And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
You can’ t say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you
Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange
Of you, you who have so many lovers,
People who look up to you and are willing
To do things for you, but you think
It’ s not right, that if they really knew you...
So much for self-analysis. Now,
And, the last day being come, Man stood alone
Ere sunrise on the world’ s dismantled verge,
Awaiting how from everywhere should urge
The Coming of the Lord. And, behold, none
Did come, — but indistinct from every realm
Of earth and air and water, growing more
And louder, shriller, heavier, a roar
Up the dun atmosphere did overwhelm
His ears; and as he looked affrighted round
Every manner of beast innumerable
All thro’ the shadows crying grew, until
The wailing was like grass upon the ground.
Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college
one winter, hauling a load of Herefords
from Hogtown to Guymon with a pint of
Ezra Brooks and a copy of Rilke’ s Duineser
Elegien on the seat beside him, saw the ass-end
of his semi gliding around in the side mirror
as he hit ice and knew he would never live
to see graduation or the castle at Duino.
From those few famous silkworms smuggled
Into Constantinople in the head of a walking stick
Silk waterfalls
Poured from the ancient bolts
Into now-destitute reservoirs
Of church treasuries in Aachen,
In Liège, in Maastricht, in Sens,
In the Sancta Sanctorum of the Vatican,
I
When in a farmhouse kitchen that smelled
of old rinds and wet cigarette butts
I hoisted the shotgun to my shoulder
and aimed but did not fire it at the man
who had just taken my virginity like a snack,
with my collusion, but still —
Whenever I touch the cairn
marking the summit
of one of my parents,
touch the top stone,
an animal caution comes over me,
sinew and muscle like the brook’ s,
a sudden shivering
green-brown flame.
Soon they will be constellations,
and I a small tower of stones.
The mower flipped it belly up,
a baby garter less than a foot long,
dull green with a single sharp
stripe of pale manila down its back,
same color as the underside
which was cut in two places,
a loop of intestine poking out.
It wouldn't live,
so I ran the blades over it again,
and cut it again but didn’ t kill it,
and again and then again,
a cloud of two-cycle fuel smoke
on me like a swarm of bees.
It took so long
my mind had time to spiral
back to the graveyard
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
From a newspaper photo and article about my godfather, James Moreno, East Los Angeles, 1950.
(Three police officers took a brutal beating in a wild free-for-all with a
family, including three young girls.
From left, James, 19, and Alex, 22, in jail after the fracas
on the porch of their home at 3307 Hunter.)
