178
Above the lindens tops of poplars waved
in an old French story, according to Henry
who shook himself & shaved,
rid of that dream. Rid slowly of all his dreams
he faced the wicked ordinary day
in a tumult of seems
whilst wanderers on coasts lookt for the man
actual, having encountered all his ghosts
off & on, by the way.
Murders occur in rain. Work while you can,
his hopeless spirit thrived to him to say
along those treacherous coasts.
We are struck down, repeat the chroniclers,
having glowed. Henry from hearsay
can vouch for most of this.
Leaving the known world with an awkward kiss
he haunted, back among his colleagues in this verse
constructed in angry play.
179
A terrible applause pulls Henry’s ear,
before the stampede: seats on seats collapse,
they are goring each other,
I donno if we’ll get away. Who care?
Why don’t we fold us down in our own laps,
long-no-see colleague & brother?
—I don’t think’s time to, time to, Bones.
Tomorrow be more shows; be special need
for rest & rehearse now.
Let’s wander on the sands, with knitting bones,
while the small waves please the poor seaweed
so little. —The grand plough
distorts the Western Sky. Back to lurk!
We cannot rave ourselves. Let’s hide. It’s well
or ill,—there’s a bell—so far,
the history of the Species: work, work, work.
All right, I’ll stay. The hell with the true knell,
we’ll meander as far as the bar.
180
The Translator—I
(Scene: Leningrad, the trials of the young poet Joseph Brodsky for ‘parasitism.’ The judge’s name deserves record: one Mme Saveleva. Let her be remembered.)
Henry rushes not in here. The matter’s their matter,
and Hart Crane drowned himself some over money,
but it is Henry’s mutter
that seldom has a judge so coarse borne herself coarsely
and often has a poet worked so hard for so small
but they was not prosecuted
in this world. It’s Henry’s matter, after all,
who is ashamed of much of the Soviet world
in their odium of imagination.
Translated not just Pole but Serbian
(a tough one, pal—vreme, vatre, vrtovi)
& Cuban: O a bevy!
They flocked to him like women, languages.
Bees honey but wound—African worst—Pasternak bees,
whom they not dared to touch
though after they ruin his friend, like this young man
who only wanted to walk beside the canals
talking about poetry and make it.
181
The Translator—II
Because I am not able to forget,
Henry is dreaming of society,
one where the gifted & hard-working
young poet is cherished, kissed as a king
to come, a prized comer. Ah but see
them baleful ignorant
justicer & witnesses, corrupt by purity,
lacking all sense of others, lacking sense,
but liars too, pal.
I snuff the proper vomit of a State
where every tree is adjudged equal tall,
in faith without debate.
I beg to place in evidence, vicious mother:
That in the west of my land tower Douglas firs,
taller than others.
If then a judge grides to one of them ‘You are sick,
lazy: Siberia!’ what gross metaphors
shall we invent for this judge?
(The sentence: forced labour for five years in a ‘distant locality.’)
182
Buoyant, chockful of stories, Henry lingered
at party after party, a bitter-ender.
Long when the rest were asleep
he had much to relate, more to debate
if anyone would keep him company
toward fragrant dawn.
The river of his wide mind broke the jam,
somebody called his wild wit riverine,
sprayed thought like surf
assigned to angles none, curve upon curve,
such he could praise himself— —Mr Bones, you am.
Let’s have a ritornello.
—Let’s have a ritornello. You, me, her.
I loves you both and therefore all are bitter.
Let’s have a ritornello.
He loved them many & he loved them well
and he held the world up like a big sea-shell
or heather-ale, harkening to follow.
183
News of God
Eastward he longs, before, well, any bad
the silly fellow did. Then he remembers,
oh, the worst thing of all.
But he only remembers it as having been had,
not as itself—like a list of summers
surging into Fall.
High on which list lay one when Love licked him,
her own ice-cream cone, melting. Honey love:
again.
Swung hard a blind, hairy heavy grim
& unrememberable, over enough
of all that had been. Then
they were forever together. Her lip pearled,
sprang wet his front, for fear, the winning Prince,
who called back something … a plea?
Passing out of pity into the New World,
I amounted up. I sum it at five scents.
Bid for me.
184
Failed as a makar, nailed as scholar, failed
as a father & a man, hailed for a lover,
Henry slumped down, pored it over.
We c-can’t win here, he stammered to himself.
With his friend Phil and also his friend Ralph
he mourned across or he wailed.
His friend Boyd waited, all behind the nurses,
the simple nurses pretty as you will,
and emerged, and gave.
He was as ill as well one can be, ill.
When he could read he studied for gravestones
the Geographic, with curses.
And neither did his friend Boyd haul him up
entirely, nor did Ralph & Phil succeed
dispersing his gross fears.
He leaned on Heaven; no. Black would he bleed
to tests. Their EEG for months, for years,
went mad. So did not he.
185
The drill was after or is into him.
Whirr went a bite. He should not feel this bad.
A truly first-class drill.
Nothing distinctly hurts. It reminds him.
—Like it makes you blink, Mr Bones, of was & will?
—Very much so.
Conundrums at the gum-line.
I’ve been jumpy for the last 37 years,
pal.
The more I lessen to, the bore I hears.
Drugging & prodding me! ‘His Majesty,
the body.’
‘Gynecomastia’ the surgeon called,
‘the man is old & bald
and has habits. In this circumstance
I cannot save him.’ The older you get, at once
the better death looks and
the more fearful & intolerable.
186
There is a swivelly grace that’s up from grace
I both remember & know. Into your face
for summers now—for three—
I have been looking, and for winters O
and never at any ti
me have you resembled snow.
And at the ceremony
after His Honor swivelled us a judge
my best friend stood in tears, at both his age
and undeclining mine.
In E(e)rie Plaza then we kept on house
and months O soon we saw that pointy-nose
was destined to combine
her blood with Henry’s in a little thing.
If all went well. It all went better, mingling,
and Little sprang out.
The parking-lot tilted & made a dance,
ditching Jesuits. The sun gave it a glance
and went about & about.
187
Them lady poets must not marry, pal.
Miss Dickinson—fancy in Amherst bedding hér.
Fancy a lark with Sappho,
a tumble in the bushes with Miss Moore,
a spoon with Emily, while Charlotte glare.
Miss Bishop’s too noble-O.
That was the lot. And two of them are here
as yet, and—and: Sylvia Plath is not.
She—she her credentials
has handed in, leaving alone two tots
and widower to what he makes of it—
surviving guy, &
when Tolstoy’s pathetic widow doing her whung
(after them decades of marriage) & kids, she decided he was queer
& loving his agent.
Wherefore he rush off, leaving two journals, & die.
It is a true error to marry with poets
or to be by them.
188
There is a kind of undetermined hair,
half-tan, to which he was entirely unable to fail to respond
in woman, a poisoned
reminiscence: a kiss, or so; there.
The lady is not pretty but has eyes,
and seems to be kind.
Convulsed with love, who cares? There is that hair
unbuttoned. Loves unbutton loves, we’re bare,
somewhere in my mind.
When this occurs I begin to think in Spanish
when Miss Cienfuegos, who looked after me
& after me in Pasadena.
Murdered the ruses that would quack me clear
The orchard squeaks. I look less weird
without my beard
Cal has always manifested a most surprising affection
for Matthew Arnold,—who is not a rat but whom
I can quite take or leave.
189
The soft small snow gangs over my heavy house.
My ladies are well gone—but gone where? to Iowa!
the worst of them many states.
Bless the state of man of the man in Iowa.
One lady’s left, the dog. She & I for days
have here to hang out.
My lady tucked our Twissy on a train,
stepped up herself, and they were off, for friends.
Their taxi wobbled away.
Our car won’t start. It’s twelve below. It won’t rain
is the sole good news. Maybe in Ioway
it’s worse. They’ll get the ‘bends’
as ladies & gentlemen do coming from Iowa,
pal. The gross snow hoods on the useless car.
We can’t & must have that,
Bhuvaneswar Dog & I, spared Iowa.
The almost empty house in a tit for tat
is becoming a genuine bat.
190
The doomed young envy the old, the doomed old the dead young.
It is hard & hard to get these matters straight.
Keats glares at Yeats
who full of honours died & being old sung
his strongest. Henry appreciated that hate,
but what now of Yeats’
lucky of-Fanny-free feeling for Keats
who doomed by Mistress Gonne proved barren years
and saw his friends all leave,
stale his rewards turn, & cut off then at his peak,
promising in his seventies! all fears
save that one failed to deceive.
I scrounge ensamples violent by choice.
In most what matters, Henry wondered. Let’s lie.
All we fall down & die
after a course worse of a stoppage of voice
so terrible I have no more to say
but best is the short day.
191
The autumn breeze was light & bright. A small bird
flew in the back door and the beagle got it
(half-beagle) on the second try.
My wife kills flies & feeds them to the dog,
five last night, plus one Rufus snapped herself.
This is a house of death
and one of Henry’s oldest friends was killed,
it came on a friend’ radio, this week,
whereat Henry wept.
All those deaths keep Henry pale & ill
and unable to sail through the autumn world & weak,
a disadvantage of surviving.
The leaves fall, lives fall, every little while
you can count with stirring love on a new loss
& an emptier place.
The style is black jade at all seasons, the style
is burning leaves and a shelving of moss
over each planted face.
192
Love me love me love me love me love me
I am in need thereof, I mean of love,
I married her.
That was a hasty & a violent step
like an unhopeful Kierkegardian leap,
wasn’t it, dear?
Slowly the sloth moved on in search of prey,
I see that. The jungles flash with light,
in some angles dark as midnight,
and chuck chuck chuck the spark did make a noise
when he cross the street on de electric wires
Swiftly the wind rose, gorgons showed their teeth,
while the bombs bombed on empty territory beneath.
I love you.
Will I forget ever my sole guru
far in Calcutta. I do not think so.
Nor will I you.
193
Henry’s friend’s throat hurt. (Yvor Winters’ dead.)
Reason & Nature cried out ‘Operate!’
Of his high office
little he made with the trouble between his head
& chest. (Winters’ last words marshalled with hate.)
Peculiar bliss
comes in relax. Decisions medics faced
(He thought the world of the East Coast: enemy.)
the Mayor faced no more,
relying in their hands, on memory based
& unforeseen conditions. (Henry set high
that Winters, his own sore
foe, like his cancer.) Now these two good men
wise in their years, ill in their bodies, lay
one gone, one to arrive
fixed, for our little time, & get up again:
Hurrah! (Alas.) Praising their—we may—
criteria & overdrive.
194
If all must hurt at once, let yet more hurt now,
so I’ll be ready, Dr God. Púsh on me.
Give it to Henry harder.
There lives content: one area, taking a bow,
unbothered, whére I can’t remember, lovely,
somewhere down there,
or, better still, up here, where forest fires
burn on for years. From the fire-towers watch is kept
on diminuendo flaming.
Each jack be the custodian of his desires
from which he sprang & sullen then he slept
until a coda of blaming.
—You do. She do. I will be with you-all,
in a little little silence, Mr Bones.
—I see I depend on you
for nothing.—Try Dr God, clown a ball,
low come to you in the blue sad darkies’ moans
worsing than yours, too.
195
I stalk my mirror down this corridor
my pieces litter. Oklahoma, sore
from my great loss leaves me.
We pool our knowless in my seminar,
question all comers that they may not jar
their intrepidity
before the Awenger rises in the corpse’s way
as inconvenient as the bloodscoot sway
of them Aztecs’ real priests.
All my pieces kneel and we all scream:
History’s Two-legs was a heartless dream,
reality is
& reskinned knuckles & forgiveness & toys
unbreakable & thunder that excites & annoys
but’s powerless to harm.
Reality’s the growing again of the right arm
(which so we missed in our misleading days)
& the popping back in of eyes.
196
I see now all these deaths are to one end—
whereby I lost a foe, friend upon friend—
room.
We wonder guided: it comes to all the same,
we too’ll perform our rapture as of whom
later my love in whose name.
Fresh spring them enemies, decent fall the cloths
over a high income.
Vanish me later: here I’ll stay while some
first put their glasses on the windowsill:
headlines the next day screamed until
even at Harvard the story was moths.
Harvard is after Henry, and that’s not new.
‘I’ll see you later’ cried the crippled soul
one destination behind.
Soul upon soul, in the high Andes, blue
but blind for turns. And this is where the mind
stops. Death is a box.
197
(I saw in my dream
the great lost cities, Macchu Picchu, Cambridge Mass., Angkor
I wonder if it’s raining on Macchu Picchu or
Cambridge Mass, as here,
the terraces alive with magical rain
the dead all in their places, all insane
& trying to sit up from fear,
I saw it all, the peopled terraces
as once I suppose they were, as we are,