1247 Love poems

The day turned into the city and the city turned into the mind and the moving trucks trumbled along like loud worries speaking over the bicycle’s idea which wove between the more armored vehicles of expression and over planks left by the construction workers on a holiday morning when no work was being done because no matter the day, we tend towards remaking parts of it—what we said or did, or how we looked— and the buildings were like faces lining the banks of a parade obstructing and highlighting each other defining height and width for each other offsetting grace and function like Audrey Hepburn from Jesse Owens, and the hearty pigeons collaborate with wrought iron fences and become recurring choruses of memory reassembling around benches we sat in once, while seagulls wheel like immigrating thoughts, and never-leaving chickadees hop bared hedges and low trees like commas and semicolons, landing where needed, separating subjects from adjectives, stringing along the long ideas, showing how the cage has no door, and the lights changed so the tide of sound ebbed and returned like our own breath and when I knew everything was going to look the same as the mind I stopped at a lively corner where the signs themselves were like perpendicular dialects in conversation and I put both my feet on the ground took the bag from the basket so pleased it had not been crushed by the mightiness of all else that goes on and gave you the sentence inside.

o Farrah pharaoh: the feather up and off your shoulder— an absence of pressure. but the weight of the guitar and the bass, the synth and kit— the all that was all you ever wanted to do.  the disco video grain like a leopard skin or baby powder tossed at an afro. someone blowing in your face gently— maybe the 80s you were coursing. you keep changing parts— this one that, mother and sister, too. was it you wanted as easy as making something not you speak you you spoke it —you say—maybe first: if you love you get loved. the spangle in the air shine before the light shine it. the tips of your hair coming back with they own air.

My wife sits in her swivel chair ringed by skeins of multicolored yarn that will become the summer sweater she has imagined since September. Her hand rests on the spinning wheel and her foot pauses on the pedals as she gazes out into the swollen river. Light larking between wind and current will be in this sweater. So will a shade of red she saw when the sun went down. When she is at her wheel, time moves like the tune I almost recognize now that she begins to hum it, a lulling melody born from the draft of fiber, clack of spindle and bobbin, soft breath as the rhythm takes hold.

He that doth wend her, Let him lend her.

Remember me: the murmuring lips half said in half-light, buried in the hollow a boy’s neck made, as now inside his head they stir again, though twenty years swallow the purest parts of her, all but her plea, this taunt—what act from him could it command? The boy who’d know is gone—Re-member me— but what man can assemble limbs, make stand again those legs that twined in his, or hitch the yoke of hips to sway and resurrect a girl? I try, but only recollect her scar—each lewd, profaning, cautered stitch— vermiform, red, furrowed belly to breast: where nights, long past, he’d laid his head in rest.

All winter she’s been growing more powerful. Radiant, says the man at the bar. Voluptuous, says the docent. Nervy, says God. All winter her soul has been juddering. It feels like drinking gold flakes! The word sleeps inside the stone. The wind tongues the underside of the lake. Inside the rifle scope of time, God teaches her Grounding Techniques through his emissary, a Certified Therapist. Beetles bore their dirty traffic into pine trees. God says, You cling to deixis like a life raft.Here, you say.Now, you say.All winter, you say, like it means something, days crossed off your compulsive calendar, wind tied to your wrist like a pet. This dumb hunger for fixity! I made your cells to shed, says God. See them everywhere, everywhere. She bites her lip till it bleeds. Who wouldn’t immanentize the eschaton, if they could, build heaven on earth in the backyard? She wouldn’t, is who. Day a slit-throated ewe. She wears a prayer around her neck in another language, no clue what it says. Who will translate the prayer? Listen: she loved a happy libertine and thought that was heaven. To ground herself she strips berries from the juniper bushes. Well, says God, Alexander the Great dyed his hair saffron. We are all made fools in this world.

P ART O NE The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin. They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh. And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard. He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred. He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked. His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay, But he loved the landlord’s daughter, The landlord’s red-lipped daughter. Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say— “One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night, But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, Then look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.” He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand, But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast; And he kissed its waves in the moonlight, (O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!) Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west. P ART T WO He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon; And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon, When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching— Marching—marching— King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door. They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead. But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed. Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side! There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window; For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride. They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest. They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast! “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say— Look for me by moonlight; Watch for me by moonlight; I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way! She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, Cold, on the stroke of midnight, The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers! The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest. Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast. She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again; For the road lay bare in the moonlight; Blank and bare in the moonlight; And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain. Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear; Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear? Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill, The highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still. Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence!Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light. Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death. He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood! Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear How Bess, the landlord’s daughter, The landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there. Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high. Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat; When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat. .       .       . And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding— Riding—riding— A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard. He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred. He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter, Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

She cannot imagine it otherwise. She wakes in the morning and twists her ring, loves how every night in their bed he lies breathing warm in the dark and never shies away. He lets her talk, he lets her sing. She cannot imagine it otherwise. One night she’s surprised how gently he tries to move her arm when he thinks she’s sleeping. In the night, in their bed, she sees he lies watching the ceiling long before sunrise. Too much coffee, too many late nights working. She cannot imagine it otherwise. He quiets. The more she worries and pries the less he tells her about anything. She’s sure every night in their bed he lies wanting a room beyond reach of her eyes. He sighs—she cries so much,Over nothing. She cannot imagine it otherwise: Every night in their bed, he lies.

He is affection and the present since he opened the house to foaming winter and the hum of summer, he who purified drink and food, he who is the charm of fleeting places and the superhuman deliciousness of staying still. He is affection and the future, strength and love that we, standing amid rage and troubles, see passing in the storm-rent sky and on banners of ecstasy. He is love, perfect and reinvented measurement, wonderful and unforeseen reason, and eternity: machine beloved for its fatal qualities. We have all experienced the terror of his yielding and of our own: O enjoyment of our health, surge of our faculties, egoistic affection and passion for him, he who loves us for his infinite life And we remember him and he travels. . . And if the Adoration goes away, resounds, its promise resounds: “Away with those superstitions, those old bodies, those couples and those ages. It’s this age that has sunk!” He won’t go away, nor descend from a heaven again, he won’t accomplish the redemption of women’s anger and the gaiety of men and of all that sin: for it is now accomplished, with him being, and being loved. O his breaths, his heads, his racing; the terrible swiftness of the perfection of forms and of action. O fecundity of the spirit and immensity of the universe! His body! The dreamed-of release, the shattering of grace crossed with new violence! The sight, the sight of him! all the ancient kneeling and suffering lifted in his wake. His day! the abolition of all resonant and surging suffering in more intense music. His footstep! migrations more vast than ancient invasions. O him and us! pride more benevolent than wasted charities. O world! and the clear song of new misfortunes! He has known us all and loved us all. Let us, on this winter night, from cape to cape, from the tumultuous pole to the castle, from the crowd to the beach, from glance to glance, our strengths and feelings numb, learn to hail him and see him, and send him back, and under the tides and at the summit of snowy deserts, follow his seeing, his breathing, his body, his day.

I spoke in a hurry, in a nervous hush, Because the time was short— The lightning was shuddering, Slowing down, running. Or was that my blood, The quiet diminishing of daily life? It’s time for me to go forth Into Your tiny mustard seed. In the house of my Father, everything is fading, In the house of the Father, all the angels are crying, Because the anguish of a jaded, exhausted horse Sometimes finds its way even unto them. One gray day, I was alive on this earth, And amid the mist of day—in triumph— The Spirit may approach and look So that you will see Him, without seeing. And, so, celebrate the meager light, Curse not the twilight. If Christ is to visit us It will be on such pitiful days as these.