Telling You All

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1. We are the time. We are the famous We are the time. We are the famous Metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure. We are the water, not the hard diamond, The one that is lost, not the one that stands still. We are the river and we are that greek That looks himself into the river. His reflection Changes into the waters of the […]...
2. Telling the Bees Here is the place; right over the hill Runs the path I took; You can see the gap in the old wall still, And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. There is the house, with the gate red-barred, And the poplars tall; And the barn’s brown length, and the cattle-yard, And the white horns tossing […]...
3. Intimates Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly. I handed her the mirror, and said: Please address these questions to the proper person! Please make all requests to head-quarters! In all matters of emotional importance Please approach the supreme authority direct! – So I handed her the mirror. And she would have broken it […]...
4. Moments Of Vision That mirror Which makes of men a transparency, Who holds that mirror And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see Of you and me? That mirror Whose magic penetrates like a dart, Who lifts that mirror And throws our mind back on us, and our heart, Until we start? That mirror Works well in these […]...
5. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
6. Lady At A Mirror As in sleeping-drink spices Softly she loosens in the liquid-clear Mirror her fatigued demeanor; And she puts her smile deep inside. And she waits while the liquid Rises from it; then she pours her hair Into the mirror, and, lifting one Wondrous shoulder from the evening gown, She drinks quietly from her image. She drinks […]...
7. Keep Telling Me It’s 12:34 And I hear them Battering me with a foul message The maddening interpretations The two dots taunting Walk backwards with me and you will see It can be so much cleaner It can be simple Face down they will come for me I can feel this Come death come birth Edge a little […]...
8. A Tree Telling of Orpheus White dawn. Stillness. When the rippling began I took it for sea-wind, coming to our valley with rumors of salt, of treeless horizons. But the white fog Didn’t stir; the leaves of my brothers remained outstretched, unmoving. Yet the rippling drew nearer – and then my own outermost branches began to tingle, almost as if […]...
9. Alan Dugan Telling Me I Have A Problem With Time He reads my latest attempt at a poem And is silent for a long time, until it feels Like that night we waited for Apollo, My mother wandering in and out of her bedroom, asking, Haven’t they landed yet? At last Dugan throws it on the table and says, This reads like a cheap detective […]...
10. The Moon Maiden's Song Sleep! Cast thy canopy Over this sleeper’s brain, Dim grow his memory, When he wake again. Love stays a summer night, Till lights of morning come; Then takes her winged flight Back to her starry home. Sleep! Yet thy days are mine; Love’s seal is over thee: Far though my ways from thine, Dim though […]...
11. The Cool Web Children are dumb to say how hot the day is, How hot the scent is of the summer rose, How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky, How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by. But we have speech, to chill the angry day, And speech, to dull the rose’s cruel scent. We spell away the […]...
12. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
13. Truth THE HERO first thought it To him ’twas a deed: To those who retaught it, A chain on their speed. The fire that we kindled, A beacon by night, When darkness has dwindled Grows pale in the light. For life has no glory Stays long in one dwelling, And time has no story That’s true […]...
14. Narcissus, Photographer “…a frozen memory, like any photo, Where nothing is missing, not even, And especially, nothingness…” Julio Cortázar, “Blow Up” Mirror-mad, He photographed reflections: Sunstorms in puddles, Cities in canals, Double portraits framed In sunglasses, The fat phantoms who dance On the flanks of cars. Nothing caught his eye Unless it bent Or glistered Over something […]...
15. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
16. Medusa I had come to the house, in a cave of trees, Facing a sheer sky. Everything moved, a bell hung ready to strike, Sun and reflection wheeled by. When the bare eyes were before me And the hissing hair, Held up at a window, seen through a door. The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on […]...
17. Seeing For A Moment I thought I was growing wings- It was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step Into the fire- It was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned As a child: the study of Last Things; Facing my mirror-no longer young, the news-always of death, the dogs-rising from sleep and clamoring and […]...
18. The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride Let your work be, bride. Listen, the Guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking The chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud Noise, and that your step is not over- Hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest Had come in the evening. No, […]...
19. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
20. Hotel Insomnia I liked my little hole, Its window facing a brick wall. Next door there was a piano. A few evenings a month A crippled old man came to play “My Blue Heaven.” Mostly, though, it was quiet. Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat Catching his fly with a web Of cigarette smoke and […]...
21. With The Face With the face goes a mirror As with the mind a world. Likeness tells the doubting eye That strangeness is not strange. At an early hour and knowledge Identity not yet familiar Looks back upon itself from later, And seems itself. To-day seems now. With reality-to-be goes time. With the mind goes a world. Wit […]...
22. Clouds Above The Sea My father and mother, two tiny figures, Side by side, facing the clouds that move In from the Atlantic. August, ’33. The whole weight of the rain to come, the weight Of all that has fallen on their houses Gathers for a last onslaught, and yet they Hold, side by side, in the eye of […]...
23. Farewell to the Court Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expir’d, And past return are all my dandled days; My love misled, and fancy quite retir’d Of all which pass’d the sorrow only stays. My lost delights, now clean from sight of land, Have left me all alone in unknown ways; My mind to woe, my life in […]...
24. Like Truthless Dreams, So Are My Joys Expired Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expired, And past return are all my dandled days; My love misled, and fancy quite retired – Of all which passed the sorrow only stays. My lost delights, now clean from sight of land, Have left me all alone in unknown ways; My mind to woe, my life […]...
25. Ernest Hyde My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time Great scratches were made on the mirror, Letting the outside world come in, And letting my […]...
26. The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk I was seventy-seven, come August, I shall shortly be losing my bloom; I’ve experienced zephyr and raw gust And (symbolical) flood and simoom. When you come to this time of abatement, To this passing from Summer to Fall, It is manners to issue a statement As to what you got out of it all. So […]...
27. THE BRIDGE I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o’er the city, Behind the dark church-tower. I saw her bright reflection In the waters under me, Like a golden goblet falling And sinking into the sea. And far in the hazy distance Of that lovely night […]...
28. Long I Thought that Knowledge LONG I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me-O if I could but obtain knowledge! Then my lands engrossed me-Lands of the prairies, Ohio’s land, the southern savannas, engrossed me-For them I would live-I would be their orator; Then I met the examples of old and new heroes-I heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless […]...
29. Tz'u No. 7 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Let not the deep cup be filled With rich, amber-colored wine; My mind was eased of sorrow Even before I was drunk. Distant bells have already echoed In the evening breeze. My dream is broken As the scent of incense vanishes. Too small, the hairpin of the gold […]...
30. Tz'u No. 5 To the tune of “Like a Dream” I always remember the sunset Over the pavilion by the river, So tipsy we could not find our way home. Our interest exhausted, the evening late, We tried to turn the boat homeward. By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed. Row! Row the boat! A flock […]...
31. When I hoped, I recollect When I hoped, I recollect Just the place I stood At a Window facing West Roughest Air was good Not a Sleet could bite me Not a frost could cool Hope it was that kept me warm Not Merino shawl When I feared I recollect Just the Day it was Worlds were lying out to […]...
32. Myself What, younger, felt Was possible, now knows Is not – but still Not chanted enough – Walked by the sea, Unchanged in memory – Evening, as clouds On the far-off rim Of water float, Pictures of time, Smoke, faintness – Still the dream. I want, if older, Still to know Why, human, men And women […]...
33. The Mirror Seeing is believing. Whatever was thought or said, These persistent, inexorable deaths Make faith as such absent, Our humanness a question, A disgust for what we are. Whatever the hope, Here it is lost. Because we coveted our difference, Here is the cost....
34. The Art Of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water And remember Time is another river. To know we stray like a river And our faces vanish like water. To feel that waking is another dream That dreams of not dreaming and that the death We fear in our bones is the death That every […]...
35. But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the […]...
36. Through what transports of Patience Through what transports of Patience I reached the stolid Bliss To breathe my Blank without thee Attest me this and this By that bleak exultation I won as near as this Thy privilege of dying Abbreviate me this...
37. Cirque D'Hiver Across the floor flits the mechanical toy, Fit for a king of several centuries back. A little circus horse with real white hair. His eyes are glossy black. He bears a little dancer on his back. She stands upon her toes and turns and turns. A slanting spray of artificial roses Is stitched across her […]...
38. Antimatter On the other side of a mirror there’s an inverse world, Where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the Earth and recede to the first slime of love. And in the evening the sun is just rising. Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon Childhood robs them of their […]...
39. Phyllis's Age How old may Phyllis be, you ask, Whose beauty thus all hearts engages? To answer is no easy task; For she has really two ages. Stiff in brocard, and pinch’d in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let envy view her face; And Phyllis is but twenty-one. Paint, patches, jewels laid aside, […]...
40. Dedication To M Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what Invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push, That you swung with me into the leaves? How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying Is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only Toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible Nearness. […]...