1269 Arts and sciences poems

The way she puts her fingers to his chest when she greets him. The way an old man quiets himself, or that another man waits, and waits a long time, before speaking. It’s in the gaze that steadies, a music he grows into—something about Mexico, I imagine, how he first learned about light there. It’s in the blank face of every child, a water that stands still amid the swirling current, water breaking apart as it leaves the cliff and falls forever through its own, magnificient window. The way a young woman holds out a cupped hand, and doves come to her. The way a man storms down the street as if to throw open every door. And the word she mouths to herself as she looks up from her book—for that word, as she repeats it, repeats it.

It was a poem men took because it said ovary didn’t take my political poems they took the one that said ovary Are you sure it was because it said ovary? Yes, for them that’s logical. --------------------------- Destroy another city What else is war for? So you’ll go down each of you does. dies in whirlwind each of you who does, dies paying for the pain you experience Just that and nothing is established Because I am a woman Cutting as many cords as tie you to me. this isn’t anarchy it isn’t anything you could name You’re still here without ties? because they were logical. --------------------------- Dance little asshole dance oh he gets elected, like a Calvinist He says, I have these guts Men, I have these guts. --------------------------- Having dedicated whole regions to the destruction you inspire, the logic will be to go on doing it doing it. Having proceeded by the logic of your per- sonal vaccuum you will perceive your continued lightlessness as an excuse to go on. having gone on as you have. And so one continues. ----------------------------- Lead the boy out of the building on fire his head twisted upwards all fucked What else is there to know if one has gotten twisted up all fucked he is a screaming fire ----------------------------- In the explanations of our lives’ experience they’ve left out this wild moment the long mirror on the right-hand wall of the corridor suddenly shattered I can’t see myself anymore. ----------------------------- I repeat that I am not frightened and why not I don’t know what my reactions are supposed to be. ----------------------------- “Please tell me something with which I’m familiar.” isn’t there another part of now

Not Delft or delphinium, not Wedgewood among the knickknacks, not wide-eyed chicory evangelizing in the devil strip— But way on down in the moonless octave below midnight, honey, way down where you can't tell cerulean from teal. Not Mason jars of moonshine, not waverings of silk, not the long-legged hunger of a heron or the peacock's iridescent id— But Delilahs of darkness, darling, and the muscle of the mind giving in. Not sullen snow slumped against the garden, not the first instinct of flame, not small, stoic ponds, or the cold derangement of a jealous sea— But bluer than the lips of Lazarus, baby, before Sweet Jesus himself could figure out what else in the world to do but weep.

I will have been walking away: no matter what direction I intended, at that moment, I will have been walking Away into the direction that you now say I have always intended, no matter what my intention was then, I will have been Walking away, though it will not be clear what it was that I was leaving or even why, it seems that you will say That always, I was walking away, intending a direction that was not towards you, but moving away with every step, Or, even when I pretended to be walking towards you, only making the place for my feet to go backwards, Away, where I will have been walking, always away:   intention and direction unknown, but knowing you will always say I will have been walking away.

I’m an ol’ king bee, honey, Buzzin’ from flower to flower. I’m an ol’ king bee, sweets, Hummin’ from flower to flower. Women got good pollen; I get some every hour. There’s Lily in the valley And sweet honeysuckle Rose too; There’s Lily in the valley And sweet honeysuckle Rose too. And there’s pretty black-eyed Susan, Perfect as the night is blue. You don’t have to trust A single, black word I say. You don’t have to trust A single, black word I say. But don’t be surprised If I sting your flower today.

your black inscriptions cite a kino lau, whose feathered wingspan, nighttime eyes & pun- ishing beak comprise mo‘okū‘auhau. w/my oiled hands, I greet her, w/hun- gering for mo‘opuna. “mai,” she says, reciting from your thigh. “mai, mai e ‘ai.” I have traveled from Maui a lizard, mes- merized by dreams of ‘ōhi‘a & ai- kāne, lizard filled w/smoke. arrived, I eat transforming in the forest of your grand- mother’s memory: from lizard: woman dreaming: licking tattoo: permission land: skin. traveling the night of your kino to sleep your thighs, ho‘āo, ho‘āo, and wake.

He slips on ice near a mailbox — no gemsbok leaps across the road — a singer tapped an eagle feather on his shoulders — women washed indigo-dyed yarn in this river, but today gallium and germanium particles are washed downstream — once they dynamited dikes to slow advancing troops — picking psilocybin mushrooms and hearing cowbells in the mist — as a child, he was tied to a sheep and escaped marauding soldiers — an apple blossom opens to five petals — as he hikes up a switchback, he remembers undressing her — from the train window, he saw they were on ladders cutting fruit off cacti — in the desert, a crater of radioactive glass — assembling shards, he starts to repair a gray bowl with gold lacquer — they ate psilocybin mushrooms, gazed at the pond, undressed — hunting a turkey in the brush, he stops — from the ponderosa pines:whoo-ah, whoo whoo whoo—

Every city in America is approached through a work of art, usually a bridge but sometimes a road that curves underneath or drops down from the sky. Pittsburgh has a tunnel— you don’t know it—that takes you through the rivers and under the burning hills. I went there to cry in the woods or carry my heavy bicycle through fire and flood. Some have little parks— San Francisco has a park. Albuquerque is beautiful from a distance; it is purple at five in the evening. New York is Egyptian, especially from the little rise on the hill at 14-C; it has twelve entrances like the body of Jesus, and Easton, where I lived, has two small floating bridges in front of it that brought me in and out. I said good-bye to them both when I was 57. I’m reading Joseph Wood Krutch again—the second time. I love how he lived in the desert. I’m looking at the skull of Georgia O’Keeffe. I’m kissing Stieglitz good-bye. He was a city, Stieglitz was truly a city in every sense of the word; he wore a library across his chest; he had a church on his knees. I’m kissing him good-bye; he was, for me, the last true city; after him there were only overpasses and shopping centers, little enclaves here and there, a skyscraper with nothing near it, maybe a meaningless turf where whores couldn’t even walk, where nobody sits, where nobody either lies or runs; either that or some pure desert: a lizard under a boojum, a flower sucking the water out of a rock. What is the life of sadness worth, the bookstores lost, the drugstores buried, a man with a stick turning the bricks up, numbering the shards, dream twenty-one, dream twenty-two. I left with a glass of tears, a little artistic vial. I put it in my leather pockets next to my flask of Scotch, my golden knife and my keys, my joyful poems and my T-shirts. Stieglitz is there beside his famous number; there is smoke and fire above his head; some bowlegged painter is whispering in his ear; some lady-in-waiting is taking down his words. I’m kissing Stieglitz good-bye, my arms are wrapped around him, his photos are making me cry; we’re walking down Fifth Avenue; we’re looking for a pencil; there is a girl standing against the wall—I’m shaking now when I think of her; there are two buildings, one is in blackness, there is a dying poplar; there is a light on the meadow; there is a man on a sagging porch. I would have believed in everything.

There are those who grow gardens in their heads paths lead from their hair to sunny and white cities it’s easy for them to write they close their eyes immediately schools of images stream down from their foreheads my imagination is a piece of board my sole instrument is a wooden stick I strike the board it answers me yes—yes no—no for others the green bell of a tree the blue bell of water I have a knocker from unprotected gardens I thump on the board and it prompts me with the moralist’s dry poem yes—yes no—no

that never would he write his autobiography because his life seemed to him just so much filth that only a few points, bloody ones he still remembers but that he would never hesitate to reach into the filth to pull out what perhaps could serve as stuff for poetry his disgusting purpose in life * * * daß niemals er schreiben werde seine autobiographie daß ihm sein leben viel zu sehr als dreck erscheine daß auch nur wenige punkte, blutige er noch erinnere daß aber niemals er zögern werde in den dreck zu fassen um herauszuziehen was vielleicht einen stoff abgäbe für poesie seinen widerlichen lebenszweck