The Fish

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1. Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my […]...
2. Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like; And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I’d caught! And, oh, the indignation and the valor I’d […]...
3. Yes, the Fish Music A trout-colored wind blows Through my eyes, through my fingers, And I remember how the trout Used to hide from the dinosaurs When they came to drink at the river. The trout hid in subways, castles, And automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away....
4. The Fish wade Through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps adjusting the ash-heaps; opening and shutting itself like An Injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the Sun, Split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices- in and out, […]...
5. The Lung Fish The Honorable Ardleigh Wyse Was every fisherman’s despair; He caught his fish on floating flies, In fact he caught them in the air, And wet-fly men good sports, perhaps He called “those chuck-and-chance-it chaps”. And then the Fates that sometimes play A joke on such as me and you Deported him up Queensland way To […]...
6. Pad, Pad I always remember your beautiful flowers And the beautiful kimono you wore When you sat on the couch With that tigerish crouch And told me you loved me no more. What I cannot remember is how I felt when you were unkind All I know is, if you were unkind now I should not mind. […]...
7. Fire and Sleet and Candlelight For this you’ve striven Daring, to fail: Your sky is riven Like a tearing veil. For this, you’ve wasted Wings of your youth; Divined, and tasted Bitter springs of truth. From sand unslakèd Twisted strong cords, And wandering naked Among trysted swords. There’s a word unspoken, A knot untied. Whatever is broken The earth may […]...
8. A Toast to the Men Here’s to the men! Since Adam’s time They’ve always been the same; Whenever anything goes wrong, The woman is to blame. From early morn to late at night, The men fault-finders are; They blame us if they oversleep, Or if they miss a car. They blame us if, beneath the bed, Their collar buttons roll; […]...
9. The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time’s bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes....
10. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...
11. The Quest A part, immutable, unseen, Being, before itself had been, Became. Like dew a triple queen Shone as the void uncovered: The silence of deep height was drawn A veil across the silver dawn On holy wings that hovered. The music of three thoughts became The beauty, that is one white flame, The justice that surpasses […]...
12. Old Memory O thought, fly to her when the end of day Awakens an old memory, and say, ‘Your strength, that is so lofty and fierce and kind, It might call up a new age, calling to mind The queens that were imagined long ago, Is but half yours: he kneaded in the dough Through the long […]...
13. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
14. Psalm Three On the day when my words Were earth… I was a friend to stalks of wheat. On the day when my words Were wrath I was a friend to chains. On the day when my words Were stones I was a friend to streams. On the day when my words Were a rebellion I was […]...
15. Tin Fish The ships destroy us above And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes To mark where we come. . . But the mirth of a seaport dies When our blow gets home....
16. The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the burning Amazement of the air And died In the slow pouring off Of rainbows. Later I opened his body and separated The flesh from the bones And ate him. Now the sea Is in me: […]...
17. The Fish I caught a tremendous fish And held him beside the boat Half out of water, with my hook Fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, Battered and venerable And homely. Here and there His brown skin hung in strips Like ancient wallpaper, […]...
18. A Fish Answers Amazing monster! that, for aught I know, With the first sight of thee didst make our race For ever stare! O flat and shocking face, Grimly divided from the breast below! Thou that on dry land horribly dost go With a split body and most ridiculous pace, Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace, Long-useless-finned, […]...
19. Fish Crier I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a Voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble In January. He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing A joy identical with that of Pavlowa dancing. His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, Terribly glad that God […]...
20. The Fish In a cool curving world he lies And ripples with dark ecstasies. The kind luxurious lapse and steal Shapes all his universe to feel And know and be; the clinging stream Closes his memory, glooms his dream, Who lips the roots o’ the shore, and glides Superb on unreturning tides. Those silent waters weave for […]...
21. A Wreath To The Fish Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth, Flat on my drainboard, dead asleep, Its suit of mail proof only against the stream? What is it to live in a stream, To dwell forever in a tunnel of cold, Never to leave your shining birthsuit, Never to spend your inheritance of thin coins? And who […]...
22. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
23. To a Fish You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, Gulping salt-water everlastingly, Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be, Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, Legless, unloving, infamously chaste: O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring […]...
24. The Goose Fish On the long shore, lit by the moon To show them properly alone, Two lovers suddenly embraced So that their shadows were as one. The ordinary night was graced For them by the swift tide of blood That silently they took at flood, And for a little time they prized Themselves emparadised. Then, as if […]...
25. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
26. Quick And Bitter The end was quick and bitter. Slow and sweet was the time between us, Slow and sweet were the nights When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love Of your body which came Between them. And when I entered into you It seemed then that great happiness Could be […]...
27. Symptom Recital I do not like my state of mind; I’m bitter, querulous, unkind. I hate my legs, I hate my hands, I do not yearn for lovelier lands. I dread the dawn’s recurrent light; I hate to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find […]...
28. Words I had this thought a while ago, ‘My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land.’ And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain; That every year I have […]...
29. The Visible, The Untrue Yes, I being The terrible puppet of my dreams, shall Lavish this on you- The dense mine of the orchid, split in two. And the fingernails that cinch such Environs? And what about the staunch neighbor tabulations, With all their zest for doom? I’m wearing badges That cancel all your kindness. Forthright I watch the […]...
30. Pretty Words Poets make pets of pretty, docile words: I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish Which circle slowly with a silken swish, And tender ones, like downy-feathred birds: Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds, Come to my hand, and playful if I wish, Or purring softly at a silver dish, Blue Persian kittens fed […]...
31. Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
32. Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right […]...
33. Love (III) Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack, From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d anything. A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah […]...
34. The Reason My life is vile I hate it so I’ll wait awhile And then I’ll go. Why wait at all? Hope springs alive, Good may befall I yet may thrive. It is because I can’t make up my mind If God is good, impotent or unkind....
35. Love Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning If I lacked anything. “A guest,” I answered “worthy to be here”; Love said “You shall be he.” “I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, […]...
36. To Lucasta, Going To The Wars Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breasts, and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such, As […]...
37. Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote […]...
38. 34. Remorse: A Fragment OF all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish Beyond comparison the worst are those By our own folly, or our guilt brought on: In ev’ry other circumstance, the mind Has this to say, “It was no deed of mine:” But, when to all the […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. 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 […]...