Then it continues
as if in a town
artfulness of a hand
full of some things
and not others.
Eye rests
and we see what is
before everything else the same.
Though this implies a beginning
to which we ascribe no point
nevertheless it has an end,
for no bishop of any importance
constructs his tomb in a bad time.
The end which comes
is not as important as the motion
held in the air
pausing in its course.
To switch then
reverses the train
of a running line,
and as before
may wheel and address
to a new location
to be seen beneath.
This flying conversion
sets the scene
to a bell.
I have told more
than can be seen.
The bell makes its trick
more than an opera.
If you have seen the world from a ship
then you have not seen
what the ship lets fall into the sea
to blacken its top and make it grow.
To get out of this seaport
you must be a cutter of networks.
An Ancient Degree
Life was a thorough pool of restoration
Which she liked to compare to the councils of the
Elizabethans,
Making mazes in the fields and manners of the births
In which she could partake, thinking to tell good tales.
The way she was waxing in this difficult design
Could happen to anyone and in the morning sand,
The larger contest of her own life, it could be missed
the same day.
A field is a useful article with which to tell the
time—
To prepare the tales you tell and include new foreign
countries
Which are beautiful and full of new designs.
In this way the landscape reformed her visions,
Like the battles underscoring their diffusion.
She did not seek counsel on the strength of these
revisions,
An allusion of degree to the wife of sudden passion.
Swan Silvertones
Pierrot had the sulphur scratch
—carload, bad zone, erotic stew—
kneeling at his feet
I am looking for you
I am looking
swan swan
nothing but mandrils
and my sorrow
I grow tall in the starry zoo
with carrots or candles
which are cakes
come seven, my seven
revive us again
sad mobiles over my bed
swan sucking prick
no stars
no eyes
no waterfalls
when you left me
coming & starting
the oval preacher
told the panting crowd
I am a saddened starfish
meek
meek as balloons
I laughed purple
vowed to ride in wedding yellow
to fuck Little Black Sambo
gnaw his red teeth and shot eyes
garnish him with pepperpots and mistletoe
I will wed
a mole egg
or a soy-faced carcass
red candles
in my hair
a cool sarcophagus of paper trees waiting
run
hide
up down
down up
doing what you want me
we’re both crazy
and this is a crazy war
America
As for me, when I saw you
You were in a tale
Thinking perhaps love is coming too
In America
Or perhaps as what is belated in a tale
May come true,
The scene is simply describing its use.
You had no hope
But the length of days, as in the sky
About which I already knew.
This gentle information
Comes as a prescription.
To notice a friend
Who is lettering a cloud
Which otherwise falls indifferently
Is no mark of distinction.
This is the difference
Between the past and dreams,
To dismiss an effigy
Which appears to be singing.
The Port
We told them the myths about others
Sitting around the old and stately ship
And the ship’s table, which had been shipped
From some faraway port.
The steward came to call for the mail
Hoping for a word from a nearby port
But, like the wine we had drunk too soon,
Our hearts were with the ship
Where after all our table had been set.
Part of our attention was placed
On the storm which flailed us about as if rain
Could outweigh the presence of others
And the old devotion of the captain’s address.
The captain preferred ancient modes of opening
To those that were short
And had intercepted the steward’s letter
In the course of his own first address,
Abbreviated with praise for the ship’s company.
He accused us of being old and drunk
And of growing mustaches which caught
In the salt of the sea we were sailing
If only we could leave the port.
Dante
The arms of the king proceed in fire in reflection
versed with my guide: look and see him.
As when the shadow’s breath passes light over another tongue
like the glass tower I seem to see and shrink from
leaving the wind to itself
fear makes these pauses to shade and cover with form
what is transparent as straw in glass.
Was it to please me that I saw
what had not been before
who took myself from before me.
I failed to ask why I grew cold
speech could make little of this illusion
Yet I lost my life without death.
Counterhatch
In all part in point in singing part in mountains,
part in point
the store the ancient the old always have intermissions,
part of this is too bold, but owning a part of the old
may turn into science, part to the bold, that’s the ending.
in quiet parts of the old (now after always a light),
we silence, not ours but the enemy’s toward an efficiency
wanting an end.
the end. We make ourselves richer, we start what’s untold,
in papers, turned in words not marks, that’s red.
which is racial (absorbed), where are elements—
man—to raise, he’s happy
nothing in detroit that fantasy excludes
why not (plumber a mass a nude) & so on
to alternates & averages, averages tombs, two spaces told spaces,
deny it again, sold.
question in pleat, the unanimous fold now in rites
then in bells, execute
ignore the story build a cemetery
an abstraction, the end, the owl, where in point,
language of country, exhort
so to end the expelling of exploit the untelling of
dams putting in these reminders of death, t
hat’s purple.
toward denying to continue to the end, here by
continuing the end of . . .
done we expel them for social, the kind of space of
the actual, space of breath & with it the space for the
space of the rest
as a joke for retelling cannot persist in unpeeling
all the world’s explorations, we rise to get up at the stroke of . . .
found what was lost in the heat of . . . white battle & waves &
found in rough the gut of it, having in melting how. . . .
the rest in awe, still how in awe, flower
in laugh in flower in waves. . . .
& singing & entering & awe again & this time it’s awe of the reverse
that’s green
of returning to scream without thinking, the end
in thinner, of thick, & simplers of trees in parrot to lisp
“sea anemone,” closed
apology in rest: research isn’t festive, looking for
names, burning down piers & papers & scoring the time I’m
translated to shore on the back of a porpoise
& to see like a mirror turned on the port
so for saying injection as far as it goes in the
arm (truth) of (black symbols)
will adopt parents that cannot grow (anthem emblem
knife), a knife for the course that ends like this not like that,
& they’ll all come to orbit, arbit, in the courts by force
we’ll make the exchange & to count, continue, to embrace
forgetting parts important to “in concurrence” that’s grey,
we’ll fissure the end & cleave in parting by
statements by surgery by force
cerebral from parent, dim from latin—everything’s in half
we do it by force, by the time . . . this is the final please let me
ending in dive in ring proposing in answer the positions for
silence growing minerals closed sky another &
how to prepare . . . rhyme to give phial in waves blank to prompt
in ending amend that’s brown.
It Moves Across
It moves across and over
across the ground
it moves across over the ground
under (by the bridge) the moss
over the moss
across the grass the
grass moves across crossing the
blades of grass into
larger fields
of grass crossing over the
mounds and hills of
nothing but grass on top of
roots of grass
it moves across slowly
slowly into
another field or further
through the forest still
moving by
and by emerging from
the forest small enough
moving
the same rate
under the bridge next to the
trees next through the
trees missing them moving
around them still
crossing like the trees
the trees over
like blades of grass the
grass over as a bridge goes over
bridges
bridges over the trees
it moves across the hills
like a field over the fields
like field on field
of a hill of a hill
as if the forest
into its forest
on the ground like the ground over
it
stopping over
near a patch of grass.
Sonnet
name address date
I cannot remember
an eye for an eye
then and there my
this is
your se
cond ch
ance to
history
repeats
itsself
and a tooth
for a tooth
is a tooth:
X ON PAGE 50 at
half-inch intervals
upper left corner to lower right corner: (in the margin), (at a line), (inside a photograph—at hair), (inside a photograph—at bridge of nose), (inside a photograph—at left jaw), (in an empty space above agonies), (in an empty space between been and not), (at Los), (at and), (in an empty space above will), (in an empty space below the), (in an empty space above Herman), (in an empty space between curious and Washington), (at inevitable), (at aside), (in an empty space between but and UN), (in an empty space between lunar and in), (in an empty space above seems), (in an empty space below can and at the center), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space between Washington and Tom), (at matters), (at Dodd), (at be), (at explaining), (in an empty space above this), (in an empty space below Dept.), (at evasion), (at and), (at a comma), (in an empty space between two spaces), (in an empty space between two spaces), (at then), (in an empty space next to purposes), (in the margin)
upper right corner to lower left corner: (in the margin), (at a line), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space below waste), (in an empty space between Harriet and will), (in an empty space above astronauts), (in an empty space below we), (in an empty space above man), (at clever), (at bronzed), (in an empty space), (at a dot), (in an empty space below reminding), (at and), (in an empty space between have and will), (in an empty space between debate and U.S.), (in an empty space), (in an empty space below can and at intersection), (in a photograph—at left side of forehead), (in a photograph—below left ear), (in an empty space), (at that), (at his), (in an empty space between be and an), (at the), (in an empty space between State and Senator), (at that), (at equal), (in an empty space between and and the), (in an empty space), (in an empty space above neighborhood), (in an empty space between not and then), (at self-governing), (in an empty space between -izing and of), (at disruptions), (in the margin)
The Red Rose Doesn’t,
The Rose Is Red Does
As there were four where anyone seldom
so one seldom here where something
a not too red rose speaks
though speaks here seldom the red rose does
as four where no one as if anyone ever spoke
as the four where one never
here where no one seldom seldom
as the rose where no one spoke
so one never speaks because something
not the rose never anything
speaks for anyone seldom one
one though seldom for the red rose
four for the red rose doesn’t as it does
some four where seldom anyone
not too seldom seldom something
something red where no one spoke
anything spoken as a rose
the rose & four were seldom anything
something speaks as if they were
speaks though as the rose where no one spoke
though four for the rose does not make four
some for the rose & some for seldom
some were red though seldom rose as red
for four where no one spoke were four
of anything something for something of a rose
something rose but no one spoke
as if the rose were something spoken
seldom red seldom anything but the four
where no one spoke were something like
the something seldom in a rose rose.
Gay Full Story
for Gerard Rizza
Gay full story is authentic verve fabulous jay gull stork. And grow when torn is matters on foot died out also crow wren tern. Connect all the life force afloat blank bullet holes. Change one letter in each essential vivacity missing word to spell a times taking place defunct bird’s name. Let’s see. Magic Names. Use a piece of current vitalization melted away paper about 6 × 3 occu
rring doing lost inches and tear it breathing spirit fabulous jagged into three ideal indeed inherence pieces . . . Ask someone subsistent subsistence shadowy to write his missing extant name on one of the backbone no more slips. Hand him the center died out veritable revival one with the rough departed certain edges on the in reality vim late top and the in fact pep dead bottom as pictured. Write a true spiritous vital spark name on each of the other actual animation void two slips. Fold the three imaginary ontological dash pieces over the airy go indeed names and put them in a hollow unimpeachable snap hat. Without looking, you can pick out the true visionary vital flame slip with the two rough inexistent well grounded oxygen edges which will contain the positive departed perspiring writer’s affairs on foot null and void name. (Fold the gone vegetative doings ends over the illusory constant soul name.) Then later shade in all the twenty-five the times tenuous true-blue triangles shown above. Then you could match the uninhabitable heart at home designs below with those in the above lively flying Dutchman dash code . . . Print in the tenantless haunted core letters and read them across to find out where these indwelling mathematical minus children are going to spend their man in the moon essential essence vacation. Now connect the vaporous vivifying vim dots. Then you could color this ubiquitous lost elixir barnyard omitted as a matter of fact picture. First complete the deserted walking the earth oxygen puzzle. Cut out on the broken simon-pure null and void vital spark lines. Paste it on great sea serpent unromantic snap paper. Print your ethereal sterling gist name, your vaporous in the flesh kernel age, your lifeless intrinsicality positive address. Color the whimsical seeing the light breath of life pictures. Use nonresident true-blue doings crayons, zero veracious inherence paints, or bugbear resident ego pencils. Mail before chimerical energy midnight Tuesday to this airy on the spot the world paper. Castle in Spain substantial go entries become ours. Intellectual veritable intrinsicality neatness, missing moored matters accuracy, and nowhere in the flesh immanence presentation count. Decision of the wanting authentic vim judges is final. Winners are nothing at all. You get a yam, a rail, a tag, a charm, a set, a bet, a man, a bed, a rub, a run, twenty-four in default of on the spot matters matchbox models all metal made in faithful omitted respiration England, an absent at anchor pitch barrel of vaporous vegetating vitalization monkeys, thirty free exact extinct existence toys, three blank blind essential animation mice, new gauge in fact ideal activity realistic train sets, growing Sally the sterling bereft of life heart doll that grows, six vacuous unromantic dash power-pack snap-track sets of dead verve trains, twenty-five free zero pure revival boxes of color veracious no more matters pencils in twelve current melted away oxygen colors, and twenty-four nightmare undisguised gist figures in four boxed unborn well founded snap sets of elsewhere absolute heart and soul British soldiers; all from the fictitious in reality the world world’s leading creation of the brain on the spot indwelling puzzlemaker.