Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign
and go on, glad that his own life had to do with books.
Now at night when he saw the grey in his parents’ hair and
heard their talk of that day’ s worries and the next:
lack of orders, if orders, lack of workers, if workers, lack of
goods, if there were workers and goods, lack of orders
again,
i make signs everywhere, with sticks, stones and leaves
for those in the clouds from below the line to arrive
i don’ t have a language to speak to you with, my tongues are all fish
i know that a one is a circle, and that nothing is round,
except every corner i saw by the hearts
lined up on the spine
i know that the winter will finally be here again, and that the summer
will die and be born with its ice
The bread has become moldy
and the dates blown down by the wind;
the iron has slipped from the helve.
The wool was to by dyed red
but the dyer dyed it black.
The dead woman has forgotten her comb
and tube of eye-paint;
the dead cobbler has forgotten his knife,
the dead butcher his chopper,
and the dead carpenter his adze.
A goat can be driven off with a shout.
But where is the man to shout?
The bricks pile up, the laths are trimmed,
and the beams are ready. Where is the builder?
The challenge: to start
not with theory but with tangible performance
You and others, approaching
We shall be asked for a way out
to be fed
to keep warm and dry
Starting with experience, magic
genuine science
More than once we have been lost
in a trackless wilderness
dwarfed and shadowed by mighty buildings
subway trains wild as elephants
One goes blindly back to one’ s desk
These moments come, their dark
shadow
The giant takes us
down. A man with no arms.
Unbreakable.
What made today
is concordant,
transforms
the brief decisive phase we call fear.
I look to that whited-over part and see a face.
Then I look to the black and
see the same face.
There were tunnels… chambers
beneath some of the sidewalks… page after page of places…
The last thing you think of.
Won’ t be my fluffy blonde hair.
The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES
SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE
SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE
SOUTH
FOREVER,
GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE
FROM RED PLANET MARS
CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR
THEM
TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO
THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER
AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT
IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS
OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA
OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP
BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL,
The wild and wavy event
now chintz at the window
was revolution...
Adams
to Miss Abigail Smith:
You have faults
You hang your head down
like a bulrush
you read, you write, you think
but I drink Madeira
to you
and you cross your Leggs
while sitting.
(Later:)
How are the children?
If in danger run to the woods.
Evergreen o evergreen
how faithful are your branches.
Under the evening moon
the snail
is stripped to the waist.
