Poemunity — your poem community

I scream The body electric, This yellow, metal, pulsing cylinder Whooshing all day, all night In its repetitive dumb mechanical rhythm. Rudely, it inserts itself in the map of my body, Which my midnight mind, Dream-drenched cartographer of terra incognita, Draws upon the dark parchment of sleep. I scream In my body electric; A dream snake bites my left leg. Indignant, I shake the gods by their abrupt shoulders, Demanding to know how such a vile slitherer Could enter my serene metal shell. The snake is punished with death, The specialty of the gods. Clamp-jawed still in my leg, It must be removed; The dream of the snake Must be removed, While I am restored By Consciousness, that cruelest of gods, In metal hard reluctance To my limited, awkward, déclasé Body electric, As it whispers promises of health, Whooshes beautiful lies of invulnerability, Sighs sibilantly, seraphically, relentlessly: It is me, It is me. March, 1988

Man is so afraid, he look down at cock, long ago many centuries ships land on the enemy’s beach, take down mast in the dark, climb up cliffs in the fog, ram enemy’s door, do bad things in castle, oh yea, man go crazy play in blood like baby with duck in bathtub, man think about favorite dog, got worms in heart, takes dog to field trial, dog sniffs out man’s lies, point at fool in frozen water, fool man, dead dog, man look at leaf frozen in pond, man think about woman in new cabin beside fire, walls bleeding rosin, man forget about dog, man want son, boy strong, call boy elephant, man cannot sleep right, have bad itch in butthole, man think cancer maybe, man wake up beside woman, moon come in window, man glad he has no city, city can die for all he cares, man smells fingers, smell bad, man gets up to wash fingers, man steps on broken glass, sits down on commode and sucks his foot, man thinks about God, man says to God If I eat right will You take away cancer, God no say, man flush pot, man decides go to India, study other God, other God take away cancer, bring back dog, make women go crazy, man go visit little naked man on mountain, man give him all his money, little naked man say go back home, stand on head with fresh egg in asshole three times a day, man does what he says, oh yea, man think about troopships, man is so afraid, man take chill, man get old real quick man nobody, everything dark, man spit in papersack, man look at medicine on table beside bed, man look at TV, Tarzan movie already over, so sad so sad, man call doctor, say to make him young, doctor look at secretary pulling up panties, say oh yea, take man’s money, man get young, man decide go to Africa, man think everything swell when he get back home, put many heads on wall, many skins, first night wife run off, fool man, so man read book, man like, so man read another book, soon man read book all time, don’t care about money, don’t care about woman, only thing man remember is what he read, on weekends go to old cabin, look at pine knots, think about what he read, think about history, look down at cock, man learn, once was another man become king, but king had no sons, king get old, get sad, king get so afraid, look at his cock, oh yea, one night king run everybody out of castle, have private dinner, just with family, and favorite dog, tell daughter to hop up on table, king takes pheasant gravy, pours on daughter, rubs daughter’s thighs with gravy, picks up dog, tells dog lick daughter, king tells daughter not to be afraid, not be sad, tell daughter be strong, daughter strong, daughter looks at mother, says watch, daughter takes dog by the mouth, breaks jaws, king says daughter strong, man know lot about history, man afraid, man go crazy on street one day, man go jail, man call lawyer tell lawyer shoot two women save my life, man give lawyer lot of money, lawyer go out to eat, talks about man, man get out of jail, oh yea man like imagine too, man like to clip cut back of magazine, man like sendoff, man also like guns, life strange,

As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water is how a man may change and still hour by hour continue in his job. There in the mirror he appears to be on fire but here at the office he is dust. So long as there remains a little moisture in the stains, he stands easily on the pavement and moves fluidly through the corridors. If only one cloud can be seen, it is enough to know of others, and life stands on the brink. It rains or it doesn’t, or it rains and it rains again. But let it go on raining for forty days and nights or let the sun bake the ground for as long, and it isn’t life, just life, anymore, it’s living. In the meantime, in the regular weather of ordinary days, it sometimes happens that a man has changed so slowly that he slips away before anyone notices and lives and dies before anyone can find out.

Under the separated leaves of shade Of the gingko, that old tree That has existed essentially unchanged Longer than any other living tree, I walk behind a woman. Her hair's coarse gold Is spun from the sunlight that it rides upon. Women were paid to knit from sweet champagne Her second skin: it winds and unwinds, winds Up her long legs, delectable haunches, As she sways, in sunlight, up the gazing aisle. The shade of the tree that is called maidenhair, That is not positively known To exist in a wild state, spots her fair or almost fair Hair twisted in a French twist; tall or almost tall, She walks through the air the rain has washed, a clear thing Moving easily on its high heels, seeming to men Miraculous . . . Since I can call her, as Swann couldn't A woman who is my type, I follow with the warmth Of familiarity, of novelty, this new Example of the type, Reminded of how Lorenz's just-hatched goslings Shook off the last remnants of the egg And, looking at Lorenz, realized that Lorenz Was their mother. Quaking, his little family Followed him everywhere; and when they met a goose, Their mother, they ran to him afraid. Imprinted upon me Is the shape I run to, the sweet strange Breath-taking contours that breathe to me: "I am yours, Be mine!" Following this new Body, somehow familiar, this young shape, somehow old, For a moment I'm younger, the century is younger. The living Strauss, his moustache just getting gray, Is shouting to the players: "Louder! Louder! I can still hear Madame Schumann-Heink-" Or else, white, bald, the old man's joyfully Telling conductors they must play Elektra Like A Midsummer Night's Dream-like a fairy music; Proust, dying, is swallowing his iced beer And changing in proof the death of Bergotte According to his own experience; Garbo, A commissar in Paris, is listening attentively To the voice telling how McGillicuddy me McGillivray, And McGillivray said to McGillicuddy-no, McGillicuddy Said to McGillivray-that is, McGillivray...Garbo Says seriously: "I vish dey'd never met." As I walk behind this woman I remember That before I flew here-waked in the forest At dawn, by the piece called Birds Beginning Day That, each day, birds play to begin the day- I wished as men wish: "May this day be different!" The birds were wishing, as birds wish-over and over, With a last firmness, intensity, reality- "May this day be the same!" Ah, turn to me And look into my eyes, say: "I am yours, Be mine!" My wish will have come true. And yet When your eyes meet my eyes, they'll bring into The weightlessness of my pure wish the weight Of a human being: someone to help or hurt, Someone to be good to me, to be good to, Someone to cry when I am angry that she doesn't like Elektra, someone to start on Proust with. A wish, come true, is life. I have my life. When you turn just slide your eyes across my eyes And show in a look flickering across your face As lightly as a leaf's shade, a bird's wing, That there is no one in the world quite like me, That if only...If only... That will be enough. But I've pretended long enough: I walk faster And come close, touch with the tip of my finger The nape of her neck, just where the gold Hair stops, and the champagne-colored dress begins. My finger touches her as the gingko's shadow Touches her. Because, after all, it is my wife In a new dress from Bergdorf's, walking toward the park. She cries out, we kiss each other, and walk arm in arm Through the sunlight that's much too good for New York, The sunlight of our own house in the forest. Still, though, the poor things need it...We've no need To start out on Proust, to ask each other about Strauss. We first helped each other, hurt each other, years ago. After so many changes made and joys repeated, Our first bewildered, transcending recognition Is pure acceptance.   We can't tell our life From our wish. Really I began the day Not with a man's wish: "May this day be different," But with the birds' wish: "May this day Be the same day, the day of my life."

Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.” Here, above, cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight. The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat. It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on, and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon. He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties, feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold, of a temperature impossible to record in thermometers. But when the Man-Moth pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface, the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings. He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky, proving the sky quite useless for protection. He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb. Up the façades, his shadow dragging like a photographer’s cloth behind him he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage to push his small head through that round clean opening and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light. (Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.) But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt. Then he returns to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits, he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly. The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed, without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort. He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards. Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams. Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window, for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers. If you catch him, hold up a flashlight to his eye. It’s all dark pupil, an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids one tear, his only possession, like the bee’s sting, slips. Slyly he palms it, and if you’re not paying attention he’ll swallow it. However, if you watch, he’ll hand it over, cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

The man moves earth to dispel grief. He digs holes the size of cars. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— rain-swollen ponds and dirt mounds rooted with flame-tipped flowers. He carries trees like children struggling to be set down. Trees that have lived out their lives, he cuts and stacks like loaves of bread which he will feed the fire. The green smoke sweetens his house. The woman sweeps air to banish sadness. She dusts floors, polishes objects made of clay and wood. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— the task of something else to clean. Gleaming appliances beg to be smudged, breathed upon by small children and large animals flicking out hope as she whirls by, flap of tongue, scratch of paw, sweetly reminding her. The man moves earth, the woman sweeps air. Together they pull water out of the other, pull with the muscular ache of the living, hauling from the deep well of the body the rain-swollen, the flame-tipped, the milk-fed— all that cycles through lives moving, lives sweeping, water circulating between them like breath, drawn out of leaves by light.

The man moves earth to dispel grief. He digs holes the size of cars. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— rain-swollen ponds and dirt mounds rooted with flame-tipped flowers. He carries trees like children struggling to be set down. Trees that have lived out their lives, he cuts and stacks like loaves of bread which he will feed the fire. The green smoke sweetens his house. The woman sweeps air to banish sadness. She dusts floors, polishes objects made of clay and wood. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— the task of something else to clean. Gleaming appliances beg to be smudged, breathed upon by small children and large animals flicking out hope as she whirls by, flap of tongue, scratch of paw, sweetly reminding her. The man moves earth, the woman sweeps air. Together they pull water out of the other, pull with the muscular ache of the living, hauling from the deep well of the body the rain-swollen, the flame-tipped, the milk-fed— all that cycles through lives moving, lives sweeping, water circulating between them like breath, drawn out of leaves by light.

There was a man of double deed, Who sowed his garden full of seed; When the seed began to grow, 'Twas like a garden full of snow; When the snow began to melt, 'Twas like a ship without a belt; When the ship began to sail, 'Twas like a bird without a tail; When the bird began to fly, 'Twas like an eagle in the sky; When the sky began to roar, 'Twas like a lion at my door; When my door began to crack, 'Twas like a stick across my back; When my back began to smart, 'Twas like a penknife in my heart; And when my heart began to bleed, 'Twas death, and death, and death indeed.

It was a misunderstanding. I got into bed, made love with the woman I found there, called her honey, mowed the lawn, had three children, painted the house twice, fixed the furnace, overcame an addiction to blue pills, read Spinoza every night without once meeting his God, buried one child, ate my share of Jell-o and meatloaf, went away for nine hours a day and came home hoarding my silence, built a ferris wheel in my mind, bolt by bolt, then it broke just as it spun me to the top. Turns out I live next door.

After there were no women, men, and children, from the somber deeps horseshoe crabs crawled up on somber shores: Man-of-Wars' blue sails drifted downwind and blue filaments of some biblical cloak floated below: the stinging filaments. The cored of bone and rock-headed came near: clouds made wandering shadows: sea and grasses mingled:: There was no hell after all but a lull before it began over:: flesh lying alone: then mating: a little spray of soul: and the grace of waves, of stars, and remotest isles.