Medallion

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1. Medallion Luini in porcelain! The grand piano Utters a profane Protest with her clear soprano. The sleek head emerges From the gold-yellow frock As Anadyomene in the opening Pages of Reinach. Honey-red, closing the face-oval, A basket-work of braids which seem as if they were Spun in King Minos’ hall From metal, or intractable amber; The […]...
2. Momus Momus is the name men give your face, The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland, Where gray rocks let the salt water shatter spray Against horizons purple, silent. Yes, Momus, Men have flung your face in bronze To gaze in gargoyle downward on […]...
3. Eleventh Avenue Racket THERE is something terrible About a hurdy-gurdy, A gipsy man and woman, And a monkey in red flannel All stopping in front of a big house With a sign “For Rent” on the door And the blinds hanging loose And nobody home. I never saw this. I hope to God I never will. Whoop-de-doodle-de-doo. Hoodle-de-harr-de-hum. […]...
4. Every Silent Plant in the Garden (To: S. W.) Every silent plant in the garden knows Two sorts of wishes make up the world: One is conceived in heaven, the other in hell The earth buttoned its lip, too humble to tell With regard to intent, millionaires are all Yet about prayers, most of us ignorant children Undiscerning of whatever come […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. The Rendezvous He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates Soars. . . and then sinks again. It is not […]...
7. Trafficker Among the shadows where two streets cross, A woman lurks in the dark and waits To move on when a policeman heaves in view. Smiling a broken smile from a face Painted over haggard bones and desperate eyes, All night she offers passers-by what they will Of her beauty wasted, body faded, claims gone, And […]...
8. Two Neighbors FACES of two eternities keep looking at me. One is Omar Khayam and the red stuff Wherein men forget yesterday and to-morrow And remember only the voices and songs, The stories, newspapers and fights of today. One is Louis Cornaro and a slim trick Of slow, short meals across slow, short years, Letting Death open […]...
9. Unto Us Somewhere at some time They committed themselves to me And so, I was! Small, but I WAS! Tiny, in shape Lusting to live I hung in my pulsing cave. Soon they knew of me My mother my father. I had no say in my being I lived on trust And love Tho’ I couldn’t think […]...
10. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
11. Something Left Undone Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun. By the bedside, on the stair, At the threshhold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer, Like a medicant it waits; Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid; By […]...
12. Days Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Missis Moriarty's Boy Missis Moriarty called last week, and says she to me, says she: “Sure the heart of me’s broken entirely now it’s the fortunate woman you are; You’ve still got your Dinnis to cheer up your home, but me Patsy boy where is he? Lyin’ alone, cold as a stone, kilt in the weariful wahr. Oh, […]...
15. Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City ONCE I pass’d through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions; Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detain’d me for love of me; Day by day and night by night we were together, All else has […]...
16. The Woman in the Ordinary The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl Is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched. Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself Under ripples of conversation and debate. The woman in the block of ivory soap Has massive thighs that neigh, Great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet. The woman of the golden […]...
17. Brass Keys JOY… weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel… painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face… slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room… forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new […]...
18. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
19. E TENEBRIS Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in […]...
20. Sonnet For The End Of A Sequence So take my vows and scatter them to sea; Who swears the sweetest is no more than human. And say no kinder words than these of me: “Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman! And thus they are, whose silly female dust Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it, Who meet […]...
21. Jungheimer's In western fields of corn and northern timber lands, They talk about me, a saloon with a soul, The soft red lights, the long curving bar, The leather seats and dim corners, Tall brass spittoons, a nigger cutting ham, And the painting of a woman half-dressed thrown reckless across a bed after a night of […]...
22. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...
23. A Poet To His Beloved I bring you with reverent hands The books of my numberless dreams, White woman that passion has worn As the tide wears the dove-grey sands, And with heart more old than the horn That is brimmed from the pale fire of time: White woman with numberless dreams, I bring you my passionate rhyme....
24. Harrison Street Court I heard a woman’s lips Speaking to a companion Say these words: “A woman what hustles Never keeps nothin’ For all her hustlin’. Somebody always gets What she goes on the street for. If it ain’t a pimp It’s a bull what gets it. I been hustlin’ now Till I ain’t much good any more. […]...
25. Omaha RED barns and red heifers spot the green Grass circles around Omaha-the farmers Haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese. Shale hogbacks across the river at Council Bluffs-and shanties hang by an eyelash to The hill slants back around Omaha. A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and Nebraska across […]...
26. Poem 14 NOw al is done; bring home the bride againe, Bring home the triumph of our victory, Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, With ioyance bring her and with iollity. Neuer had man more ioyfull day then this, Whom heauen would heape with blis. Make feast therefore now all this liue long day, […]...
27. A Prayer For My Son Bid a strong ghost stand at the head That my Michael may sleep sound, Nor cry, nor turn in the bed Till his morning meal come round; And may departing twilight keep All dread afar till morning’s back. That his mother may not lack Her fill of sleep. Bid the ghost have sword in fist: […]...
28. The Hypermarket history is a hurried Checklist of the goods Mankind wishes To unforget Poetry is a soft whisper Against the bads Mankind wishes To unregret (04/06/99 – 08/2001)...
29. Nights Nothings Again WHO knows what I know When I have asked the night questions And the night has answered nothing Only the old answers? Who picked a crimson cryptogram, The tail light of a motor car turning a corner, Or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place, Or a man out of the ashes of […]...
30. Here Here I am in the garden laughing An old woman with heavy breasts And a nicely mapped face How did this happen Well that’s who I wanted to be At last a woman In the old style sitting Stout thighs apart under A big skirt grandchild sliding On off my lap a pleasant Summer perspiration […]...
31. A Moments Indulgence I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works That I have in hand I will finish afterwards. Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, And my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. Today the summer has come at […]...
32. Cuckoo Song (Spring begins in southern England on the 14th April, on which date the Old Woman lets the Cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield Fair locally known as Heffle Cuckoo Fair.) Tell it to the locked-up trees, Cuckoo, bring your song here! Warrant, Act and Summons, please, For Spring to pass along here! Tell old […]...
33. The Mountain Tomb Pour wine and dance if manhood still have pride, Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom; The cataract smokes upon the mountain side, Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb. Pull down the blinds, bring fiddle and clarionet That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from kissing, nor from […]...
34. The Mountain Squatter Here in my mountain home, On rugged hills and steep, I sit and watch you come, O Riverinia Sheep! You come from the fertile plains Where saltbush (sometimes) grows, And flats that (when it rains) Will blossom like the rose. But when the summer sun Gleams down like burnished brass, You have to leave your […]...
35. Falltime GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon, Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue, Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts, Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence, Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long, Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers […]...
36. Cups of Coffee THE HAGGARD woman with a hacking cough and a deathless love whispers of white Flowers… in your poem you pour like a cup of coffee, Gabriel. The slim girl whose voice was lost in the waves of flesh piled on her bones… and The woman who sold to many men and saw her breasts shrivel… […]...
37. Last Word To Childhood Ice-cold fear has slowly decreased As my bones have grown, my height increased. Though I shiver in snow of dreams, I shall never Freeze again in a noonday terror. I shall never break, my sinews crumble As God-the-headmaster’s fingers fumble At the other side of unopening doors Which I watch for a hundred thousand years. […]...
38. Story A woman’s taking her late-afternoon walk On Chestnut where no sidewalk exists And houses with gravel driveways Sit back among the pines. Only the house With the vicious dog is close to the road. An electric fence keeps him in check. When she comes to that house, the woman Always crosses to the other side. […]...
39. The Shepherds Sweet, harmless lives! (on whose holy leisure Waits innocence and pleasure), Whose leaders to those pastures, and clear springs, Were patriarchs, saints, and kings, How happened it that in the dead of night You only saw true light, While Palestine was fast asleep, and lay Without one thought of day? Was it because those first […]...
40. One Cigarette No smoke without you, my fire. After you left, Your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray And sent up a long thread of such quiet grey I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal Of so much love. One cigarette In the non-smoker’s tray. As the last spire Trembles up, a sudden draught Blows […]...