Carl Rakosi

In what sense
I am I
a minor observer
as in a dream
absorbed in the interior,

a beardless youth
unaccountably
remote yet present

What can be compared to
the living eye?
Its East
is flowering
honeysuckle
and its North
dogwood bushes.

What can be compared

1

Under this Luxemburg of heaven,
upright capstan,
small eagles. . . .
is the port of N.Y. . . . .

gilders, stampers, pen makers, goldbeaters,

apprehensions of thunder
speed

Am I the only one
watching
my neighbour’s
frolicksome goat,
Ginger,
tied to a pecan tree?
All morning
it has been examining

Eastern Sea, 100 fathoms,
green sand, pebbles,
broken shells.

Off Suno Saki, 60 fathoms,
gray sand, pebbles,
bubbles rising.

Plasma-bearer
and slow-

Up stand
six
yellow
jonquils
in a
glass/
the stems
dark green,

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love,

Who can say now,
“When I was young, the country was very beautiful?
Oaks and willows grew along the rivers
and there were many herbs and flowering bushes.
The forests were so dense the deer slipped through
the cottonwoods and maples unseen.”

Who would listen?
Who will carry even the vicarious tone of that time?

The old man
drew the line
for his son,
the executive:
“I don’t want you spending money on me!
(not as long as there are fathers)”,
the line ageless
as the independence of time.

The ants came
to investigate
the dead
bull snake,
nibbled
at the viscera
and hurried off
with full mouths

We speak of mankind.
Why not wavekind?

Barrel-chested military water
rushes in a mass
to break the shore earth
into stonekind.

Pphlooph pphlooph
the waves grope

“If you open the brain
from whence sprang Solomon and Aristotle
and separate the lips
in the fissure of Sylvius
a triangle of cortex
will appear.
This is the Island of Reil.”

Well put, anatomist.

a man and his dog

what fun
chasing twigs
into the water!

young girls bicycle by
in pairs and plaid shorts

a wind so soft
one’s whole