52 Beauty poems

Its nature is ruthless, nothing as simple as loss being ruinous, those undeniable rainbows of oil, shock of bright sulphurous puddles (in goldfinch, in lemon) and now what, if that beauty's terrible plumage makes you keep looking and disturbs your despair.

There's a place I know where the birds swing low, And wayward vines go roaming, Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god Is pale, in scented gloaming. And at sunset there comes a lady fair Whose eyes are deep with yearning. By an old, old gate does the lady wait Her own true love's returning. But the days go by, and the lilacs die, And trembling birds seek cover; Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands Held out to greet her lover. And it's there she'll stay till the shadowy day A monument they grave her. She will always wait by the same old gate, — The gate her true love gave her.

Forget contingencies from weather and wind, my Helen’s head was shaved, the shortest bit of stubble growing in. With darkened arching black eye-brows, Betty-Blue mouth penciled red, jet patent-leather trench and high-heeled boots, she seemed more mannequin for Fashion Ave.’s penitent spread than enemy to brass at Camp LeJeune. Simply and grudgingly put, her talk was action. Invincible in Bell- Atlantic block and tack, she converted non-coms and saved CO’s, harped flint and skinned the chair of military courts through well-pitched cheek, prompt dispatch from the War Resister’s League. She looked good even on a bicycle, hemming left through traffic on Fourteenth Street, locking up on Lafayette or Grand. She doused for me to celebrate—marched right through human waste and Bowery puddles, stretched her legs over the last old-fashioned hobos up to East Second Street. Those ancient days, our vestibule was manned by crack-dealing Stan, a concierge of wit and improv, half his face scored by orange scars from hydrofluoric burns. He kept the place safe. But I had gone, cleared out behind a gang of kids from Bronxville high on catnip wins, shell-game victims. Left Stan my toaster, shelves, a wire bird-cage, and, for once, nothing to say. Except to ask if he could touch her skull. Even now it makes no sense. Her precedents I knew lurched out of focus: photos from France after the Vichy fell, Jeannes and Sylvianes who’d made Nazi moll; those Belfast girls last-ditched by soldier boys or peelers; two- toned Bergen-Belsen, bald sister to Fort Santiago. Then Squeaky Fromm, the other Manson moms, at Charlie’s trial. Extremes of Joan of Arc, or even Buddhist nuns. Hated, chastened— or chaste, at least. Not what you’d run (I ran) your fingers satisfied across, the stubble surprising, soft as mink or fox, and arch your back, as I did once she found me uptown, say yes I give again when she went down— and faster now, quick as the television dropped after dishes to the curb—or slipped gradually up, the seconds separating as slowly as but more exquisitely than ticks off expensive fifty-minute hours— and some community service—all gone, and just as easily forgotten the raft of former friends I’d cursed and floated off the island. Shaved head, her slender neck, dark shoulders—that was half— or less—her most convincing argument.

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o’er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Plucking your eyebrows, Putting on mascara, But will that help you To see things anew? The one who sees Is changed into The one who’s seen Only if one is Salt and the other Water. But you, says Kabir, Are a dead Lump of quartz.

The spine is a slide of human marvels; it is a hierarchy of white florets; it is a cult of secret brothers; it is a deliberate list; so look how the spineless relax in their unblushing banality. I lose my patience in Greensboro where no discoveries are ever made and the only inner lavishment is the bar, occasionally. T he spineless aspire to incessant interludes that never arrive anywhere and that can’t r emember wherefrom they came. Mary is slightly spineless, for instance: her dress is cream her skin is cream her creamy mind is fine and her life will end finely—how sad is that to think of, the finery of a cream life? It is the saddest of all truths that can be read on a person’s face in a decorous garden that person has planted themselves and of which they are explaining to you the intricacies and expense: “notice how in the light”; “three pallets shipped last week”; “have complementary attitudes when it comes to soil-type and moisture.” She isn’t wicked; but, also, she destroys the art of her life.

Handsome, like those foam-topped tidal waves breaking high, in little crystal globes. Handsome, like the breeze that lifts a little tuft of tulle. If tulle were life. Handsome, like a frozen face, tear-tracked, when the sun hammers down. Handsome. Like fire. Handsome, like the bottomless sky, with that one proud penetrating star. But handsome, too, like a sky that’s an arching ocean, and an earth prone as an ocean’s floor. Handsome ocean-sky, and earth-sea floor. The big question is: where’s the man in a scene like this? Handsome: the man asleep. And the night sky swarms, tropic and wide. Handsome, in some ornamental, muggy midnight caught between cat’s paws. Sharp-nailed: they prick. Handsome: the firefly swarms around you. Handsome, like a soap bubble grazing a little black dress. Like a soap-bubble pricked with a pin. Handsomeness a rainbow, a rainbow an arrow, an arrow in my chest. Handsome, like shadows slow-rolling on a Japanese screen. Handsome motion. Handsome as life and poison. Sun-blood handsome. Bleeding sun. Translated from the French by Robert Archambeau

She has no need to fear the fall Of harvest from the laddered reach Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing From the steep beach. Nor hold to pain's effrontery Her body's bulwark, stern and savage, Nor be a glass, where to forsee Another's ravage. What she has gathered, and what lost, She will not find to lose again. She is possessed by time, who once Was loved by men.

Why is the word pretty so underrated? In November the leaf is pretty when it falls The stream grows deep in the woods after rain And in the pretty pool the pike stalks He stalks his prey, and this is pretty too, The prey escapes with an underwater flash But not for long, the great fish has him now The pike is a fish who always has his prey And this is pretty. The water rat is pretty His paws are not webbed, he cannot shut his nostrils As the otter can and the beaver, he is torn between The land and water. Not ‘torn’, he does not mind. The owl hunts in the evening and it is pretty The lake water below him rustles with ice There is frost coming from the ground, in the air mist All this is pretty, it could not be prettier. Yes, it could always be prettier, the eye abashes It is becoming an eye that cannot see enough, Out of the wood the eye climbs. This is prettier A field in the evening, tilting up. The field tilts to the sky. Though it is late The sky is lighter than the hill field All this looks easy but really it is extraordinary Well, it is extraordinary to be so pretty. And it is careless, and that is always pretty This field, this owl, this pike, this pool are careless, As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing, and this is pretty. So a person can come along like a thief—pretty!— Stealing a look, pinching the sound and feel, Lick the icicle broken from the bank And still say nothing at all, only cry pretty. Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you’ll be able Very soon not even to cry pretty And so be delivered entirely from humanity This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.

The birdless place the Greeks named it. Insufflation of you know what. Followed quickly by some drone, some doctor, now that you mention it, bearing the proverbial cup on a silver filigree stem. I'll try a drop of that. The hoarse divinities would parade before the inventor of butterfly wings. No subtext here, people are naked. Bartering with the guileless do I even want to know? Three little ghostesses Sitting on postesses Eating buttered toastesses Greasing their fistesses Up to their wristesses.