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.
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:Σίβυλλα τίθέλεις; respondebat illa:άποθανεîνθέλω.’ For Ezra Pound il miglior fabbro. I. The Burial of the Dead
I lived here nearly 5 years before I could meet the middle western day with anything approaching Dignity. It’s a place that lets you understand why the Bible is the way it is: Proud people cannot live here.
The land’s too flat. Ugly sullen and big it pounds men down past humbleness. They Stoop at 35 possibly cringing from the heavy and
(After Kipling) When the traveller in the pasture meets the he-bull in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside; But the milch cow, thus accosted, pins the traveller to the rail -- For the female of the species is deadlier than the male.
Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up, Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down To reach the misty dewberry—let us stoop And seek its nest—the brook we need not dread, 'Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown, So it sings harmless o'er its pebbly bed —Ay here it is, stuck close beside the bank Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank
At the Poem Society a black-haired man stands up to say “You make me sick with all your talk about restraint and mature talent! Haven’t you ever looked out the window at a painting by Matisse, Or did you always stay in hotels where there were too many spiders crawling on your visages? Did you ever glance inside a bottle of sparkling pop, Or see a citizen split in two by the lightning? I am afraid you have never smiled at the hibernation
October–November 1975 Autobus on Paseo de la Reforma with destination signs: bellas artes insurgentes. Exactamente. Just what’s needed: Insurgent Arts. Poesía Insurgente. This is not it ...
The hard thing’s to sit without being noticed. Everything else will come easy. Three sips and the impulse returns to sit thinking alone. Against the buzzing backdrop of noise everything fades, and it’s suddenly a miracle to be born and to stare at the glass. And work (a man who’s alone can’t not think of work) becomes again the old fate that suffering’s good
The Augsburger walks with Dante through the hell of the departed. He addresses the inconsolable and reports to them that on earth some things have changed. When I’d reported to the couple, thus That up there no one murders now for gain Since no one owns a thing, the faithless spouse
The sun is high, the seaside air is sharp, And salty light reveals the Mayan School. The Irish hope their names are on the harp, We see the sheep's advertisement for wool, Boulders are here, to throw against a tarp, From which comes bursting forth a puzzled mule. Perceval seizes it and mounts it, then The blood-dimmed tide recedes and then comes in again.
Airport bus from JFK cruising through Queens passing huge endless cemetery by Long Island’s old expressway (once a dirt path for wheelless Indians) myriad small tombstones tilted up gesturing statues on parapets stone arms or wings upraised
The only relics left are those long spangled seconds our school clock chipped out when you crossed the social hall and we found each other alive, by our glances never to accept our town's ways, torture for advancement, nor ever again be prisoners by choice.
Presently at our touch the teacup stirred, Then circled lazily about From A to Z. The first voice heard (If they are voices, these mute spellers-out) Was that of an engineer
Originally from Cologne. Dead in his 22nd year Of cholera in Cairo, he had KNOWN
Tonite I walked out of my red apartment door on East tenth street’s dusk— Walked out of my home ten years, walked out in my honking neighborhood Tonite at seven walked out past garbage cans chained to concrete anchors Walked under black painted fire escapes, giant castiron plate covering a hole in ground —Crossed the street, traffic lite red, thirteen bus roaring by liquor store, past corner pharmacy iron grated, past Coca Cola & Mylai posters fading scraped on brick Past Chinese Laundry wood door’d, & broken cement stoop steps For Rent hall painted green & purple Puerto Rican style
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.
“Stay your rude steps; whose throbbing breasts infold The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold! Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part, While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!— For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower, For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour; Unmark’d by you, light Graces swim the green, And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.
“But Thou! whose mind the well-attemper’d ray Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Think how many, by now, have escaped the world’s memory.
Think, how all his wandering is only thought. Having once tried to live in the quasi-stupor of sensation, now he picks his way through areas of spilth, seeking the least among infinite evils.
His hope: intermittent.
To a person so little conscious, what would it mean to die? Though he feels, true enough, death’s wither-clench. Thinking always of
Comment form: