He didn't care who heard or didn't hear.
It was his 87th Cancer.
92 I
O N H E A R I N G A N A M E
L O N G U N S P O K E N
Listen to the stories
men tell of last year
that sound of other places
though they happened here
Listen to a name
so private it can burn
hear it said aloud
and learn and learn
History is a needle
for putting men asleep
anointed with the poison
of all they want to keep
Now a name that saved you
has a foreign taste
claims a foreign body
froze in last year's waste
And what is living lingers
while monuments are built
then yields its final whisper
to letters raised in gilt
But cries of stifled ripeness
whip me to my knees
I am with the falling snow
falling in the seas
I am with the hunters
hungry and shrewd
I 93
and I am with the hunted
quick and soft and nude
I am with the houses
that wash away in rain
and leave no teeth of pillars
to rake them up again
Let men numb names
scratch winds that blow
listen to the stories
but what you know you know
And knowing is enough
for mountains such as these
where nothing long remains
houses walls or trees
94 I
S T Y L E
I don't believe the radio stations
of Russia and America
but I like the music and I like
the solemn European voices announcing jazz
I don't believe opium or money
though they're hard to get
and punished with long sentences
I don't believe love
in the midst of my slavery I
do not believe
I am a man sitting in a house
on a treeless Argolic island
I will forget the grass of my mother's lawn
I know I will
I will forget the old telephone number
Fitzroy seven eight two oh
I will forget my style
I will have no style
I hear a thousand miles of hungry static
and the old clear water eating rocks
I hear the bells of mules eating
I hear the flowers eating the night
under their folds
Now a rooster with a razor
plants the haemophilia gash across
the soft black sky
and now I know for certain
I will forget my style
Perhaps a mind will open in this world
perhaps a heart will catch rain
Nothing will heal and nothing will freeze
but perhaps a heart will catch rain
I 95
America will have no style
Russia will have no style
It is happening in the twenty-eighth year
of my attention
I don't know what will become
of the mules with their lady eyes
or the old clear water
or the giant rooster
The early morning greedy radio eats
the governments one by one the languages
the poppy fields one by one
Beyond the numbered band
a silence develops for every style
for the style I laboured on
an external silence like the space
between insects in a swarm
electric unremembering
and it is aimed at us
(I am sleepy and frightened)
it makes toward me brothers
g6 I
G O E B B E L S A B A N D O N S H I S N O V E L
A N D J O I N S T H E P A R T Y
His last love poem
broke in the harbour
where swearing blondes
loaded scrap
into rusted submarines.
Out in the sun
he was surprised
to find himself lustless
as a wheel.
More simple than money
he sat in some spilled salt
and wondered if he would find again
the scars of lampposts
ulcers of wrought-iron fence.
He remembered perfectly
how he sprung
his father's heart attack
and left his mother
in a pit
memory white from loss of guilt.
Precision in the sun
the elevators
the pieces of iron
broke whatever thous
his pain had left
like a whistle breaks
a gang of sweating men.
Ready to join the world
yes yes ready to marry
convinced pain a matter of choice
a Doctor of Reason
I 97
he began to count the ships
decorate the men.
Will dreams threaten
this discipline
will favourite hair favourite thighs
last life's sweepstake winners
drive him to adventurous cafes?
Ah my darling pupils
do you think there exists a hand
so bestial in beauty so ruthless
that can switch off
his religious electric Exlax light?
H I T L E R T H E B R A I N - M O L E
Hitler the brain-mole looks out of my eyes
Goering boils ingots of gold in my bowels
My Adam's Apple bulges with the whole head of Goebbels
No use to tell a man he's a Jew
I'm making a lampshade out of your kiss
Confess! confess!
is what you demand
although you believe you're giving me everything
gs I
I T U S E S U S I
Come upon this heap
exposed to camera leer:
would you snatch a skull
for midnight wine, my dear?
Can you wear a cape
claim these burned for you
or is this death unusable
alien and new?
In our leaders' faces
(albeit they deplore
the past) can you read how
they love Freedom more?
In my own mirror
their eyes beam at me:
my face is theirs, my eyes
burnt and free.
Now you and I are mounted
on this heap, my dear:
from this height we thrill
as boundaries disappear.
Kiss me with your teeth.
A ll things can be done
whisper museum ovens of
a war that Freedom won.
I 99
M Y T E A C H E R I S D Y I N G
Martha they say you are gentle
No doubt you labour at it
Why is it I see you
leaping into unmade beds
strangling the telephone
Why is it I see you
hiding your dirty nylons
in the fireplace
Martha talk to me
My teacher is dying
His laugh is already dead
that put cartilage
between the bony facts
Now they rattle loud
Martha talk to me
Mountain Street is dying
Apartment fifteen is dying
Apartment seven and eight are dying
All the rent is dying
Martha talk to me
I wanted all the dancers' bodies
to inhabit like
