23 Goodbye and farewell poems

I forgot to tell you it's almost time to go. The sun has distilled its particular worn essence And the glittering trout is flipped on the bow. A man asks me what time it is. I don't know. I have emptied my purse and wept in the presence Of onlookers. I forgot to remember to go Before eleven, when the steely arrow Shot swimming to its underneath, tense As a stream of salmon in reverse below The laureled, relentless clocks. The sceptered row Of columns dreams one o'clock, immense, Inviolate. What time is it? I don't know. This story concerns the night I tried to go— Though many times I flopped into the silence Of orange plastic seating like onto the bow Of a lonely ship, and felt my breathing slow. The frail, retreating stand of columns prevents The clocks from telling me time and time again to go. At my feet, a glittering trout swims past the bow.

Good-bye!—no, do not grieve that it is over, The perfect hour; That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover, Flits from the flower. Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying— Yes, love and all. Glad was the living—blessed be the dying. Let the leaves fall.

To all you ladies now at Bath, And eke, ye beaux, to you, With aching heart, and wat'ry eyes, I bid my last adieu. Farewell ye nymphs, who waters sip Hot reeking from the pumps, While music lends her friendly aid, To cheer you from the dumps. Farewell ye wits, who prating stand, And criticise the fair; Yourselves the joke of men of sense, Who hate a coxcomb's air. Farewell to Deard's, and all her toys, Which glitter in her shop, Deluding traps to girls and boys, The warehouse of the fop. Lindsay's and Hayes's both farewell, Where in the spacious hall, With bounding steps, and sprightly air, I've led up many a ball. Where Somerville of courteous mien, Was partner in the dance, With swimming Haws, and Brownlow blithe, And Britton pink of France. Poor Nash, farewell! may fortune smile, Thy drooping soul revive, My heart is full I can no more— John, bid the coachman drive.

Oui, pour jamais Chassons l’image De la volage Que j’adorais.              PARNY. Matilda, farewell! Fate has doom’d us to part, But the prospect occasions no pang to my heart; No longer is love with my reason at strife, Though once thou wert dearer, far dearer than life. As together we roam’d, I the passion confess’d, Which thy beauty and virtue had rais’d in my breast; That the passion was mutual thou mad’st me believe, And I thought my Matilda could never deceive. My Matilda! no, false one! my claims I resign: Thou canst not, thou must not, thou shalt not be mine: I now scorn thee as much as I lov’d thee before, Nor sigh when I think I shall meet thee no more. Though fair be thy form, thou no lovers wilt find, While folly and falsehood inhabit thy mind, Though coxcombs may flatter, though ideots may prize, Thou art shunn’d by the good, and contemn’d by the wise. Than mine what affection more fervent could be, When I thought ev’ry virtue was center’d in thee? Of the vows thou hast broken I will not complain, For I mourn not the loss of a heart I disdain. Oh! hadst thou but constant and amiable prov’d As that fancied perfection I formerly lov’d, Nor absence, nor time, though supreme their controul, Could have dimm’d the dear image then stamp’d on my soul. How bright were the pictures, untinted with shade, By Hope’s glowing pencil on Fancy pourtray’d! Sweet visions of bliss! which I could not retain; For they, like thyself, were deceitful and vain. Some other, perhaps, to Matilda is dear, Some other, more pleasing, though not more sincere; May he fix thy light passions, now wav’ring as air, Then leave thee, inconstant, to shame and despair! Repent not, Matilda, return not to me: Unavailing thy grief, thy repentance will be: In vain will thy vows or thy smiles be resum’d, For love, once extinguish’d, is never relum’d.

Sweetheart, for such a day One mustn’t grudge the score; Here, then, it’s all to pay, It’s Good-night at the door. Good-night and good dreams to you,— Do you remember the picture-book thieves Who left two children sleeping in a wood the long night through, And how the birds came down and covered them with leaves? So you and I should have slept,—But now, Oh, what a lonely head! With just the shadow of a waving bough In the moonlight over your bed.

Farewell my dearer half, joy of my heart, Heaven only knows how loth I am to part: Whole Months but hours seem, when you are here, When absent, every Minute is a Year: Might I but always see thy charming Face, I’de live on Racks, and wish no easier place. But we must part, your Interest says we must; Fate, me no longer with such Treasure trust. I wou’d not tax you with Inconstancy, Yet Strephon , you are not so kind as I: No Interest, no nor Fate it self has pow’r To tempt me from the Idol I adore: But since you needs will go, may Africk be Kinder to you, than Europe is to me: May all you meet and every thing you view Give you such Transport as I met in you. May no sad thoughts disturb your quiet mind, Except you’l think of her you left behind.

It's all foreplay, really-this walk through the French Quarter exploring souvenir shops, each of them carefully deranged, as if dust were to settle only at perfect intervals. Yes to the vetiver fan that smells sweeter than sandalwood or cedar. No to the mammy doll dinner bells. No to the mammy dolls whose sewn smiles are as fixed as the lives of too many poor Black women here: motherhood at twelve, drugged, abandoned by fifteen, dead by twenty (suicide, murder) so easily in Desire. And yet, their voices sweeten the snaking air, providing the transvestites their proper Muses, all of whom have streets named for them in the Garden District. A soft heat settles on Terpsichore, just inside the gay bar where the owner's pink flamingos complement silly songs on the rescued Rockola. Who can dance to that Lorne Greene ballad, "Ringo"? Dixie beer is the beer of choice; marijuana the cheapest drug. Relaxation is key, since it's all a matter of waiting for the right body to stumble toward you. Lust perfumes parties in the projects, barstool chatter at the Hyatt, lazy kissing on the median strip stretching down Tchoupitoulas. If Professor Longhair were alive, he'd teach a lesson in seamless motion: the perfect slide of a man's hand down a woman's back; a lesson you learned long ago before you met me. We are making love as we did before in Austin and Manhattan. But in this room on this costly bed our lovemaking starts out the slowest grind, then, like this city's weather, goes from hot to hotter, from moist to rainstorm wet. You're tall, A., and where there should be tribal markings there are scars-football, basketball, mid-sixties grind parties where something always got out of hand. There's the perfect amen. You're your own gospel. And you bring good news to me-the way you enter me Like grace, the way you say my name, a psalm. No. That's not it. It's the engineer in you that gets me. Your search for the secret line that goes straight to the center of the earth. Deeper and deeper you go until there's no earth left in me. And we hum and moan a song as old as our selves gone back. There are too many souvenirs in your eyes. Gifts given too often, too hastily, never opened. Outside a city sprawls its heat, seeks out every pore, licks every moment of sweat as we shiver in this chilly room taking each other's measure. We say good-bye again and again. As if every kiss, every touch we make will shadow All our celebrations. And they do.

So, so breake off this last lamenting kisse, Which sucks two soules, and vapours Both away, Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this, And let our selves benight our happiest day, We ask’d none leave to love; nor will we owe Any, so cheape a death, as saying, Goe; Goe; and if that word have not quite kil’d thee, Ease mee with death, by bidding mee goe too. Oh, if it have, let my word worke on mee, And a just office on a murderer doe. Except it be too late, to kill me so, Being double dead, going, and bidding, goe.

on a line from Szymborska My departure from the city of O.? I took no leave. I’d learned to sleep angry. On a train I was contained. The water under the bridge was just that. Shunned metaphor. It did not send waves of regret or make me reflect. It did not baptize, wash away, or cleanse. The countryside appeared like the sides of any country where rain falls and cows chew yellow flowers. The world was not too much or too much with me. I stomached it. In the photograph I only look lonely because I was alone. You cannot see the envelope on my lap or the letters lodged under sweaters in my suitcase. I carried only one bag, what I could manage in a crowd. You can imagine I held a thick book from which nothing could distract me. You can imagine my head high, eyes dry. I did not see my departure as a failure, or a fall. I’d dodged a bullet. Been reborn. You can imagine it that way. Only none of it was like that, not like that at all.

X. Your bags were packed and left at the door, the vase you filled with shells, wrapped in tissue, your books boxed. I have the whelk you found on shore, the small conch, intact—the point, the fine grooves— and keep it in a box with a picture of you at the beach: your hair slicked back, head cocked at an angle. Behind you, the green jacket you told me to throw away. Strewn over a chair, its arms dangle above the floor—a hole in the pocket, the elbows thin from years of use. Y. I become each day more reckless, too impatient for summer, the unbearable heat, the calm that comes with it. There are no hills here, not one, and I’m bored with the stillness of the yellow field outside my window. And you, who cannot keep still, who can never look back, where will you go next? How will I find you? Can you feel the world pull apart, the seams loosen? What, tell me, will keep it whole, if not you? if not me? Send a postcard, picture, tell me how you’ve been. Z. Running down the stairwell in the garden, I divide the steps by three, until my foot catches the edge, wet with rain, and my frame, flung forward by its own momentum, leans into the night as if reaching for something I didn’t know I wanted. Not the moon. No. Not the sky, suspended and limitless. Not even the tulips standing on their stems (their petals cup the air). But in the streetlamp’s circle of light, I land among them, broken. My body can’t contain itself, as blood burgeons in my hands.