872 Life poems

I flew into Denver April. Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt reflecting myself on a downtown street where I’d paused on my route to smell lilacs. The wanton winds chortled wickedly over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom and my heart soared gladly at winter’s death but an hour later I had whiskey breath at a dead end bar full of Indians. A Winnebago woman waltzed with me and told me how handsome I truly was so I bought her drinks and felt her hips and somewhere between the grinds and dips she lifted my wallet and split.

I forget the date: en route to Austin, Texas: soda on tray. Women at the computer, mexicanas learning to read and write at the same time, a workshop, we exchange stories the crossings: Hidalgo Texas Sonora Zacatecas Chihuahua—I think of my father, for a moment— I see him again, robust, alone, walks to the park, the heat dissolves the avenues. The Nomenclature cuts across the Arctic: snare the oil, gas lines, install the stations, derricks and surveillance towers, surveys, documents, classified pouches. Carry this microscopic fissure into South Asia. Diplomats—they say, so many teams of men, they orbit in silence and loud vests and helmets, they stoop with a sweetness and sift the granules, then, they rise, oblong, hunched, on fire, ready to dig into the ice, a new boundary for the national vortex, this undeclared war; the almost-uttered war, this war begins, listen. Listen closely— I hear a rap song in the distance: "I am standin' in Lebanon watchin' everbody get it on, why am I the only one singin' this desolation song...?"

I found a four-leaf clover and was happy with my find, but with time to think it over, I’ve entirely changed my mind. I concealed it in my pocket, safe inside a paper pad, soon, much swifter than a rocket, my good fortune turned to bad. I smashed my fingers in a door, I dropped a dozen eggs, I slipped and tumbled to the floor, a dog nipped both my legs, my ring slid down the bathtub drain, my pen leaked on my shirt, I barked my shin, I missed my train, I sat on my dessert. I broke my brand-new glasses, and I couldn’t find my keys, I stepped in spilled molasses, and was stung by angry bees. When the kitten ripped the curtain, and the toast burst into flame, I was absolutely certain that the clover was to blame. I buried it discreetly in the middle of a field, now my luck has changed completely, and my wounds have almost healed. If I ever find another, I will simply let it be, or I’ll give it to my brother— he deserves it more than me.

Though half my years besiege the aged sun, I have not lived. My robust preparation Lags tardily behind fit consummation, Droops sweatily in courses just begun. Oh, I have loved and lusted with the best, Plucked momentary music from the senses; I’ve kissed a lip or two with fair pretenses And wept for softness of a woman’s breast. My mind rebounds to nether joys and pain, Toying with filth and pharisaic leaven; I know the lift up sundry peaks to heaven, And every rockless path to hell again. I wait the hour when gods have more to give Than husks and bare insatiate will to live.

I live up here And a little bit to the left And I go down only For the accidents and then Never a moment too soon Just the same it's a life it's plenty The stairs the petals she loves me Every time Nothing has changed Oh down there down there Every time The glass knights lie by their gloves of blood In the pans of the scales the helmets Brim over with water It's perfectly fair The pavements are dealt out the dice Every moment arrive somewhere You can hear the hearses getting lost in lungs Their bells stalling And then silence comes with the plate and I Give what I can Feeling It's worth it For I see What my votes the mice are accomplishing And I know I'm free This is how I live Up here and simply Others do otherwise Maybe

I’m thankful that my life doth not deceive Itself with a low loftiness, half height, And think it soars when still it dip its way Beneath the clouds on noiseless pinion Like the crow or owl, but it doth know The full extent of all its trivialness, Compared with the splendid heights above. See how it waits to watch the mail come in While ’hind its back the sun goes out perchance. And yet their lumbering cart brings me no word, Not one scrawled leaf such as my neighbors get To cheer them with the slight events forsooth, Faint ups and downs of their far distant friends— And now ’tis passed. What next? See the long train Of teams wreathed in dust, their atmosphere; Shall I attend until the last is passed? Else why these ears that hear the leader’s bells Or eyes that link me in procession? But hark! the drowsy day has done its task, Far in yon hazy field where stands a barn, Unanxious hens improve the sultry hour And with contented voice now brag their deed— A new laid egg—Now let the day decline— They’ll lay another by tomorrow’s sun.

I never hear the word “Escape” Without a quicker blood, A sudden expectation – A flying attitude! I never hear of prisons broad By soldiers battered down, But I tug childish at my bars Only to fail again!

I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. “It is futile,” I said, “You can never —” “You lie,” he cried, And ran on.

I saw him walking along slowly at night holding a tray of candy and chewing-gum: a Jewish boy of fifteen or sixteen with large black eyes and a gentle face. He sidled into a saloon and must have been ordered away because he came out promptly through the swinging doors. I wondered what he was doing far from a Jewish neighborhood. (I knew the side streets and the roughs standing about on the corners and stoops.) What a prize this shambling boy with his tray! I stepped up to warn him against leaving the brightly-lit avenue. He listened, eyed me steadily, and walked on calmly. I looked at him in astonishment and thought: has nothing frightened you? Neither the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by the Crusaders? No pogrom in Russia; no Nazi death-camp in Germany? How can you still go about so calmly?

1 I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? 2 The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account, That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. The expression of the face balks account, But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face, It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him, The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more, You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side. The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards, The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water, The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle, Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances, The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting, The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard, The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd, The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work, The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance, The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes; The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps, The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert, The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting; Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child, Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count. 3 I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons, And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons. This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person, The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners, These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also, He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome, They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him, They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love, He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face, He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him, When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang, You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other. 4 I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then? I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea. There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well, All things please the soul, but these please the soul well. 5 This is the female form, A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot, It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction, I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it, Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed, Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable, Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused, Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching, Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice, Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn, Undulating into the willing and yielding day, Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day. This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman, This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again. Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest, You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul. The female contains all qualities and tempers them, She is in her place and moves with perfect balance, She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active, She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters. As I see my soul reflected in Nature, As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty, See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see. 6 The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place, He too is all qualities, he is action and power, The flush of the known universe is in him, Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well, The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him, The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul, Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself, Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here, (Where else does he strike soundings except here?) The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred, No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf? Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you, Each has his or her place in the procession. (All is a procession, The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.) Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant? Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight? Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts, For you only, and not for him and her? 7 A man’s body at auction, (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,) I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. Gentlemen look on this wonder, Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it, For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d. In this head the all-baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of heroes. Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve, They shall be stript that you may see them. Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition, Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs, And wonders within there yet. Within there runs blood, The same old blood! the same red-running blood! There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations, (Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?) This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns, In him the start of populous states and rich republics, Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?) 8 A woman’s body at auction, She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers, She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers. Have you ever loved the body of a woman? Have you ever loved the body of a man? Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth? If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred, And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face. Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body? For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves. 9 O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems, Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems, Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids, Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges, Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue, Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest, Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones, Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails, Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side, Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone, Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root, Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg, Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female, The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean, The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame, Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman, The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening, The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes, The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair, The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body, The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out, The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees, The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones, The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!