Why the Pretty One

W
This was a true happening but (as you
will see shortly) not such as would ready me
for future ones. What has brisk disaster
to do with a leisurely ordeal?
Neither event, as you will notice also,
has made me an understanding man.
It was my watch one night, away then on
the sea, when leaning on a couple of crates
of something I dreamed of nothing special
into the dark, and whispered the smoke of a
sugared native product into the dark.
Then from behind a quick rush burst not six
feet over me with a sawing and then
a cracking sound, and the other watch
pointed up where a black squall ran port-side
into the distance and a six by six
crate lid veered and disappeared like a gull.
But the other time we were idle ashore
for days somewhere there are sandy foothills
and small plains with weeds that stand like birds,
and there was a steady blow on land
that left off out at sea, leaving us all
peculiar if I remember. The wind
rasped the dense whorls of sharp leaves low on the ground
and shrilled through the heads on the tall seed-stalks,
and all those days the sound rose until we,
without hope, without breath bore the conviction
that our sojourn had not begun and had
no end, like a period of dissipation.

In certain Spanish havens the beggars come
to you saying “Give me an amount. God
will make it good.” Had they been wise those ladies
would have said something of that kind and proffered
a gratifying smile to their junior
treasurer the other Tuesday and maybe
been spared a peculiar fall. For forgetting
their cards or missing dues or due to rancor
from a month of planning they were turned away
from the luncheon which might have saved them through
its regular plaudits and calls to order.
Instead they turned immediately back
after some while waiting with other members
in vying groups where the sound rose and narrowed,
and from the dim hushed hall those five ladies,
my individual patrons, came across
the park together, under a hefty sun,
under slight muffling rain, to my teashop.
I worked on a cruising vessel one season
and saw a woman being led below
about a minute after she had vaulted
the rail, and now her face cluttered with casts
of hair returned to me, and a suggestion
of the odor of moist wool. Then, after
ordering, over the tinkle of service,
the ladies called me and began the question
of a particular person none had touched,
wondering by turns in words like these:

“Maybe when he was a child he went alone
one night along the lakeside or followed streams
in the dark and mating mayflies swarmed him
or he was caught by a swirl of slippery
animals risen from rotted cresses.
It could be too a bird’s egg fell on him,
that red and yellow spattering his coat
showed him the partial form of brain and bill
and wings like candy arms.” A second lady
established the problem but in studious
and in idle terms: “He must have tried
becoming a sphere once when something hurt
and must have failed. He is a cylinder
and lacking the perfected self-containment
of the sphere he nonetheless has beauty
and though incomplete is unassailable.”
The third advanced the first with this addition:
“Maybe when he was a child and a good half
he planted a happy garden for himself
and tried to bring a boyish girl inside
to share his secrets he could not bestow.”
The fourth supposed some more years and less hope
and figured on effects of disaffection:
“Perhaps it was a time sprouting potatoes
came creeping like things of the undersea
surrounding him that gave him the first fevered
turn toward what we now call his fine beauty.”
The last lady came near to reconciling
them: “Some awareness certainly shook him
unawares once and he flinched and flinching
has made him beautiful to all of us
who admire huge eyed skittishness, the fawn
standing some steps off always awkward and
desired.”

Odd gulls often join before
a gale to bank and shrill in company,
then at the heavy time of it they hush
and float broadcast. Those ladies did the same
the other Tuesday. Hopeless and breathless,
both I and they rode like sitting birds into
a last lull, and I was not (as you have seen)
prepared by quick calamities of ocean
labor for land bound suffering at ease.
Understanding or unconcern could serve
but pain and malice won, and who may be
forgiven even his shapeless victories?
“The boy is never by himself,” I said,
“but by him stands an unseen friend whose face
came in the petal fall under a secret
tree, who meets his vague eyes with beaming gaps
and his remote grin with a long lipless smile.”
369
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Encounter in Buffalo by Mary Barnard
Mary Barnard
The country lies flat, expressionless as the face of a stranger.
Not one hillock shelters a buried bone. The city:
a scene thin as a theater backdrop, where no doors open,
no streets extend beyond the view from the corner.

Only the railroad embankment is high, shaggy with grass.
Only the freight, knuckling a red sun under its wheels,
drags familiar box-car shapes down long perspectives
of childhood meals and all crossings at sunset.
Read Poem
0
293
Rating:

By the Well of Living and Seeing, Part II, Section 28: “During the Second World War” by Charles Reznikoff
Charles Reznikoff
During the Second World War, I was going home one night
along a street I seldom used. All the stores were closed
except one—a small fruit store.
An old Italian was inside to wait on customers.
As I was paying him I saw that he was sad.
Read Poem
0
598
Rating:

Slavery by Hannah More
Hannah More
If Heaven has into being deigned to call
Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy universal presence to oppose;
No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Read Poem
0
447
Rating:

Poor Crow! by Mary Mapes Dodge
Mary Mapes Dodge
Give me something to eat,
Good people, I pray;
I have really not had
One mouthful today!

I am hungry and cold,
And last night I dreamed
A scarecrow had caught me—
Good land, how I screamed!

Of one little children
And six ailing wives
(No, one wife and six children),
Not one of them thrives.

Read Poem
0
331
Rating:

To J. S. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.

And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Read Poem
0
337
Rating:

Gerontion by T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both. Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Read Poem
0
380
Rating:

Walsinghame by Sir Walter Ralegh
Sir Walter Ralegh
As you came from the holy land
of Walsinghame
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?

How shall I know your true love
That have met many one
As I went to the holy land
Read Poem
0
260
Rating:

Fairy-Land by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Dim vales—and shadowy floods—
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over:
Huge moons there wax and wane—
Again—again—again—
Every moment of the night—
Forever changing places—
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial,
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down—still down—and down
Read Poem
0
390
Rating:

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Read Poem
1
1.2K
Rating:

To My Mother by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
Read Poem
0
367
Rating:

Smile, Smile, Smile by Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned; “For,” said the paper, “when this war is done The men's first instinct will be making homes. Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, It being certain war has just begun.
Read Poem
0
318
Rating:

The Presence by Odysseus Elytis
Odysseus Elytis
MARIA NEFELE:
I walk in thorns in the dark
of what’s to happen and what has
with my only weapon my only defense
my nails purple like cyclamens.

ANTIPHONIST:
I saw her everywhere. Holding a glass and staring in space. Lying down
listening to records. Walking the streets in wide trousers and an old
Read Poem
0
406
Rating:

And When My Sorrow was Born by Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran
And when my Joy was born, I held it in my arms and stood on the
house-top shouting, “Come ye, my neighbours, come and see, for Joy
this day is born unto me. Come and behold this gladsome thing that
laugheth in the sun.”

But none of my neighbours came to look upon my Joy, and great was
my astonishment.

And every day for seven moons I proclaimed my Joy from the
house-top—and yet no one heeded me. And my Joy and I were alone,
unsought and unvisited.

Then my Joy grew pale and weary because no other heart but mine
held its loveliness and no other lips kissed its lips.

Then my Joy died of isolation.

And now I only remember my dead Joy in remembering my dead Sorrow.
But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and
then is heard no more.
Read Poem
0
429
Rating:

Adam Means Earth* by Samuel Menashe
Samuel Menashe
I am the man
Whose name is mud
But what’s in a name
To shame one who knows
Mud does not stain
Clay he’s made of
Dust Adam became—
The dust he was—
Read Poem
0
356
Rating:

Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks by Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
In the moonlight
I met Berserk,
In the moonlight
On the bushy plain.

Oh, sharp he was
As the sleepless!

And, “Why are you red
In this milky blue?”
Read Poem
0
390
Rating:

To My Honor'd Kinsman, John Driden by John Dryden
John Dryden
Of Chesterton, In the County of Huntingdon, Esquire How blessed is he, who leads a Country Life,
Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife!
Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage,
Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age:
Read Poem
0
326
Rating:

The Indifferent Shepherdess to Colin by Ann Yearsley
Ann Yearsley
Colin, why this mistake?
Why plead thy foolish love?
My heart shall sooner break
Than I a minion prove;
Nor care I half a rush,
No snare I spread for thee:
Go home, my friend, and blush
For love and liberty.
Read Poem
0
365
Rating:

Playroom by Mary Barnard
Mary Barnard
Wheel of sorrow, centerless.
Voices, sad without cause,
slope upward, expiring on grave summits.
Mournfulness of muddy playgrounds,
raw smell of rubbers and wrapped lunches
when little girls stand in a circle singing
of windows and of lovers.

Hearing them, no one could tell
Read Poem
0
287
Rating:

A Terre by Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.) Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell.
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Read Poem
0
395
Rating:

Felonies and Arias of the Heart by Frank Lima
Frank Lima
I need more time, a simple day in Paris hotels and window shopping.
The croissants will not bake themselves and the Tower of London would
Like to spend a night in the tropics with gray sassy paint. It has many
Wounds and historic serial dreams under contract to Hollywood.
Who will play the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, and who will braid her

Hair? Was it she who left her lips on the block for the executioner,
Whose hands would never find ablution, who would never touch a woman
Again or eat the flesh of a red animal? Blood pudding would repulse him
Until joining Anne. That is the way of history written for Marlow and
Shakespear. They are with us now that we are sober and wiser,

Not taking the horrors of poetry too seriously. Why am I telling you this
Nonsense, when I have never seen you sip your coffee or tea,
In the morning? Not to mention,
Read Poem
0
358
Rating: