Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple
Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean
The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell
Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’ s scarves, I’ m in a fright
One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel,
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,
You sway like a crane to the tunes of tossed stones.
I am what you made to live in
from what you had: hair matted as kelp, bad schools.
Oh, you will never know me. I wave and you go
on playing in the clouds
boys clap from erasers. I am the pebble
you tossed on the chalked space and war-
danced toward, one-leg two-leg, arms treading air.
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
You have a beautiful mouth,
Luigi, the man-boy says.
The rubber raft
has floated far
from shore.
The choice
is this:
medusa sea,
a boil
of jellied lashes,
or
face
the kiss.
Oh, but it is dirty!
— this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it’ s a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Hippity hop, hippity hop,
Will the Easter Bunny stop?
Will he leave a treat behind
An Easter basket for me to find?
I'll look over here, I'll look over there,
I'll look behind things, I'll look everywhere.
I'll look until I find my treat,
And then I'll sit right down and eat.
I first saw it in the sixties,
driving a Volkswagen camper
with a fierce gay poet and a
lovely but dangerous girl with a husky voice,
we came down from Canada
on the dry east side of the ranges. Grand Coulee, Blue
Mountains, lava flow caves,
the Alvord desert — pronghorn ranges —
and the glittering obsidian-paved
dirt track toward Vya,
seldom-seen roads late September and
thick frost at dawn; then
follow a canyon and suddenly open to
silvery flats that curved over the edge
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Fire in the window! flashes in the pane!
Fire on the roof-top! blazing weather-vane!
Turn about, weather-vane! put the fire out!
The sun’s going down, sir, I haven’t a doubt.
Eastham, Massachusetts
One of the spectators is disappointed
there isn’t a guide to explain
the beaching, the scientists busy
cutting into ninety-four pilot whales
stranded on the salt grass.
No one knows why and, try as the rescue team
might, not one whale will go back to water.
So they’re injected to speed up the dying,
