and a cry the trade never heard.
He watched her real-life Dachau,
knew his career was ruined.
Was there anything else to do?
He sold his bag and tongs,
went to pieces. A man’s got to be able
to bring his wife something.
MY MENTORS
My rabbi has a silver buddha,
my priest has a jade talisman.
My doctor sees a marvellous omen
in our prolonged Indian summer.
My rabbi, my priest stole their trinkets
from shelves in the holy of holies.
The trinkets cannot be eaten.
They wonder what to do with them.
My doctor is happy as a pig
although he is dying of exposure.
He has finished his big book
on the phallus as a phallic symbol.
My zen master is a grand old fool.
I caught him worshipping me yesterday,
so I made him stand in a foul corner
with my rabbi, my priest, and my doctor.
HYDRA 1960
Anything that moves is white,
a gull, a wave, a sail,
and moves too purely to be aped.
Smash the pain.
Never pretend peace.
The consolumentum has not,
never will be kissed. Pain
cannot compromise this light.
Do violence to the pain,
ruin the easy vision,
the easy warning, water
for those who need to burn.
These are ruthless: rooster shriek,
bleached goat skull.
Scalpels grow with poppies
if you see them truly red.
LEVIATHAN
I learn nothing
because my mind is stuffed with bodies:
blurred parades, hosts of soft lead wings,
tragic heaped holes of the starved,
the tangled closer than snakes,
swarming gymnasiums,
refuse of hospitals compose my mind:
no neat cells,
limbs, rumps, fetuses compose my mind.
It reels like Leviathan in oldtime cuts,
a nation writhing:
mothers, statues, madonnas, ruins –
I’m stripped, suckled, weaned,
I leap, love, anonymous as insect.
There is no beauty to choose here:
some mutilated, some whole, some perfect severed thighs
embryos, dried skin:
the mass so vast some scales, some liquid never meeting.
Language is gone,
squeezed out in food, kisses.
Arithmetic, power, cities never were.
God knows what they’ve built today.
Only the echo I cast in world offices
returns to damn me ignorant –
as if I can hear in the screech of flesh
or talk back with mouth of hair.
HEIRLOOM
The torture scene developed under a glass bell
such as might protect an expensive clock.
I almost expected a chime to sound
as the tongs were applied
and the body jerked and fainted calm.
All the people were tiny and rosy-cheeked
and if I could have heard a cry of triumph or pain
it would have been tiny as the mouth that made it
or one single note of a music box.
The drama bell was mounted
like a gigantic baroque pearl
on a wedding ring or brooch or locket.
I know you feel naked, little darling.
I know you hate living in the country
and can’t wait until the shiny magazines
come every week and every month.
Look through your grandmother’s house again.
There is an heirloom somewhere.
PROMISE
Your blond hair
is the way I live –
smashed by light!
Your mouth-print
is the birthmark
on my power.
To love you
is to live
my ideal diary
which I have
promised my body
I will never write!
SKY
The great ones pass
they pass without touching
they pass without looking
each in his joy
each in his fire
Of one another
they have no need
they have the deepest need
The great ones pass
Recorded in some multiple sky
inlaid in some endless laughter
they pass
like stars of different seasons
like meteors of different centuries
Fire undiminished
by passing fire
laughter uncorroded
by comfort
they pass one another
without touching without looking
needing only to know
the great ones pass
WAITING FOR MARIANNE
I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it
I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost asleep
Did you take the telephone
knowing I’d sniff it immoderately
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath
and if you won’t come back
how will you phone to say
you won’t come back
so that I could at least argue
WHY I HAPPEN TO BE FREE
They all conspire to make me free
I tried to join their arguments
but there were so few sides
and I needed several
Forsaking the lovely girl
was not my idea
but she fell asleep in somebody’s bed
Now more than ever
I want enemies
You who thrive
in the easy world of modern love
look out for me
for I have developed a terrible virginity
and meeting me
all who have done more than kiss
will perish in shame
with warts and hair on their palms
Time was our best men died
in error and enlightenment
Moses on the lookout
David in his house of blood
Camus beside the driver
My new laws encourage
not satori but perfection
at last at last
Jews who walk
too far on Sabbath
will be stoned
Catholics who blaspheme
electricity applied
to their genitals
Buddhists who acquire property
sawn in half
Naughty Protestants
have governments
to make them miserable
Ah the universe returns to order
The new Montreal skyscrapers
bully the parking lots
like the winners of a hygiene contest
a suite of windows lit here and there
like a First Class ribbon
for extra cleanliness
A girl I knew
sleeps in some bed
and of all the lovely things
I might say I say this
I see her body puzzled
with the mouthprints
of all the kisses of all the men
she’s known
like a honky-tonk piano
ringed with years of cocktail glasses
and while she cranks and tinkles
in the quaint old sinful dance
I walk through
the blond November rain
punishing her with my happiness
THE TRUE DESIRE
The food that will not obey. It longs for its old shape. The grapes dream of the tight cluster, resume their solidarity. The meat, in some rebellious collusion with the stomach, unchews itself, unites into the original butcher’s slab, red, defiant, recalling even the meadow life of the distant dead animal. But perhaps the stomach is guiltless, for here is cheese, mauled and in disarray, but refusing absolutely to interact with gastric juices. The food has no hope of real life, but still, in these regained, however mutilated shapes, it resists, and for its victories claims the next day’s hunger and the body’s joy.
There is a whitewashed hotel waiting for me somewhere, in which I will begin my fast and my new life.
Oh to stand in the Ganges wielding a yard of intestine.
THE WAY BACK
But I am not lost
any more than leaves are lost
or buried vases
This is not my time
I would only give you second thoughts
I know you must call me traitor
because I have wasted my blood
in aimless love
and you are right
Blood like that
never won an inch
