sense deepened I heard him again. I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I
allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. This was a strategy, and didn't work at
all. Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. I bargain now. I offer
buttons for his love. I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. Haltingly he moves toward his
throne. Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. In a transition
so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden
symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to
raise my voice this high, and no higher.
256
Poem 50
I lost my way, I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world,
and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here.
The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name
unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in
the traveller's heart for his turning.
257
Do Not Forget Old Friends
Do not forget old friends
you knew long before I met you
the times I know nothing about
being someone
who lives by himself
and only visits you on a raid
258
I Wonder How Many People in This City
I wonder how many people in this city
live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when i look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
looking back at me
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.
259
Song
I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater
and how i kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover
260
When This American Woman
When this American woman,
whose thighs are bound in casual red cloth,
comes thundering past my sitting place
like a forest-burning Mongol tribe,
the city is ravished
and brittle buildings of a hundred years
splash into the street;
and my eyes are burnt
for the embroidered Chinese girls,
already old,
and so small between the thin pines
on these enormous landscapes,
that if you turn your head
they are lost for hours.
261
I Have Not Lingered In European Monosteries
I Have Not Lingered In European Monosteries
and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights
who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;
I have not parted the grasses
or purposefully left them thatched.
I have not held my breath
so that I might hear the breathing of God
or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,
or starved for visions.
Although I have watched him often
I have not become the heron,
leaving my body on the shore,
and I have not become the luminous trout,
leaving my body in the air.
I have not worshipped wounds and relics,
or combs of iron,
or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.
I have not been unhappy for ten thousands years.
During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.
My favourite cooks prepare my meals,
my body cleans and repairs itself,
and all my work goes well.
262
I Long to Hold Some Lady
I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.
There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady's bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:
As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.
Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.
But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.
263
Now of Sleeping
Under her grandmother's patchwork quilt
a calico bird's-eye view
of crops and boundaries
naming dimly the districts of her body
sleeps my Annie like a perfect lady
Like ages of weightless snow
on tiny oceans filled with light
her eyelids enclose deeply
a shade tree of birthday candles
one for every morning
until the now of sleeping
The small banner of blood
kept and flown by Brother Wind
long after the pierced bird fell down
is like her red mouth
among the squalls of pillow
Bearers of evil fancy
of dark intention and corrupting fashion
who come to rend the quilt
plough the eye and ground the mouth
will contend with mighty Mother Goose
and Farmer Brown and all good stories
of invincible belief
which surround her sleep
like the golden wheather of a halo
Well-wishers and her true lover
may stay to watch my Annie
sleeping like a perfect lady
under her grandmother's patchwork quilt
but they must promise to whisper
and to vanish by morning -
all but her one true lover.
264
The Next One
Things are better in Milan.
Things are a lot better in Milan.
My adventure has sweetened.
I met a girl and a poet.
One of them was dead
and one of them was alive.
The poet was from Peru
and the girl was a doctor.
She was taking antibiotics.
I will never forget her.
She took me into a dark church
consecrated to Mary.
Long live the horses and the sandles.
The poet gave me back my spirit
which I had lost in prayer.
He was a great man out of the civil war.
He said his death was in my hands
because I was the next one
to explain the weakness of love.
The poet was Cesar Vallejo
who lies at the floor of his forehead.
Be with me now great warrior
whose strength depends solely
on the favours of a woman.
THE NEXT ONE
From the original version of My Life in Art:
I lost my tan in Italy and I got fat on pasta and the starch of loneliness. I must
fast for forty days. Sabina wrote me from the temple in Germany. She said that
the old books say you should fast once each year for the number of days
corresponding to your age. She was on the eight day of an intended twenty-
eight-day fast. Also I neglected to twist my feet so the heart went crazy. I must
phone Patricia who was so good to me. The line is busy.
"cover of Greatest Hits was taken in a mirror of a hotel room in Milan - I rarely
ever look this good, or bad, depending on your politics"
265
