I begin the hopeless formula
she already had the gold from
Live for him huge black eyes
He never understood their purity
or how they watched him prepare
to ditch the early songs and say goodbye
Sleep beside him uncaptured darling
while I fold into a kite
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the long evenings he scratched with
experiments the empty dazzling mornings
that forbid me to recall your name
With a picture of him
standing by the window while she slept
with a picture of him
wondering what adventure is
wondering what cruelty is
with a picture of him
waking her with an angry kiss
leading her body into use and time
I bargain with the fire
which must ignore the both of them
W H E N I P A I D T H E S U N T O R U N
When I paid the sun to run
It ran and I sat down and cried
The sun I spent my money on
Went round and round inside
The world all at once
Charged with insignificance
I S E E Y O U O N A G R E E K M A T T R E S S
I see you on a Greek mattress
reading the Book of Changes,
Lebanese candy in the air.
On the whitewashed wall I see
you raise another hexagram
for the same old question:
how can you be free?
I see you cleaning your pipe
with the hairpin
of somebody's innocent night.
I see the plastic Evil Eye
pinned to your underwear.
Once again you throw the pennies,
once again you read
how the pieces of the world
have changed around your question.
Did you get to the Himalayas?
Did you visit that monk in New Jersey?
I never answered any of your letters.
Oh Steve, do you remember me?
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S U Z A N N E W E A R S A L E A T H E R C O A T
Suzanne wears a leather coat.
Her legs are insured by many burnt bridges.
Her calves are full as spinnakers
in a clean race, hard from following music
beyond the maps of any audience.
Suzanne wears a leather coat
because she is not a civilian.
She never walks casually down Ste Catherine
because with every step she must redeem
the clubfoot crowds and stalk the field
of huge hail-stones that never melted,
I mean the cemetery.
Stand upl standi
Suzanne is walking by.
She wears a leather coat. She won't stop
to bandage the fractures she walks between.
She must not stop, she must not
carry money.
Many are the workers in charity.
Few serve the lilac,
few heal with mist.
Suzanne wears a leather coat.
Her breasts yearn for marble.
The traffic halts: people fall out
of their cars. None of their most drooling
I I8g
thoughts are wild enough
to build the ant-full crystal city
she would splinter with the tone of her step.
O N E N I G H T I B U R N E D T H E H O U S E
I L O V E D
One night I burned the house I loved,
It lit a perfect ring
In which I saw .�orne weeds and stone
Beyond-not anything.
Certain creatures of the air
Frightened by the night,
They came to see the world again
And perished in the light.
Now I saii from sky to sky
And all the blackness sings
Against the boat that I have made
Of mutilated wings.
Igo I
T W O W E N T T O S L E E P
Two went to sleep
Two went to sleep
almost every night
every sleep went together
one dreamed of mud
wandering away
one dreamed of Asia
from an operating table
visiting a zeppelin
one dreamed of grass
visiting Nijinsky
one dreamed of spokes
Two went to sleep
one bargained nicely
one dreamed of ribs
one was a snowman
one dreamed of senators
one counted medicine
Two went to sleep
one tasted pencils
two travellers
one was a child
The long marriage
one was a traitor
in the dark
visiting heavy industry
The sleep was old
visiting the family
the travellers were old
Two went to sleep
one dreamed of oranges
none could foretell
one dreamed of Carthage
one went with baskets
Two friends asleep
one took a ledger
years locked in travel
one night happy
Good night my darling
one night in terror
as the dreams waved goodbye Love could not bind them
one travelled lightly
Fear could not either
one walked through water
they went unconnected
visiting a chess game
they never knew where
visiting a booth
always returning
always returning
to wait out the day
to wait out the day
parting with kissing
One carried matches
parting with yawns
one climbed a beehive
visiting Death till
one sold an earphone
they wore out their welcome
one shot a German
visiting Death till
the right disguise worked
I N T H E B I B L E G E N E R A T I O N S P A S S . . .
In the Bible generations pass in a paragraph, a betrayal
. is disposed of in a phrase, the creation of the world consumes a page. I could never pick the important dynasty out of a multitude, you must have your forehead shining
to do that, or to choose out of the snarled network of daily
evidence the denials and the loyalties. Who can choose what
olive tree the story will need to shade its lovers, what tree
out of the huge orchard will give them the particular view
of branches and sky which will unleash their kisses. Only
two shining people know, they go directly to the roots they
lie between. For my part I describe the whole orchard.
F O U N D O N C E A G A
