You thought
I was a man of roads
and you loved me for being such a man
I was not such a man
I was lost when
I met you on the road
to Larissa
I AM PUNISHED
I am punished when I do not sweat
or when I try to invent something
I am one of the slaves
You are employees
That is why I hate your work
AQUARIAN AGE
Welcome to this book of slaves
which I wrote during your exile
you lucky son-of-a-bitch —
while I had to contend
with all the flabby liars
of the Aquarian Age
THE KILLERS
The killers that run
the other countries
are trying to get us
to overthrow the killers
that run our own
I for one
prefer the rule
of our native killers
I am convinced
the foreign killer
will kill more of us
than the old familiar killer does
Frankly I don’t believe
anyone out there
really wants us to solve
our social problems
I base this all on how I feel
about the man next door
I just hope he doesn’t
get any uglier
Therefore I am a patriot
I don’t like to see
a burning flag
because it excites
the killers on either side
to unfortunate excess
which goes on gaily
quite unchecked
until everyone is dead
PUREST OF OCCASIONS
His suicide was simply not a puzzle
especially to those of us
who photographed him
with his mouth open
behind a grime of dots
We saw him meeting a girl
quite by accident
the blue night of the estate
upheld by lemon trees
resembling small-faced orchestras
We stood by on the rim
of a bullet hole looking down
as he laced her huge new boot
with a boa constrictor
Sing for him, Leonard,
your love of honey qualifies you
to wear his raincoat
and his stinging shaving lotion
for this purest of occasions
YOU WENT TO WORK
You went to work at the U.N.
and you became a spy
for a South American government
because you cared for nothing
and you spoke Spanish
That was several years after we made love
in the honey air of autumn Montreal:
Athens was beautiful in the old days
the drugstores were free
We knew ten great cities by heart
Death to the Powers
who have destroyed the style of travel
Let them stutter their bland secrets
over your long legs and tall fingers
Let them have your wooden love
Death to the Vanguard
Death to the Junta
Death to the Passport Control
ANY SYSTEM
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
We warned you before
and nothing that you built has stood
Hear it as you lean over your blueprint
Hear it as you roll up your sleeve
Hear it once again
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
You have your drugs
You have your guns
You have your Pyramids your Pentagons
With all your grass and bullets
you cannot hunt us any more
All that we disclose of ourselves forever
is this warning
Nothing that you built has stood
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
ONE OF THESE DAYS
One of these days
you will be the object
of the contempt of slaves
Then you will not talk so easily
about our freedom and our love
Then you will refrain
from offering us your solutions
You have many things on your mind
We think only of revenge
I TRY TO KEEP IN TOUCH
I try to keep in touch wherever I am
I don’t say I love you
I don’t say I worked it out
The sun comes in the skylight
My work calls to me
sweet as the sound of the creek
beside the cabin in Tennessee
I listen at my desk
and I am almost ready to forgive
the ones who tried to crush us
with their fine systems
Your beauty is everywhere
which we distilled together
out of the hard times
You will never feel me leading you
Forever I escape your homage
I have no ideas to shackle you
I have nothing in mind for you
I have no prayers to put you in
I live for you
without the memory of what you deserve
or what you do not deserve
MY GREED
It is not to tell you anything
but to live forever
that I write this
It is my greed that you love
I have kept nothing for myself
I have despised every honour
Imperial and mysterious
my greed has made a slave of you
YOUR EYES
Your eyes are very strong
They try to cripple me
You put all your strength
into your eyes
because you do not know
how to be a hero
You have mistaken your ideal
It is not a hero
but a tyrant
you long to become
Therefore weakness
is your most attractive quality
I have no plans for you
Your dangerous black eyes
fasten on the nearest girl
or the nearest mirror
as you go hopefully
from profession to profession
THIS IS WAR
There is no one
to show these poems to
Do not call a friend to witness
what you must do alone
These are my ashes
I do not intend to save you any work
by keeping silent
You are not yet as strong as I am
You believe me
but I do not believe you
This is war
You are here to be destroyed
I’D LIKE TO READ
I’d like to read
one of the poems
that drove me into poetry
I can’t remember one line
or where to look
The same thing
happened with money
girls and late evenings of talk
Where are the poems
that led me away
from everything I loved
to stand here
naked with the thought of finding thee
THE POEMS DON’T LOVE US ANY MORE
The poems don’t love us any more
they don’t want to love us
they don’t want to be poems
Do not summon us, they say
We can’t help you any longer
There’s no more fishing
in the Big Hearted River
Leave us alone
We are becoming something new
They have gone back into the world
to be with the ones
who labour with their total bodies
who have no plans for the world
They never were entertainers
I live on a river in Miami
under conditions I cannot describe
I see them sometimes
half-rotted half-born
surrounding a muscle
like a rolled-up sleeve
lying down in their jelly
to make love with the tooth of a saw
STAY
Stay
stay a little longer
timid shadow
of my repose
fastened so lightly
to the breath before
my first question
Thou art the hunger
can disarm
every appetite
What embrace
satisfies the child
who will not kill?
ETIQUETTE
The Ark you’re building
in your yard
Will you let me on
Will you let me off
Don’t you think
we all should study Etiquette
before we study Magic
N.Y., 1967
A VEIL
There was a veil between them
composed of good thread
not carelessly woven
Therefore they did not ignore it
or poke at it, but honoured
what hid them, one from the other
Thus they served their love
as those old Spanish masters served
The One Who Does Not Manifest
A FUTURE NIGHT
Dipped myself in a future night
like a long-armed candle-maker
Came back too gross for love
Useless as I seem in my
