the dam, To her will I offer a milkwhite Lamb: Shee is my goddesse plaine, And I her shepherds swayne, Albee forswonck and forswatt I am. I see Calliope speede her to the place, where my Goddesse shines: And after her the other Muses trace, with their Violines. Bene they not Bay braunches, which they doe beare, All for Elisa in her hand to weare? So sweetely they play, And sing all the way, That it a heaven is to heare. Lo how finely the graces can it foote to the Instrument: They dauncen deffly, and singen soote, in their meriment. Wants not a fourth grace, to make the daunce even? Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven: She shalbe a grace, To fyll the fourth place, And reigne with the rest in heaven. And whither rennes this bevie of Ladies bright, raunged in a rowe? They bene all Ladyes of the lake behight, that unto her goe. Chloris, that is the chiefest Nymph of al, Of Olive braunches beares a Coronall: Olives bene for peace, When wars doe surcease: Such for a Princesse bene principall. Ye shepheards daughters, that dwell on the greene, hye you there apace: Let none come there, but that Virgins bene, to adorne her grace. And when you come, whereas shee is in place, See, that your rudeness doe not you disgrace: Binde your fillets faste, And gird in your waste, For more finesse, with a tawdrie lace. Bring hether the Pincke and purple Cullambine, With Gelliflowres: Bring Coronations, and Sops in wine, worne of Paramoures. Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies, And Cowslips, and Kingcups, and loved Lillies: The pretie Pawnce, And the Chevisaunce, Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice. Now ryse up Elisa, decked as thou art, in royall aray: And now ye daintie Damsells may depart echeone her way, I feare, I have troubled your troupes to longe: Let dame Eliza thanke you for her song. And if you come hether, When Damsines I gether, I will part them all you among. THENOT And was thilk same song of Colins owne making? Ah foolish boy, that is with love yblent: Great pittie is, he be in such taking, For naught caren, that bene so lewdly bent. HOBBINOLL Sicker I hold him, for a greater fon, That loves the thing, he cannot purchase. But let us homeward: for night draweth on, And twincling starres the daylight hence chase. THENOTS EMBLEME O quam te memorem virgo? HOBBINOLLS EMBLEME O dea certe.

Januarie. Ægloga prima. ARGVMENT. IN this fyrst Æglogue Colin clout a shepheardes boy complaineth him of his vnfortunate loue, being but newly (as semeth) enamoured of a countrie lasse called Rosalinde: with which strong affection being very sore traueled, he compareth his carefull case to the sadde season of the yeare, to the frostie ground, to the frosen trees, and to his owne winterbeaten flocke. And lastlye, fynding himselfe robbed of all former pleasaunce and delights, hee breaketh his Pipe in peeces, and casteth him selfe to the ground. COLIN Cloute. A Shepeheards boye (no better doe him call) when Winters wastful spight was almost spent, All in a sunneshine day, as did befall, Led forth his flock, that had been long ypent. So faynt they woxe, and feeble in the folde, That now vnnethes their feete could them vphold. All as the Sheepe, such was the shepeheards looke, For pale and wanne he was, (alas the while,) May seeme he lovd, or els some care he tooke: Well couth he tune his pipe, and frame his stile. Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde, And thus him playnd, the while his shepe there fedde. Ye gods of loue, that pitie louers payne, (if any gods the paine of louers pitie:) Looke from aboue, where you in ioyes remaine, And bowe your eares vnto my doleful dittie. And Pan thou shepheards God, that once didst loue, Pitie the paines, that thou thy selfe didst proue. Thou barrein ground, whome winters wrath hath wasted, Art made a myrrhour, to behold my plight: Whilome thy fresh spring flowrd, and after hasted Thy sommer prowde with Daffadillies dight. And now is come thy wynters stormy state, Thy mantle mard, wherein thou mas-kedst late. Such rage as winters, reigneth in my heart, My life bloud friesing wtih vnkindly cold: Such stormy stoures do breede my balefull smarte, As if my yeare were wast, and woxen old. And yet alas, but now my spring begonne, And yet alas, yt is already donne. You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost, Wherein the byrds were wont to build their bowre: And now are clothd with mosse and hoary frost, Instede of bloosmes, wherwith your buds did flowre: I see your teares, that from your boughes doe raine, Whose drops in drery ysicles remaine. All so my lustfull leafe is drye and sere, My timely buds with wayling all are wasted: The blossome, which my braunch of youth did beare, With breathed sighes is blowne away, & blasted, And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend, As on your boughes the ysicles depend. Thou feeble flocke, whose fleece is rough and rent, Whose knees are weak through fast and evill fare: Mayst witnesse well by thy ill gouernement, Thy maysters mind is ouercome with care. Thou weak, I wanne: thou leabe, I quite forlorne: With mourning pyne I, you with pyning mourne. A thousand sithes I curse that carefull hower, Wherein I longd the neighbour towne to see: And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stoure, Wherein I sawe so fayre a sight, as shee. Yet all for naught: snch [such] sight hath bred my bane. Ah God, that loue should breede both ioy and payne. It is not Hobbinol, wherefore I plaine, Albee my loue he seeke with dayly suit: His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine, His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit. Ah foolish Hobbinol, thy gyfts bene vayne: Colin them gives to Rosalind againe. I loue thilke lasse, (alas why doe I loue?) And am forlorne, (alas why am I lorne?) Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reproue, And of my rurall musick holdeth scorne. Shepheards deuise she hateth as the snake, And laughes the songes, that Colin Clout doth make. Wherefore my pype, albee rude Pan thou please, Yet for thou pleasest not, where most I would: And thou vnlucky Muse, that wontst to ease My musing mynd, yet canst not, when thou should: Both pype and Muse, shall sore the while abye. So broke his oaten pype, and downe dyd lye. By that, the welked Phoebus gan availe, His weary waine, and nowe the frosty Night Her mantle black through heauen gan overhaile. Which seene, the pensife boy halfe in despight Arose, and homeward drove his sonned sheepe, Whose hanging heads did seeme his carefull case to weepe.

PIERCE       &         CUDDIE Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavye head, And let us cast with what delight to chace, And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race. Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade, In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base: Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead. CUDDY Piers, I have pyped erst so long with payne, That all mine Oten reedes bene rent and wore: And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store, Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gayne, Such pleasaunce makes the Grashopper so poore, And ligge so layd, when Winter doth her straine. The dapper ditties, that I wont devise, To feede youthes fancie, and the flocking fry, Delighten much: what I the bett for thy? They han the pleasure, I a sclender prise. I beate the bush, the byrds to them doe flye: What good thereof to Cuddie can arise? PIERS Cuddie, the prayse is better, then the price, The glory eke much greater then the gayne: O what an honor is it, to restraine The lust of lawlesse youth with good advice: Or pricke them forth with pleasaunce of thy vaine, Whereto thou list their trayned willes entice. Soone as thou gynst to sette thy notes in frame, O how the rurall routes to thee doe cleave: Seemeth thou dost their soule of sence bereave, All as the shepheard, that did fetch his dame From Plutoes balefull bowre withouten leave: His musicks might the hellish hound did tame. CUDDIE So praysen babes the Peacoks spotted traine, And wondren at bright Argus blazing eye: But who rewards him ere the more for thy? Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine? Sike prayse is smoke, that sheddeth in the skye, Sike words bene wynd, and wasten soone in vayne. PIERS Abandon then the base and viler clowne, Lyft up thy selfe out of the lowly dust: And sing of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts. Turne thee to those, that weld the awful crowne, To doubted Knights, whose woundlesse armour rusts, And helmes unbruzed wexen dayly browne. There may thy Muse display her fluttryng wing, And stretch her selfe at large from East to West: Whither thou list in fayre Elisa rest, Or if thee please in bigger notes to sing, Advaunce the worthy whome shee loveth best, That first the white beare to the stake did bring. And when the stubborne stroke of stronger stounds, Has somewhat slackt the tenor of thy string: Of love and lustihed tho mayst thou sing, And carrol lowde, and leade the Myllers rownde, All were Elisa one of thilke same ring. So mought our Cuddies name to Heaven sownde. CUDDYE Indeed the Romish Tityrus, I heare, Through his Mecoenas left his Oaten reede, Whereon he earst had taught his flocks to feede, And laboured lands to yield the timely eare, And eft did sing of warres and deadly drede, So as the Heavens did quake his verse to here. But ah Mecoenas is yclad in claye, And great Augustus long ygoe is dead: And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, That matter made for Poets on to play: For ever, who in derring doe were dreade, The loftie verse of hem was loved aye. But after vertue gan for age to stoupe, And mighty manhode brought a bedde of ease: The vaunting Poets found nought worth a pease, To put in preace emong the learned troupe. Tho gan the streames of flowing wittes to cease, And sonnebright honour pend in shamefull coupe. And if that any buddes of Poesie, Yet of the old stocke gan to shoote agayne: Or it mens follies mote be forst to fayne, And rolle with rest in rymes of rybaudrye: Or as it sprong, it wither must agayne: Tom Piper makes us better melodie. PIERS O pierlesse Poesye, where is then thy place? If nor in Princes pallace thou doe sitt: (And yet is Princes pallace the most fitt) Ne brest of baser birth doth thee embrace. Then make thee winges of thine aspyring wit, And, whence thou camst, flye backe to heaven apace. CUDDIE Ah Percy it is all to weake and wanne, So high to sore, and make so large a flight: Her peeced pyneons bene not so in plight, For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne: He, were he not with love so ill bedight, Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne. PIERS Ah fon, for love does teach him climbe so hie, And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre: Such immortall mirrhor, as he doth admire, Would rayse ones mynd above the starry skie. And cause a caytive corage to aspire, For lofty love doth loath a lowly eye. CUDDIE All otherwise the state of Poet stands, For lordly love is such a Tyranne fell: That where he rules, all power he doth expell. The vaunted verse a vacant head demaundes, Ne wont with crabbed care the Muses dwell. Unwisely weaves, that takes two webbes in hand. Who ever casts to compasse weightye prise, And thinks to throwe out thondring words of threate: Let powre in lavish cups and thriftie bitts of meate, For Bacchus fruite is frend to Phoebus wise. And when with Wine the braine begins to sweate, The nombers flowe as fast as spring doth ryse. Thou kenst not Percie howe the ryme should rage. O if my temples were distaind with wine, And girt in girlonds of wild Yvie twine, How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, With queint Bellona in her equipage. But ah my corage cooles ere it be warme, For thy, content us in thys humble shade: Where no such troublous tydes han us assayde, Here we our slender pipes may safely charme. PIERS And when my Gates shall han their bellies layd: Cuddie shall have a Kidde to store his farme. CUDDIES EMBLEME Agitante calescimus illo

Oh! Shepherd John is good and kind, Oh! Shepherd John is brave; He loves the weakest of his flock, His arm is quick to save. But Shepherd John to little John Says: ‘Learn, my laddie, learn! In grassy nooks still read your books, And aye for knowledge burn. Read while you tend the grazing flock: Had I but loved my book, I’d not be still in shepherd’s frock, Nor bearing shepherd’s crook. The world is wide, the world is fair, There’s muckle work to do. I’ll rest content a shepherd still, But grander fields for you!’

In the field — shepherd’s purse: to be seen even in the dark. Think on it — after the gravel paths, after the roads — uneven and achingly long, across the cold promise the border makes to a sloping field, to a ditch. A ditch like any other. A ditch I have known — since. Imagine them: green, slender, from crown to root, a rosette of radical leaves, smooth, arrow-shaped and above them numerous small, white, inconspicuous flowers. There was no need to ask the man to kneel but he did, as if he were going to beg forgiveness, which he did not, nor did he ask for his life. He named his children and his wife, murmured to his own private God. Overhead, there was the sound of pine shifting, the moon winnowing in the distance. So, nothing terrible about the night then, if you do not count the earth tilting, or the sound in the undergrowth of a passage from this world to the next. More than that I remember the flat-seed pouch: weed some call it, as if to flourish and seed in the poorest soil is to be just that. They are everywhere now — it seems to me, populating my field of vision like a generative disease, an affliction. Look: a man walks into a field. A field with shepherd’s purse. He falls. He falls again. Every day, from this day until kingdom come, he falls into the embrace of a field of flowers, into shepherd’s purse.