The Condemned

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1. Mad Blake Blake saw a treeful of angels at Peckham Rye, And his hands could lay hold on the tiger’s terrible heart. Blake knew how deep is Hell, and Heaven how high, And could build the universe from one tiny part. Blake heard the asides of God, as with furrowed brow He sifts the star-streams between the […]...
2. In Response To A Rumor That The Oldest Whorehouse In Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned I will grieve alone, As I strolled alone, years ago, down along The Ohio shore. I hid in the hobo jungle weeds Upstream from the sewer main, Pondering, gazing. I saw, down river, At Twenty-third and Water Streets By the vinegar works, The doors open in early evening. Swinging their purses, the women Poured down […]...
3. Blake’s Sunflower 1 Why did Blake say ‘Sunflower weary of time’? Every time I see them They seem to say Now! with a crash Of cymbals! Very pleased And positive And absolutely delighting In their own round brightness. 2 Sorry, Blake! Now I see what you mean. Storms and frost have battered Their bright delight And though […]...
4. Inversnaid This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home. A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. Degged with dew, dappled […]...
5. When Klopstock England Defied When Klopstock England defied, Uprose William Blake in his pride; For old Nobodaddy aloft . . . and belch’d and cough’d; Then swore a great oath that made Heaven quake, And call’d aloud to English Blake. Blake was giving his body ease, At Lambeth beneath the poplar trees. From his seat then started he And […]...
6. Badger When midnight comes a host of dogs and men Go out and track the badger to his den, And put a sack within the hole, and lie Till the old grunting badger passes by. He comes an hears – they let the strongest loose. The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose. The […]...
7. Old Man Old Man, or Lads-Love, – in the name there’s nothing To one that knows not Lads-Love, or Old Man, The hoar green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings […]...
8. Psalm IV Now I’ll record my secret vision, impossible sight of the face of God: It was no dream, I lay broad waking on a fabulous couch in Harlem Having masturbated for no love, and read half naked an open book of Blake on my lap Lo & behold! I was thoughtless and turned a page and […]...
9. Admired Strange how deep under her skin he is. She only knows him through his distant admiration Across darkened dance-floors and concert halls. His desire waterfalls down her spine, Unnerves her, his heart’s poetry Troubles her through his hungry eyes. She finds herself looking out for him, Wonders how much she likes to be admired, How […]...
10. An Old Story Strange that I did not know him then. That friend of mine! I did not even show him then One friendly sign; But cursed him for the ways he had To make me see My envy of the praise he had For praising me. I would have rid the earth of him Once, in my […]...
11. Face Stolen From a Bird Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. I don’t know who you’re hiding Behind your mask, Your face stolen from a bird, Imprisoned by red ashes. I will love you the way one dies. I will keep you For years to come, You will be so tame, So unbelievable, My strange animal, With your […]...
12. Two Kinds of Deliverance 1 Last night the geese came back, Slanting fast From the blossom of the rising moon down To the black pond. A muskrat Swimming in the twilight saw them and hurried To the secret lodges to tell everyone Spring had come. And so it had. By morning when I went out The last of the […]...
13. Senex Oh would I could subdue the flesh Which sadly troubles me! And then perhaps could view the flesh As though I never knew the flesh And merry misery. To see the golden hiking girl With wind about her hair, The tennis-playing, biking girl, The wholly-to-my-liking girl, To see and not to care. At sundown on […]...
14. A Ring Presented to Julia Julia, I bring To thee this Ring. Made for thy finger fit; To shew by this, That our love is (Or sho’d be) like to it. Close though it be, The joynt is free: So when Love’s yoke is on, It must not gall, Or fret at all With hard oppression. But it must play […]...
15. My Father’s Hats Sunday mornings I would reach High into his dark closet while standing on a chair and tiptoeing reach Higher, touching, sometimes fumbling the soft crowns and imagine I was in a forest, wind hymning through pines, where the musky scent Of rain clinging to damp earth was his scent I loved, lingering on Bands, leather, […]...
16. Three Faces I. VENTIMIGLIA The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank: Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free, A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank The sky and sea. One dead flat sapphire, void of wrath or glee, Through bay on bay shone blind from bank to […]...
17. Marriage Bells Music and silver chimes and sunlit air, Freighted with the scent of honeyed orange-flower; Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere. She, rapt from all in this unearthly hour, With cloudlike, cast-back veil and faint-flushed cheek, In bridal beauty moves as in a trance Alone with him, and fears to breathe, to speak, Lest the rare, subtle […]...
18. A Nativity What woman hugs her infant there? Another star has shot an ear. What made the drapery glisten so? Not a man but Delacroix. What made the ceiling waterproof? Landor’s tarpaulin on the roof What brushes fly and moth aside? Irving and his plume of pride. What hurries out the knaye and dolt? Talma and his […]...
19. A Lady red amid the Hill A Lady red amid the Hill Her annual secret keeps! A Lady white, within the Field In placid Lily sleeps! The tidy Breezes, with their Brooms Sweep vale and hill and tree! Prithee, My pretty Housewives! Who may expected be? The Neighbors do not yet suspect! The Woods exchange a smile! Orchard, and Buttercup, and […]...
20. On The Grasshopper And Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s-he takes the lead In summer luxury,-he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with […]...
21. Death And Birth Death and birth should dwell not near together: Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth: Fate doth ill to link in one brief tether Death and birth. Harsh the yoke that binds them, strange the girth Seems that girds them each with each: yet whether Death be best, who knows, or life on […]...
22. Hymn 127 Christ’s invitation to sinners, or, Humility and pride. Mt. 11:28-30. “Come hither, all ye weary souls, Ye heavy-laden sinners, come; I’ll give you rest from all your toils, And raise you to my heav’nly home. “They shall find rest that learn of me; I’m of a meek and lowly mind; But passion rages like the […]...
23. Epistemology I. Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones: But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones. II. We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, ‘You are not true.’...
24. A Confession To A Friend In Trouble Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles with listlessness Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: That I will not show zeal again to […]...
25. To A Young Beauty Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill? Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest Soon topples down the hill. You may, that mirror for a school, Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in […]...
26. A Man Young And Old: IV. The Death Of The Hare I have pointed out the yelling pack, The hare leap to the wood, And when I pass a compliment Rejoice as lover should At the drooping of an eye, At the mantling of the blood. Then suddenly my heart is wrung By her distracted air And I remember wildness lost And after, swept from there, […]...
27. Cantico del Sole The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep, The thought of what America, The thought of what America, The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep. Nunc dimittis, now lettest thou thy servant, Now lettest […]...
28. The Legacy When in death I shall calmly recline, O bear my heart to my mistress dear, Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine Of the brightest hue, while it linger’d here. Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow To sully a heart so brilliant and light; But balmy drops of the red grape borrow, […]...
29. Georgic on Memory Make your daily monument the Ego, Use a masochist’s epistemology Of shame and dog-eared certainty That others less exacting might forgo. If memory’s an elephant, then feed The animal. Resist revision: the stand Of feral raspberry, contraband Fruit the crows stole, ferrying seed For miles… No. It was a broken hedge, Not beautiful, sunlight tacking […]...
30. Absence My cup is empty to-night, Cold and dry are its sides, Chilled by the wind from the open window. Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight. The room is filled with the strange scent Of wistaria blossoms. They sway in the moon’s radiance And tap against the wall. But the cup of my […]...
31. Johnson's Antidote Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp, Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp; Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes, Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes: Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants, And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites […]...
32. A Bunch of Roses Roses ruddy and roses white, What are the joys that my heart discloses? Sitting alone in the fading light Memories come to me here tonight With the wonderful scent of the big red roses. Memories come as the daylight fades Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes; Flicker and flutter the lights and shades, […]...
33. A Cap of Lead across the sky A Cap of Lead across the sky Was tight and surly drawn We could not find the mighty Face The Figure was withdrawn A Chill came up as from a shaft Our noon became a well A Thunder storm combines the charms Of Winter and of Hell....
34. Portrait and Reality If on the closed curtain of my sight My fancy paints thy portrait far away, I see thee still the same, by night or day; Crossing the crowded street, or moving bright ‘Mid festal throngs, or reading by the light Of shaded lamp some friendly poet’s lay, Or shepherding the children at their play, The […]...
35. Dream Song 19: Here, whence Here, whence All have departed orwill do, here airless, where That witchy ball Wanted, fought toward, dreamed of, all a green living Drops limply into one’s hands Without pleasure or interest Figurez-vous, a time swarms when the word ‘happy’ sheds its whole meaning, like to come and Like for memory too That morning arrived to […]...
36. A Song Of The Future Sail fast, sail fast, Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams; Sweep lordly o’er the drowned Past, Fly glittering through the sun’s strange beams; Sail fast, sail fast. Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea With news about the Future scent the sea: My brain is beating like the heart of Haste: […]...
37. Jasmines Your scent is in the room. Swiftly it overwhelms and conquers me! Jasmines, night jasmines, perfect of perfume, Heavy with dew before the dawn of day! Your face was in the mirror. I could see You smile and vanish suddenly away, Leaving behind the vestige of a tear. Sad suffering face, from parting grown so […]...
38. After School tell me one good thing You did to yourself today And tell me another That you did to others Let us check our lives With these questions, daugther For as many tomorrows We borrow (02 December, 2005)...
39. The Word There are so many things I have forgot, That once were much to me, or that were not, All lost, as is a childless woman’s child And its child’s children, in the undefiled Abyss of what can never be again. I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men That fought and lost or won […]...
40. Ianthe From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass Like little ripples down a sunny river; Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass, Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever....