Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn

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1. Smoke Rose Gold THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river. Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke rose gold: One star shines over the sunset. Night takes the dome and the river, the sun and the smoke rose gold, The haze changes from sunset to star. The pour of a thin silver […]...
2. Smoke and Steel SMOKE of the fields in spring is one, Smoke of the leaves in autumn another. Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel, They all go up in a line with a smokestack, Or they twist… in the slow twist… of the wind. If the north wind comes they run to the south. If […]...
3. When it was autumn in Eden When it was autumn in Eden And chestnuts held golden leaves Against dimming light, Eve touched her toes on the sodden Soil – ran fingers through harvest sheaves – feeling all things were right : And hip and haw turned red – the sloe to dusk And swallows gathered in flocks with waitful wings. Then […]...
4. Northern Pike All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the […]...
5. Autumn I Saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like Silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn. Where […]...
6. Smoke-Rings BOY Most venerable and learned sir, Tall and true Philosopher, These rings of smoke you blow all day With such deep thought, what sense have they? PHILOSOPHER Small friend, with prayer and meditation I make an image of Creation. And if your mind is working nimble Straightway you’ll recognize a symbol Of the endless and […]...
7. When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow When smoke stood up from Ludlow, And mist blew off from Teme, And blithe afield to ploughing Against the morning beam I strode beside my team, The blackbird in the coppice Looked out to see me stride, And hearkened as I whistled The trampling team beside, And fluted and replied: “Lie down, lie down, young […]...
8. Stravinsky's Three Pieces First Movement Thin-voiced, nasal pipes Drawing sound out and out Until it is a screeching thread, Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting, It hurts. Whee-e-e! Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump! There are drums here, Banging, And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones Of the market-place. Whee-e-e! Sabots slapping the worn, old stones, And a shaking and […]...
9. SONNET OF AUTUMN THEY say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes: “Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?” Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise All save that antique brute-like faith of thine; And will not bare the secret of their shame To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long, Nor their […]...
10. The Answer You have spoken the answer. A child searches far sometimes Into the red dust On a dark rose leaf And so you have gone far For the answer is: Silence. In the republic Of the winking stars and spent cataclysms Sure we are it is off there the answer Is hidden and folded over, Sleeping […]...
11. Smoke Can you imagine the air filled with smoke? It was. The city was vanishing before noon Or was it earlier than that? I can’t say because The light came from nowhere and went nowhere. This was years ago, before you were born, before Your parents met in a bus station downtown. She’d come on Friday […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Silence Since I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle On the flood that soundless swings. Whether the people in the street Like pattering ripples go by, Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs With a loud, hoarse sigh: Or the wind shakes a ravel of light […]...
14. Broadway I SHALL never forget you, Broadway Your golden and calling lights. I’ll remember you long, Tall-walled river of rush and play. Hearts that know you hate you And lips that have given you laughter Have gone to their ashes of life and its roses, Cursing the dreams that were lost In the dust of your […]...
15. On The Breakwater On the breakwater in the summer dark, a man and a girl are sitting, She across his knee and they are looking face into face Talking to each other without words, singing rythms in silence to each other. A funnel of white ranges the blue dusk from an out- going boat, Playing its searchlight, puzzled, […]...
16. Smoke I SIT in a chair and read the newspapers. Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finger-rings of smoke in a north wind. I sit in a chair […]...
17. Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love To Humor You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why? There was a time you told me that you would; But now again you will the same deny, If it might please you, would to God you could. What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither. Nor love nor hate, how then? What […]...
18. Tutto è Sciolto A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star Piercing the west, As thou, fond heart, love’s time, so faint, so far, Rememberest. The clear young eyes’ soft look, the candid brow, The fragrant hair, Falling as through the silence falleth now Dusk of the air. Why then, remembering those shy Sweet lures, repine When the dear […]...
19. Merry Autumn It’s all a farce,-these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying. Such principles are most absurd,- I care not who first taught ’em; There’s nothing known to beast or bird To make a solemn autumn. In solemn times, when grief holds sway With […]...
20. Sandhill People I TOOK away three pictures. One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan. One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come. One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing […]...
21. Come In As I came to the edge of the woods, Thrush music hark! Now if it was dusk outside, Inside it was dark. Too dark in the woods for a bird By sleight of wing To better its perch for the night, Though it still could sing. The last of the light of the sun That […]...
22. Autumn Within It is autumn; not without But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old. Birds are darting through the air, Singing, building without rest; Life is stirring everywhere, Save within my lonely breast. There is silence: the dead leaves Fall and rustle and are still; […]...
23. The Defective Record Cut the bank for the fill. Dump sand Pumped out of the river Into the old swale Killing whatever was There before-including Even the muskrats. Who did it? There’s the guy. Him in the blue shirt and Turquoise skullcap. Level it down For him to build a house On to build a House on to […]...
24. Autumn Love Search. Search. Seek. Seek. Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear. Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain. Hot flashes. Sudden chills. Stabbing pains. Slow agonies. I can find no peace. I drink two cups, then three bowls, Of clear wine until I can’t Stand up against a gust of wind. Wild geese fly over head. They wrench my heart. They […]...
25. Puritans Sidling upon the river, the white boat Has volleyed with its cannon all the morning, Shaken the shore towns like a Judgment warning, Telling the palsied water its demand That the crime come to the top again, and float, That the sunk murder rise to the light and land. Blam! In the noon’s perfected brilliance […]...
26. A Song of Autumn ‘WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had, And when are the new ones near? What shall we do for our garlands glad At the […]...
27. Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
28. Ford o' Kabul River Kabul town’s by Kabul river Blow the bugle, draw the sword There I lef’ my mate for ever, Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river, Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark! There’s the river up and brimmin’, an’ there’s ‘arf a squadron swimmin’ ‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river […]...
29. Yad Mordechai Yad Mordechai. Those who fell here Still look out the windows like sick children Who are not allowed outside to play. And on the hillside, the battle is reenacted For the benefit of hikers and tourists. Soldiers of thin sheet iron Rise and fall and rise again. Sheet iron dead and a sheet iron life […]...
30. Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me Mistakes I have made. Ask me whether What I have done is my life. Others Have come in their slow way into My thought, and some have tried to help Or to hurt: ask me what difference Their strongest love or hate has made. I will […]...
31. Traveling Through The Dark Traveling through the dark I found a deer Dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: That road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car And stood by the heap, a doe, […]...
32. Dreams in the dusk DREAMS in the dusk, Only dreams closing the day And with the day’s close going back To the gray things, the dark things, The far, deep things of dreamland. Dreams, only dreams in the dusk, Only the old remembered pictures Of lost days when the day’s loss Wrote in tears the heart’s loss. Tears and […]...
33. Lotus Hurt by the Cold How many times, like lotus lilies risen Upon the surface of a river, there Have risen floating on my blood the rare Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison. So I am clothed all over with the light And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion; Till naked for her in the finest fashion The flowers […]...
34. At a Window Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day […]...
35. Smoke Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; By night star-veiling, and by day Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; Go thou […]...
36. Smoke Last summer, lazing by the sea, I met a most entrancing creature, Her black eyes quite bewildered me – She had a Spanish cast of feature. She often smoked a cigarette, And did it in the cutest fashion. Before a week passed by she set My young heart in a raging passion. I swore I […]...
37. 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....
38. The Egg-Shell The wind took off with the sunset The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell With a little Blue Devil inside. “Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said, “It’s all you will bet from me. And that is the finish of him!” she said And the Egg-shell […]...
39. Little Viennese Waltz In Vienna there are ten little girls, A shoulder for death to cry on, And a forest of dried pigeons. There is a fragment of tomorrow In the museum of winter frost. There is a thousand-windowed dance hall. Ay, ay, ay, ay! Take this close-mouthed waltz. Little waltz, little waltz, little waltz, Of itself of […]...
40. Crucible Hot gold runs a winding stream on the inside of a green bowl. Yellow trickles in a fan figure, scatters a line of skirmishers, spreads a chorus of dancing girls, performs blazing ochre evolutions, gathers the whole show into one stream, forgets the past and rolls on. The sea mist green of the bowl’s bottom […]...