Time & Brevity

‘Aber die Thronen, wo? Die Tempel, und wo die Gefäße,
Wo mit Nektar gefüllt, Göttern zu Lust der Gesang?

‘Someone’ s got it in for me’

for Jack Spicer
the fabber craftsman

I. THE FUNERAL MARCH (CHICAGO AND ORLEANS)

1

I now release from my blood the bird of   thirty she wasted
that’ s how wars crumble us

I now tell those who are exhausted from the expense
of children the secret of   happiness and happiness itself

What I adore is not horses, with their modern
domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore
is a bug that lives only one day, especially if
it’ s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or
chemical lake or cop admits to cover-up, a day
when no one thinks of anything else, least of all
that bug. I know how it feels, born as I’ ve been
into these rotting times, as into sin. Everybody’ s
busy, so distraught they forget to kill me,
and even that won’ t keep me alive. I share
my home not with horses, but with a little dog

In the hallway of life
you were a rose with no stem

and I, the janitor sweeping
away the fallen petals.

You said the world revolves
while we ourselves remain

in the darkness of the never-
ending, never-beginning never.

I say that the man who
was humiliated in the second act

and shot himself in the fifth,
stands up, smiles, bows.

The lamp asks,
is it the shadow writing this,

the pen, or their converging?
The paper asks nothing.

I always thought reality
was something you became
when you grew up.

In the square stands Fata Morgana
looking tired, shouting
Morning paper — morning paper.

We set great wreaths of brightness on the graves of the passionate
who required tribute of hot July flowers —
for you, O brittle-hearted, we bring offering
remembering how your wrists were thin and your delicate bones
not yet braced for conquering.

The sharp cries of ghost-boys are keen above the meadows,
and little girls continue graceful and wondering.
Flickering evening on the lakes recalls those young
heirs whose developing years have sunk to earth,
their strength not tested, their praise unsung.

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,
as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.

I do all things required of me to make me a citizen of sterling worth.
I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner. I arrive at the
same time on the same train to give my family a sense of order.

In a morning coat,
hands locked behind your back,
you walk gravely along the lines in your head.
These others stand with you,
squinting the city into place,
yet cannot see what you see,
what you would see
—a vision of these paths,
laid out like a star,
or like a body,
the seed vibrating within itself,
breaking into the open,
dancing up to stop at the end of the universe.
I say your vision goes as far as this,
the egg of the world,
where everything remains, and moves,

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?

BODY

Farewell! I go to sleep; but when
The day-star springs, I’ ll wake again.

SOUL

Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest
Unnumber’ d in thy dust, when all this frame
Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest
In sev’ ral parts shall want a name,
Then may his peace be with thee, and each dust
Writ in his book, who ne’ er betray’ d man’ s trust!