341 Grief poems

Those notes are fetching when they touch the ear. It's true, there are more tears in sand than water. "Come out and play," the song's refrain in my head, my sawdust showing. My heart, your eyes is what the day made. There, the notes, the song, the besidedness to live on Saturday, to walk out, wanted to, right out the frame. The sadness, gas pumps, sunshine on oil, that crow overhead destroys the picture. Everything faking it so badly. What's so wrong about the real, so off with clarity, dumbfuck, shirttail-hanging scatter-brained word. Shattered-pane world? The whir of the camera inside pictures but we want the voice to lift, don't we, across the mini-plaza to where? How about pulling taffy for a living or a rabbit from one ideal-ology to another. That's the trick isn't it, parallel lives? You know, here a dumpster there a Dane. On the street I see birds, bricks, clouds I see a friend getting into her car I see myself in the puddle I see. And even if we pray to remain unabated, a minor chord can sometimes reconnoiter the most distant thoughts camouflaged in lace and literature. O western wind let's not decorate the light with roseate diadems, plumbago shadows in the rushes. Haven't we heard enough from the birds, their annual trips and cross-talk? Listen. The arc of a rocket is louder than a rainbow.

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten for ever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old. If anyone asks, say it was forgotten Long and long ago, As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall In a long forgotten snow.

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.

Where is the promise of my years; Once written on my brow? Ere errors, agonies and fears Brought with them all that speaks in tears, Ere I had sunk beneath my peers; Where sleeps that promise now? Naught lingers to redeem those hours, Still, still to memory sweet! The flowers that bloomed in sunny bowers Are withered all; and Evil towers Supreme above her sister powers Of Sorrow and Deceit. I look along the columned years, And see Life’s riven fane, Just where it fell, amid the jeers Of scornful lips, whose mocking sneers, For ever hiss within mine ears To break the sleep of pain. I can but own my life is vain A desert void of peace; I missed the goal I sought to gain, I missed the measure of the strain That lulls Fame’s fever in the brain, And bids Earth’s tumult cease. Myself! alas for theme so poor A theme but rich in Fear; I stand a wreck on Error’s shore, A spectre not within the door, A houseless shadow evermore, An exile lingering here.

An end is always punishment for a beginning. If you’re Catholic, sadness is punishment for happiness, you become the bug you squash if you’re Hindu, a flinty space opens in your head after a long night of laughter and wine. For waking there are dreams, from French poetry, English poetry, for light fire although sometimes fire must be punished by light which is why psychotherapy had to be invented. A father may say nothing to a son for years. A wife may keep something small folded deep in her underwear drawer. Clouds come in resembling the terrible things we believe about ourselves, a rock comes loose from a ledge, the baby just cries and cries. Doll in a chair, windshield wipers, staring off into the city lights. For years you may be unable to hear the word monkey without a stab in the heart because she called you that the summer she thought she loved you and you thought you loved someone else and everyone loved your salad dressing. And the daffodils come up in the spring and the snow covers the road in winter and the water covers the deep trenches in the sea where all the time the inner stuff of this earth surges up which is how the continents are made and broken.

One death comes before another. Breath and smoke. And smoke which puts out breath. And silence. But sometimes only a cigarette helps you keep your grip. And keeps its promises more quickly, too. Between yellowed fingers it burns like love becomes ashes like betrayal. Breath and smoke. The three fingers of oath curved around the cigarette: to not forswear. Giordano burns on the Campo de Fiori. The bells of Santa Maria Maggiore are still pealing for the auto-da-fé. Breath and smoke. And smoke which puts out breath. And to write with a burned hand about fire. And the borders of the German language are mined with murderous accidents. One death comes before another. * * * Ein Tod kommt vor dem andern. Atem und Rauch. Und Rauch der Atem löscht. Und Schweigen. Manchmal ist aber eine Zigarette der letzte Halt. Und hält was sie verspricht auch schneller. Zwischen vergilbten Fingern brennts wie Liebe wird Asche wie Verrat. Atem und Rauch. Die Schwurfinger gekrümmt um die Zigarette: um nicht abzuschwören. Giordano brennt auf dem Campo de Fiori. Die Glocken von Santa Maria Maggiore gellen noch immer zum Autodafé. Atem und Rauch. Und Rauch der Atem löscht. Und mit verbrannter Hand über das Feuer schreiben. Und die Grenzen der deutschen Sprache sind mit mörderischen Zufällen vermint. Ein Tod kommt dem andern zuvor.

Nothing can reach you now, not lead or steel, or what life itself eventually reveals. No more studies of kindness or courtesy, nor grace or charity, all is needless now. All is needless now, sky, world, family grieving for their bundles of purity, now beyond disgrace, failure, winter streets, or whatever attacks, and then retreats. Classrooms emptied of children’s things, paper and paste, and love’s imaginings, bundles of peace, Christmas-blessed with the unborn and the dead at rest, nothing can reach you now, not lead or steel or what life itself eventually reveals.

The quick-sliding cape of mind Drags wrinkled on a dusty floor, A party dress, Sagging from those shoulders of a smile that stalks through crooked time followed by a goat nipping the petticoat. Scape-goat, grin out loud. Make the cloak a shroud. He whinnys through the nose, paws the trailing hem and strikes a fawning pose. Tight-clamped, the clasp of tin Tears cloth it won’t undo. Before the gown slips down. A rent . . . which lets the darkness through.

I try tearing paper into tiny, perfect squares— they cut my fingers.  Warm milk, perhaps, stirred counter-clockwise in a cast iron pan— but even then there’s burning at the edges, angry foam-hiss.  I’ve been told to put trumpet flowers under my pillow, I do: stamen up, the old crone said. But the pollen stains, and there are bees, I swear, in those long yellow chambers, echoing, the way the house does, mocking, with its longevity— each rib creaking and bending where I’m likely to break— I try floating out along the long O of lone, to where it flattens to loss, and just stay there disconnecting the dots of my night sky as one would take apart a house made of sticks, carefully, last addition to first, like sheep leaping backward into their pens.

Thin are the night-skirts left behind By daybreak hours that onward creep, And thin, alas! the shred of sleep That wavers with the spirit's wind: But in half-dreams that shift and roll And still remember and forget, My soul this hour has drawn your soul A little nearer yet. Our lives, most dear, are never near, Our thoughts are never far apart, Though all that draws us heart to heart Seems fainter now and now more clear. To-night Love claims his full control, And with desire and with regret My soul this hour has drawn your soul A little nearer yet. Is there a home where heavy earth Melts to bright air that breathes no pain, Where water leaves no thirst again And springing fire is Love's new birth? If faith long bound to one true goal May there at length its hope beget, My soul that hour shall draw your soul For ever nearer yet.