1269 Arts and sciences poems

Her unawed face, whose pose so long assumed Is touched with what reality we feel, Bends to itself and, to itself resumed, Restores a tender fiction to the real. And in her artful posture movement lies Whose timeless motion flesh must so conceal; Yet what her pose conceals we might surmise And might pretend to gather from her eyes The final motion flesh gives up to art. But slowly, if we watch her long enough, The nerves grow subtler, and she moves apart Into a space too dim with time and blood For our set eyes to follow true enough, Or nerves to guess about her, if they would.

Deep St. Mary’s bell had sounded, And the twelve notes gently rounded Endless chimneys that surrounded My abode in Trinity. (Letter G, Old Court, South Attics), I shut up my mathematics, That confounded hydrostatics— Sink it in the deepest sea! In the grate the flickering embers Served to show how dull November’s Fogs had stamped my torpid members, Like a plucked and skinny goose. And as I prepared for bed, I Asked myself with voice unsteady, If of all the stuff I read, I Ever made the slightest use. Late to bed and early rising, Ever luxury despising, Ever training, never “sizing,” I have suffered with the rest. Yellow cheek and forehead ruddy, Memory confused and muddy, These are the effects of study Of a subject so unblest. Look beyond, and see the wrangler, Now become a College dangler, Court some spiritual angler, Nibbling at his golden bait. Hear him silence restive Reason, Her advice is out of season, While her lord is plotting treason Gainst himself, and Church or State. See him next with place and pension, And the very best intention Of upholding that Convention Under which his fortunes rose. Every scruple is rejected, With his cherished schemes connected, “Higher Powers may be neglected— His result no further goes.” Much he lauds the education Which has raised to lofty station, Men, whose powers of calculation Calculation’s self defied. How the learned fool would wonder Were he now to see his blunder, When he put his reason under The control of worldly Pride. Thus I muttered, very seedy, Husky was my throat, and reedy; And no wonder, for indeed I Now had caught a dreadful cold. Thickest fog had settled slowly Round the candle, burning lowly, Round the fire, where melancholy Traced retreating hills of gold. Still those papers lay before me— Problems made express to bore me, When a silent change came o’er me, In my hard uneasy chair. Fire and fog, and candle faded, Spectral forms the room invaded, Little creatures, that paraded On the problems lying there. Fathers there, of every college, Led the glorious ranks of knowledge, Men, whose virtues all acknowledge Levied the proctorial fines; There the modest Moderators, Set apart as arbitrators ’Twixt contending calculators, Scrutinised the trembling lines. All the costly apparatus, That is meant to elevate us To the intellectual status Necessary for degrees— College tutors—private coaches— Line the Senate-house approaches. If our Alma Mater dote, she’s Taken care of well by these. Much I doubted if the vision Were the simple repetition Of the statements of Commission, Strangely jumbled, oddly placed. When an awful form ascended, And with cruel words defended Those abuses that offended My unsanctioned private taste. Angular in form and feature, Unlike any earthly creature, She had properties to meet your Eye whatever you might view. Hair of pens and skin of paper; Breath, not breath but chemic vapour; Dress,—such dress as College Draper Fashions with precision due. Eyes of glass, with optic axes Twisting rays of light as flax is Twisted, while the Parallax is Made to show the real size. Primary and secondary Focal lines in planes contrary, Sum up all that’s known to vary In those dull, unmeaning eyes. Such the eyes, through which all Nature Seems reduced to meaner stature. If you had them you would hate your Symbolising sense of sight. Seeing planets in their courses Thick beset with arrowy “forces,” While the common eye no more sees Than their mild and quiet light. “Son,” she said (what could be queerer Than thus tête-a -tête to hear her Talk, in tones approaching nearer To a saw’s than aught beside? For the voice the spectre spoke in Might be known by many a token To proceed from metal, broken When acoustic tricks were tried. Little pleased to hear the Siren “Own” me thus with voice of iron, I had thoughts of just retiring From a mother such a fright). “No,” she said, “the time is pressing, So before I give my blessing, I’ll excuse you from confessing What you thought of me to-night. “Powers!” she cried, with hoarse devotion, “Give my son the clearest notion How to compass sure promotion, And take care of Number One. Let his college course be pleasant, Let him ever, as at present, Seem to have read what he hasn’t, And to do what can’t be done. Of the Philosophic Spirit Richly may my son inherit; As for Poetry, inter it With the myths of other days. Cut the thing entirely, lest yon College Don should put the question, Why not stick to what you’re best on? Mathematics always pays.” As the Hag was thus proceeding To prescribe my course of reading, And as I was faintly pleading, Hardly knowing what to say, Suddenly, my head inclining I beheld a light form shining; And the withered beldam, whining, Saw the same and slunk away. Then the vision, growing brighter, Seemed to make my garret lighter; As when noisome fogs of night are Scattered by the rising sun. Nearer still it grew and nearer, Till my straining eyes caught clearer Glimpses of a being dearer, Dearer still than Number One. In that well-remembered Vision I was led to the decision Still to hold in calm derision Pedantry, however draped; Since that artificial spectre Proved a paltry sub-collector, And had nothing to connect her With the being whom she aped. I could never finish telling You of her that has her dwelling Where those springs of truth are welling, Whence all streams of beauty run. She has taught me that creation Bears the test of calculation, But that Man forgets his station If he stops when that is done. Is our algebra the measure Of that unexhausted treasure That affords the purest pleasure, Ever found when it is sought? Let us rather, realising The conclusions thence arising Nature more than symbols prizing, Learn to worship as we ought. Worship? Yes, what worship better Than when free’d from every fetter That the uninforming letter Rivets on the tortured mind, Man, with silent admiration Sees the glories of Creation, And, in holy contemplation, Leaves the learned crowd behind!

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way, To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept: All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen; At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen: For they this queen attended; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura’s hearse: Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce: Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for grief, And cursed the access of that celestial thief!

Lit with strange carpentry magic — they build time-shares in her head. They carve names deep in wood, erect beams of metal to hold up the invincible defense of a bad history. They mourn what’s subjective. They are shutters closed. Sometimes I imagine such men in flip-flops with fat towels draped over confident shoulders. I imagine they all live in Texas, and find South Padre too hot, and then I imagine them blaming diversity for everything. Here, in the middle of grief, we pout to the rhythm of their sentences. Suns hiss in their dreams. Soon such critics will meet daily for prayers. The Pharisees identify the guilty woman. They are gathering sticks for a witch burning. Curandera lit with the fire of sighs, casts spells, burns sage, sweats in a lodge, her own prayers flaming.

“first there is a word the word is the song ” 1 song gives birth to the song and dance as the dance steps the story speaks 2 the icy mountain water that pierces the deep thirst drums my fire drums my medicine pouch 3 deep within my blood a feather in the sky foam on clear water Tayko-mol! 4 free as the bear and tall as redwoods throb my blood roots when spirits ride high 5 a valley ripe with acorns and yellow poppies everywhere as i stand here dreaming of you 6 jolting my dream an old man struggling with an eel      his coat appears disheveled and empty 7 in a sacred manner i sang and waited a lick of your blood i must take, reverently, deer 8 for you, blue corn baby, my thoughts on a melody of love sail the sky 9 around fire on my head a rattlesnake hisses and slithers then flies up      out of sight fighting in sleep i cry out 10 the snake in my spine is tensing for combat thoughts become forced and tight the air is a sharp knife 11 from under me today the earth was pulled balancing on a sharp mountain ridge i search for a plain 12 Tayko-mol has not left us but lives in the pulse of our words, and waits in the azure for us all

The world of visual poetry is known for its collaborations, and some visual poets create a large percentage of their works in this way. What is interesting about K.S. Ernst and Sheila E. Murphy's collaborations is how seamless they are, as if created from one intelligence, even though the poets come from different areas of major practice. Ernst is highly attuned to the world of the visual arts, producing works designed for gallery spaces. Murphy is an active textual poet and a more recent participant in visual poetry. In "Vortextique," the vortex before us is literal: a maelstrom of words that suggests the ultimate artificiality of linguistic signs, the ambiguity of speech, and the impossibility of absolutely accurate communication.—Geof Huth More About Visual Poetry >>

Take a statement, the same as yesterday’s dictation: Lately pain has been there waiting when I awake. Creative despair and failure have made their patient. Anyway, I’m afraid I have nothing to say. Those crazy phrases I desecrated the paper With against the grain ... Taste has turned away her face Temporarily, like a hasty, ill-paid waitress At table, barely capable but very vague. Mistaken praise and blame degrade profane and sacred Places so strange you may not even know their names. Vacant the gymnasium where words once played naked Amazing games that always used to end in mate. Better, then, the effort than preterite perfection, I guess. Indeed, I envy the eminent dead The special effects I am ready to inherit Less than their sentiments and impenitent sense Of aesthetic gesture. Unpleasant and pretentious, The Western hemisphere has plenty to forget. The mess men might yet make of themselves, given present Events! Are many content to accept the best? Precious as sex is, flesh, perenially wretched, Begs the bread of heaven, blessing nevertheless The unexpected sender’s address on a letter. Every breathless sentence says not yet to death. The past cannot matter except as an abstraction, A flattering caricature of happy lands Wherein many a grand, imaginary castle In fact turns out to be a tourist trap at last, A vast palace that adrastic phantoms inhabit. Maps of madness, characteristically blank, Ask vatic questions, exact a magic answer: The family photograph album at a glance, Granny, Dad, Aunt Sally, that dissatisfied madame Who manages passion’s incalculable acts, Paris, everyman’s romantic trash and tarry— Abracadabra, and the vanished cast comes back! If civilization isn’t a silly gimmick, Is it the wit to wish, the will to make it stick? The mathematical vision which built this system Figures the width of a minute within an inch. Primitive physics, a sophisticated fiction, Insists that in principle everything is fixed. Visitors picnic amid pretty Chichèn Itzá With its sacrificial pit, artificial hills And cricket pitch wherein the winner is the victim. To think an instinct like iniquity exists! Hidden riches fill big individual middens; In the Wizard’s Pyramid little lizards live. Specious sweets we reach for eagerly with Eve’s evil Greed recede like the fleeting details of a dream. It seems that we have been a brief season in Eden: Chic unreal estates where immediately green Trees repeated in completely meaningless series Briefly yield to the weaker tyranny of weeds Even as we seek relief in a secret clearing. Prehistory can be too recent; need we read These steles’ queried speech? Here undefeated peoples Experienced deceit; here scenes of deepest grief Teach us to weep the cheap and easy tears of reason; Here the sea of being sleeps, a period peace. Frustration, fuss, and lust are love’s unlucky colours. Thunderstruck, the muscular monuments look dumb. Judged by the numbers that once flourished in the jungle In hundreds of miles of dull undercover scrub, Unless somebody was insufferably ugly Mistrust of one another must be in the blood. Unsuccess in a dozen tough struggles instructs us Justice is a mother-fucker. Suffering’s fun For a month, but in a millenium no wonder One becomes somewhat disgusted. Unsubtle skull, The mysteries of dust are nothing to live up to. Insulted by a touch, one mutters, “Summer sucks.” Undone by the siesta and by sudden showers, Is it uncomfortable in the hungry South? Now cowed by Kulkulkan’s geometrical scowl, Now wowed by the classic brown faces in a crowd, You falter at mounds memorial to a thousand Bleeding hearts in a single holiday cut out, Submitted to the sun, insatiable flesh-flower Of the universe, all-devouring powerhouse, Confounded by our sound of pronounceable vowels. Myths, as the guidebook says, are handed down by mouth. Though mood and voice and person, gender, tense, and number Predicate a verb, its cases explain a noun: Proper noun or pronoun, indubitably human, Whose beautiful excuse is usually youth Doomed to the brutal usufructu of the future, Consumed by the illusions of jejune amours. You used to choose the rules with superfluous humour, Tuned to the influential movements of the moon Whose smooth, translucent route through roofless rooms illumines From dewy moonrise unto lunar afternoon Tulum and its improvements, tumulus and ruins, Poorly reproduced, a too crudely stupid view. Who knew nude truth from rumour, amusement from music Soon would prove a fool. Beauty, useless, is a wound. On and off; the impossible is honour’s motto, Monotony the awful drawback of my song. What was lost was often all we had got in common, Our quasi-comic quandary depended on Qu’en dirai-je? chronic, colossal hypochondry, Neurotic complication or hypnotic calm. Gods begotten of loss, not bronze nor terra cotta, Haunt the province of law, of cause and conscious wrong. Following the Long Count a lot has been forgotten: Positive nonsense, fraud, false plots and hollow talk, Soporific concepts toppled by fall or conquest, The cosmos as a model watch that wants to stop. At any moment the doors of the soul may open And those reproachful ghosts invoked from the remote Coasts of tomorrow begin to impose the order Of bone and trophy, home and the odour of smoke. O mornings that broke on the slopes of cold volcanos, Almost frozen, golden and old-rose, like a scroll Slowly unfolded, or a brocade robe thrown over The throne of the mountains, cloaking their cones in snow! Hope, an emotion swollen by every omen, No psychotrope, only a semiprecious stone, Topaz or opal, adorns the close of the strophe. Woe wrote these notes in a code also known as prose. Ode: this leafy, streamless land where coy waters loiter Under the embroidered soil, subterfluous coin Of another culture destroyed by lack of moisture, Spoiled by the unavoidable poison of choice. Archaeological lawyers exploit the foibles Of a royalty that in time joined hoi polloi: History’s unemployed, geography’s anointed, Unlike the orchids of the forests, spin and toil. Imperfectly convinced of final disappointment, Persuaded of the possibility of joy, Pen poised for the pointless impressions of those voices That boil up like bubbles on the face of the void, Finally I try to define why divine silence Underlies the tidy designs of paradise. Priceless as the insights of the inspired psyche, Blind, violent as a geyser, right as a rhyme, Fine ideas likely to undermine the idle Mind divided between the types of fire and ice, “Highly stylized” politely describes the bright eyesores Shining like diamonds or rhinestones in the night sky, Lifelike, provided life survives its vital cycle And the tireless indictment of time’s diatribe, While mankind, sightless, frightened, like a child in twilight, Dies of the devices it was enlightened by. Amazing games that always used to end in mate! Precious as sex is, flesh, perennially wretched, In fact turns out to be a tourist trap at last. The mathematical vision which built this system Of the universe, all-devouring powerhouse, (The mysteries of dust are nothing to live up to!) Briefly yields to the weaker tyranny of weeds. You used to choose the rules with superfluous humour: Monotony, the awful drawback of my song, Slowly unfolded, like a brocade robe thrown over. Persuaded of the possibility of joy, Finally I tried to define why divine silence ...

(Instructions for the Visit) Admire, when you come here, the glimmering hair Of the girl; praise her pale Complexion. Think well of her dress Though that is somewhat out of fashion. Don’t try to take her hand, but smile for Her hesitant gentleness. Say the old woman is looking strong Today; such hardiness. Remark, Perhaps, how she has dressed herself black Like a priest, and wears that sufficient air That does become the righteous. As you approach, she will push back Her chair, shove away her plate And wait, Sitting squat and direct, before The red mahogany chest Massive as some great Safe; will wait, By the table and her greasy plate, The bone half-chewed, her wine half-drained; She will wait. And fix her steady Eyes on you—the straight stare Of an old politician. Try once to meet her eyes. But fail. Let your sight Drift—yet never as if hunting for The keys (you keep imagining) hung By her belt. (They are not there.) Watch, perhaps, that massive chest—the way It tries to lean Forward, toward her, till it seems to rest Its whole household’s weight Of linens and clothing and provisions All on her stiff back. It might be strapped there like the monstrous pack Of some enchanted pedlar. Dense, self-contained, Like mercury in a ball, She can support this without strain, Yet she grows smaller, wrinkling Like a potato, parched as dung; It cramps her like a fist. Ask no one why the chest Has no knobs. Betray No least suspicion The necessities within Could vanish at her Will. Try not to think That as she feeds, gains Specific gravity, She shrinks, light- less as the world’s Hard core And the per- spective drains In her. Finally, above all, You must not ever see, Or let slip one hint you can see, On the other side, the girl’s Cuffs, like cordovan restraints; Forget her bony, tentative wrist, The half-fed, worrying eyes, and how She backs out, bows, and tries to bow Out of the scene, grows too ethereal To make a shape inside her dress And the dress itself is beginning already To sublime itself away like a vapor That merges into the empty twinkling Of the air and of the bright wallpaper.

for Robert Duncan one comes to language from afar, the ear fears for its sound-barriers— but one “comes”; the language “comes” for The Beckoning Fair One plant you now, dig you later, the plaint stirs winter earth… air in a hornet’s nest over the water makes a solid, six-sided music… a few utterly quiet scenes, things are very far away—“form is emptiness” comely, comely, love trembles and the sweet-shrub

1778-1830 Between the wet trees and the sorry steeple, Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt, Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty; Beauty’s a sinking light, ah, none too faithful; But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer, Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it. Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit, Safe also on our earth, begetting ever Some one love worth the ages and the nations! Nothing falls under thine eyes eternal. Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining, Titian and Woodsworth live; the People marches.