Robert Duncan

the absence was there before the meeting the radical of presence    and absence does not return with death’s chance- encounter, as in the old duality, life or death, wherein the transcendence of the one translates the other into an everness we do not meet in heaven, that outward of hell and death’s beauty    it is a bright and terrible disk where Jack is, where Charles is, where James is, where Berg is  is here in the continuous carmen O, some things—di—breathe into—aspirate—and lead away— deducite! for the soul is a thing among many Berkeley shimmers and shakes in my mind    most lost    the absence preceded the place and the friendships    Lady Rosario among us    of Spanish and Greek rushes from the hedges around the gas station, swirled with Lawrence’s medlars and sorb-apples What is it reminds us of white gods flesh-fragrant as if with sweat    the delicious rottenness