On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War)

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1. On a Line From Valery (Gulf War) Tout le ciel vert se meurt Le dernier arbre brûle. The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares With a great burst of supernatural rose Under a canopy of poisonous airs. Could we imagine our return to prayers To end in time before time’s final throes, The green sky dying as the last […]...
2. A LOOK INTO THE GULF I LOOKED one night, and there the Semiramis, With all her mourning doves about her head, Sat rocking on an ancient road of Hell, Withered and eyeless, chanting to the moon Snatches of song they sang to her of old Upon the lighted roofs of Nineveh. And then her voice rang out with rattling laugh: […]...
3. Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned into pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you couldn’t tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell....
4. From crossing the line (1) a great man There was a great man So great he couldn’t be criticised in the light Who died And for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears And wept with great gossiping Houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle And television announcers carried their eyes around in long […]...
5. I worked for chaff and earning Wheat I worked for chaff and earning Wheat Was haughty and betrayed. What right had Fields to arbitrate In matters ratified? I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff And thanked the ample friend Wisdom is more becoming viewed At distance than at hand....
6. A Line-Storm Song The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift. The road is forlorn all day, Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, And the hoof-prints vanish away. The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee, Expend their bloom in vain. Come over the hills and far with me, And be my love in the rain. The birds […]...
7. Losses It was not dying: everybody died. It was not dying: we had died before In the routine crashes and our fields Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks, And the rates rose, all because of us. We died on the wrong page of the almanac, Scattered on mountains fifty miles away; Diving on […]...
8. Poppies on the Wheat Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat, A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro To mark the shore. The farmer does […]...
9. The Gulf A Gulf of silence separates us from each other. I stand at one side of the gulf, you at the other. I cannot see you or hear you, yet know that you are there. Often I call you by your childish name And pretend that the echo to my crying is your voice. How can […]...
10. By the Grey Gulf-water Far to the Northward there lies a land, A wonderful land that the winds blow over, And none may fathom or understand The charm it holds for the restless rover; A great grey chaos a land half made, Where endless space is and no life stirreth; There the soul of a man will recoil afraid […]...
11. Elegy: Walking the Line Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line, The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gum Superb above the cabin, along the wall- Stones gathered from the level field nearby When first we cleared it. (Angry bumblebees Stung the two mules. They kicked. Thirteen, I ran.) And then the field: thread-leaf maple, deciduous […]...
12. In California During the Gulf War Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among Trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts, The yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought, Certain airy white blossoms punctually Reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink A delicate abundance. They seemed Like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed Festival day, unaware of the year’s events, […]...
13. Song of the Wheat We have sung the song of the droving days, Of the march of the travelling sheep; By silent stages and lonely ways Thin, white battalions creep. But the man who now by the land would thrive Must his spurs to a plough-share beat. Is there ever a man in the world alive To sing the […]...
14. Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I […]...
15. Battalion-Relief ‘FALL in! Now get a move on.’ (Curse the rain.) We splash away along the straggling village, Out to the flat rich country, green with June… And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon, Up in the Line.) ‘Perhaps the War’ll be done ‘By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son.’ […]...
16. Sonnet 29 – I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, Put out broad leaves, and soon there ‘s nought to see Except the straggling green which hides the wood. Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood I will not have my thoughts instead of thee Who art dearer, […]...
17. Fictitious line Smokes Of cigarettes And mugs Full of coffee, Next To the fictitious line Where the eddy Of words Leans against And nods, Wounded, To my silence....
18. The Simple Line The secrets of the mind convene splendidly, Though the mind is meek. To be aware inwardly Of brain and beauty Is dark too recognizable. Thought looking out on thought Makes one an eye: Which it shall be, both decide. One is with the mind alone, The other is with other thoughts gone To be seen […]...
19. The Line-Gang Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as when they were a thought […]...
20. Three Songs Of Shattering I The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,-it must have been Very pretty. II Let the little birds sing; Let the little lambs play; Spring is here; and so […]...
21. Opening of the Railway Line The opening of the railway line… The Governor and all, With flags and banners down the street, A banquet and a ball, Hark to them at the station now! They’re raising cheer on cheer, The man who brought the railway through, Our friend the engineer....
22. Dream Song 28: Snow Line It was wet & white & swift and where I am We don’t know. It was dark and then It isn’t. I wish the barker would come. There seems to be eat Nothing. I am usually tired. I’m alone too. If only the strange one with so few legs would come, I’d say my prayers […]...
23. Letter To N. Y For Louise Crane In your next letter I wish you’d say Where you are going and what you are doing; How are the plays and after the plays What other pleasures you’re pursuing: Taking cabs in the middle of the night, Driving as if to save your soul Where the road gose round and round […]...
24. A Song of Enchantment A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree. Widdershins turned I, singing it low, Watching the wild birds come and go; No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen Under […]...
25. Spirit Dity Of No Fax Line Dial Tone The telephone company calls and asks what the fuss is. Betty from the telephone company, who’s not concerned With the particulars of my life. For instance If I believe in the transubstantiation of Christ Or am gladdened at 7:02 in the morning to repeat An eighth time why a man wearing a hula skirt of […]...
26. Golgotha Through darkness curves a spume of falling flares That flood the field with shallow, blanching light. The huddled sentry stares On gloom at war with white, And white receding slow, submerged in gloom. Guns into mimic thunder burst and boom, And mirthless laughter rakes the whistling night. The sentry keeps his watch where no one […]...
27. Arbolй, Arbolй Tree, tree Dry and green. The girl with the pretty face Is out picking olives. The wind, playboy of towers, Grabs her around the waist. Four riders passed by On Andalusian ponies, With blue and green jackets And big, dark capes. “Come to Cordoba, muchacha.” The girl won’t listen to them. Three young bullfighters passed, […]...
28. The Rose Tree ‘O words are lightly spoken,’ Said Pearse to Connolly, ‘Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea.’ ‘It needs to be but watered,’ James Connolly replied, ‘To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the […]...
29. Roses (For Katherine Bregy) I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring, For I would make a posy, a posy for the King. I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be, From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red Rose tree. But when I took my […]...
30. Love and Friendship Love is like the wild rose-briar, Friendship like the holly-tree The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms But which will bloom most contantly? The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring, Its summer blossoms scent the air; Yet wait till winter comes again And who wil call the wild-briar fair? Then scorn the silly […]...
31. The Olive Tree Save for a lusterless honing-stone of moon The sky stretches its flawless canopy Blue as the blue silk of the Jewish flag Over the valley and out to sea. It is bluest just above the olive tree. You cannot find in twisted Italy So straight a one; it stands not on a crag, Is not […]...
32. Hard Rock Returns To Prison From The Hospital For The Criminal Insane Hard Rock/ was/ “known not to take no shit From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it: Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut Across his temple and plowed through a thick Canopy of kinky hair. The WORD/ was/ that Hard Rock wasn’t a […]...
33. Everyone Sang Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on on and out of sight. Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted […]...
34. Lebennin Silver flow the streams from Colos to Erui In the green fields of Lebennin! Tall grows the grass there. In the wind from the Sea The white lilies sway, And the golden bells are shaken of mallos and alfirin In the green fields of Lebennin, In the wind from the Sea!...
35. My Pretty Rose Tree A flower was offered to me; Such a flower as May never bore. But I said I’ve a Pretty Rose-tree. And I passed the sweet flower o’er. Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree: To tend her by day and by night. But my Rose turnd away with jealousy: And her thorns were my only […]...
36. A Seed See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down, And through the Winter neglected lay, Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown, With tiny root taking hold on the clay As, lifting and strengthening day by day, It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves, And cell after cell the Power in it weaves Out of […]...
37. The Three Roses When the buds began to burst, Long ago, with Rose the First I was walking; joyous then Far above all other men, Till before us up there stood Britonferry’s oaken wood, Whispering, “Happy as thou art, Happiness and thou must part.” Many summers have gone by Since a Second Rose and I (Rose from the […]...
38. The Room Through that window-all else being extinct Except itself and me-I saw the struggle Of darkness against darkness. Within the room It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw How order might-if chaos wished-become: And saw the darkness crush upon itself, Contracting powerfully; it was as if It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain. […]...
39. He Said To crawl toward the machine guns Except to freeze For explosions and flares. It was still ninety degrees At night in North Carolina, August, rain and all. The tracer bullets wanted Our asses, which we swore to keep Down, and the highlight Of this preposterous exercise Was finding myself in mud And water during flares. I […]...
40. To Jośe Marίa Palacio Palacio, good friend, Is spring there Showing itself on branches of black poplars By the roads and river? On the steeps Of the high Duero, spring is late, But so soft and lovely when it comes! Are there a few new leaves On the old elms? The acacias must still be bare, And the mountain […]...