Thomas Merton

1. Now you are all here you might as well know this is America we do what we like. 2. Be spontaneous it is the right way. 3. Mothers you have met before still defy comprehension. 4. Our scene is foggy we are asking you to clarify. 5. Explains geomoetry of life. Where? At Catholic Worker. 6. Very glad you came. With our mouths full of cornflakes we were expecting an emergency. 7. Cynics declare you are in Greece. 8. Better get back quick before the place is all used up. 9. The night court: the mumbling judge: confused. 10. Well-wishers are there to meet you head on. 11. For the journal: soldiers, harbingers of change. 12. You came just in time, the score is even. 13. None of the machines has yet been broken. 14. Come on we know you have seen Popes. 15. People have been a little self-conscious around here in the emergency. 16. Who cares what the cynics declare. But you have been in Greece.

(From Crossportion’s Pastoral) The bottom of the sea has come And builded in my noiseless room The fishes’ and the mermaids’ home, Whose it is most, most hell to be Out of the heavy-hanging sea And in the thin, thin changeable air Or unroom sleep some other where; But play their coral violins Where waters most lock music in: The bottom of my room, the sea. Full of voiceless curtaindeep There mermaid somnambules come sleep Where fluted half-lights show the way, And there, there lost orchestras play And down the many quarterlights come To the dim mirth of my aquadrome: The bottom of my sea, the room.

For Robert Lax 1. I will tell you what you can do ask me if you do not understand what I just said 2. One thing you can do be a manufacturer make appliances 3. Be a Man-u-fac-tu-rer 4. Make appliances sell them for a high price 5. I will tell you about industry make appliances 6. Make appliances that move 7. Ask me if you do not understand what is move 8. First get the facts 9. Where to apply? Ask industry 10. Do not expect to get by without Mr. and Mrs. Consumer 11. Man-u-fic-tion 12. I am wondering if you got the idea be a manu 13. MAKE FALSE GODS 14. Apply mind energy they will move 15. Mention one of the others see what happens 16. Now apply that to our problem 17. Try not to understand 18. Be a mounte-fictioner 19. Surpass all others in price and profit 20. Assail the public with lies 21. Home-spun-facts-are-more-fun repeat this 22. Prevent spreading on garments 23. Breathe more than others 24. Supply movement and traction 25. Our epidemix will exceed 26. A homemade appliance: no honorable mention 27. Now you can refer to garments and spread out 28. But there are still more facts 29. For excitement: say whose epidemic may be next 30. Apply this to the facts and see what happens 31. Wear dermal gloves in bed 32. Here is an appliance that will terrorize mothers 33. And fight the impossible 34. Man-u-fac-ture: wear it on your head 35. Beat it here come the mothers

When the windows of the West Side clash like cymbals in the setting sunlight, And when wind wails amid the East Side’s aerials, And when, both north and south of thirty-fourth street, In all the dizzy buildings, The elevators clack their teeth and rattle the bars of their cages, Then the children of the city, Leaving the monkey-houses of their office-buildings and apartments, With the greatest difficulty open their mouths, and sing: “Queen among the cities of the Earth: New York! Rich as a cake, common as a doughnut, Expensive as a fur and crazy as cocaine, We love to hear you shake Your big face like a shining bank Letting the mad world know you’re full of dimes! ”This is your night to make maraccas out of all that metal money Paris is in the prison-house, and London dies of cancer. This is the time for you to whirl, Queen of our hopped-up peace, And let the excitement of your somewhat crippled congas Supersede the waltzes of more shining Capitals that have been bombed. “Meanwhile we, your children, Weeping in our seasick zoo of windows while you dance, Will gobble aspirins, And try to keep our cage from caving in. All the while our minds will fill with these petitions, Flowering quietly in between our gongs of pulse. These will have to serve as prayers: “ ‘O lock us in the safe jails of thy movies! Confine us to the semiprivate wards and white asylums Of the unbearable cocktail parties, O New York! Sentence us for life to the penitentiaries of thy bars and nightclubs, And leave us stupefied forever by the blue, objective lights That fill the pale infirmaries of thy restaurants, And the clinics of thy schools and offices, And the operating-rooms of thy dance-halls. “ ‘But never give us any explanations, even when we ask, Why all our food tastes of iodoform, And even the freshest flowers smell of funerals. No, never let us look about us long enough to wonder Which of the rich men, shivering in the overheated office, And which of the poor men, sleeping face-down on the Daily Mirror, Are still alive, and which are dead.’ ”

I Swing by starwhite bones and Lights tick in the middle. Blue and white steel Black and white People hurrying along the wall. ”Here you are, bury my dead bones.“ Curve behind the sun again Towers full of ice. Rich Glass houses, “Here, Have a little of my blood,” Rich people!” Wheat in towers. Meat on ice. Cattlecars. Miles of wide-open walls. Baseball between these sudden tracks. Yell past the red street— Have you any water to drink, City? Rich glass buildings, give us milk! Give us coffee! Give us rum! There are huge clouds all over the sky. River smells of gasoline. Cars after cars after cars, and then A little yellow street goes by without a murmur. There came a man (”Those are radios, that were his eyes“) Who offered to sell us his bones. Swing by starwhite buildings and Lights come to life with a sound Of bugs under the dead rib. Miles of it. Still the same city. II Do you know where you are going? Do you know whom you must meet? Fortune, perhaps, or good news Or the doctor, or the ladies In the long bookstore, The angry man in the milkbar The drunkard under the clock. Fortune, perhaps, or wonder Or, perhaps, death. In any case, our tracks Are aimed at a working horizon. The buildings, turning twice about the sun, Settle in their respective positions. Centered in its own incurable discontent, the City Consents to be recognized. III Then people come out into the light of afternoon, Covered all over with black powder, And begin to attack one another with statements Or to ignore one another with horror. Customs have not changed. Young men full of coffee and Old women with medicine under their skin Are all approaching death at twenty miles an hour. Everywhere there is optimism without love And pessimism without understanding, They who have new clothes, and smell of haircuts Cannot agree to be at peace With their own images, shadowing them in windows From store to store. IV Until the lights come on with a swagger of frauds And savage ferns, The brown-eyed daughters of ravens, Sing in the lucky doors While night comes down the street like the millennium Wrapping the houses in dark feathers Soothing the town with a sign Healing the strong wings of sunstroke. Then the wind of an easy river wipes the flies Off my Kentucky collarbone. The claws of the treacherous stars Renegade drums of wood Endure the heavenward protest. Their music heaves and hides. Rain and foam and oil Make sabbaths for our wounds. (Come, come, let all come home!) The summer sighs, and runs. My broken bird is under the whole town, My cross is for the gypsies I am leaving And there are real fountains under the floor. V Branches baptize our faces with silver Where the sweet silent avenue escapes into the hills. Winds at last possess our empty country There, there under the moon In parabolas of milk and iron The ghosts of historical men (Figures of sorrow and dust) Weep along the hills like turpentine. And seas of flowering tobacco Surround the drowning sons of Daniel Boone.

The old Roman sow Bears a new litter now To fatten for a while On the same imperial swill. The cannibal wolf will dig And root out Spanish bones beside the pig. Germany has reared A rare ugly bird To screech a sour song In the German tongue: Tell me if there be A sparrowhawk for such birds as he? The parrots lift their beaks And fill the air with shrieks. Ambassador is sent From the parrots’ parliament: “Oh see how fine I fly And nibble crackers got in Germany.” Europe is a feast For every bloody beast: Jackals will grow fat On the bones after that. But in the end of all None but the crows can sing the funeral. Germany has reared A rare ugly bird, But crows ate Roman pig Before this bird was egg. And in the end of all Crows will come back and sing the funeral.

1 One royal afternoon When I was young and easily surprised By uncles coming from the park At the command of nurses and of guards, I wondered, over trees and ponds, At the sorry, rude walls And the white windows of the apartments. “These,” said my uncle, “are the tallest houses.” 2 Yes, in the spring of my joy When I was visibly affected by a gaitered bishop, Large and unsteady in the flagged yard, Guards, dogs and blackbirds fled on every hand. “He is an old one,” said uncle, “The gaiters are real.” 3 Rippled, fistfed windows of your Dun high houses! Then Come cages made of pretty willows Where they put the palace girls! Green ducks wade slowly from the marble water. One swan reproves a saucy daughter. I consider my own true pond, Look for the beginning and the end. I lead the bishop down lanes and islands. 4 Yes, in the windows of my first existence Before my yawns became seasons, When nurses and uncles were sure, Chinese fowl fought the frosty water Startled by this old pontifex. “No bridge” (He smiled Between the budding branches), “No crossing to the cage Of the paradise bird!” Astounded by the sermons in the leaves I cried, “No! No! The stars have higher houses!” Kicking the robins and ganders From the floor of his insular world The magic bishop leaned his blessing on the children. 5 That was the bold day when Moved by the unexpected summons I opened all the palace aviaries As by a king’s representative I was appointed fowler.

for Baroness G. de Hueck Across the cages of the keyless aviaries, The lines and wires, the gallows of the broken kites, Crucify, against the fearful light, The ragged dresses of the little children. Soon, in the sterile jungles of the waterpipes and ladders, The bleeding sun, a bird of prey, will terrify the poor, These will forget the unbelievable moon. But in the cells of whiter buildings, Where the glass dawn is brighter than the knives of surgeons, Paler than alcohol or ether, shinier than money, The white men’s wives, like Pilate’s, Cry in the peril of their frozen dreams: “Daylight has driven iron spikes, Into the flesh of Jesus’ hands and feet: Four flowers of blood have nailed Him to the walls of Harlem.” Along the white halls of the clinics and the hospitals Pilate evaporates with a cry: They have cut down two hundred Judases, Hanged by the neck in the opera houses and the museum. Across the cages of the keyless aviaries, The lines and wires, the gallows of the broken kites, Crucify, against the fearful light, The ragged dresses of the little children.

1. At this precise moment of history With Goody-two-shoes running for Congress We are testing supersonic engines To keep God safe in the cherry tree. When I said so in this space last Thursday I meant what I said: power struggles. 2. You would never dream of such corn. The colonials in sandalwood like running wide open and available for protection. You can throw them away without a refund. 3. Dr. Hanfstaengel who was not called Putzi except by those who did not know him is taped in the national archives. J. Edgar Hoover he ought to know And does know. But calls Dr. Hanfstaengel Putzi nevertheless Somewhere on tape in the Archives. He (Dr. H.) is not a silly man. He left in disgust About the same time Shirley Temple Sat on Roosevelt’s knee An accomplished pianist A remembered personality. He (Dr. H.) began to teach Immortal anecdotes To his mother a Queen Bee In the American colony. 4. What is your attitude toward historical subjects? —Perhaps it’s their size! 5. When I said this in space you would never believe Corn Colonel was so expatriated. —If you think you know, Take this wheel And become standard. 6. She is my only living mother This bee of the bloody arts Bandaging victims of Saturday’s dance Like a veritable sphinx In a totally new combination. 7. The Queen Mother is an enduring vignette at an early age. Now she ought to be kept in submersible decompression chambers For a while. 8. What is your attitude toward historical subjects Like Queen Colonies? —They are permanently fortified For shape retention. 9. Solid shades Seven zippered pockets Close to my old place Waiting by the road Big disk brakes Spinoff Zoom Long lights stabbing at the Two together piggyback In a stark sports roadster Regretting his previous outburst Al loads his Cadillac With lovenests. 10. She is my only living investment She examines the housing industry Counts 3.5 million postwar children Turning twenty-one And draws her own conclusion In the commercial fishing field. 11. Voice of little sexy ventriloquist mignonne: “Well I think all of us are agreed and sincerely I my- self believe that honest people on both sides have got it all on tape. Governor Reagan thinks that nuclear wampums are a last resort that ought not to be re- sorted.” (But little mignonne went right to the point with: “We have a commitment to fulfill and we better do it quick.” No dupe she!) All historians die of the same events at least twice. 13. I feel that I ought to open this case with an apology. Dr. H. certainly has a beautiful voice. He is not a silly man. He is misunderstood even by Presidents. 14. You people are criticizing the Church but what are you going to put in her place? Sometime sit down with a pencil and paper and ask yourself what you’ve got that the Church hasn’t. 15. Nothing to add But the big voice of a detective Using the wrong first names In national archives. 16. She sat in shocking pink with an industrial zipper spe- cially designed for sitting on the knees of presidents in broad daylight. She spoke the president’s mind. “We have a last resort to be resorted and we better do it quick.” He wondered at what he had just said. 17. It was all like running wideopen in a loose gown Without slippers At least someplace.

Keep away, son, these lakes are salt. These flowers Eat insects. Here private lunatics Yell and skip in a very dry country. Or where some haywire monument Some badfaced daddy of fear Commands an unintelligent rite. To dance on the unlucky mountain, To dance they go, and shake the sin Out of their feet and hands, Frenzied until the sudden night Falls very quiet, and magic sin Creeps, secret, back again. Badlands echo with omens of ruin: Seven are very satisfied, regaining possession: (Bring a little mescaline, you’ll get along!) There’s something in your bones, There’s someone dirty in your critical skin, There’s a tradition in your cruel misdirected finger Which you must obey, and scribble in the hot sand: “Let everybody come and attend Where lights and airs are fixed To teach and entertain. O watch the sandy people Hopping in the naked bull’s-eye, Shake the wildness out of their limbs, Try to make peace like John in skins Elijah in the timid air or Anthony in tombs: Pluck the imaginary trigger, brothers. Shoot the devil: he’ll be back again!” America needs these fatal friends Of God and country, to grovel in mystical ashes, Pretty big prophets whose words don’t burn, Fighting the strenuous imago all day long. Only these lunatics, (O happy chance) Only these are sent. Only this anaemic thunder Grumbles on the salt flats, in rainless night: O go home, brother, go home! The devil’s back again, And magic Hell is swallowing flies.