When the prophet, a complacent fat man

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1. Advice to a Prophet When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city, Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, Not proclaiming our fall but begging us In God’s name to have self-pity, Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range, The long numbers that rocket the mind; Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be […]...
2. The Prophet Ah, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces, Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom, Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces....
3. Maya Through an ascending emptiness of night, Leaving the flesh and complacent mind Together in their suffciency behind, The soul of man went up to a far height; And where those others would have had no sight Or sense of else than terror for the blind, Soul met the Will, and was again consigned To the […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Across the Sea Along the Shore Across the sea, along the shore, In numbers more and ever more, From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk Galilee? The reed that in the wind doth shake? The weed that washes in the lake? The reeds that waver, […]...
7. There was crimson clash of war There was crimson clash of war. Lands turned black and bare; Women wept; Babes ran, wondering. There came one who understood not these things. He said, “Why is this?” Whereupon a million strove to answer him. There was such intricate clamour of tongues, That still the reason was not....
8. 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 […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Hallelujah: A Sestina A wind’s word, the Hebrew Hallelujah. I wonder they never gave it to a boy (Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair. It means Praise God, as well it should since praise Is what God’s for. Why didn’t they call my father Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer? Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer, Product of Nova […]...
11. Fame's Penny-Trumpet Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack, Ye little men of little souls! And bid them huddle at your back – Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals! Fill all the air with hungry wails – “Reward us, ere we think or write! Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails To sate the swinish appetite!” And, where great […]...
12. Sonnet 08 VIII Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms, Whose chance on these defenceless dores may sease, If ever deed of honour did thee please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms, He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call Fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can spred thy […]...
13. 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...
14. Fields of Soria Hills of silver plate, Grey heights, dark red rocks Through which the Duero bends Its crossbow arc Round Soria, shadowed oaks, Stone dry-lands, naked mountains, White roads and river poplars, Twilights of Soria, warlike and mystical, Today I feel, for you, In my hearts depths, sadness, Sadness of love! Fields of Soria, Where it seems […]...
15. PROMISE Bhaskar Roy Barman The scene lacked for the manifestation Characteristic of a scene. Though the scene was promised a revealing A plethora of manifestations that remained over. In other scenes manifestations reveal themselves Of necessity when called for. No messenger from on high did descend To bestow upon it an afflatus for creation. It was […]...
16. I Ask You What scene would I want to be enveloped in More than this one, An ordinary night at the kitchen table, Floral wallpaper pressing in, White cabinets full of glass, The telephone silent, A pen tilted back in my hand? It gives me time to think About all that is going on outside Leaves gathering in […]...
17. 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...
18. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
19. By This Pitch And Motion In the upstairs hallway, complacent sunlight Stings the walls with gold and translucent almond Over Turkish runners betraying patterns Faded with travel. At their raveled edges, my daughter slumbers In the room from which this lost sun arranges Through a window high on an eastern sill of Drapes and black lacquer. Past the pillowcase where […]...
20. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
21. The Song of the Darling River The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere And all that is left of the last year’s flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud; The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver, And this is the dirge of the Darling River: ‘I rise in the drought from the […]...
22. Hymn 112 The brazen serpent; or, Looking to Jesus. John 3:14-16. So did the Hebrew prophet raise The brazen serpent high, The wounded felt immediate ease, The camp forbore to die. “Look upward in the dying hour, And live,” the prophet cries; But Christ performs a nobler cure, When Faith lifts up her eyes. High on the […]...
23. Where Is David, the Next King of Israel? Where is David? . . . O God’s people, Saul has passed, the good and great. Mourn for Saul the first-anointed – Head and shoulders o’er the state. He was found among the Prophets: Judge and monarch, merged in one. But the wars of Saul are ended And the works of Saul are done. Where […]...
24. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
25. The Future A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he […]...
26. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
27. The successful man has thrust himself The successful man has thrust himself Through the water of the years, Reeking wet with mistakes Bloody mistakes; Slimed with victories over the lesser, A figure thankful on the shore of money. Then, with the bones of fools He buys silken banners Limned with his triumphant face; With the skins of wise men He buys […]...
28. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
29. Advent We have tested and tasted too much, lover- Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. But here in the Advent-darkened room Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea Of penance will charm back the luxury Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom The knowledge we stole but could not […]...
30. Loch Ness Beautiful Loch Ness, The truth to express, Your landscapes are lovely and gay, Along each side of your waters, to Fort Augustus all the way, Your scenery is romantic… With rocks and hills gigantic… Enough to make one frantic, As they view thy beautiful heathery hills, And their clear crystal rills, And the beautiful woodlands […]...
31. A Spell before Winter After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade. There is a knowledge in the look of things, The old hills hunch before the […]...
32. Modernities Small knowledge have we that by knowledge met May not some day be quaint as any told In almagest or chronicle of old, Whereat we smile because we are as yet The last-though not the last who may forget What cleavings and abrasions manifold Have marked an armor that was never scrolled Before for human […]...
33. Teaching XVIII Then said a teacher, “Speak to us of Teaching.” And he said: No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith […]...
34. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
35. THE LOVING ONE WRITES THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress The pledge thy lips to mine convey, the kiss, He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this, Can he in aught beside find happiness? Removed from thee, friend-sever’d, in distress, These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss: They still return to that one hour of […]...
36. Binsey Poplars felled 1879 My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. O if we but […]...
37. In Tenebris Wintertime nighs; But my bereavement-pain It cannot bring again: Twice no one dies. Flower-petals flee; But since it once hath been, No more that severing scene Can harrow me. Birds faint in dread: I shall not lose old strength In the lone frost’s black length: Strength long since fled! Leaves freeze to dun; But friends […]...
38. The Desolate Field Vast and grey, the sky Is a simulacrum To all but him whose days Are vast and grey and- In the tall, dried grasses A goat stirs With nozzle searching the ground. My head is in the air But who am I. . . ? -and my heart stops amazed At the thought of love […]...
39. Where Is the Real Non-Resistant (Matthew V, 38-48.) Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger, Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death His words and his works, his house and his lands, His eyes and his heart and his breath? Who can surrender […]...
40. This Moment, Yearning and Thoughtful THIS moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful; It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy, France, Spain-or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or India-talking other dialects; And it seems to me if […]...