Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar

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1. Young In New Orleans starving there, sitting around the bars, And at night walking the streets for hours, The moonlight always seemed fake To me, mabye it was, And in the French Quarter I watched The horses and buggies going by, Everybody sitting high in the open Carriages, the black driver, and in Back the man and the woman, […]...
2. Dream Song 7: 'The Prisoner of Shark Island' with Paul Muni Henry is old, old; for Henry remembers Mr Deeds’ tuba, & the Cameo, & the race in Ben Hur, —The Lost World, with sound, & The Man from Blankey’s, which he did not dig, Nor did he understand one caption of, Bewildered Henry, while the Big Ones laughed. Now Henry is unmistakably a Big One. […]...
3. Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the window pane The blizzard sculptured on the […]...
4. The "don'ts" and "zeros&quot The night That strangled The endless moments I had wished To live, Passed by Without my lighting up The candle I had longed To warm up All the “don’ts” and “zeros”....
5. Conjugal A man is bending his wife. He is bending her Around something that she has bent herself Around. She is around it, bent as he has bent Her. He is convincing her. It is all so private. He is bending her around the bedpost. No, he Is bending her around the tripod of his camera. […]...
6. Sweeney among the Nightingales APENECK SWEENEY spreads his knees Letting his arms hang down to laugh, The zebra stripes along his jaw Swelling to maculate giraffe. The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate. Gloomy Orion and the Dog Are veiled; and hushed […]...
7. Supplication The sea took a sailor to its depths. His mother, unsuspecting, goes and lights A tall candle before the Virgin Mary For his speedy return and for fine weather And always she turns her ear to the wind. But while she prays and implores, The icon listens, solemn and sad, Knowing that the son she […]...
8. The Wild Old Wicked Man Because I am mad about women I am mad about the hills,’ Said that wild old wicked man Who travels where God wills. ‘Not to die on the straw at home. Those hands to close these eyes, That is all I ask, my dear, From the old man in the skies. Daybreak and a candle-end. […]...
9. Going There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen before, That lights no lamps. Silken it seems at a distance, yet When it is drawn up over the knees and breast It brings no comfort. Where has the tree gone, that locked Earth to sky? What is under my hands, That I […]...
10. Meeting and Passing As I went down the hill along the wall There was a gate I had leaned at for the view And had just turned from when I first saw you As you came up the hill. We met. But all We did that day was mingle great and small Footprints in summer dust as if […]...
11. I often passed the village I often passed the village When going home from school And wondered what they did there And why it was so still I did not know the year then In which my call would come Earlier, by the Dial, Than the rest have gone. It’s stiller than the sundown. It’s cooler than the dawn The […]...
12. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind “The past is a bucket of ashes.” 1 THE WOMAN named To-morrow Sits with a hairpin in her teeth And takes her time And does her hair the way she wants it And fastens at last the last braid and coil And puts the hairpin where it belongs And turns and drawls: Well, what of […]...
13. To Mrs Reynolds' Cat Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze With those bright languid segments green, and prick Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me – and upraise Thy gentle mew – and tell me […]...
14. Like Barley Bending Like barley bending In low fields by the sea, Singing in hard wind Ceaselessly; Like barley bending And rising again, So would I, unbroken, Rise from pain; So would I softly, Day long, night long, Change my sorrow Into song....
15. 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 […]...
16. Hymn 136 Sincerity and hypocrisy; or, formality in worship. John 4:24; Ps. 139:23,24. God is a Spirit, just and wise, He sees our inmost mind; In vain to heav’n we raise our cries, And leave our souls behind. Nothing but truth before his throne With honor can appear; The painted hypocrites are known Through the disguise they […]...
17. Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides; And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads, The things of light File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones. A candle in the thighs Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of […]...
18. Came the Great Popinjay CAME the great Popinjay Smelling his nosegay: In cages like grots The birds sang gavottes. ‘Herodiade’s flea Was named sweet Amanda, She danced like a lady From here to Uganda. Oh, what a dance was there! Long-haired, the candle Salome-like tossed her hair To a dance tune by Handel.’ . . . Dance they still? […]...
19. In Connemara WITH eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes, Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown, Till evening with pearl dew dims the shining grasses And night lit with dreamlight enfolds the sleepy town. Then she will wander, her heart all a laughter, Tracking the dream star that lights the purple gloom. She follows […]...
20. To be forgot by thee To be forgot by thee Surpasses Memory Of other minds The Heart cannot forget Unless it contemplate What it declines I was regarded then Raised from oblivion A single time To be remembered what Worthy to be forgot Is my renown...
21. Reservations Confirmed The ticket settles on my desk: a paper tongue Pronouncing “Go away;” a flattened seed From which a thousand-mile leap through the air can grow. It’s pure potential: a vacation-to-be The way an apple is a pie-to-be, A bullet is a death-to-be. Or is the future Pressed into it inalterably-woven between The slick fibers like […]...
22. Santa Fe In Winter The city is closing for the night. Stores draw their blinds one by one, And it’s dark again, save for the dim Infrequent streetlight bending at the neck Like a weighted stem. Years have built The city in layers: balustrades filled in With brick, adobe reinforced with steel, And the rounded arches smoothed With white […]...
23. God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop The summer and autumn had been so wet, That in winter the corn was growing yet, ‘Twas a piteous sight to see all around The grain lie rotting on the ground. Every day the starving poor Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door, For he had a plentiful last-year’s store, And all the neighbourhood could tell His […]...
24. What the Coal-Heaver Said The moon’s an open furnace door Where all can see the blast, We shovel in our blackest griefs, Upon that grate are cast Our aching burdens, loves and fears And underneath them wait Paper and tar and pitch and pine Called strife and blood and hate. Out of it all there comes a flame, A […]...
25. Us I was wrapped in black Fur and white fur and You undid me and then You placed me in gold light And then you crowned me, While snow fell outside The door in diagonal darts. While a ten-inch snow Came down like stars In small calcium fragments, We were in our own bodies (that room […]...
26. Magic OUT of the dusky chamber of the brain Flows the imperial will through dream on dream: The fires of life around it tempt and gleam; The lights of earth behind it fade and wane. Passed beyond beauty tempting dream on dream, The pure will seeks the heart-hold of the light: Sounds the deep OM, the […]...
27. Drowning is not so pitiful Drowning is not so pitiful As the attempt to rise Three times, ’tis said, a sinking man Comes up to face the skies, And then declines forever To that abhorred abode, Where hope and he part company For he is grasped of God. The Maker’s cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must […]...
28. Sonnet 19 – The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet’s forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,- As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . . The bay-crown’s […]...
29. A Subaltern He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze And fresh face slowly brightening to the grin That sets my memory back to summer days, With twenty runs to make, and last man in. He told me he’d been having a bloody time In trenches, crouching for the crumps to burst, While squeaking rats scampered […]...
30. At Home When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house: I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I […]...
31. Moon Fishing When the moon was full they came to the water. Some with pitchforks, some with rakes, Some with sieves and ladles, And one with a silver cup. And they fished til a traveler passed them and said, “Fools, To catch the moon you must let your women Spread their hair on the water Even the […]...
32. On Vital Statistics Ill fares the land to hast’ning ills a prey (1) Where wealth accumulates and men decay.’ But how much more unfortunate are those Where wealth declines and population grows! (1)This line is execrable; and I note it. I quote it as the faulty poet wrote it....
33. The Blessed Cumhal called out, bending his head, Till Dathi came and stood, With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth, Between the wind and the wood. And Cumhal said, bending his knees, ‘I have come by the windy way To gather the half of your blessedness And learn to pray when you pray. ‘I can […]...
34. The Villain While joy gave clouds the light of stars, That beamed wher’er they looked; And calves and lambs had tottering knees, Excited, while they sucked; While every bird enjoyed his song, Without one thought of harm or wrong I turned my head and saw the wind, Not far from where I stood, Dragging the corn by […]...
35. Here Is A Wound That Never Will Heal, I Know Here is a wound that never will heal, I know, Being wrought not of a dearness and a death, But of a love turned ashes and the breath Gone out of beauty; never again will grow The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath Its friendly […]...
36. The Hope of the Resurrection Though I have watched so many mourners weep O’er the real dead, in dull earth laid asleep- Those dead seemed but the shadows of my days That passed and left me in the sun’s bright rays. Now though you go on smiling in the sun Our love is slain, and love and you were one. […]...
37. The Night I Was Going To Die the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed And I could hear the crickets And there was a cat fight outside And I could feel my soul dropping down through the Mattress And just before it hit the floor I jumped up I was almost too weak to walk But […]...
38. The Indian Upon God I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees, My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: […]...
39. So bashful when I spied her! So bashful when I spied her! So pretty so ashamed! So hidden in her leaflets Lest anybody find So breathless till I passed here So helpless when I turned And bore her struggling, blushing, Her simple haunts beyond! For whom I robbed the Dingle For whom I betrayed the Dell Many, will doubtless ask me, […]...
40. The Candle Indoors Some candle clear burns somewhere I come by. I muse at how its being puts blissful back With yellowy moisture mild night’s blear-all black, Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye. By that window what task what fingers ply, I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack […]...