Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it

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1. If grief for grief can touch thee If grief for grief can touch thee, If answering woe for woe, If any truth can melt thee Come to me now! I cannot be more lonely, More drear I cannot be! My worn heart beats so wildly ‘Twill break for thee And when the world despises When Heaven repels my prayer Will not mine […]...
2. Grief is a Mouse Grief is a Mouse And chooses Wainscot in the Breast For His Shy House And baffles quest Grief is a Thief quick startled Pricks His Ear report to hear Of that Vast Dark That swept His Being back Grief is a Juggler boldest at the Play Lest if He flinch the eye that way Pounce […]...
3. Dream Song 127: Again, his friend's death made the man sit still Again, his friend’s death made the man sit still And freeze inside—his daughter won first price— His wife scowled over at him— It seemed to be Hallowe’en. His friend’s death had been adjudged suicide, Which dangles a trail Longer than Henry’s chill, longer than his loss And longer than the letter that he wrote That […]...
4. Dream Song 36: The high ones die, die. They die The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who’s there? €”Easy, easy, Mr Bones. I is on your side. I smell your grief. €”I sent my grief away. I cannot care Forever. With them all align & again I died And cried, and I have to live. €”Now there you exaggerate, Sah. […]...
5. Dream Song 324: An Elegy for W. C. W., the lovely man Henry in Ireland to Bill underground: Rest well, who worked so hard, who made a good sound Constantly, for so many years: Your high-jinks delighted the continents & our ears: You had so many girls your life was a triumph And you loved your one wife. At dawn you rose & wrote—the books poured forth— […]...
6. Dream Song 103: I consider a song will be as humming-bird I consider a song will be as humming-bird Swift, down-light, missile-metal-hard, & strange As the world of anti-matter Where they are wondering: does time run backward— Which the poet thought was true; Scarlatti-supple; But can Henry write it? Wreckt, in deep danger, he shook once his head, Returning to meditation. And word had sped All […]...
7. Song Of A Dream ONCE in the dream of a night I stood Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in […]...
8. 'Tis good the looking back on Grief ‘Tis good the looking back on Grief To re-endure a Day We thought the Mighty Funeral Of All Conceived Joy To recollect how Busy Grass Did meddle one by one Till all the Grief with Summer waved And none could see the stone. And though the Woe you have Today Be larger As the Sea […]...
9. Dream Song 54: 'NO VISITORS' I thumb the roller to ‘NO VISITORS’ I thumb the roller to And leans against the door. Comfortable in my horseblanket I prop on the costly bed & dream of my wife, My first wife, And my second wife & my son. Insulting, they put guardrails up, As if it were a crib! I growl at the head nurse; we […]...
10. Dream Song 132: A Small Dream A Small Dream It was only a small dream of the Golden World, Now you trot off to bed. I’ll turn the machine off, You’ve danced & trickt us enough. Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled From the second floor, fail to impress your mother And I am the only other And I say go to […]...
11. Grief If grief could burn out Like a sunken coal The heart would rest quiet The unrent soul Be as still as a veil But I have watched all night The fire grow silent The grey ash soft And I stir the stubborn flint The flames have left And the bereft Heart lies impotent...
12. 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 […]...
13. The Right to Grief To Certain Poets About to Die TAKE your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow, Over the dead child of a millionaire, And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank Which the millionaire might order his secretary to Scratch off And get cashed. Very well, You for your grief and I for mine. […]...
14. Dream Song 102: The sunburnt terraces which swans make home The sunburnt terraces which swans make home With water purling, Macchu Pichu died Like Delphi long ago— A message to Justinian closing it out, The thousand years’ authority, although Tho’ never found exactly wrong Political patterns did indeed emerge; The Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann, Roared the winds on the height, The Shining Ones behind […]...
15. Dream Song 172: Your face broods Your face broods from my table, Suicide. Your force came on like a torrent toward the end Of agony and wrath. You were christened in the beginning Sylvia Plath And changed that name for Mrs Hughes and bred And went on round the bend Till the oven seemed the proper place for you. I brood […]...
16. Dream Song 32: And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding Across malignant half my years or so? One evil faery It was workt night, with amoroso pleasing Menace, the panes shake Where Lie-by-the-fire is waiting for his cream. A tiger by a torrent in rain, wind, Narrows fiend’s eyes for grief In an old ink-on-silk, Reminding me of […]...
17. Grief I tell you hopeless grief is passionless, That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy […]...
18. I measure every Grief I meet I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, Eyes I wonder if It weighs like Mine Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long Or did it just begin I could not tell the Date of Mine It feels so old a pain I wonder if it hurts to live […]...
19. Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I As a kid I believed in democracy: I ‘saw no alternative’—teaching at The Big Place I ah Put it in practice: We’d time for one long novel: to a vote— Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched ‘No’ And we sat down with War & Peace. As a man I believed in democracy (nobody […]...
20. Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her because thou know’st I love her, […]...
21. Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream Come touch me baby in his waking dream Disordered Henry murmured. I’ll read you Hegel And that will hurt your mind I can’t remember when you were unkind But I will clear that block, I’ll set you on fire Along with our babies To save them up the high & ruined stairs, My growing daughters. […]...
22. "How Great My Grief" (Triolet) How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! – Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since […]...
23. Dream Song 25: Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories Lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious Present, and his hoaries, All the bight heals he tamped— —Euphoria, Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all. €”Hand me back my crawl, Condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball Elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace. Render him sightless, Or ruin at […]...
24. Grief O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds And rain; My grief hath need of all the watery things That nature hath produced: let every vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes, too dry for me, Unless they get […]...
25. Dream Song 80: Op. posth. no. 3 It’s buried at a distance, on my insistence, buried. Weather’s severe there, which it will not mind. I miss it. O happies before & during & between the times it got married. I hate the love of leaving it behind, Deteriorating & hopeless that. The great Uh climbed above me, far above me, Doing the […]...
26. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...
27. Dream Song 112: My framework is broken, I am coming to an end My framework is broken, I am coming to an end, God send it soon. When I had most to say My tongue clung to the roof I mean of my mouth. It is my Lady’s birthday Which must be honoured, and has been. God send It soon. I now must speak to my disciples, west […]...
28. Dream Song 113: or Amy Vladeck or Riva Freifeld or Amy Vladeck or Riva Freifeld That isna Henry limping. That’s a hobble Clapped on mere Henry by the most high GOD For the freedom of Henry’s soul. €”The body’s foul, cried god, once, twice, & bound it— For many years I hid it from him successfully— I’m not clear how he found it But […]...
29. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
30. Dream Song 74: Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Did will not bear thought. Feeling no pain, Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter Explaining how bad it had been In this world. Old yellow, in a gown Might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’, And chartreuse could have mattered “Kyoto, Toledo, Benares—the […]...
31. I can wade Grief I can wade Grief Whole Pools of it I’m used to that But the least push of Joy Breaks up my feet And I tip drunken Let no Pebble smile ‘Twas the New Liquor That was all! Power is only Pain Stranded, thro’ Discipline, Till Weights will hang Give Balm to Giants And they’ll wilt, […]...
32. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
33. Talking to Grief Ah, Grief, I should not treat you Like a homeless dog Who comes to the back door For a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you Into the house and give you Your own corner, A worn mat to lie on, Your own water dish. You think I don’t […]...
34. As imperceptibly as Grief As imperceptibly as Grief The Summer lapsed away Too imperceptible at last To seem like Perfidy A Quietness distilled As Twilight long begun, Or Nature spending with herself Sequestered Afternoon The Dusk drew earlier in The Morning foreign shone A courteous, yet harrowing Grace, As Guest, that would be gone And thus, without a Wing […]...
35. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
36. The Song Of The Pacifist What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead? Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed? By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted? If by the Victory all we mean is a broken […]...
37. Dream Song 134: Sick at 6 & sick again at 9 Sick at 6 & sick again at 9 Was Henry’s gloomy Monday morning oh. Still he had to lecture. They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry To rise up yet once more again and come oh. They figured he was a fixture, Nuts to their bolds, keys to their bloody locks. One day the […]...
38. Dream Song 52: Silent Song Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up. Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise Central, moved in While he was doing time down hospital And growing wise. He gave it the worst look he had left. Alone. They all abandoned Henry—wonder! all, When most he—under the sun. That was all right. He can’t […]...
39. Dream Song 23: The Lay of Ike This is the lay of Ike. Here’s to the glory of the Grewt WhiteГўв‚”awkГўв‚” Who has been runningГўв‚”erГўв‚”erГўв‚”things in recentГўв‚”echГўв‚” In the UnitedГўв‚”If your screen is black, Ladies & gentlemen, weГўв‚”I likeГўв‚” At the Point he was already terrificГўв‚”sick To a second term, having done no wrongГўв‚” No rightГўв‚”no  – rightГўв‚”having let the ArmyГўв‚”bangГўв‚” […]...
40. 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 […]...