Donald Justice

Me moriré en Paris con aguacero ... I will die in Miami in the sun, On a day when the sun is very bright, A day like the days I remember, a day like other days, A day that nobody knows or remembers yet, And the sun will be bright then on the dark glasses of strangers And in the eyes of a few friends from my childhood And of the surviving cousins by the graveside, While the diggers, standing apart, in the still shade of the palms, Rest on their shovels, and smoke, Speaking in Spanish softly, out of respect. I think it will be on a Sunday like today, Except that the sun will be out, the rain will have stopped, And the wind that today made all the little shrubs kneel down; And I think it will be a Sunday because today, When I took out this paper and began to write, Never before had anything looked so blank, My life, these words, the paper, the gray Sunday; And my dog, quivering under a table because of the storm, Looked up at me, not understanding, And my son read on without speaking, and my wife slept. Donald Justice is dead. One Sunday the sun came out, It shone on the bay, it shone on the white buildings, The cars moved down the street slowly as always, so many, Some with their headlights on in spite of the sun, And after awhile the diggers with their shovels Walked back to the graveside through the sunlight, And one of them put his blade into the earth To lift a few clods of dirt, the black marl of Miami, And scattered the dirt, and spat, Turning away abruptly, out of respect.

One of those men who can be a car salesman or a tourist from Syracuse or a hired assassin. JOHN D. MACDONALD You would not recognize me. Mine is the face which blooms in The dank mirrors of washrooms As you grope for the light switch. My eyes have the expression Of the cold eyes of statues Watching their pigeons return From the feed you have scattered, And I stand on my corner With the same marble patience. If I move at all, it is At the same pace precisely As the shade of the awning Under which I stand waiting And with whose blackness it seems I am already blended. I speak seldom, and always In a murmur as quiet As that of crowds which surround The victims of accidents. Shall I confess who I am? My name is all names and none. I am the used-car salesman, The tourist from Syracuse, The hired assassin, waiting. I will stand here forever Like one who has missed his bus— Familiar, anonymous— On my usual corner, The corner at which you turn To approach that place where now You must not hope to arrive.

1 There is a gold light in certain old paintings That represents a diffusion of sunlight. It is like happiness, when we are happy. It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light, And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross Share in its charity equally with the cross. 2 Orpheus hesitated beside the black river. With so much to look  forward to he looked back. We think he sang then, but the song is lost. At  least he had seen once more the  beloved back. I say the song went this way:O prolong Now the sorrow if that is all there is to prolong. 3 The world is very dusty, uncle. Let us work. One day the sickness shall pass from the earth for good. The orchard will bloom; someone will play the guitar. Our work will be seen as strong and clean and good. And all that we suffered through having existed Shall be forgotten as though it had never existed.

This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, no one. You will have changed before the poem will. Even while you sit there, unmovable, You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter. The poem will go on without you. It has the spurious glamor of certain voids. It is not sad, really, only empty. Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why. It prefers to remember nothing. Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago. Your type of beauty has no place here. Night is the sky over this poem. It is too black for stars. And do not look for any illumination. You neither can nor should understand what it means. Listen, it comes without guitar, Neither in rags nor any purple fashion. And there is nothing in it to comfort you. Close your eyes, yawn. It will be over soon. You will forget the poem, but not before It has forgotten you. And it does not matter. It has been most beautiful in its erasures. O bleached mirrors! Oceans of the drowned! Nor is one silence equal to another. And it does not matter what you think. This poem is not addressed to you.

Our lives avoided tragedy Simply by going on and on, Without end and with little apparent meaning. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes. Simply by going on and on We managed. No need for the heroic. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes. I don't remember all the particulars. We managed. No need for the heroic. There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows. I don't remember all the particulars. Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus. There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows. Thank god no one said anything in verse. The neighbors were our only chorus, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it. At no time did anyone say anything in verse. It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it. No audience would ever know our story. It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us. We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. What audience would ever know our story? Beyond our windows shone the actual world. We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. And time went by, drawn by slow horses. Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog. And time went by, drawn by slow horses. We did not ourselves know what the end was. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog. We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues. But we did not ourselves know what the end was. People like us simply go on. We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues, But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy. And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven, Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell; If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight, Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands In games whose very names we have forgotten. Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.

Les morts C’est sous terre; Ça n’en sort Guère. LAFORGUE Our diaries squatted, toad-like, On dark closet ledges. Forget-me-not and thistle Decalcomaned the pages. But where, where are they now, All the sad squalors Of those between-wars parlors?— Cut flowers; and the sunlight spilt like soda On torporous rugs; the photo Albums all outspread ... The dead Don’t get around much anymore.

It smiles to see me Still in my bathrobe. It sits in my lap And will not let me rise. Now it is kissing my eyes. Arms enfold me, arms Pale with a thick down. It seems I am falling asleep To the sound of a story Being read me. This is the story. Weeks have passed Since first I lifted my hand To set it down.

But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory. T. S. ELIOT It was his story. It would always be his story. It followed him; it overtook him finally— The boredom, and the horror, and the glory. Probably at the end he was not yet sorry, Even as the boots were brutalizing him in the alley. It was his story. It would always be his story, Blown on a blue horn, full of sound and fury, But signifying, O signifying magnificently The boredom, and the horror, and the glory. I picture the snow as falling without hurry To cover the cobbles and the toppled ashcans completely. It was his story. It would always be his story. Lately he had wandered between St. Mark’s Place and the Bowery, Already half a spirit, mumbling and muttering sadly. O the boredom, and the horror, and the glory. All done now. But I remember the fiery Hypnotic eye and the raised voice blazing with poetry. It was his story and would always be his story— The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.

Now comes the evening of the mind. Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood; Here is the shadow moving down the page Where you sit reading by the garden wall. Now the dwarf peach trees, nailed to their trellises, Shudder and droop. You know their voices now, Faintly the martyred peaches crying out Your name, the name nobody knows but you. It is the aura and the coming on. It is the thing descending, circling, here. And now it puts a claw out and you take it. Thankfully in your lap you take it, so. You said you would not go away again, You did not want to go away—and yet, It is as if you stood out on the dock Watching a little boat drift out Beyond the sawgrass shallows, the dead fish ... And you were in it, skimming past old snags, Beyond, beyond, under a brazen sky As soundless as a gong before it’s struck— Suspended how?—and now they strike it, now The ether dream of five-years-old repeats, repeats, And you must wake again to your own blood And empty spaces in the throat.