872 Life poems

We aren’t the solid men. We bend like the number seven. Dig at corners, eat cobwebs, we are barefoot and bare-legged. We hang like leaves in autumn. We aren’t the stolid men. We scribble in familiar ink about sunfalls and night. We see the white in the sky, and sigh. We lie with penciled grins. We aren’t the men, any men. We rip at the neck and wonder why while rattlers roll in. Bent as a number, crooked, sundered, we aren’t the idle lightning if black thunder.

Across a space peopled with stars I am laughing while my sides ache for existence it turns out is profound though the profound because of time it turns out is an illusion and all of this is infinitely improbable given the space, for which I gratefully lie in three feet of snow making a shallow grave I would have called an angel otherwise and think of my own rapturous escape from living only as dust and dirt, little sister.

Not for nothing are we given at least as much sense as God gave a goose, which we have no access to, sensewise. We don’t speak goose nor recognize what body language there may be in a body which is mostly neck and dollop. But down, now there is something to build dreams on. We have recourse and in the morning the feathered snow will have come and closed the roads. Linger. Leave off.

The problems of a working girl Are more than meet the naked eye; And life becomes a dizzy whirl At times—and dizzy, too, am I. I have not found the answer yet, And this is just a working plan: I shove along and do not fret, Nor yet depend on any man. To be a mother and a wife, I'm often urged by all my kith And kin—but as for husbands, life Is easier without than with.

Once we liked the conspicuous but constrained, the push-up bra under the shirt-waist, a small bow at the throat, the appearance of a struggle toward the diminutive, the punctum. • The slender second hand jerking forward as if helpless, making its same sound. • We might stand in a thicket where a battle had taken place and be thrilled by the far-off roar of traffic

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations This youth too long has heard the break Of waters in a land of change. He goes to see what suns can make From soil more indurate indurate hardened and strange. He cuts what holds his days together And shuts him in, as lock on lock: The arrowed vane announcing weather, The tripping racket tripping racket either a paradox: light and easy din, or, light and easy motion (as of a dance) of a clock; Seeking, I think, a light that waits Still as a lamp upon a shelf, — A land with hills like rocky gates Where no sea leaps upon itself. But he will find that nothing dares To be enduring, save where, south Of hidden deserts, torn fire glares On beauty with a rusted mouth, — Where something dreadful and another Look quietly upon each other.

Listen, nephew. When I opened the cantina At noon A triangle of sunlight Was stretched out On the floor Like a rug Like a tired cat. It flared in From the window Through a small hole Shaped like a yawn. Strange I thought And placed my hand Before the opening, But the sunlight Did not vanish. I pulled back The shutters And the room glowed, But this pyramid Of whiteness Was simply brighter. The sunlight around it Appeared soiled Like the bed sheet Of a borracho. Amazed, I locked the door, Closed the windows. Workers, in from The fields, knocked To be let in, Children peeked Through the shutters, But I remained silent. I poured a beer, At a table Shuffled a pack Of old cards, And watched it Cross the floor, Hang on the wall Like a portrait Like a calendar Without numbers. When a fly settled In the sunlight And disappeared In a wreath of smoke, I tapped it with the broom, Spat on it. The broom vanished. The spit sizzled. It is the truth, little one. I stood eye to blank eye And by misfortune This finger This pink stump Entered the sunlight, Snapped off With a dry sneeze, And fell to the floor As a gift To the ants Who know me For what I gave.

It hangs from heaven to earth. There are trees in it, cities, rivers, small pigs and moons. In one corner the snow falling over a charging cavalry, in another women are planting rice. You can also see: a chicken carried off by a fox, a naked couple on their wedding night, a column of smoke, an evil-eyed woman spitting into a pail of milk. What is behind it? —Space, plenty of empty space. And who is talking now? —A man asleep under his hat. What happens when he wakes up? —He’ll go into a barbershop. They’ll shave his beard, nose, ears, and hair, To make him look like everyone else.

Ray Way, Thunderbird Homeagain, Hugh and Mia Galore: they enjoyed such conversational topics as Mozart, tobacco , and four . “Today’s peach boasts rare fuzz,” said Ray. Bird added, “My mind is whale.” Mia forgot her songbooks, but Hugh said, “Let me embrace you all.” Ray Way snagged Homeagain by the lapel and fastened on Home’s left blue eye, Mia saw Home’s green right eye unanchor and wander away for the sky. Then Ray, he let go of Home’s lapel, and Ray let go of his ire, and Ray let go the floor with his feet to hover a bit on the air. Hours ticked while oars pulled over Lake Eekoutaheart. The pelicans kept to their quiet perusals of fishes, where the ripples teased apart. “Please heal my ruptured soul,” said Mia. Ray cheered, “The half-life got lived.” Thunder again, he just picked at his sweater where the yarn and his arms unweaved. “The sky, it must be adhesive,” said Mia, “elsewise the pelicans would fall—” Way, still floating, looked her cool in her eye: “Feel my faulty heart: it’s full.” “So tell me, do you wonder about the crackers once you lock the pantry?” “I know God when I wash my hands.” “Nothing makes sense like entropy.” “And the pelican, does it unloose its eggs like snow, an unbreakable good?” “And does love shape the snow to hope’s ellipses? “Who warms the nest—who could?” “What’s next when your own eyes won’t let you go?” “But the clouds won’t let me fall.” Hugh stood up and repeated, softly: “Let me embrace you all.”

Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons can be drawn from this however. One is not two countries. One is not meat corrupting. It is important to stay sweet and loving.