I VENT MY WRATH ON ANIMALS

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1. What do animals dream? Do they dream of past lives and unlived dreams Unspeakably human or unimaginably bestial? Do they struggle to catch in their slumber What is too slippery for the fingers of day? Are there subtle nocturnal intimations To illuminate their undreaming hours? Are they haunted by specters of regret Do they visit their dead in drowsy […]...
2. The Animals They do not live in the world, Are not in time and space. From birth to death hurled No word do they have, not one To plant a foot upon, Were never in any place. For with names the world was called Out of the empty air, With names was built and walled, Line and […]...
3. The Circus Animals' Desertion I I sought a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished […]...
4. A god in wrath A god in wrath Was beating a man; He cuffed him loudly With thunderous blows That rang and rolled over the earth. All people came running. The man screamed and struggled, And bit madly at the feet of the god. The people cried, “Ah, what a wicked man!” And “Ah, what a redoubtable god!”...
5. The Woman At The Washington Zoo The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . . this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from […]...
6. The Sonnets To Orpheus: X You who are close to my heart always, I welcome you, ancient coffins of stone, Which the cheerful water of Roman days Still flows through, like a wandering song. Or those other ones that are open wide Like the eyes of a happily waking shepard -with silence and bee-suck nettle inside, From which ecstatic butterflies […]...
7. Animals Are Passing From Our Lives It’s wonderful how I jog On four honed-down ivory toes My massive buttocks slipping Like oiled parts with each light step. I’m to market. I can smell The sour, grooved block, I can smell The blade that opens the hole And the pudgy white fingers That shake out the intestines Like a hankie. In my […]...
8. Amateurs of Heaven Two lovers to a midnight meadow came High in the hills, to lie there hand and hand Like effigies and look up at the stars, The never-setting ones set in the North To circle the Pole in idiot majesty, And wonder what was given them to wonder. Being amateurs, they knew some of the names […]...
9. Litany to the Holy Spirit IN the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
10. Fear Not, Dear Friend, But Freely Live Your Days FEAR not, dear friend, but freely live your days Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I, A lesser life, that what is his of sky Gladly would give for you, and what of praise. Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways. We that have touched your raiment, are made whole From all the selfish […]...
11. Psalm 119 part 9 Desire of knowledge; or, The teachings of the Spirit with the word. Ver. 64,68,18 Thy mercies fill the earth, O Lord; How good thy works appear! Open mine eyes to read thy word, And see thy wonders there. Ver. 73,125 My heart was fashioned by thy hand; My service is thy due: O make thy […]...
12. His Litany to the Holy Spirit In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart, and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
13. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
14. Try To Remember Some Details Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing Of the one you love So that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen Wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat. Try to remember some details. For they have no face And their soul is hidden and their crying Is the same as […]...
15. The Garden The garden admires you. For your sake it smears itself with green pigment, The ecstatic reds of the roses, So that you will come to it with your lovers. And the willows See how it has shaped these green Tents of silence. Yet There is still something you need, Your body so soft, so alive, […]...
16. Alive Together Speaking of marvels, I am alive Together with you, when I might have been Alive with anyone under the sun, When I might have been Abelard’s woman Or the whore of a Renaissance pop Or a peasant wife with not enough food And not enough love, with my children Dead of the plague. I might […]...
17. 4. Song-In the Character of a Ruined Farmer THE SUN he is sunk in the west, All creatures retirиd to rest, While here I sit, all sore beset, With sorrow, grief, and woe: And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O! The prosperous man is asleep, Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep; But Misery and I must watch The surly tempest blow: And it’s O, […]...
18. Suicide Note “You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is A matter of my life” – Artaud “At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers To my daughters and their daughters” – Anonymous Better, Despite the worms talking to The mare’s hoof in the field; Better, Despite the season of young […]...
19. Doctor of Billiards Of all among the fallen from on high, We count you last and leave you to regain Your born dominion of a life made vain By three spheres of insidious ivory. You dwindle to the lesser tragedy- Content, you say. We call, but you remain. Nothing alive gone wrong could be so plain, Or quite […]...
20. Sonnet XIII I fancied, while you stood conversing there, Superb, in every attitude a queen, Her ermine thus Boadicea bare, So moved amid the multitude Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning grandeur marvels and adores. Nay, rather […]...
21. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
22. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
23. Convalescence From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no […]...
24. He fought like those Who've nought to lose He fought like those Who’ve nought to lose Bestowed Himself to Balls As One who for a further Life Had not a further Use Invited Death with bold attempt But Death was Coy of Him As Other Men, were Coy of Death To Him to live was Doom His Comrades, shifted like the Flakes When […]...
25. Baby Picture It’s in the heart of the grape Where that smile lies. It’s in the good-bye-bow in the hair Where that smile lies. It’s in the clerical collar of the dress Where that smile lies. What smile? The smile of my seventh year, Caught here in the painted photograph. It’s peeling now, age has got it, […]...
26. My Bed is Covered Yellow My bed is covered yellow – Oh Sun, I sit on you Oh golden field I lay on you Oh money I dream of you More, More, cried the bed – talk to me more – Oh bed that taked the weight of the world – all the lost dreams laid on you Oh bed […]...
27. O Sun of Real Peace O SUN of real peace! O hastening light! O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for! O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height-and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend! O so amazing and broad-up there resplendent, darting and burning! O vision prophetic, stagger’d with […]...
28. Ida Chicken After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk […]...
29. Heartbeat Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart Which safely exists in the center of all things? His giant heartbeat is diverted in us Into little pulses. And his giant grief Is, like his giant jubilation, far too Great for us. And so we tear ourselves away From him time after time, remaining only […]...
30. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
31. Called Into Play Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry: Some flurries have whitened the edges of roads And lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: & Turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to Find something to write about I haven’t already Written away: I will have to stop short, look Down, look […]...
32. Death XXVII Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.” And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed […]...
33. Dogfish Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing Kept flickering in with the tide And looking around. Black as a fisherman’s boot, With a white belly. If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile Under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin, Which was rough As a thousand sharpened nails. […]...
34. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
35. Mr. Philosopher Old Mr. Philosopher Comes for Ben and Claire, An ugly man, a tall man, With bright-red hair. The books that he’s written No one can read. “In fifty years they’ll understand: Now there’s no need. “All that matters now Is getting the fun. Come along, Ben and Claire; Plenty to be done.” Then old Philosopher, […]...
36. Introductory Verses Oh, you who read some song that I have sung – What know you of the soul from whence it sprung? Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud His secret thought unto the listening crowd? Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore- You have its shape, its colour – and no more. It tells […]...
37. Psalm 119 part 14 Benefit of afflictions, and support under them. Ver. 153,81,82 Consider all my sorrows, Lord, And thy deliv’rance send; My soul for thy salvation faints When will my troubles end? Ver. 71 Yet I have found ’tis good for me To bear my Father’s rod; Afflictions make me learn thy law, And live upon my God. […]...
38. Modern Love XXX: What Are We First What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is […]...
39. And This Will be All? AND this will be all? And the gates will never open again? And the dust and the wind will play around the rusty door hinges and the songs of October moan, Why-oh, why-oh? And you will look to the mountains And the mountains will look to you And you will wish you were a mountain […]...
40. The Dying Christian to His Soul Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, O quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, O the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, […]...