There is no fear
in taking the first step
or the second
or the third
having a position
between several Popes
In fact the top
can be reached
without disaster
precocious
The code
consists in noticing
the particular shade
of the staircase
There’ s a crack in this glass so fine we can’ t see it,
and in the blue eye of the candleflame’ s needle
there’ s a dark fleck, a speck of imperfection
that could contain, like a microchip, an epic
treatise on beauty, except it’ s in the eye of the beheld.
And at the base of our glass there’ s nothing
Thinking of rain clouds that rose over the city
on the first day of the year
in the same month
I consider that I have lived daily and with
eyes open and ears to hear
these years across from St Vincent’ s Hospital
above whose roof those clouds rose
1.
Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen’ s feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for splashing
The maid thinks otherwise she knows the king
Does not grip the queen nightly in his arms there are
Others the queen does not have lovers she obeys
Nothing
substance utters or time
stills and restrains
joins design and
supple measure deftly
as thought’ s intricate polyphonic
score dovetails with the tread
sensuous things
keep in our consciousness.
Celebrate man’ s craft
and the word spoken in shapeless night, the
sharp tool paring away
waste and the forms
cut out of mystery!
It’ s spring in 1827, Beethoven
hoists his death-mask and sails off.
The grindstones are turning in Europe’ s windmills.
The wild geese are flying northwards.
Here is the north, here is Stockholm
swimming palaces and hovels.
The logs in the royal fireplace
collapse from Attention to At Ease.
Peace prevails, vaccine and potatoes,
but the city wells breathe heavily.
Privy barrels in sedan chairs like paschas
are carried by night over the North Bridge.
I
— how we’ re carpet-making
by the river
a long dream to unroll
and somehow time to pole
a boat
I designed a carpet today —
dogtooth violets
and spoke to a full hall
now that the gall
of our society’ s
corruption stains throughout
Dear Janey I am tossed
by many things
If the change would bring
better art
but if it would not?
O to be home to sail the flood
I’ m possessed
and do possess
Employer
Nothing is plumb, level, or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
the archive dance of
frank gehry crumples
to the sky its finger
and walking bridge.
the mummers disappear
my city sounds.
dance crumples to
the archive sky of fela.
the breaking public crush
a lot and pilgrimage from
greenville (to farmville) to ruleville up the road.
let me place Mrs. Hamer, who
crush like an architect outside, like
broke composition, in parchman.
lula and helena strayed
to the dock, founded the hiding
republic of the westside trucks to come
1 QUAINT MAZES
And, after all, it is to them we return.
Their triumph is to rise and be our hosts:
lords of unquiet or of quiet sojourn,
those muddy-hued and midge-tormented ghosts.
On blustery lilac-bush and terrace-urn
bedaubed with bloom Linnaean pentecosts
put their pronged light; the chilly fountains burn.
Religion of the heart, with trysts and quests
