the scansions of tree to tree, of house to house, and how
almost every other one had something bright to add
to the morass of conversation: not much, just a raised eyebrow
or skirt. And we all take it in, even laughing in the right places,
which get to be few and far between. Still it is a way of saying,
a meaning that something has been done, a thing, and hearing always
comes afterward. And once you have heard, you know,
the margin can excuse you. We all go back to being attentive
then, and the right signals concur. It stops, and smarts.
NOTES FROM THE AIR
A yak is a prehistoric cabbage: of that, at least, we may be sure.
But tell us, sages of the solarium, why is that light
still hidden back there, among house-plants and rubber sponges?
For surely the blessed moment arrived at midday
and now in mid-afternoon, lamps are lit,
for it is late in the season. And as it struggles now
and is ground down into day, complaints
are voiced at the edges of darkness: look, it says,
it has to be this way and no other. Time that one seizes
and takes along with one is running through the holes
like sand from a bag. And these sandy moments
accuse us, are just what our enemy ordered,
the surly one on his throne of impacted
gold. No matter if our tale be interesting
or not, whether children stop to listen and through the rent
veil of the air the immortal whistle is heard,
and screeches, songs not meant to be listened to.
It was some stranger’s casual words, overheard in the wind-blown
street above the roar of the traffic and then swept
to the distant orbit where words hover: alone, it says,
but you slept. And now everything is being redeemed,
even the square of barren grass that adjoins your doorstep,
too near for you to see. But others, children and others, will
when the right time comes. Meanwhile we mingle, and not
because we have to, because some host or hostess
has suggested it, beyond the limits of polite
conversation. And we, they too, were conscious of having
known it, written on the flyleaf of a book presented as a gift
at Christmas 1882. No more trivia, please, but music
in all the spheres leading up to where the master
wants to talk to you, place his mouth over yours,
withdraw that human fishhook from the crystalline flesh
where it was melting, give you back your clothes, penknife,
twine. And where shall we go when we leave? What tree is bigger
than night that surrounds us, is full of more things,
fewer paths for the eye and fingers of frost for the mind,
fruits halved for our despairing instruction, winds
to suck us up? If only the boiler hadn’t exploded one
could summon them, icicles out of the rain, chairs enough
for everyone to be seated in time for the lesson to begin.
STILL LIFE WITH STRANGER
Come on, Ulrich, the great octagon
of the sky is passing over us.
Soon the world will have moved on.
Your love affair, what is it
but a tempest in a teapot?
But such storms exude strange
resonance: the power of the Almighty
reduced to its infinitesimal root
hangs like the chant of bees,
the milky drooping leaves of the birch
on a windless autumn day—
Call these phenomena or pinpoints,
remote as the glittering trash of heaven,
yet the monstrous frame remains,
filling up with regret, with straw,
or on another level with the quick grace
of the singing, falling snow.
You are good at persuading
them to sing with you.
Above you, horses graze forgetting
daylight inside the barn.
Creeper dangles against rock-face.
Pointed roofs bear witness.
The whole cast of characters is imaginary
now, but up ahead, in shadow, the past waits.
HOTEL LAUTRÉAMONT
I/
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society
working as a team. They didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
We see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well.”
Working as a team, they didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
We see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well,”
or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,
or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.
In any case the ruling was long overdue.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.
2/
In any case, the ruling was long overdue.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure
and the solution problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria,
and the solution: problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained.
Yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained,
And night like black swansdown settles on the city.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
3/
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward.
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside,
when all we think of is how much we can carry with us.
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
When all we think of is how much we can carry with us
Small wonder that those at home sit, nervous, by the unlit grate.
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonalty.
Small wonder that those at home sit nervous by the unlit grate.
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonalty
And in so doing deprive time of further hostages.
4/
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages,
to end the standoff that history long ago began.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
but it is shrouded, veiled: we must have made some ghastly error.
To end the standoff that history long ago began
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
But it is shrouded, veiled: we must have made some ghastly error.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
Only night knows for sure; the secret is safe with her.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;
Only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:
the people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
ON THE EMPRESS’S MIND
Let’s make a bureaucracy.
First, we can have long lists of old things,
and new things repackaged as old ones.
We can have turrets, a guiding wall.
Soon the whole country will come to look over it.
Let us, by all means, have things in night light:
partly visible. The rudeness that poetry often brings
after decades of silence will help. Many
will be called to account. This means that laundries
in their age-old way will go on foundering. Is it any help
that motorbikes whiz up, to ask for directions
or colored jewelry, so that one can go about one’s visit
a tad less troubled than before, lightly composed?
No one knows what it’s about anymore.
Even in the beginning one had grave misgivings
but the enthusiasm of departure swept them away
in the green molestation of spring.
We were given false information on which
our lives were built, a pier
extending far out into a swollen river.
Now, even these straws are gone.
Tonight the party will be better than ever.
So many mystery guests. And the rain that sifts
through sobbing trees, that excited skiff …
Others have come and gone and wrought no damage.
Others have caught, or caused darkness, a long vent
in the original catastrophe no one has seen.
They have argued. Tonight will be different. Is it better for you?
THE PHANTOM AGENTS
We need more data re our example, earth—how it would behave in a
crisis, under pressure,
or simply on a day no one had staked out for unrest
to erupt. What season would fit its lifestyle
most naturally? Who would the observers, the control group be?
For this we must seek the answer in decrepit cinemas
whose balconies were walled off decades ago: on the screen
(where, in posh suburbia, a woman waits),
under the seats, in the fuzz and ancient vomit and gumwrappers;
or in the lobby, where yellowing lobby cards announce
the advent of next week’s Republic serial: names
of a certain importance once, names that float
in the past, like a drift of gnats on a summer evening.
Who in the world despises our work
as much as we do? I was against campaigning again,
then my phone started ringing off the hook. I tell you …
But to come back to us, sanded down to the finer grain
and beyond—this is what books teach you, but also
what we must do. Make a name, somehow,
in the wall of clouds behind the credits, like a
twenty-one-vehicle pileup on a fog-enclosed highway.
This is what it means to be off and running, off
one’s nut as well. But in a few more years,
with time off for good behavior …
FROM ESTUARIES, FROM CASINOS
It’s almost two years now.
The theme was articulated, the brightness filled in.
And when we tell about it
no wave of recollection comes gushing back—
it’s as though the war had never happened.
There’s a smooth slightly concave space there instead:
not the ghost of a navel. There are pointless rounds to be made.
No one who saw you at work would ever believe that.
The memories you ground down, the smashed perfection:
Look, it’s wilted, but the shape of a beautiful table remains.
There are other stories, too ambiguous even for our purposes,
but that’s no matter. We’ll use them and someday,
a name-day,
a great event will go unreported.
All that distance, you ask, to the sun?
Surely no one is going to remember to climb
where it insists, poking about
in an abstract of everyday phrases? People have better
things to do with their lives than count how many
bets have been lost, and we all know the birds were here once.
Here they totter and subside, even in surviving.
In history, the best bird catchers were brought before the king,
and he did something, though nobody knows when.
That was before you could have it all
by just turning on the tap, letting it run
in a fiery stream from house to garage—
and we sat back, content to let the letter of the thing notice us,
untroubled by the spirit, talking of the next gull to fly away
on the cement horizon, not quibbling, unspoken for.
We should all get back to the night that bore us
but since that is impossible a dream may be the only way:
dreams of school, of travel, continue to teach and unteach us
as always the heart flies a little away,
perhaps accompanying, perhaps not. Perhaps a familiar spirit,
possibly a stranger, a small enemy whose boiling point
will our desire be fleshed out, at any rate
made clearer as the time comes
to examine it and draw the rasping conclusions?
And though I feel like a fish out of water I
recognize the workmen who proceed before me,
nailing the thing down.
Who asks anything of me?
I am available, my heart pinned in a trance
to the notice board, the stone
inside me ready to speak, if that is all that can save us.
And I think one way or perhaps two; it doesn’t matter
as long as one can slip by, and easily
into the questioning but not miasmal dark.
Look, here is a stance—
shall you cover it, cape it? I
don’t care he said, going down all those stairs
makes a boy of you. And I had what I want
only now I don’t want it, not having it, and yet it defers
to some, is meat and peace and a wooden footbridge
ringing the town, drawing all in after it. And explaining the way to go.
After all this I think I
feel pretty euphoric. Bells chimed, the sky healed.
The great road unrolled its vast burden,
the climate came to the rescue—it always does—
and we were shaken as in a hat and distributed on the ground.
I wish I could tell the next thing. But in dreams I can’t,
so will let this thing stand in for it, this me
&nbs
p; I have become, this loving you either way.
COP AND SWEATER
It’s about this undulation thing,
how we were all beginners to get in on it when it began.
Once that had happened, there was another face on things:
trees no longer came to the door; the seasons
were always “forgetting” to include you in the list—
that sort of thing.
Now those homeless hirsutes we call men
are on our backs, there is no breath out of the kingdom.
Sometimes a plan will come
to take one of them away
but there are long pauses in which grass grows tall
above the elementary wall
behind which bricks, adders and valuable prizes are combined.
It is that we have no mind:
each of us has sampled so many of the others’,
and now the concert is sick.
No rain to stay away from any more,
only a darkling yew
that lets pass a few
into the waiting cemetery
to mingle with the military
whose buttons are celebratory.
A man could smash through this, drain the Slough of Despond,
build individual habitats for bird and person,
suitable, and folly too.
I believe it already happened
in some oasis of desert sand
where they are only waiting to know now
what went on back here, so as to leave
and plant other destinies in the star-filled track
the moon makes on water. Then release
happiness to the wineries and rain barrels
where so much could have happened, and does,
even today! Peace to the fawns,
the tied-back curtains. This is the living,
and if we are to be more than music, the waving
shawls and fanlights of a greater possibility
than mine, than us. So we see always.
From the universal boutique each of us stumbles on.
MUSICA RESERVATA
Then I reached the field and I thought
this is not a joke not a book
but a poem about something—but what? Poems are such odd little jiggers.
This one scratches himself, gets up, then goes off to pee
in a corner of the room. Later looking quite
stylish in white jodhpurs against the winter