872 Life poems

From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plain And is no more; drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou—and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

I. We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:— II. Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last. III. We rest—a dream  has power to poison sleep; We rise—one wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:— IV. It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free; Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

For Wade Hall is to become a footnote in a learned work of the 22nd century   not just a “cf” or a “see” but a sol- id note such as Raby gives Walafrid Straho in Christ- ian Latin Poetry

hangs in the closet of this small room, collar open, sleeves empty, tail wrinkled. Nothing fills the shirt but air and my faint scent. It waits, all seven buttons undone, button holes slack, the soft fabric with its square white pattern, all of it waiting for a body. It would take any body, though it knows, in its shirt way of knowing, only mine has my shape in its wrinkles, my bend in the elbows. Outside this room birds hunt for food, young leaves drink in morning sunlight, people pass on their way to breakfast. Yet here, in this closet, the blue shirt needs nothing, expects nothing, knows only its shirt knowledge, that I am now learning—how to be private and patient, how to be unbuttoned, how to carry the scent of what has worn me, and to know myself by the wrinkles.

a woman unlike myself is running down the long hall of a lifeless house with too many windows which open on a world she has no language for, running and running until she reaches at last the one and only door which she pulls open to find each wall is faced with clocks and as she watches all of the clocks strike NO

A vine drapes the fence in its cool enthusiasm, stemmed cascade. My skin has collapsed in flounces, in anticipation. • Look how I change the subject without changing, I appear to say — which seems like nothing but is practice for the bigger change to come. • My mind is just like the stance and disposition of these trees — dense, sparse, conical, lopsided, frilly (as was the mind of the tenant before me

The shell of objects inwardly consumed Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes; Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things, Nature, such love to hold the form she makes. Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom, Yet crumble at the breath of a caress; The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough, Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness. For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed; Here were the flowers, the music, as of old, Almost the very olden time it seemed. For one with cheek unfaded, (though he brings My buried brothers to me, in his look,) Said, Will you dance?' At the accustomed words I gave my hand, the old position took. Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow, While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh, And in its young pride said, Lie lightly thou!' Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high My breast against the golden waves of sound, I rode the madd'ning tumult of the dance, Mocking fatigue, that never could be found. Chide not,—it was not vanity, nor sense, (The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,) But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength To the harmonious limits of her right. She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours, To winds that sweep, to stars that noiseless turn; She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn. And sure, that prodigal o'erflow of life, Unvow'd as yet to family or state, Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals Make holy, in the pageant of our fate. Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more— For, as I moved to join the dizzy race, My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone, And others showed them, smiling, in my face. Faintly I met the shock of circling forms Linked each to other, Fashion's galley-slaves, Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves. For graves were 'neath my feet, whose placid masks Smiled out upon my folly mournfully, While all the host of the departed said, Tread lightly—thou art ashes, even as we.'

I am      Invested in by a      Huge Fund Heavy                    highquality furniture Sense of heavy Addiction glossy pleasance I was lying  Down on a yoga mat My bones basketing air     Barely draped in skin the basket             Effulged by local Air      Highquality        scented humid air to support          My orchid        Skin Suffuged in this Air expense I nearly floated  Who was my  Body I am comfortable I am comfortable     Flying my spirit On a long leash She is            in the wind I am in the     belle belle jar shellacked and        brittle begins to      ding How can I      From inside this comfort Represent      Hope to No no I am                 Too tempted To think I            Deserve it Rigidly and with effort know my privilege I know my fluorescent doorway A rectangle   Among the ceiling tiles Ordinary flecked coated  1) foam rectangles and one hard white light regularly rubbled 2) glass rectangle these are my choices the ceiling tile                      I would tear in                         behind the Ugly lattice to the   Duct area Unscrew the grille    Smallen myself Into the dark cold  Square pipe To share  My cold  What is in My basket    Bone-basket With the other      breathers/Workers Or through the fluorescent door Means giving up   On going   behind the lattice. All that’s allowed   Through the flow light Is what   Is shined upon The light bends looking at my   Skin and hair   and   green blouse When I concentrate  The light bending All at once         Hooks my outsides Hooks them into itself Now I am absent that I am not / shined upon very small        dusty lizardlike   a  toad    a  turd on a tabletop     corner And the outside of that is hooked away wow my parents hooked away           People on the street   skin and clothing hung on hangers from    electric wires blooming and twisting    swells of breeze leave behind             on the street a fair       weather an easy            weather walk-through I think I’m better    than the walk-throughs because something is left of me that’s what I     think I must be wrong to     think so Would you like to    Eat at my house Fill up your              Walk-through You drive through               Fill it up with tea and sheets water from the toilet These could    be your eyebrows [crayons] these could be your knees, these coasters What could                be your inside? Paper       wadded paper It says something What about              Something sticky For your mouth             Honey Then we will read you      For dinner In my  transitional housing    [dirt ball toad] I picked myself apart   With a fork Connected a wire      Where my belly was Coiled up   the plug The prongs poke hurt This is the part        Light plugs into           My/The outside plugs into             To light up The    shine    is    from    unshiny sewn in place with the little Light hooks     Made a case for me Visible so I retaliated Against the hooks I was    trying       My lizard turd was trying    to    join the other Mud my thrashing         harnessed motored made the light Meanwhile       My toad absorbed pollution from the walkthroughs       High empty thoughts      Funneled   backchannel Won’t you be mine [mind]         Be my thought softening                   the rockmud I will reorient  now          I will claymation That is a scary    Gingerbready mud man walking          You can’t catch me       hole for Your thoughts tunneled invisible     Unreflecting unrepresenter Not wrapped The Sun is here    Also   later and at the same time   the sun burned up and we revolved around it dirt rock warm   dirt rock in the dark                     of coursing around the dark I have made myself the center of the galaxy I am very important to myself must lose this visibility The shine is off perspect while kicking Where do you      think they get the lights from? Burn it up, burn up all the fuel into furious dirt Nematodes don’t need light When I am in a room with forest It is not that myself comes home to myself Selva oscura,  ya Obsecurity of self I considered long and seriously before I was bornt I stood on the street With the hookers Who were selling Disappear into a hole Into Mama but come back out. Go in, boys. Go in and stay there.

I’ve spent the last 10 years In other people’s offices Learning the alphabet of nods and eyebrows And pursed lips, straining for the purse Legs crossed in easy confidence Confident nervous gestures of assurance Approved blue suits And sudden dreamed-up lies to be delivered A net of thirty days and sixty days and ninety Insanely stretched past promise into years Next week, for certain Floated haphazardly on possibles As slight as handshakes, Firm as agreements of subjective verbs And got nowhere. This happy corner, sucking up hard-boiled eggs And polish hots The seidel sliding down the polished bar Clatter of friendly pool balls in the margin Not exactly somewhere, but a certain place. A regular’s dark hair and polished eyes Glow in the glasses lined before her face Smoking and berating the muzak “Jack, when you gonna get some country music?” “Country Charlie Pride?” Outside, it’s as bright as the important phone call I always pretend to await Setting up the lunch meeting at Stouffer’s Linen napkins and hope’s frozen green peas Set up another round of handshake laughter for the pictures “Hey sweet thing, when we gonna have that date?” The barmaid pouts a 1940s frown— It’s Arnie (reaching now to slap me on the back) A gleaming brazen polyester clown, Tuesday seems longer than the day before Since I began to organize my life around My Office I stay a little later every day. A little rain hangs fire in the clouds Next trip, I think I’ll bring the wife