AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD Wherein, by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the frailty and the decay of this whole world is represented THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone, Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat) and there was an ant circling the coffee cup; I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer, and outside I gave an old bum who looked about the way I felt, I gave him a quarter, and then I went up to see the old man strong as steel girders, fit for bombers and blondes,
Ink-black, but moving independently across the black and white parquet of print, the ant cancels the author out. The page, translated to itself, bears hair-like legs disturbing the fine hairs of its fiber. These are the feet of summer, pillaging meaning, destroying Alexandria. Sunlight is silence laying waste all languages, until, thinly,
Slip-pilings on the Brooklyn littoral —the poles still tarry, flimsy; the ferry terminus with its walledup doors wan doorshapes on eroded sills. Downstream, the strutwork of the Williamsburg cable tower threw its cool shadow half a mile inland
Zeus lies in Ceres’ bosom Taishan is attended of loves under Cythera, before sunrise And he said: “Hay aquí mucho catolicismo—(sounded catolithismo y muy poco reliHion.” and he said: “Yo creo que los reyes desparecen” (Kings will, I think, disappear)
Wheer 'asta beän saw long and meä liggin' 'ere aloän? Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abeän an' agoän; Says that I moänt 'a naw moor aäle; but I beänt a fool; Git ma my aäle, fur I beänt a-gawin' to breäk my rule.
Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what 's nawways true; Naw soort o' koind o' use to saäy the things that a do. I 've 'ed my point o' aäle ivry noight sin' I beän 'ere.
Pla ce bo, Who is there, who? Di le xi, Dame Margery; Fa, re, my, my, Wherfore and why, why? For the sowle of Philip Sparowe, That was late slayn at Carowe, Among the Nones Blake, For that swete soules sake, And for all sparowes soules, Set in our bederolles, Pater noster qui, With an Ave Mari, And with the corner of a Crede,
The drum says that the night we die will be a long night. It says the children have time to play. Tell the grownups They can pull the curtains around the bed tonight.
The old man wants to know how the war ended. The young girl wants her breasts to cause the sun to rise. The thinker wants to keep misunderstanding alive.
It’s all right if the earthly monk is buried near the altar. It’s all right if the singer fails to turn up for her concert.
Dare a mighty row in Zion an’ de debbil’s gittin’ high, An’ de saints done beat de sinners, a-cussin’ on de sly; What for it am? you reckon, well, I’ll tell you how it ’gin Twuz ’bout a mighty leetle thing, de linin’ ub de hymns.
De young folks say taint stylish to lin’ out no mo’, Dat dey’s got edikashun, an’ dey wants us all to know Dat dey likes to hab dar singin’ books a-holin’ fore dar eyes, An sing de hymns right straight along to mansion in de skies.
Dat it am awful fogy to gin um out by lin’, An’ ef de ole folks will kumplain ’cause dey is ole an’ blin An’ slabry’s chain don kep dem back from larnin how to read, Dat dey mus’ take a corner seat, and let de young folks lead.
Three ants met on the nose of a man who was asleep in the sun. And after they had saluted one another, each according to the custom of his tribe, they stood there conversing.
The first ant said, “These hills and plains are the most barren I have known. I have searched all day for a grain of some sort, and there is none to be found.”
Said the second ant, “I too have found nothing, though I have visited every nook and glade. This is, I believe, what my people call the soft, moving land where nothing grows.”
Then the third ant raised his head and said, “My friends, we are standing now on the nose of the Supreme Ant, the mighty and infinite Ant, whose body is so great that we cannot see it, whose shadow is so vast that we cannot trace it, whose voice is so loud that we cannot hear it; and He is omnipresent.”
When the third ant spoke thus the other ants looked at each other and laughed.
At that moment the man moved and in his sleep raised his hand and scratched his nose, and the three ants were crushed.
I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth and go on out over the sea marshes and the brant in bays and over the hills of tall hickory and over the crater lakes and canyons and on up through the spheres of diminishing air past the blackset noctilucent clouds where one wants to stop and look
I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles Proceed from your great lips. It’s worse than a barnyard.
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other. Thirty years now I have labored
I envied the dog lying in the yard so I did it. But there was a pebble under my flank so I got up and looked for the pebble, brushed it away and lay back down. My dog thus far overlooked the pebble. I guess it's her thick Lab fur. With my head downhill the blood gorged me with ideas. Not good. Got up. Turned around. Now I
The light foot hears you and the brightness begins god-step at the margins of thought, quick adulterous tread at the heart. Who is it that goes there? Where I see your quick face notes of an old music pace the air, torso-reverberations of a Grecian lyre.
In Goya’s canvas Cupid and Psyche have a hurt voluptuous grace bruised by redemption. The copper light falling upon the brown boy’s slight body is carnal fate that sends the soul wailing
I. Until Jove let it be, no colonist Mastered the wild earth; no land was marked, None parceled out or shared; but everyone Looked for his living in the common world.
And Jove gave poison to the blacksnakes, and Made the wolves ravage, made the ocean roll, Knocked honey from the leaves, took fire away— So man might beat out various inventions
Whom should I consult? Philosophers Are happy in their homes and seminars. See this one with the mischievous bright childlike Gaze going out through walls and air, A tangent to the bent rays of the star. Hear the chalk splutter, hear the groping voice: Conceive the demiurge in his perpetual Strife with the chaos of the universe,
Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaäy? Proputty, proputty, proputty—that's what I 'ears 'em saäy. Proputty, proputty, proputty—Sam, thou's an ass for thy paaïns: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs, nor in all thy braaïns.
Woä—theer's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam; yon 's parson's 'ouse— Dosn't thou knaw that a man mun be eäther a man or a mouse? Time to think on it then; for thou'll be twenty to weeäk.
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