536 Philosophy poems

In harmony with the rule of irony— which requires that we harbor the enemy on this side of the barricade—the shell of the unborn eagle or pelican, which is made to give protection till the great beaks can harden, is the first thing to take up poison. The mineral case is soft and gibbous as the moon in a lake—an elastic, rubbery, nightmare water that won't break. Elsewhere, also, I see the mockeries of struggle, a softness over people.

Don't be misled: that sea-song you hear when the shell's at your ear? It's all in your head. That primordial tide— the slurp and salt-slosh of the brain's briny wash— is on the inside. Truth be told, the whole place, everything that the eye can take in, to the sky and beyond into space, lives inside of your skull. When you set your sad head down on Procrustes' bed, you lay down the whole universe. You recline on the pillow: the cosmos grows dim. The soft ghost in the squishy machine, which the world is, retires. Someday it will expire. Then all will go silent and dark. For the moment, however, the black- ness is just temporary. The planet you carry will shortly swing back from the far nether regions. And life will continue— but only within you. Which raises a question that comes up again and again, as to why God would make ear and eye to face outward, not in?

What is the head a. Ash What are the eyes a. The wells have fallen in and have Inhabitants What are the feet a. Thumbs left after the auction No what are the feet a. Under them the impossible road is moving Down which the broken necked mice push Balls of blood with their noses What is the tongue a. The black coat that fell off the wall With sleeves trying to say something What are the hands a. Paid No what are the hands a. Climbing back down the museum wall To their ancestors the extinct shrews that will Have left a message What is the silence a. As though it had a right to more Who are the compatriots a. They make the stars of bone

Something I learned about agape when I was young: the Iliad tells us fellow-feeling is finite in communities. Brotherly love becomes a number that has to be divided among persons—so if you’re too kind to others, that might explain your neighbor’s graft. I sometimes wonder if perception is the same; if the quantity of percepts, or our trove of eidetic things, is not limitless but rather constant: the measure, say, of a sunlit field. So if we dip like deep-sea divers to the world, we’ll have to use a purse-seine to sieve our sense impressions. We’re hoarding the image at our peril. That bluest scilla smeared by a finger writing in the grass? Endangered. Poetry’s work is not to ravish, but diminish.

I follow locusts. I think they’re loyal, but it’s a story. In morning’s bleached streets and nights of tungsten glinting, their fretted steel legs ticker the minutes. What do I know, except I need a thing to walk behind. The lot tagged The Devil, red spray paint, two concrete steps. This is where I go when the heat comes, when no one alive can tell me how to make the day move on. She lies there, the bitch, in a bed convex from her weight. Though it’s dusk, I see she is the color of dirt. Though fleas open new roads through her hair, she is asleep. I hear thunder. Some days it rumbles dry, no rain. I’m tired. The air here, it’s like breathing gasoline. I lie down, too. A razor, a latex glove turned inside out. I curl my body close to hers, my lips, nose to her spine. I close my eyes. I want the mites to leave without me, but they don’t.

White coat and purple coat a sleeve from both he sews. That white is always stained with blood, that purple by the rose. And phantom rose and blood most real compose a hybrid style; white coat and purple coat few men can reconcile. White coat and purple coat can each be worn in turn but in the white a man will freeze and in the purple burn.

Ah, fading joy, how quickly art thou past! Yet we thy ruin haste. As if the cares of human life were few, We seek out new: And follow fate, which would too fast pursue. See how on every bough the birds express In their sweet notes their happiness. They all enjoy and nothing spare; But on their mother nature lay their care. Why then should man, the lord of all below, Such troubles choose to know As none of all his subjects undergo? Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall, And with a murmuring sound Dash, dash upon the ground, To gentle slumbers call.

Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true, and fair. If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet; Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three. Poetry Out Loud Note : In the print anthology, this poem is titled simply "Song." The student may give either title during the recitation.

It is appropriate that I sing The song of the feet The weight of the body And what the body chooses to bear Fall on me I trampled the American wilderness Forged frontier trails Outran the mob in Tulsa Got caught in Philadelphia And am still unreparated I soldiered on in Korea Jungled through Vietman sweated out Desert Storm Caved my way through Afghanistan Tunneled the World Trade Center And on the worst day of my life Walked behind JFK Shouldered MLK Stood embracing Sister Betty I wiggle my toes In the sands of time Trusting the touch that controls my motion Basking in the warmth of the embrace Day’s end offers with warm salty water It is appropriate I sing The praise of the feet I am a Black woman

The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed; Grey Truth is now her painted toy; Yet still she turns her restless head: But O, sick children of the world, Of all the many changing things In dreary dancing past us whirled, To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, Words alone are certain good. Where are now the warring kings, Word be-mockers? — By the Rood Where are now the warring kings? An idle word is now their glory, By the stammering schoolboy said, Reading some entangled story: The kings of the old time are dead; The wandering earth herself may be Only a sudden flaming word, In clanging space a moment heard, Troubling the endless reverie. Then nowise worship dusty deeds, Nor seek, for this is also sooth, To hunger fiercely after truth, Lest all thy toiling only breeds New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, No learning from the starry men, Who follow with the optic glass The whirling ways of stars that pass — Seek, then, for this is also sooth, No word of theirs — the cold star-bane Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, And dead is all their human truth. Go gather by the humming sea Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell, And to its lips thy story tell, And they thy comforters will be, Rewarding in melodious guile Thy fretful words a little while, Till they shall singing fade in ruth And die a pearly brotherhood; For words alone are certain good: Sing, then, for this is also sooth. I must be gone: there is a grave Where daffodil and lily wave, And I would please the hapless faun, Buried under the sleepy ground, With mirthful songs before the dawn. His shouting days with mirth were crowned; And still I dream he treads the lawn, Walking ghostly in the dew, Pierced by my glad singing through, My songs of old earth's dreamy youth: But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! For fair are poppies on the brow: Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.