Uncle Dog and Other Poems
For Diane
Uncle Dog: The Poet At 9
I did not want to be old Mr
Garbage man, but uncle dog
Who rode sitting beside him.
Uncle dog had always looked
To me to be truck-strong
Wise-eyed, a cur-like Ford
Of a dog. I did not want
To be Mr Garbage man because
All he had was cans to do.
Uncle dog sat there me-beside-him
Emptying nothing. Barely even
Looking from garbage side to side:
Like rich people in the backseats
Of chauffeur-cars, only shaggy
In an unwagging tall-scrawny way.
Uncle dog belonged any just where
He sat, but old Mr Garbage man
Had to stop at everysingle can.
I thought. I did not want to be Mr.
Everybody calls them that first.
A dog is said, Dog! Or by name.
I would rather be called Rover
Than Mr. And sit like a tough
Smart mongrel beside a garbage man.
Uncle dog always went to places
Unconcerned, without no hurry.
Independent like some leashless
Toot. Honourable among scavenger
Can-picking dogs. And with a bitch
At every other can. And meat:
His for the barking. Oh, I wanted
To be uncle dog–sharp, high fox-
Eared, cur-Ford truck-faced
With his pick of the bones.
A doing, truckman’s dog
And not a simple child-dog
Nor friend to man, but an uncle
Travelling, and to himself–
And a bitch at every second can.
For Charlie
It is after midnight. Another noon
And I’ll be back in class, teaching midnight.
All the lunched-up faces. And me, a moon
Without a tie. They leave my class looking
For death. My examples are all myself.
The fluorescent lights are ghouls, I tell them.
Never smile beneath them. They eat teeth.
And last week I brought a body into class,
And nailed it to the blackboard-with three-inch
Lengths of chalk. Standing, then, in front of it,
I managed to murder their attention.
It was like the first time I called the roll:
And the dead all came to life. My zombies.
Without attention.–I put them to death.
Yes, you were right Charlie: I’ll never stand
Before them, and let them see themselves: taught,
By me.
Turnpike
It was a hole, a levelled, paved, black, white hole,
A green hole, a blue hole, grass, sky, bill-boards, air
And we were in the hole–into the air, trees
Grass … into what were the trees, the sky, in us.
And we were in the air, the hole that went through
Itself.
All around us there was what we were
Passing through, inside, inside, inside ourselves.
And the hole was humming, clear, laned, green and paved
With black stripes. And there was nothing, the minutes,
Miles, when you thought of them, when they made you them,
The Buick, the speed, the dead skunks at the skunk-
Crossing, the deer,–I pressed down on the horn,
My hand became a fist, became a sound, a hole
At the end of my wrist, braked, and the thing was dead.
* * *
So, said Death, the deer, sitting there, between us,
With the great, white butterfly,–and we were off,
Riding through air, through trees, through grass…and we
were
In the hole, and over the hole, and the hole
Went on forever, into the trees, grass, the sky
That was there, within us, paved, black, white, a rock
A ghost, a Buick-thing, turnpike … a token.
A Letter to His Psychiatrist I
DEAR GEORGE–There was this sound. It was leaves.
It was outside the windows, outside
The house I live in, the house that is
Inside two other houses. And leaves.
It was just leaves. And the wind was leaves.
And there was the sound
… someplace in it
There was silence. Something that can kill you.
Worse than kill you. Make you into leaves.
Leaves in the leaves. Wind. Or the thing fear
Must always want, when there is nothing.
–I kept hearing it, the leaves against
Themselves. And the houses empty. Myself
And the sound. And my gun.–I went out,
Then, and shot the leaves. The trees. The wind.
I shot the wind, it was almost flesh,
It was leaves.–It fell down on the lawn,
The uncut lawn. I shot it again.
And put it in my pocket. And walked
In the trees. And shot moths. And fire-flies.
And my shadow, in the moonlight. Leaves …
* * *
And then my wife was there, George. Calling.
Talking to me. Begging. But her voice–
It was not her at all. It was sound,
The sound of death in the sound of life.
–Yet the voice, there was a voice. The leaves.
The night moths. It was her voice. Only,
As one must hear it, from the ghosts, the thing-ghosts
She felt she would become. Leaves. Of sound,
Of darkness, fire; of leaves, gnats & stones.
–A voice like the single sound of death
Rapt, nun-toned, voiceless; and without sound …
Mindless.–Incredible. Selfless. Fixed.
And she claimed she loved me. And loved me.
But as a ghost. As a thing. A thing
That must say, that must sound, all things
Alike, in the one way. And that must
Be heard as it is, by all the death
That is within one. That listens, speaks
Without surprise. And that is the ghost
That was one’s flesh. Divorced into death.
A Letter to His Psychiatrist II
I
DEAR GEORGE–It is odd about the ghosts.
They are here again. In fact, they are
Here all the time–I _choose_ to see them.
I mean I can try not to, and not
See them. But they’re _there_, and they’re real.
It’s as if they were inside the air
At night, in my bedroom. And about
The size of a man. Worse than before:
Before, at least, I’d know they were gone.
I was pretty good about it, George
When it was my father; and even
When it was God–wasn’t I? But now
It’s just something sort of blank, and there.
I’m having a dream. Then suddenly
There it is–complete. It’s eerie, George.
You wake up and there’s your dream: alive.
Not even in your head, but breathing,
The way the air breathes, when it’s alive.
Only now it’s always alive. And white
In about the space of a man–_there_.
But like I say, I choose to see it.
It’s hard. I can’t even remember
The way it was before. How was it,
Before? And why are they here again?
I don’t want to see ghosts! they mean things.
They’re an obligation–aren’t they, George?
And it’s almost one to see them. Well …
2
Not much else is new. Great grandma died;
I shook hands with people, had some gin
And slept with Blanche. My best love has come
After funerals. It’s the women–
What makes them like that, George? after death:
After someone else’s death … or theirs.
Remember Katz? he’d sleep with corpses.
He must have sensed that in them, the thing
In them perhaps that becomes a ghost.
I asked Blanche. Only then the ghost came.
Blanche wouldn’t look at it. Goddamn you!
She said.–It had been such a good lay.
She hadn’t minded before, when God
Was there–though then of course I hadn’t
Mentioned it. What sort of ghosts are they?
Dad and God I know; but not women.
What are they, George? What makes them like that?
3
I am getting better with people.
Like shaking hands at the funeral:
I did it well, with restraint, smiling
And enjoying it. Because we’re all ghosts.
I told them: great grandma’s dead, but we
Are too. Blanche saw the humour of it
All the ghosts of it; but not the death.
She laughed. And then we slept together
All afternoon–until the ghosts came.
That’s another thing; they come alone
And yet you can’t help but have the sense
Of their being plural. And always
I could go off with them. Honestly!
But I’m afraid to die, George–and die.
The House
It is good that death lives
in old houses, best
that lean or lean not,
and are the colours of itself.
One time, shape, smell, colours
and all were the tellings
and fire seemed the right
killing most fast remove;
… the house lent up itself
risen in the flames,
and smoked, offering
its billions self; dust
and the fire went through
appearing in moments
at the windows, chimney,
doors, as a joke
and finally the two
that leave any tumbling
left, and the ashes forestayed
no part of the same coming new.
What It Was
What it was, was this: the stars
Had died for the night,
and shone;
And God, God also shone,
Up, straight up, at the very
Top of the sky.
The street
Was one of the better suburbs
Of the night, and was a leaf,
Or the colour of one
in the
Moonlit dark.
She, my mother,
Went to the window; it was
As late as night could be
To her.
She looked at the wind,
Still, the wind,
… never having blown.
And in the morning, now, of sleep,
The stars, the moon & God
began
Once more, away,
into the sky.
–And she, my mother, slept …
In her window, in her sky.
And His Pregnant Wife
It was in my sleep; I was awake
and watching the alarm clock. The baby,
the belly of my wife, kicked me:
eight months to nine. It was time
to be born, to ring, to be awake.
The night had been revisions; and the clock
had been strange, being set at five
and by its numbers’ light. The belly kicked me,
again; my dream poked back
at it (with an elbow). I rubbed it, sorry
across the navel. My wife slept
behind dreams … behind her belly.
And the baby was there, for the first time
in my life.
I was sleeping again
poking damnit! with my elbow. And being bellied.
There can be no putting in, with a wife …
the immaculate belly-maker swells
in a baby’s last six weeks. A boy
should like that; he’d have me in his crib!
‘Morning dad’! carrying around her belly
like his shield. I’d turn his nose
down, into the night. And fall asleep…
The sun was ready to begin us all.
I was not yet ready to be begun:
Damn the bellying thing!
it was in the window, in my sleep-revising
both the belly and my eyes. The day!
The night had been awake to be an image,
and it had become a question:
neither of night, babies nor of the sun.
I tried to sense the navel
with my elbow. The baby would seem
to have appreciated this; he pushed to guide me
to it. It was not his–his was but his own,
and what it drew from her, within …
To hell
with sustenance! This was something
left to me, the navel
I had married. It is true of course
I have my own: but mine was done, fulfilled, closed
and sensitive to touch. It had been,
in its pressing to my wife’s, a comma.
It was time to be born, to ring.
Just then
I’d like to have been her son, her daughter:
or even some wholly wife-embodied navel.
The night had yet to be revised; -my wife
to be awakened: and the clock, to be observed
and kicked, by day.
The Kite
I still heard Auntie Blue
After she did not want to come down
Again: she was skypaper, way up
Too high to pull down. The wind
Liked her a lot, and she was lots of noise
And sky on the end of the string:
And the string jumped hard all of a sudden,
And the sky never even breathed,
But was like it always was, slow and close
Far-away blue, like poor dead Uncle Blue.
Auntie Blue was gone, and I could not
Think of her face; and the string fell down
Slowly for a long time. I was afraid to pull it
Down. Auntie Blue was in the sky,
Just like God. It was not my birthday
Anymore: and everybody knew, and dug
A hole, and put a stone on it
Next to Uncle Blue’s stone, and he died
Before I was even born; and it was too bad
It was so hard to pull her down; and flowers.
Pet Shop
The hundred-dollar cats, the sixty-
Dollar dogs; the lions, the tigers;
The six, miniature, white, snake-eating
Fish; the snakes, the monkeys (with grins like
Gelded poodles); the parakeets, owls
Flamingos, pink pigeons and the small, headless
Proprietor, silky, creeping & jewelled.
The Apteryx (I/35) of Webster’s Dictionary–and New Zealand
The inflected apteryx (or kiwi) would appear
To be a rudimentary, an essentially
Webster-bird. The apteryx (from the Greek a +
Pteryx) does not fly, and, in fact
Lacks all regard (and need) for flight.
Flat-breastboned, hen-sized and scratchy,
The apteryx stands on two, declining
And unlikely chicken-legs. It ooou’s for food
Through a long, thin reed-like beak:
Insects, snails, crippled fleas and berries.
The nostrils of the apteryx
Are at the last half-inch of its beak.
And the bird–not quite extinct–survives
Under government protection. It reproduces
Slowly, and in public, burrow hiding.
If its hairs were feathers, ocellated
Aphrodisiacal, the sleepy–marginal–asterisk-eyed
Apteryx . . . could (conceivably) strut, cock
And play the peacock; however, with its one hint
Of a tail, and grayish, short shag-brown hair
The apteryx would seem content to ooou. And
Its beak alone, apt & straight, endears one
To it;–but when it curls itself, extinct
Within its sleeping back (by day)
Enwhiskering its ooou, the apteryx returns
Upon the government and Webster of it all.
Emu: A Lecture For Voices; For Stereo
Three-toed, one-headed, its wings the size
Of chicken-feet–and largest (next to
The ostrich) of all existing birds…
The emu stands, colossal, ratite
Six feet high
its god enplumaged, dark
Hidden in the dismal, drooping, soft
Brown hair.
Its hips, hump, its bulge, perhaps
Of flightlessness, or sky–appears as speed;
The stunted cause, the be feathered, round
Sloping, still embodiment of speed.
The emu runs, swoop-skims, a two-shanked
One humped, egg-hatched camel:–the bird most
Like a camel.
Avoiding deserts
However, the emu inhabits
Open fields, and forests–where, keeping
In small companies, it feeds on fruit
(Of the emu tree), herbage & roots . . .
Now and then booming, with subsequent,
And peculiarly hurried efforts,
At breeding.
Extinct, in Tasmania
On Kangaroo, King & Wing Islands,
The bird is found, and in small numbers,
In South-Eastern Australia.
IT BREEDS.
Its nest, as if it had been rolled in
And humped (in reverse), is a shallow
Sandy, green-egg filled pit–the eggs of which, all
Nine (to thirteen), are incubated
By the cock, an earnest, familial
Type of ostrich.
The young, at birth, bear thin
Length-striped down–are wattleless, and walk;
Cursëd, crane-necked, blank, dull adult-eyed
Baby, camel, ostrich-ducks … in file
Swift, point-beaked,
mothered, three-toed, one-headed
–an image, but for the stripes (and down),
Of itself, in age.
Its booming note, god
And size, are at rest in it, in its
Conspicuous state of egglessness.
It screams, booms, bounds
…BECOMES IMMENSE, FLIES
Extinct, shaggy, stripeless (in age)
FLOATS
Its head in the camel clouds, the hump
The bulge, the sandlessness that is God.
Dodo
The dodo is two feet high, and laughs.
A parrot, swan-sized, pig-, scale-legged
Bird. Neither parrot, nor pig–nor swan.
Its beak is the beak of a parrot,
A bare-cheeked, wholly beaked and speechless
Parrot. A bird incapable of
Anything–but laughter. And silence:
A silence that is laughter–and fact,
And a denial of fact (and bird).
It is a sort of turkey, only
Not a turkey; not anything.–Not
Able to sing, not able to dance
Not able to fly, not able to …
Cook.–The Dutch called it the ‘nauseous bird’,
Walguögel, ‘the uncookable.’
Its existence (extinct as it is)
Is from the Portuguese: Doudo, ‘dumb’,
‘Stupid’, ‘silly’. And the story of its
Having been eaten, in the genus
Of the solitaire (on Rodrigues
Island) by hogs, certain sailors & monkeys:–
Didus ineptus.–A bird that aided
Its own digestion, of seeds & leaves,
By swallowing large stones. It has been called,
Though with birds (extinct or otherwise)
Crosses are a lie, a cross between
A turkey and a pigeon. The first,
It is claimed, won out; and, having won,
Took flight from flight (its wings but tails, gray
Yellow tufted white). And for reasons
As yet unknown.
Its beak is laughter
And shines, in indifference–and size.
It has the meaning, for some, of wings:
Wings that have become a face: embodied
In a beak… and half the dodo’s head…
It laughs–silence, its mind, extends from its ears:
Its laugh, from wings, like wrists, to bill, to ears.
The Very Air He Breathes
(ADVERTISEMENT)
She lies upon a tawny mat
of effluence–and leopard spots.
And he (‘he’s hers
and she knows it!’)
Can but barely be seen … crouched
and to the left of her.
One ear, an eyebrow and a bit of cheek
are all that show of him.
The caption (again) suggests that it is fun
(‘fabulous fun’) being female
At a time like this! And, indeed,
it looks like fun.
Her eyes are huge and subtly closed
as leopard spots; and her lips are spread.
She is, in fact, a deodored leopardess
about to take the male.
But again, the caption: You are the very air
he breathes (the male is hard upon her).
She appears to be undisturbed by this;
and with both shaved armpits bared, she arches
For him. One is inclined to think of her
as being altogether without fear; she smiles,
And takes the male. Neither deodorant,
nor effluence, could do more.
She smiles,
and she lies there, the very air
he breathed.
Flesh, Filter, Paper
Portrayed here is a special flesh,
And a special brand
Of cigarette. The luxurious white paper has,
In fact, a sister in the woman. Her neck
And arms are long, costly and white.
Their skin supplants, for one’s eyes–
For the moment of regard–her soft bones
And mild, smoking veins.
The filter-mouthpiece has, as well, its equal
In the woman. She is recessed
Into a customed world. Smoked fugues
Drift across the background; and only the flavour,
Classic in taste, may ever touch your lips, or eyes.
She is herself a flavour. And lit, both she
And her world recede, trailing a taste
And only the finest smoke. ‘Yorker & Hedges.’
One must not follow–one may only gape
And buy, and puff. The taste, however,
Still lingers after; and the aura
Of a restrained, and barely burning world.
Can such a Yorkness ever be attained by one?
This is not the question here; but rather,
This woman, in a tobacco context: one involving
Flesh, ashlessness and a filtered bit of fire.
Nine-and-a-half Times
They had killed Momma’s brother Johnny
Nine-and-a-half times, in the war. There
Wasn’t hardly anything left, when
He got home: of Johnny, or of Momma.
I mean he came home without his arms,
Without his ears, without his brains, or
Hair; without his loving everyone,
and women
That made Momma mad. He didn’t like
Love no more, or Momma, and he had
Been married in between all the times
He was killed. Nine-and-a-half times!
And Momma had cried and cried and said
It was like his being killed. The Army,
And President Roosevelt, General
Eisenhower. . . .
They were all sorry,
And Momma ate the letters, and the envelopes;
The telegrams, and then Johnny; the Purple
Heart, the White Heart, the gold
Star, Daddy & all of Johnny’s wives.
And Momma was all that there was left.
Hello Poem
Hello wife, hello world, hello God,
I love you; hello certain monsters,
Ghosts, office buildings, I love you. Dog,
Dog-dogs, cat, cat-cats, I love you.
Hello Things-in-Themselves, Things Not Quite
In Themselves (but trying), I love you.
River-rivers, flower-flowers, clouds
And sky;
the Trolley Museum in Maine,
(With real trolleys); airplanes taking
Off; airplanes not taking off; airplanes
Landing,
I love you.
The IRT,
BMT; the London subway
(Yes, yes, pedants, the Underground)
System; the Moscow subway system,
All subway systems except the
Chicago subway system. Ah, yes,
I love you, the Chicago El-
Evated. Sexual intercourse,
Hello, hello.
Love, I love you; Death,
I love you;
and some other things, as well,
I love you. Like what? Walt Whitman
Wagner, Henry Miller;
a really
Extraordinary, one-legged
Tijuana whore; I love you, loved
You.
The Reader’s Digest (their splendid,
Monthly vocabulary tests), Life
And Look …
handball, volleyball, tennis;
Croquet, basketball, football, Sixty-
Nine;
draft beer for a nickel; Women
Who will lend you money, Women
Who will not;
Women, pregnant women;
Women who I am making pregnant;
Women who I am not making pregnant.
Women. Trees, gold fish, silverfish,
Coral fish, coral;
I love you, I
Love you.
Dedication
It is a jét-delight
for me, today
to stand
flown to you, friends
over the body
of this…
a wellknown soldier.
Firing a volley (FIRE!)
through the flag,
and into his death
we note
just how little
this boy
has passed beyond us.
The body spurts, black
against the flag; and all
peer down
into its hoIes. Notice
how little blood he sheds:
this is one of the finer restraints
of soldierhood.
It is for us to stand
and to applaud
over this well-(FIRE!!)
volleyed corpse,
–and now, plunging
our tongues
into the flag, let us delight
in his presence here today.
This Is A Church
This is a church, and it is a church.
The Lord’s house, God’s house. His.
I worship
Here, in this church.
In this God’s church.
I pray. More than this however,
more
Than this, I look. Not, not at the God,
The God I pray to; no, the church,
The church I pray in.
I squeeze my eyes
Into a juice to feel with. And smear
The walls. I run my hands
all across
The God-cross windows (stained yellow,
blue . . .)
I pray. I pray now to see the church,
To see it all, & with all my face.
I see the church. With my eyes. My eyes
Back now in my head.
I see the church.
I see the church in my head. It is moist.
It is moist and oozes eyes. My eyes.
I look at it. It will not stand still.
The steeple sways. A bell tolls softly
In the distance. This, this
church¹s
Bell.
I blow my nose, hard, and listen,
Hard.
Then God falls down on me, on my
Head, on my eyes–
and I burst
who? what?
Out of my eyes…
into God. Into God.
The Immortals, In Question
What will the gods do? There is
No place to hide. And how are
We to bear them?–after all
The photographs are taken,
All the images re-cast,
(Into rather more useful forms)
The ancient saints, priests, choir
Boys (and girls) destroyed (organs,
The formerly holy stars,
The musical spheres …)
Who will care for them, cleanse them,
Feed them?
What will the gods do?
Lullaby
Rockabye dust
in the mourning cradle,
rockabye soul
in the lowered box,
rockabye stone
on them all, and flowers;
rockabye, rockabye, rock!
Beach Scenes –and Other Scenes
I
A Negative
The sand seems clouds, and the ship’s sail, _her_
There against an empty sky. The blue
That it is not, is me; and the sea
That is not there, and the sun … are me.
And she is here, beside me; and we
Lie in one another’s arms upon
The couch;–and I am all about her.
A Photo
It is a perfectly ordinary day.
The sun, unseen, is obviously shining.
Things are dark; things are light; and there are people.
There are people in the water. Though one must
Try to imagine the water.–A beach, a day,
A sail, the sun.
–We are nowhere to be seen.
It is evening, it is raining. Lightning.
“The day, the sun …”
We strip then, and sleep;
Sleep, and swim inside one another.
II
Taking a Photo-Midnight
And I lie there, watching her
Through it, like some sick Adam
with a Kodak–afraid,
Wanting to be alone, dead,
Wanting to make a stranger
Of Eve. I scratch myself, and keep
On watching her. And it is
Like a photograph. It is
But it does not
Occur to me to take–or
To throw away the Kodak.
I hold it there between us,
Laugh, & try to recognize her.
Bitch! She’s turned the other way;
She isn’t looking at me!
Smiles without looking at me.
If I loved her,
It wouldn’t be so bad.
Or if she didn’t think I did.
I close my eyes on her,
And love her, click the shutter.
–I take her photograph …
I take six. ŒIt is a kind
Of love,¹ I say. ŒIt doesn’t
Move me, not one bit,¹ she says.
ŒYou’re invisible,¹ she says.
ŒThe invisible lover.
–But I love you anyway.
And your mind,–I mean, like I
Love life. And, at the same time,
Hate it. The way it stands there,
Or seems to stand there, like you:
With a Kodak for a hard-on.
(Not personal at all, ever
But changing, always changing
And somehow invisible.
“… no more intimate than death.²)
I don’t know. Maybe it’s me.¹
III
She Takes A Photo
‘Let me of you …’ she says. And I scratch.
‘Where do the dead go, when the dead die?’
‘They go into photographs. Albums.
Only they go without their Kodaks.’
She snaps me.
‘What are you thinking!’ she says.
‘Of albums. Of photographs. Kodaks.’
She snaps me, and then lies down, and cries.
I lie down beside her. And cry.
She kisses me. And she stands, naked
And takes one more of me. And cries.
I stand, and take one more of her.– ‘Yes!’
She screams, she feels it happening, ‘Yes!’
‘No!’ I say, ‘I’m afraid. Please! not yet …
‘Besides, you know how much I hate you.’
–She rolls the negative around me,
Like a Trojan. And draws me to her.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘Oh.’–But nothing happens.
IV
The Moon-On the Beach with a ‘Flash’
The moon.–It is taking my photo.
From the back of my head. Through my head.
–Of her; of my face; of the sea . . .
Of her in my face,–of her, nothing.
BITCH! I click the shutter sixty times.
My ‘flash’ makes a moon of her. She screams!
She is in my face, in my eyes …
And I throw the camera at her.
It goes right through her head. Out across
The sea. Into the sky. And the face
Of the moon.–It is just waiting there,
(With its own, its huge, fast Rolloflex!),
Small, dead. Just enough of it to be
A moon.–Neither more, nor less. Nor moon.
–For an instant, the moon seems her.
I aim my ‘flash’ at it, illuminate,
Without my Kodak, and I have it!
V
Morning-a Kind Of Album
And she is nothing. She puts on sand…
She looks like clouds.
Stands, and is a sail.
There against an empty sky.
I stand,
And am not there at all.
Nothing…
Nothing of myself, of her, of love.
Though, in death, I am all about her.
(It is like life, only easy. Still.)
And, at last then, I am God.
‘Sea, the sky …’
–She is here beside me.
I love her.
A Walk In The Scenery
It is there. And we are there. In it.
Walking in it, talking, holding hands.
The nickel post-card,–the glossy trees;
The water falls, the unsuspecting
Deer.–A scene shot from a car window:
A slowly moving car, with many
Windows, and a good camera.
And we are walking in it. We tell
Ourselves, quietly, perhaps screaming,
… Quietly, We are walking in it.
And our voices sound, somehow, as if
We were behind windows, or within.
–We embrace, and are in love.–The deer,
That we are watching, at the same time
(Through cameras, binoculars, eyes …)
Are so perfectly wild, and concerned
–With the scene they are, their glossy fate
Silence, Nature, their rotogravure pose–
That they remain, not watching; rather,
Staring away from us, into the
Earnest, green & inoffensive trees.
There Is No Reason Why Not To Look At Death
There is no reason why not to look at death.
A good poem also, is also death-contained.
I once pulled out all the business feathers
Of a crow; he became better, godcomplete, black.
Nothing makes barely looking haste to put away
The dead: except the ‘dead’ involved: in business.
The earth, the seasons, the poets before they become
Poets, make no haste to put away the dead. Nor God
The Lord giveth, and He taketh away–by and large
Slowly. And without haste. Crow-bombs are here
Not my concern, not ordinary bombs. But plain decay
(The proper autumnal process subsequent to life).
Emphasis need not be placed upon the soul. My point
Involves the leaf (as an example), and the unplumaged
Crow. Nor is my point one with flesh, and no blood …
But one of death. I am fond of death–and/or
The self-contained. This poem may not be said to be
About souls. But of things. Feathers and leaves.
Leafless trees and the featherless bodies of crows.
Finally, let us say, I have been asked to write simply.
Snow
The snow began to fall and, pleased
With its falling, and the thick
Light effect of itself, blackwhite
Against the summer, frozen
Town, it gathered in momentum
Independent of the wind
And let itself tumble, with a
Quick, sensual uncontrol. . .
Like some unmiraculous white
Of a woman, stripped & gathered
Into the lightest freezings
Of herself:
–pleased by her being
And the thick of herself, as such,
Upon the dead spread of streets, steeples
And the noon hour of the night.