1269 Arts and sciences poems

These alternate nights and days, these seasons Somehow fail to convince me. It seems I have the sense of infinity! (In your dreams, O crew of Columbus, O listeners over the sea For the surf that breaks upon Nothing—) Once I was waked by the nightingales in the garden. I thought, What time is it? I thought, Time—Is it Time still?—Now is it Time? (Tell me your dreams, O sailors: Tell me, in sleep did you climb The tall masts, and before you—) At night the stillness of old trees Is a leaning over and the inertness Of hills is a kind of waiting. (In sleep, in a dream, did you see The world’s end? Did the water Break—and no shore—Did you see?) Strange faces come through the streets to me Like messengers: and I have been warned By the moving slowly of hands at a window. Oh, I have the sense of infinity— But the world, sailors, is round. They say there is no end to it.

Pagano, the arc of night fallen Ice on the underhanded lilies cakewalk Underground, in the garage caverns of Galatian eocene gift of the man in the panther-skin trailed by detectives of the fanfare aboveworld hewer or warrior   of the blue muscles in the saga-like Cranial canopy of the newscast's morning December All are gone and connect him with the language of light and darkness refusal   out of the   flowers of the staff came a dove by that time the apple will be old and forgotten in telecast streams of your eyes wife in symphony of blue porcelain your symphony in blue Sometime, 1965 Newark, N.J.

For Rebecca You are the kind of  person who buys exotic fruits leaves them out on the counter until they rot You always mean to eat them       sometimes you rearrange them rousing over the bowl a cloud of tiny flies & How do they balance       the parrot who chews a walnut sideways       holding it up in his right foot the owl perched on a just-lit lamppost scratching behind its ear       like a big dog & Your pencil eraser wears down long before the point for every word you write       you rub out two & Where the slice of  toast rested       the plate is still warm a film of fog       little points of dew & Love is like velocity       we feel the speeding up and the slowing down       otherwise not at all the more steady       the more it feels like going nowhere my love I want to go nowhere with you & I cannot bring myself  to toss the cup of cold coffee you set down by the door on your way to the taxi all day I have sipped it       each time forgetting your two tablets of fake sugar       too sweet & Running down the street dodging between raindrops plump as cherries & The ground was feathered with wild strawberries I picked seven       as many as I could bear I ate two       I saved the rest for you       here hold out your hand       take them       taste how sweet & Please hold me the forgotten way the wall pleads spray-paint face and voice of a damned poet the darling damned poets       save them from themselves maybe it is us they need saving from

The pleasure of walking a long time on the mountain without seeing a human being, much less speaking to one. And the pleasure of speaking when one is suddenly there. The upgrade from wary to tolerant to convivial, so unlike two brisk bodies on a busy street for whom a sudden magnetic attraction is a mistake, awkwardness, something to be sorry for. But to loiter, however briefly, in a clearing where two paths intersect in the matrix of chance. To stop here speaking the few words that come to mind. A greeting. Some earnest talk of weather. A little history of the day. To stand there then and say nothing. To slowly look around past each other. Notice the green tang pines exude in the heat and the denser sweat of human effort. To have nothing left to say but not wanting just yet to move on. The tension between you, a gossamer thread. It trembles in the breeze, holding the thin light it transmits. To be held in that line of force, however briefly, as if it were all that mattered. And then to move on. With equal energy, with equal pleasure.

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can. I have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer's old quill To a sheepskin gave the story, Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac. Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?

Bear in mind, my little man: Never let your verses scan. And acceptance will be sparse If, by any chance, they parse. But whatever else you do, Let it not be said of you That your poetry makes sense!. . . . That’s a criminal offense!

Remote and ineffectual Don That dared attack my Chesterton, With that poor weapon, half-impelled, Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held, Unworthy for a tilt with men— Your quavering and corroded pen; Don poor at Bed and worse at Table, Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable; Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes, Don nervous, Don of crudities; Don clerical, Don ordinary, Don self-absorbed and solitary; Don here-and-there, Don epileptic; Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic; Don middle-class, Don sycophantic, Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic; Don hypocritical, Don bad, Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad; Don (since a man must make an end), Don that shall never be my friend. *       *       * Don different from those regal Dons! With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze, Who shout and bang and roar and bawl The Absolute across the hall, Or sail in amply billowing gown Enormous through the Sacred Town, Bearing from College to their homes Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes; Dons admirable! Dons of Might! Uprising on my inward sight Compact of ancient tales, and port And sleep—and learning of a sort. Dons English, worthy of the land; Dons rooted; Dons that understand. Good Dons perpetual that remain A landmark, walling in the plain— The horizon of my memories— Like large and comfortable trees. *       *       * Don very much apart from these, Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted, Don to thine own damnation quoted, Perplexed to find thy trivial name Reared in my verse to lasting shame. Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing, Repulsive Don—Don past all bearing. Don of the cold and doubtful breath, Don despicable, Don of death; Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level; Don evil; Don that serves the devil. Don ugly—that makes fifty lines. There is a Canon which confines A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse If written in Iambic Verse To fifty lines. I never cut; I far prefer to end it—but Believe me I shall soon return. My fires are banked, but still they burn To write some more about the Don That dared attack my Chesterton.

Look at me now, I stand before you, a man whom life has made a gullible skeptic. Life so obvious and strange, so full of marvels and dross even in our sleep we create monuments even in our grave What more can we ask than to never know what to expect Each day has a different emissary Yesterday she was sharp-eyed

there are more S s in possession than i remembered / my name hinges on the S/ is serpentine / has sibilance / is simple / six lettered / a symbol / different from its sign / sound shapes how we think about objects / the mouth shapes how sound spills out / how the speaker’s seen / a sigmatism is the homosexual mystique / my parents sought treatments / i was sent to a speech / pathologist / sixth grade / a student / she gave me exercises / i was schooled / practiced silence / syllabics / syntax / my voice sap in the high branches / my voice a spoonful of sugared semen / i licked silk when i spoke / i spilt milk when i sang / when i sang sick men tore wings from city birds / so i straightened my sound / into a masculine i / the S is derived from the semitic letter shin / meaning my swishiness is hebraic / is inherited / it’s semantic / no matter what was sacrificed / the tongued isaac / a son against the stone of my soft palate / still i slipped / my hand inside my neighbor’s / waistband & pulled back pincers / sisyphus with the sissiest lips / parseltongued assassin / sassy & passing for the poisoned sea / now when i say please / let me suck your cock / i sound straight / as the still secondhand / on a dead watch.

You wept in your mother's arms and I knew that from then on I was to forget myself. Listening to your sobs, I was resolved against my will to do well by us and so I said, without thinking, in great panic, To do wrong in one's own judgment, though others thrive by it, is the right road to blessedness. Not to submit to error is in itself wrong and pride. Standing beside you, I took an oath to make your life simpler by complicating mine and what I always thought would happen did: I was lifted up in joy.