536 Philosophy poems

Mine, said the stone, mine is the hour. I crush the scissors, such is my power. Stronger than wishes, my power, alone. Mine, said the paper, mine are the words that smother the stone with imagined birds, reams of them, flown from the mind of the shaper. Mine, said the scissors, mine all the knives gashing through paper’s ethereal lives; nothing’s so proper as tattering wishes. As stone crushes scissors, as paper snuffs stone and scissors cut paper, all end alone. So heap up your paper and scissor your wishes and uproot the stone from the top of the hill. They all end alone as you will, you will.

For there is a dram. For there is a farthing. A bushel for your thoughts. A hand for your withered heights. For I have jouled along attempting to quire and wisp. For I have sized up a mountain’s meters, come down jiffy by shake to the tune of leagues and stones. For once I was your peckish darling. For once there was the measure of what an ox could plow in a single morning. For once the fother, the reed, the palm. For one megalithic year I fixed my gaze on the smiling meniscus, against the gray wall of graduated cylinder. For once I measured ten out of ten on the scale of pain. For I knew that soon I’d kiss good-bye the bovate, the hide and hundredweight. For in each pinch of salt, a whisper of doubt, for in each medieval moment, emotion, like an unruly cough syrup bottle, uncapped. For though I dutifully swallowed my banana doses, ascended, from welcome to lanthorn, three barleycorns at a time, I could not tackle the trudging, trenchant cart. For now I am forty rods from your chain and bolt. For now I am my six-sacked self.

On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be. On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night. And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: There will be no other end of the world, There will be no other end of the world. Warsaw, 1944

It is easy to imagine Heraclitus walking stone streets witnessing life in Athens with no permanence, stopping strangers to explain about the river, being laughed at as they moved from point A to point B fearing Apollo and Hades then at dusk drinking wine, waiting for the happy obliteration alcohol brings, not realizing how lucky they were to be stupid and so deep in their bodies even the sun and moon trading places over and over meant nothing.

Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this lonely field.” And he said, “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it.” Said I, after a minute of thought, “It is true; for I too have known that joy.” Said he, “Only those who are stuffed with straw can know it.” Then I left him, not knowing whether he had complimented or belittled me. A year passed, during which the scarecrow turned philosopher. And when I passed by him again I saw two crows building a nest under his hat.

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don’t know the secret wrote the line. They told me (through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can’t find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all.

The Age of Gold cracked me up last night, asters and sparrows to be exact, that unrelenting knot in the choral fire. It’s good exercise, to get out on stage, to stand in the silvered chamber and deny emptiness, when the pocket falls so deep one could mark anything out over the top. The India ink drops continuously, its likeness, still Helen as phantom not the truth of the state of her body but being awash in a sound uprooted. The desk is still a symbol I pile things on, pin down elegies, illegible dates, introductions scrawled on slender backs of envelopes, receipts, small machine-like cloud chambers, talon disconnected. Sunlight burns my feet putting away the wet mop, where I am stopped from almost killing myself. All that wobbling of the lens nonsense, I will cling to the truth of the soundtrack tearing through the unveiling: Jeanne Moreau’s scepter coated in dust a darkness poured from the open door, crowned enameled teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex • Their portrait is crushed to the point of flowers Their lines are reaching arms out from the center Their lace is torn over the image at points a flame-like insistence flaring this all up from behind one piss-driven, lifelike icicle the diamond district through a downpour past the love-sick dungeons of Dante, a cleaving after in Sappho, what remains of a dialogue? The small, blobbed cellular enclosure slipping it into strings letting it wither • No god but the act creator eternally rested in light fears for my life dissolved in the booth largely unknown fire exit back/ of the hotel closet door satin sheets light foot thunder lover impaled/ outside of that world cutting young poets much slack and the box for the board missing: remains of the maze spit out from a star

Weary of myself, and sick of asking What I am, and what I ought to be, At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. And a look of passionate desire O'er the sea and to the stars I send: "Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me, Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! "Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, Over the lit sea's unquiet way, In the rustling night-air came the answer: "Wouldst thou be as these are?Live as they. "Unaffrighted by the silence round them, Undistracted by the sights they see, These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. "And with joy the stars perform their shining, And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll; For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting All the fever of some differing soul. "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful In what state God's other works may be, In their own tasks all their powers pouring, These attain the mighty life you see." O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: "Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, Who finds himself, loses his misery!"

To catch the spirit in its wayward flight Through mazes manifold, what task supreme! For when to floods has grown the quiet stream, Much human skill must aid its rage to fight; And when wild winds invade the solemn night, Seems not man’s vaunted power but a dream? And still more futile, ay, we e’en must deem This quest to tame the soul, and guide aright Its restless wanderings, – to lure it back To shoals of calm. Full many a moan and sigh Attend the strife; till, effort merged in prayer, Oft uttered, clung to – when of strength the lack Seems direst – brings the answer to our cry: A gift from Him who lifts our ev’ry care.