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To Iretha A textbook photograph most likely led me to think the Rosetta Stone the size of a library’s old Webster’s Third Edition or two loaves of bread on a side board, but here it stands, three tongues, or one mind that can say three ways we say the one thing, the breaths and sights of each way in rock, a milestone in intangibles between them. Reflected light from outside through the entrance, duplicating on the glass case      the door image that the stone itself is       opens when you walk around behind it exhibit the inhibition of letters, and I see you, not a translation, step through from beyond all description into the calling of flesh in black skin: beauty. Beauty. Beauty.

Roslyn has nothing going nothing to fight for no work to do she couldn’t name one desire that is not someone else’s or a man she cannot claim where she came from will not claim who she is or the way she cries so no one can see she has no work to do cannot finish books feed herself or go out alone she is always late not to sit alone somewhere and wait she wouldn’t know what to do Roslyn doesn’t want a thing but she waits for something anyway she has no work to do she holds off interests passions and opinions everything but the facts and these come to her from dramas and the papers she agrees with fiction and what people say i wouldn’t trust her in court or on my back a woman without a dream is a fault in the earth all steam and liquid fire Roslyn goes to work has a job but no calling waits for the word to call herself no one ever remembers her name or where they saw her she waits to be told she’s the only one her tyranny is silent small and sexual her losses are great she has not called herself said, “I’m here, now, deal with me” Roslyn wouldn’t hurt a fly but people fear her sleep her unconscious the primal whatever that wants to play it might have guns out for the rest of us

Love, we were young once, and ran races over rough ground in our best shiny shoes, we kicked at stones, we fell over, pulled faces. Our knees were filthy with our secret places, with rituals and ranks, with strategy and ruse. Love, we were young once and ran races to determine the most rudimentary of  graces such as strength and speed and the ability to bruise. We kicked at stones, we fell over, pulled faces, and doing so left no permanent traces because we fought and fell only to confuse love. We were young. Once we ran races in ghettos, in camps, in the dismal spaces of  the imagination reserved for  Jews. We kicked at stones, we fell over, pulled faces at elastic braces, shoelaces, empty packing cases as if  they were the expressions we could choose. Love, we were young once, and ran races. We kicked at stones, we fell over, we pulled faces.

The eye is drawn to that single yellow star that no wise man will follow. The hunched men in caps, the grimacing woman her eyes screwed up, cheeks hollow. We look and look again until we burn a hole in the paper. We strive to learn from their resignation but it is beyond us. We let them burn.

Soon I shall take more I will get more light and I'll know what I think about that Driving down Second Ave. in a car the frieze of my hand like a grandmother captured in an institution I know I'll never live here again etc. many many long years ago Millions of peeps in the scrawl the regular trees the regular dog snort & dig. In the West Village you could put on a hat a silly hat & it's clear whereas over here 20 years passed that rotting hat it's loyalty to someone or something that's really so gone the moment clenched like religion or government. Wait a minute. I prefer umm a beatle's cap when it's really really old neighborhood devoted to that. Poetry is a sentimental act everything spring she said being surrounded by so much rot. Pages & pages mounds of them that I'm in not some library but in your little home, like you. Every season I know I'm leaving I'm as loyal as the cross to this smeltering eccentricity down by the river with Daddio toss your ball in the river in the future over bridges they say you have to imagine the 20th century.All these buildings were colored a blasted interior scarlet curtains rattling day cobwebs on inexplicable machinery a theater once dwelled here all I see is rotting ideas the epics I imagined the unified cast of everyone eating turkey together on a stage my idea like waters towers popping up feeling mellow not exactly nothing all this time but the buildings that are absolute gone that I never described. You can't kill a poet. We just get erased & written on. It aches in my brain, my back this beauty I'm eating my toast everyone I knew you would be dead tomorrow &you were. The composing camera infatuated with the shovel on the lid & the pile of rocks. He is not aging same Alexandrian blond in Bini-bons the sirens are gods when I lifted my head from my swarming difficulty You were so marvelous bringing those toys to my feet in between the invisibility of the constant production & consumption the network of that & apart from the mold. You survived.

April 26—May 25, 1915 Early morning over Rouen, hopeful, high, courageous morning, And the laughter of adventure, and the steepness of the stair, And the dawn across the river, and the wind across the bridges, And the empty littered station, and the tired people there. Can you recall those mornings, and the hurry of awakening, And the long-forgotten wonder if we should miss the way, And the unfamiliar faces, and the coming of provisions, And the freshness and the glory of the labour of the day. Hot noontide over Rouen, and the sun upon the city, Sun and dust unceasing, and the glare of cloudless skies, And the voices of the Indians and the endless stream of soldiers, And the clicking of the tatties, and the buzzing of the flies. Can you recall those noontides and the reek of steam and coffee, Heavy-laden noontides with the evening’s peace to win, And the little piles of Woodbines, and the sticky soda bottles, And the crushes in the “Parlour”, and the letters coming in? Quiet night-time over Rouen, and the station full of soldiers, All the youth and pride of England from the ends of all the earth; And the rifles piled together, and the creaking of the sword-belts, And the faces bent above them, and the gay, heart-breaking mirth. Can I forget the passage from the cool white-bedded Aid Post Past the long sun-blistered coaches of the khaki Red Cross train To the truck train full of wounded, and the weariness and laughter And “Good-bye, and thank you, Sister”, and the empty yards again? Can you recall the parcels that we made them for the railroad, Crammed and bulging parcels held together by their string, And the voices of the sargeants who called the Drafts together, And the agony and splendour when they stood to save the King? Can you forget their passing, the cheering and the waving, The little group of people at the doorway of the shed, The sudden awful silence when the last train swung to darkness, And the lonely desolation, and the mocking stars o’erhead? Can you recall the midnights, and the footsteps of night watchers, Men who came from darkness and went back to dark again, And the shadows on the rail-lines and the all inglorious labour, And the promise of the daylight firing blue the window- pane? Can you recall the passing through the kitchen door to morning, Morning very still and solemn breaking slowly on the town, And the early coastways engines that had met the ships at daybreak, And the Drafts just out from England, and the day shift coming down? Can you forget returning slowly, stumbling on the cobbles, And the white-decked Red Cross barges dropping seawards for the tide, And the search for English papers, and the blessed cool, of water, And the peace of half-closed shutters that shut out the world outside? Can I forget the evenings and the sunsets on the island, And the tall black ships at anchor far below our balcony, And the distant call of bugles, and the white wine in the glasses, And the long line of the street lamps, stretching Eastwards to the sea? When the world slips slow to darkness, when the office fire burns lower, My heart goes out to Rouen, Rouen all the world away; When other men remember, I remember our Adventure And the trains that go from Rouen at the ending of the day.

Perhaps you covet something of its emptiness, its uselessness in matters of  yearning or feeling another’s yearn, that it can’t know a damn thing, yet damns everything it touches: the water it gathers along its passage, the air it pushes through, swallow-like. It is no bird, though you envy the song you hear only after it’s gone, even if  it sings through paper, a goat, the neck of a man wearing a scarf that tufts just as the rest of   him flies out of his shoes and collapses in dirt. Or, how it is like the dirt receiving him, the privilege of not knowing if   he was kind or unkind, as you chamber another, waiting for someone to come for his shoes.

nature’s inside, says Cézanne and frightening I do not like the fleshy echo even so, it is after this close proof vision is made of matter another mirror it’s possible the eye knows even where there should have been a lake this optic an illusion look at the cat, his changing shapes a habit light color composition the subject more than meets the situation, always looking at our own eye

(“Died of Wounds”) Because you died, I shall not rest again, But wander ever through the lone world wide, Seeking the shadow of a dream grown vain Because you died. I shall spend brief and idle hours beside The many lesser loves that still remain, But find in none my triumph and my pride; And Disillusion's slow corroding stain Will creep upon each quest but newly tried, For every striving now shall nothing gain Because you died.

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear A roundel is wrought. Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught— Love, laughter, or mourning—remembrance of rapture or fear— That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought. As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught, So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear, A roundel is wrought.