Salvage

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1. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
2. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
3. Chemin De Fer Alone on the railroad track I walked with pounding heart. The ties were too close together or maybe too far apart. The scenery was impoverished: scrub-pine and oak; beyond Its mingled gray-green foliage I saw the little pond Where the dirty old hermit lives, lie like an old tear Holding onto its injuries lucidly year […]...
4. All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
5. A Message from my Lodge at Wangchuan to Pei Di The mountains are cold and blue now And the autumn waters have run all day. By my thatch door, leaning on my staff, I listen to cicadas in the evening wind. Sunset lingers at the ferry, Supper-smoke floats up from the houses. …Oh, when shall I pledge the great Hermit again And sing a wild […]...
6. Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof Out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross Surveys the city’s blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers ‘ll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I’m taking Your picture, pigeons. I’m writing you down, Dawn. I’m immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O […]...
7. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
8. The Skyscraper Loves Night ONE by one lights of a skyscraper fling their checkering cross work on the velvet gown of night. I believe the skyscraper loves night as a woman and brings her playthings she asks for, brings her a velvet gown, And loves the white of her shoulders hidden under the dark feel of it all. The […]...
9. The Witch's Life When I was a child There was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story Window From behind the wrinkled curtains And sometimes she would open the window And yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp And a voice like […]...
10. Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect, faith-in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book-perhaps more, The youth, […]...
11. Our Daily Bread “Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. “Give me my daily toil,” I ought to say – (If from life’s cursed coil I’d […]...
12. Picture Puzzle Piece One picture puzzle piece Lyin’ on the sidewalk, One picture puzzle piece Soakin’ in the rain. It might be a button of blue On the coat of the woman Who lived in a shoe. It might be a magical bean, Or a fold in the red Velvet robe of a queen. It might be the […]...
13. The sweetest Heresy received The sweetest Heresy received That Man and Woman know Each Other’s Convert Though the Faith accommodate but Two The Churches are so frequent The Ritual so small The Grace so unavoidable To fail is Infidel...
14. Red Faces Red flags the reason for pretty flags. And ribbons. Ribbons of flags And wearing material Reason for wearing material. Give pleasure. Can you give me the regions. The regions and the land. The regions and wheels. All wheels are perfect. Enthusiasm....
15. Skin Obedient daily dress, You cannot always keep That unfakable young surface. You must learn your lines – Anger, amusement, sleep; Those few forbidding signs Of the continuous coarse Sand-laden wind, time; You must thicken, work loose Into an old bag Carrying a soiled name. Parch then; be roughened; sag; And pardon me, that I Could […]...
16. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
17. Hymn 91 Advice to youth; or, Old age and death in an unconverted state. Eccl. 12:1,7; Isa. 45:20. Now in the heat of youthful blood Remember your Creator God: Behold, the months come hast’ning on, When you shall say, “My joys are gone!” Behold, the aged sinner goes, Laden with guilt and heavy woes, Down to the […]...
18. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
19. The Hermit AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT [Dedicated to George Cecil Jones] At last an end of all I hoped and feared! Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard. Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred. I doubt me soerly if the hermit heard. To all God’s questions never a word he said, But simply shook his […]...
20. Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you! Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I ascend-I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving […]...
21. Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love FAST-ANCHOR’D, eternal, O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! -Then separate, as disembodied, or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation; I ascend-I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life....
22. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
23. Baby Vamps BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be? Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons? Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night? In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer […]...
24. Dream Song 91: Op. posth. no. 14 Noises from underground made gibber some Others collected & dug henry up Saying ‘You are a sight.’ Chilly, he muttered for a double rum Waving the mikes away, putting a stop To rumors, pushing his fright Off with the now accumulated taxes Accustomed in his way to solitude And no bills. Wives came forward, claiming […]...
25. In The Seven Woods I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile Tara uprooted, and new commonness Upon the throne and crying about the streets And hanging […]...
26. Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
27. The Survivor I am twenty-four Led to slaughter I survived. The following are empty synonyms: Man and beast Love and hate Friend and foe Darkness and light. The way of killing men and beasts is the same I’ve seen it: Truckfuls of chopped-up men Who will not be saved. Ideas are mere words: Virtue and crime Truth […]...
28. Fog Portrait RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail… and a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the […]...
29. Love and Law TRUE Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance In stones of Forbearance and mortar of pain. The workman lays wearily granite on granite, And bleeds for his castle, ‘mid sunshine and rain. Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet, Not all of it banners, not gold-leaf alone. ‘Tis stern as the ages and […]...
30. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 05: Retrospect Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops, Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass. A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing, Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant, And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass. And one old man looks down from a dusty window And sees the […]...
31. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
32. Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk. Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances. Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought […]...
33. The Hermit Thrush O wonderful! How liquid clear The molten gold of that ethereal tone, Floating and falling through the wood alone, A hermit-hymn poured out for God to hear! 0 holy, holy, holy! Hyaline, Long light, low light, glory of eventide! Love far away, far up. up, love divine! Little love, too, for ever, ever, near, Warm […]...
34. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
35. Dreams Are Best I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you. For I think that Thought is all; Truth’s a […]...
36. The Hermit Goes Up Attic Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest His frugal bones, once kept a tidy account By knifecut of some long-gone harvest. The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt The year: 1811, the score: 10, he carved Into the center rafter to represent His loves, beatings, losses, hours, or maybe The butternuts that taxed […]...
37. The Destroyers The strength of twice three thousand horse That seeks the single goal; The line that holds the rending course, The hate that swings the whole; The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom, At gaze and gone again The Brides of Death that wait the groom The Choosers of the Slain! Offshore where sea and skyline […]...
38. THE BLISS OF ABSENCE DRINK, oh youth, joy’s purest ray From thy loved one’s eyes all day, And her image paint at night! Better rule no lover knows, Yet true rapture greater grows, When far sever’d from her sight. Powers eternal, distance, time, Like the might of stars sublime, Gently rock the blood to rest, O’er my senses softness […]...
39. Smoke Smoke, it is all smoke In the throat of eternity. . . . For centuries, the air was full of witches Whistling up chimneys On their spiky brooms Cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, As they flew over rooftops Blessing & cursing their Kind. We banished & burned them Making them smoke in the […]...
40. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...