505 History and politics poems

She stands as pale as Parian statues stand; Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay, And felt her strength above the Roman sway, And felt the aspic writhing in her hand. Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land, For dim beyond it looms the light of day; Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous way That foot-track hath not wavered on the sand. She stands there like a beacon thro' the night, A pale clear beacon where the storm-drift is; She stands alone, a wonder deathly white; She stands there patient, nerved with inner might, Indomitable in her feebleness, Her face and will athirst against the light.

for Mark and Debra: Malleus Maleficarum The ground was never recovered, nor the legions, for their numbers were thought so ill omened that they never again appear in the army lists. —J. M. Roberts It begins with Diane—the gold shingles of her razored hair alight in the wind that whips the trees, the cotton slips pinned to nylon lines: these improbable ghosts. The first I ever loved can still incite such desperation. Betrayal lashes the careful stitches, the slight fabric; its design undone. She would take her switchblade and cut spiders in half— a quadrant of scars radiating from her wrists and elbows, she wrote my name in blood, let matches flare against the cuts small yellow head, searing. I used to operate on myself, she said. Separate a triangle of skin and place objects—silver pin heads, glass beads    close to the bone. A private surgical kit, embroidery scissors, alcohol, fine needles, and violet thread; silk, cat whiskers tied in complicated bows. She remembers this way, where things are where they are buried. We studied history together, this is how we met. Recovering the Roman Empire; she draws military disasters in her margins, mail clad horsemen pitching violently to the ground, the movement of the cavalry a swarm of locusts. Her silver compact slit open, because there are assassins in the narrow hallway; her fine pale feet turn to form an arabesque (a delicate design of flowers, leaves), furrows in the sheets and mattress, pearls. Ropes of black pearls and a black rubber dress—submerged in the green haze, the depths of a nightclub, listening. Submission; she hit his thighs with a chain, a hook in his mouth her lips were alluring. Red feather quills, bright red flies. I think of him, brought violently to the surface, his tensile body still below the thin edge of the filleting knife his slick flesh streaming as he surrenders—a ceremony of scales and gills, useless to him now, as he breathes in and out. She told me once that she was like a scorpion, and I did not listen. I let her creep between my fingers, and danger was exotic to me then. I lived somewhere deep beyond the coastline, in the crevices of rocks and wood planks, her gold hair spins like loose coins, strange and valuable. The currency of nightmares, where the sun burns the earth and empties the seas—there are skeletons, gingerly reaching for night night will fall in a rustle of wings, the gentle sweep of the legs of scorpions.

Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu. Sumer is i-cumin in— Lhude sing, cuccu! Groweth sed and bloweth med And springth the wude nu. Sing, cuccu! Awe bleteth after lomb, Lhouth after calve cu, Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth— Murie sing, cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, Wel singes thu, cuccu. Ne swik thu naver nu!

The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played what has now been seen a Not entirely negligible part In consolidating at the very start The position of the Early Christian Church. Initiatory rites are always bloody And the lions, it appears From contemporary art, made a study Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy Liturgically sacrificial hue And if the Christians felt a little blue— Well people being eaten often do. Theirs was the death, and theirs the crown undying, A state of things which must be satisfying. My point which up to this has been obscured is that it was the lions who procured By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone The martyrdoms on which the Church has grown. I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked As if the part the lions played was being overlooked. By lions’ jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.

In Sweden, they whispered all winter, counting the frozen minutes. In France, they branched out. Tips of experience. In England, they dreamed of Ireland. In Ireland they seemed to be lonely. Germany was Belgium then was Spain. Italy was something else again. Portugal, Portugal, Portugal: they said that a lot because they never went back. Later in Hungary, he lay on his back and watched the clouds — so few of them but each one big and fluffy. In the first dream the angel was having a dream; in the next dream the angel still clung to his story.

What shall Presto do for pretty prattle To entertain his dears? Sunday: lightning fifty times! This week to Flanders goes the Duke of Ormond! Shall hope of him, although he loves me well! All of my hopes now possible, None certain. As, my lampoon Talked up all over, cried up to the sky —You are an impudent slut to be so positive Though all has gone just as you said it would! Sirrah! write constantly! don’t I write every day And sometimes twice? Stella writes like an emperor. Sirrah, I am surprised forever—by myself! Or by the others—dee dee: an angel child Stupid in me, stupid or innocent Astonished by the gush of vanity The stone and the eyes of pride—yet equally By the least straw or glitter of nobility! —Faith, Madame Dingley, what think you of the world to come? Patience! Patience is a gay thing—O saucy rogues, Patience is better than knowledge: be gay til I return. Mr. Harley speaks every kind thing to me. Truly, I do believe, would serve me if I stayed —Called at the coffee house, stayed there a while, Coldly converse with Mr. Addison: All our friendship and dearness now are off: Is it not odd? I think he has used me ill: I have as little pleasure as anyone In all the world, although I am In full favor with the entire ministry. Nothing gives Presto any dream of happiness But letters now and then from his delest ones. The pride of power, the pride and pleasure of place and power are Towers And trivial toys which lure me grievously Ravaging furiously in a lunation’s infuriation . . . Bursting the Rome in my head, my empire! Gulliver? Gullible! The Caesars in my heart Tell me how all infamy is possible, And certain treacheries extremely probable! I must take leave of deelest MD now. Prithee, Be merry, patient girls and love your Presto. I have read all the trash and I am weary: Deelest lives, there is peace and quiet with thee And thee alone. None have the leisure here for little things. Farewell again, dear rogues; I am never happy But when I think of thee MD. Sirrah, I have had enough of courts and ministries. I wish I were once more at Laracor: Faith, do you know each syllable  I write I hold my lips exact for all the world As if I talked the little language with MD. Yesterday died the Duke of Ormond’s daughter: Poor dear, she was with child. She was My favourite pet—save thee—I hardly knew A being more valuable, more beautiful, Of more nobility. I fear the certainty That she was thrown away quite carelessly, And merely lacked care. ’Tis clear, at any rate, That she was very healthy naturally. —Her Lord’s a puppy. I’ll no more of him, Now that he’s lost his only valuable . . . —I hate life when I see it thus exposed To accidents like these, so many thousands Burthening the earth with their stupidity, While such as she must die—abruptly—pointlessly. Somebody is coming wants a little place. My heart is set upon the cherry trees By the river side. My saucy sluts Farewell my deelest Nite poo dee MD . . . Y’see a Sea that’s ten miles wide, a town On t’other side, ships sailing in the Sea Discharging great Canons at MDs and mee, I see a great Sky, Moon and Stars, and ALL: I am a Fool.

Bing Crosby died in Spain while playing golf with Franco but who could care less, and at this writing only a few of my dear ones are gone—ah I could make a sad list—the swifts, as if to prove a point, fly into the light and make a mockery out of our darkness. They scream for food but in the world of shadows they only make a quick motion; I have studied them—the whiter the wall is—the barer the bulb— the more they scream, the more they dip down. I have made my two hands into a shape and I have darkened the wall to see what it looks like—I have shortened my two broken fingers to make the small tail and twisted the knuckles sideways so when they come in to eat one shadow overtakes the other, that way I can live in the darkness with Franco's poisonous head and Crosby's ears, who fainted, a thousand to one, behind a number two club, though no swift died for him, well, for them, digging for clubs. I watch the birds every night; they fly in a great circle, much larger than what I can see, their dipping is what I dreaded in front of my plain white wall—I say it for the nine hundred Americans who died in Spain. I thought I'd have to wait forever to do them a tiny justice and listen to their songs and die a little from the foolhardy mournful words, flying down one air current or another and doing the sides of buildings and tops of trees, the low-lying straggling dogwood, the full-bodied huge red maple, my dear ones.

for Gertrude Ederle As Europe woke from sleep, Young Trudy Ederle At Cap Gris Nez in France Dived into a daunting sea. Many had tried to make This superhuman swim — Thirty-five punishing miles. Chances, at best, were slim. When Fury found the waves, Far from the western shore, Her trainer shouted, "Let's turn back!" But Trudy cried, "What for?" Under an English moon, The celebration began After the fastest crossing By woman or by man.

1. Somewhere Indians are walking across America. One is a woman caught in stride between two white birches, her eyes on the ground, her mouth biting open a word while the wind shreds the lake behind her. 2. A boy wakes alone in cold New England air. From his window he watches his father’s breath mix with the steam from cows’ urine. A white blanket of sheep has unrolled across the hill, and the yellow dogs who ran and ran have now disappeared. 3. A glass necklace floats on her white breast just as she herself floats inside his lens while he watches from under the dark hood— her small black eardrops hang perfectly still, her long white neck and cleavage ready to be frozen forever by the touch of his finger. 4. As the deer ate from the deep lawn and the fish jumped near the willow trees, the big white ferry paused briefly before sliding back again across the lake, completely unaware of its brightness and its beauty.

My ancestors were not diligent and so they lived beside the fort that's neither on the maps of Heaven, Nor of Hell. In these lands, there is no difference between a star and thrown car keys. Chicken nuggets hatch from the eggs of eagles. I grow dirty while bathing in bottled water. My bed comforter is a wet parking lot, I wrap myself up in. If I eat in the morning, there's nothing left in the evening My dish of grass and cigarette butts topped with expired coupons. Stir all I like; I never swallow it down. All the while, my rabbit's foot runs about from Las Cruces to West Memphis searching for flawless luck. The more one cries, the more one prospers . . . O' ancestral demon, may my lamentation become verbal sorcery.