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if there is a river more beautiful than this bright as the blood red edge of the moon          if there is a river more faithful than this returning each month to the same delta          if there is a river braver than this coming and coming in a surge of passion, of pain          if there is a river more ancient than this daughter of eve mother of cain and of abel          if there is in the universe such a river          if there is some where water more powerful than this wild water pray that it flows also through animals beautiful and faithful and ancient and female and brave

This is the poem of death. There is only one and no other. Every one is an occasion, one way or another, and the last poem is this poem of death. It is an occasion like no other. I will no longer lope after elegance, beauty’s body, or love’s wonder. I will be sorry for everything I was, and for everything I was not. I speak to you as if you were my brother. I will forgive everyone. Death will make this possible. There will be no other. Death was in the mind before thought or love, in ourselves, and in our lovers. The poem of death is speechless. A companion will appear again like another self, like your brother. Enough now, enough has been said. The spinning leaf will spin like no other.

My beloved little billiard balls, my polite mongrels, edible patriotic plums, you owe your beauty to your mother, who resembled a cyclindrical corned beef with all the trimmings, may God rest her forsaken soul, for it is all of us she forsook; and I shall never forget her sputtering embers, and then the little mound. Yes, my little rum runners, she had defective tear ducts and could weep only iced tea. She had petticoats beneath her eyelids. And in her last years she found ball bearings in her beehive puddings, she swore allegiance to Abyssinia. What should I have done? I played the piano and scrambled eggs. I had to navigate carefully around her brain’s avalanche lest even a decent finale be forfeited. And her beauty still evermore. You see, as she was dying, I led each of you to her side, one by one she scorched you with her radiance. And she is ever with us in our acetylene leisure. But you are beautiful, and I, a slave to a heap of cinders.

That we go back to life one day, the next, Some other century where we were alive, When music spelled itself out to us, often Incomplete, and nothing was more vague Than the banality of  whom to love and lose In line, the doppelgangers in rimless snow, Or even now, in summer, at day, by night, When something oblivious, replete, turns Back at us in idolatrous quiet, so we see Who in nullified particulars we really are At a desk of our own making, filling in for Someone else’s life sentence, blots drying On a silk tie having no meaning but today’s, When the loner puts his insomnia to rest.

A friend e-mails how much are you enjoying yourself? a dripping faucet loose cat litter no doubt about it a good world is difficult I say as if I were tilling a field ashamed of myself I apologize to the sleeping child

I saw then the white-eyed man leaning in to see if I was ready yet to go where he has been waiting to take me. I saw then the gnawing sounds my faith has been making and I saw too that the shape it sings in is the color of cast-iron mountains I drove so long to find I forgot I had been looking for them, for the you I once knew and the you that was born waiting for me to find you. I have been twisting and turning across these lifetimes where forgetting me is what you do so you don’t have to look at yourself. I saw that I would drown in a creek carved out of a field our incarnations forged the first path through to those mountains. I invited you to stroll with me there again for the first time, to pause and sprawl in the grass while I read to you the poem you hadn’t known you’d been waiting to hear. I read until you finally slept and all your jagged syntaxes softened into rest. You’re always driving so far from me towards the me I worry, without you, is eternity. I lay there, awake, keeping watch while you snored. I waited, as I always seem to, for you to wake up and come back to me.

Black mountain black mountain blocks the earth’s light. Time—time—time to give back to God his ticket. I refuse to—be. In the madhouse of the inhumans I refuse to—live. To swim on the current of human spines. I don’t need holes in my ears, no need for seeing eyes. I refuse to swim on the current of human spines. To your mad world—one answer: I refuse. • They took—suddenly—and took—openly— took mountains—and took their entrails, they took coal, and steel they took, they took lead, and crystal. And sugar they took, and took the clover, they took the West, and they took the North, they took the beehive, and took the haystack, they took the South from us, and the East. Vari—they took, and the Tatras—they took, they took our fingers—took our friends— But we stand up— as long as there’s spit in our mouths! May 9, 1939

i.110 "Much too long" you say, Velox, censorious, Of my epigrams—that's quite uproarious. You write none. Your brevity is glorious. • Scribere me quereris, Velox, epigrammata longa. ipse nihil scribis: tu breviora facis? vi.60 For my small books Rome's gone utterly mad; I'm quite ubiquitous—call it a fad. Look, there—see that fellow, leafing, curious. First he blushes deeply, then he's furious; A moment later his eyes glaze over; He yawns, flips a page, then reels in horror. This mercurial response I thrill to see; Why, then my epigrams even please me! • Laudat, amat, cantat nostros mea Roma libellos, meque sinus omnes, me manus omnis habet. ecce rubet quidam, pallet, stupet, oscitat, odit. hoc volo: nunc nobis carmina nostra placent. vii.90 Matho's one-word review of my small book: "Uneven." I'm supposed to get all shook! The scribblings of Calvinus and Umber Are very "even". . . yet how they lumber. I swear to you, Creticus, I thank God My gift is for being quite frankly "odd." • Iactat inaequalem Matho me fecisse libellum: si verum est, laudat carmina nostra Matho. aequales scribit libros Calvinus et Umber: aequalis liber est, Cretice, qui malus est. ix.50 You pontificate my talent is small, Gaurus, because my epigrams are all Just puny trifles. Yet they seem to please, I'll confess. They're a veritable breeze Compared to your epic tome, which rattles, In twelve mortal books, o'er Priam's battles. That makes you big man on campus? Oh no! As statuettes of master carvers glow With life, so do my tiny dramas boast Vital creatures. Your giants? Clay, at most. • Ingenium mihi, Gaure, probas sic esse pusillum, carmina quod faciam quae brevitate placent. confiteor. sed tu bis senis grandia libris qui scribis Priami proelia, magnus homo es? nos facimus Bruti puerum, nos Langona vivum: tu magnus luteum, Gaure, Giganta facis. iv.49 Quite clueless, Flaccus, all these sorry folks Who brand short poems mere badinage and jokes. Want to know who's more idle? The big boys, Our Epic Poets, who rehearse the joys Of serving human flesh up à la carte— Tereus' bloody banquet or the huge tart Chez Thyestes ("It's a little gristly!"). Or they serve us crap, like how remissly Daedalus made—with wax, imagine!—wings For his poor doomed son. Then Big Epic sings Of arms and the—not "man"—one-eyed giant? Polyphemus: his brain was far from pliant, So Homer made him watch sheep in Sicily. Pardon me for carping so pissily, Flaccus, at insults to my epigrams, So far from the bloated whimsy that crams Our big-assed epics. All men blare in praise of these "classics," you say, and bask in their rays. I will not disagree, but mark my word: Some day, far off, a wise man will be heard To say, "Classics we all want to have read, Never to read." My books get read instead! • Nescit, crede mihi, quid sint epigrammata, Flacce, qui tantum lusus illa iocosque vocat. ille magis ludit qui scribit prandia saevi Tereos aut cenam, crude Thyesta, tuam, aut puero liquidas aptantem Daedalon alas, pascentem Siculas aut Polyphemon ovis. a nostris procul est omnis vesica libellis, Musa nec insano syrmate nostra tumet. "illa tamen laudant omnes, mirantur, adorant." confiteor: laudant illa, sed ista legunt. ix.81 Read or recited, my verse is much praised, Aulus, yet one poet opines: "Ill-phrased." I couldn't care less! When I set a table, My guests, not the cooks, should say I'm able. • Lector et auditor nostros probat, Aule, libellos, sed quidam exactos esse poeta negat. non nimium curo: nam cenae fercula nostrae malim convivis quam placuisse cocis. x.59 A whole damned page crammed with verse—so you yawn! If a poem's too long you move swiftly on; "Shorter the better!" is your golden rule. But markets are scoured to make the tongue drool; A groaning board's set—rich sauces for days— And yet, dear reader, you want canapés? But I don't hunger for diners so prude: Hail meat and potatoes—screw finger food! • Consumpta est uno si lemmate pagina, transis, et breviora tibi, non meliora placent. dives et ex omni posita est instructa macello cena tibi, sed te mattea sola iuvat. non opus est nobis nimium lectore guloso; hunc volo, non fiat qui sine pane satur. xi.16 You there, reader, the over-solemn one, Take a hike wherever—my verse is spun Only for blithe, witty cognoscenti "Up" for priapic jeux de spree aplenty Or aroused by bells on harlot's fingers. He who in these randy pages lingers— Though more stern than Curius or Fabricius Soon gets tingly, and anon lubricious; Then, lo, beneath a toga something pokes. My little book's salacious whims and jokes Will lead even the chastest dames astray; Taken with wine, my lines can make 'em bray! Lucretia, more proper than whom none such, Peeked between my covers, blushed very much, And threw me down (but Brutus stood glowering). Brutus, "Ciao!"—and back she'll be devouring. • Qui gravis es nimium, potes hinc iam, lector, abire quo libet: urbanae scripsimus ista togae; iam mea Lampsacio lascivit pagina versu et Tartesiaca concrepat aera manu. o quotiens rigida pulsabis pallia vena, sis gravior Curio Fabricioque licet! tu quoque nequitias nostri lususque libelli uda, puella, leges, sis Patavina licet. erubuit posuitque meum Lucretia librum, sed coram Bruto; Brute, recede: leget. iv.89 Hey, you're stuffed, little book, give it a rest. You've reached the end-papers and still have zest! What on earth makes you yet want to let go, When "misfire" our verse reeked from the get-go? Zip it, my pages, let's call a "time out"; We've hit the back cover—and still you'd spout? Look, the reader's pissed and quite unimpressed; Even our publisher calls you a pest: "Hey, you're stuffed, little book, give it a rest!" • Ohe, iam satis, ohe, libelle, iam pervenimus usque ad umbilicos. tu procedere adhuc et ire quaeris, nec summa potes in schida teneri, sic tamquam tibi res peracta non sit, quae prima quoque pagina peracta est. iam lector queriturque deficitque, iam librarius hoc et ipse dicit "ohe, iam satis est, ohe, libelle."

'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.' THOMAS MANN. How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics, Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has both read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms.

Working the water-line the apple haunts the edge of— A shard of selenite is said to clear negativity. Like a stained glass window. Against the rules, we coupled on your grandmother’s floor. Write it the way a Painted Lady explosion erases it.  Five minutes ago. Thus, you grow faint like bioluminescence. Pouring what I know into small vials.  Back and forth. Blur the field to include not-seeing. When we were a potted plant or something. Halved pomegranate knocked against a bowl. Thus, is every tree wild? Caretaker, so what if they do not look back at you—