That's what misery is,
Nothing to have at heart.
It is to have or nothing.
It is a thing to have,
A lion, an ox in his breast,
To feel it breathing there.
Corazon, stout dog,
Young ox, bow-legged bear,
He tastes its blood, not spit.
He is like a man
In the body of a violent beast.
Its muscles are his own...
The lion sleeps in the sun.
Its nose is on its paws.
It can kill a man.
Poetry rejoices even if the culture dies,
over the girl with her first electric, how her high,
thin voice, amplified many times
over by the loudspeaker, is like a giant's
in the green grass of the festival site.
Over the fragile bells of digitalis, how they hide
the pistil and the pollen inside.
Rejoices over rain on the Faroe Islands,
over rendezvous on the Champs-Elysées at evening.
It rejoices over Japan, over Korea,
over arts refined over a thousand years —
the art of swordsmanship, or of drinking tea.
It had better been hidden
But the Poets inform:
We are chattel and liege
Of an undying Worm.
Were you, Will, disheartened,
When all Stratford’ s gentry
Left their Queen and took service
In his low-lying country?
How many white cities
And grey fleets on the storm
Have proud-builded, hard-battled,
For this undying Worm?
loquitur the sparrow in the Zoo
No bars are set too close, no mesh too fine
To keep me from the eagle and the lion,
Whom keepers feed that I may freely dine.
This goes to show that if you have the wit
To be small, common, cute, and live on shit,
Though the cage fret kings, you may make free with it.
September 1956
In a famous painting of a founding father
and the back end of a horse
it’ s the horse butt that’ s properly lit
groomed out smooth an immortal peach
Who can say what it means about revolution
that the horse’ s tail emerges as though it had no bones in it
no chunky mechanics of the living
And the horse is not well muscled
but has been living in the rich grass
swollen like a birthday balloon
This is what he dreams of:
a map of burned land,
a mound of dirt
in the early century’ s winter.
A map of burned land?
A country is razed
in the early century’ s winter.
And God descends.
A country is raised
because of industry.
And God descends,
messengers rush inside
because of industry,
in spite of diplomats.
Messengers rush inside
to haunt the darkened aisles.
In spite of diplomats,
the witnesses know well
to haunt the darkened aisles,
experimentally —
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.
Suki take it off again,
Suki take it off again,
Suki take it off again,
They've all gone away.
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.
Suki take it off again,
Suki take it off again,
Suki take it off again,
They've all gone away.
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
Sukey take it off again,
They've all gone away.
At this hour the soul floats weightlessly
through the city streets, speechless and invisible,
astonished by the smoky blend of grays and golds
seeping out of the air, the dark half-tones
of dusk suddenly filling the urban sky
while the body sits listlessly by the window
sullen and heavy, too exhausted to move,
too weary to stand up or to lie down.
Give me something to eat,
Good people, I pray;
I have really not had
One mouthful today!
I am hungry and cold,
And last night I dreamed
A scarecrow had caught me—
Good land, how I screamed!
Of one little children
And six ailing wives
(No, one wife and six children),
Not one of them thrives.
