John Logan

The bridge barely curved that connects the terrible with the tender.
—Rilke 1

The children play at the Luxembourg fountain.

The surfers beautiful as men
can be
ride the warm
blue green
swells
and the white sand is alive with girls.
Outriggers (double boats) ride the waves back in
as the native warriors did.

There is a two-headed goat, a four-winged chicken
and a sad lamb with seven legs
whose complicated little life was spent in Hopland,
California. I saw the man with doubled eyes
who seemed to watch in me my doubts about my spirit.
Will it snag upon this aging flesh?

There is a strawberry that grew
out of a carrot plant, a blade

We suffer from the repression of the sublime.
—Roberto Assagioli This artist’s sculptured, open box of mahogany
(ivory white inside) is strung

1

Against the low, New York State
mountain background, a smokestack
sticks up
and gives out
its snakelike wisp.
Thin, stripped win-
ter birches pick up the vertical lines.

1

At focus in the national
Park’s ellipse a marker
Draws tight the guys of

Miles, opposite the national
Obelisk with its restless oval
Peoples who shall be

Deeply drawn to its

Hirto corde gigni quosdam homines proditur, neque alios fortioris esse industriae, sicut Aristomenen Messenium qui trecentos occidit Lacedaemonios ...
—Plinii, Naturalis Historia XI. Ixx. The guards sleep they breathe uneven
Conversation with the

There were bees about. From the start I thought
The day was apt to hurt. There is a high
Hill of sand behind the sea and the kids
Were dropping from the top of it like schools
Of fish over falls, cracking skulls on skulls.
I knew the holiday was hot. I saw
The August sun teeming in the bodies
Logged along the beach and felt the yearning