Brailed up from birth, these obdurate, obituary corners
of second life the hospital light ravened solstice
blessed with a caesarean and now we have a republic,
the bread under arm, water-bearer of the sea: Cetus, Christ.
After the blackbird I put on my herringbone jacket,
the feather hummed gargoyles bearing down buildings,
rain scowled down, Vallejo and Vallejo as I hurried
up Eager Street; Thursday, I remember the white stone
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown’ d from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flow’ rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If she inspire, and he approve my lays.
The scent of pig is faint tonight
as the lime trees hang their heads against gradations of blue,
looking at the lone suitcase in the middle of the farmyard
with a sense of solidarity. Also forgotten.
Its owner never once looked up at them and exclaimed
I was still soft-fingered when I planted you.
In the plane, her gaze rests on a flock of cloud-birds,
pinkish purple with elongated necks, rests
on the plane’ s wing-tip colored pink by the sun.
Her head is heavy with this childhood cargo,
In the aftermath of calculus
your toast fell butter-side down.
Squirrels swarmed the lawns
in flight patterns. The hovercraft
helped the waves along. From
every corner there was perspective.
On the billboards the diamonds
were real, in the stores, only zirconia.
I cc’ ed you. I let you know.
Sat down to write the Black Ice Memo.
Dinner would be meager &
reminiscent of next week’ s lunch.
So what if I sat on the sectional?
As always I was beside myself.
And if all those who meet or even
hear of you become witness to what you are —
a white country of blight beneath the last snows of
spring. Could we remain quiet on earth
and bear it, the war we make inside
what is — it’ s a long time to be here, to be still,
to feel the rot inside now — bone-scrap, char, sheets of stars
at the edge of a field where we are once again
taken from ourselves. Could we remain here,
witness to grief, one last bright dire call-and-reply,
In an air-conditioned trailer, three geeks
barely beyond boyhood fist-bump and high-five
at a job well done. With the click of a key a dozen
soundless screens flutter. Now in the shallow
of a cave near the Khyber Pass, a stack of glow sticks
activated in the blast steeps the darkness green:
two cans of pineapple; a mangled can of beets
bleeding juice; some boy streaked black, his burns
wrapped in torn canvas tent flaps. He must hear the
cyborg beetle’ s brains buzz like a circuit- bent keyboard
My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).
Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).
I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.
(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy agony of Bloody Sweat?)
My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).
Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.
Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate,
And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.
The words of ancient time I thus translate,
A festal strain that hath been silent long:
