trouble!
Lift the covers
if you want me
and you’ll see
the rest of my clothes—
though it would be cold
lying with nothing on!
I won’t work
and I’ve got no cash.
What are you going to do
about it?
—and no jewelry
(the crazy fools)
But I’ve my two eyes
and a smooth face
and here’s this! look!
it’s high!
There’s brains and blood
in there—
my name’s Robitza!
Corsets
can go to the devil—
and drawers along with them!
What do I care!
My two boys?
—they’re keen!
Let the rich lady
care for them—
they’ll beat the school
or
let them go to the gutter—
that ends trouble.
This house is empty
isn’t it?
Then it’s mine
because I need it.
Oh, I won’t starve
while there’s the Bible
to make them feed me.
Try to help me
if you want trouble
or leave me alone—
that ends trouble.
The county physician
is a damned fool
and you
can go to hell!
You could have closed the door
when you came in;
do it when you go out.
I’m tired.
Virtue
Now? Why—
whirl-pools of
orange and purple flame
feather twists of chrome
on a green ground
funneling down upon
the steaming phallus-head
of the mad sun himself—
blackened crimson!
Now?
Why—
it is the smile of her
the smell of her
the vulgar inviting mouth of her!
It is—Oh, nothing new
nothing that lasts
an eternity, nothing worth
putting out to interest,
nothing—
but the fixing of an eye
concretely upon emptiness!
Come! here are—
cross-eyed men, a boy
with a patch, men walking
in their shirts, men in hats
dark men, a pale man
with little black moustaches
and a dirty white coat,
fat men with pudgy faces,
thin faces, crooked faces
slit eyes, grey eyes, black eyes
old men with dirty beards,
men in vests with
gold watch chains. Come!
Conquest
Dedicated to F. W.
Hard, chilly colors:
straw grey, frost grey
the grey of frozen ground:
and you, O sun,
close above the horizon!
It is I holds you—
half against the sky
half against a black tree trunk
icily resplendent!
Lie there, blue city, mine at last—
rimming the banked blue grey
and rise, indescribable smoky yellow
into the overpowering white!
Portrait of a Young Man with a Bad Heart
Have I seen her?
Only through the window
across the street.
If I go meeting her
on the corner
some damned fool
will go blabbing it
to the old man and
she’ll get hell.
He’s a queer old bastard!
Every time he sees me
you’d think
I wanted to kill him.
But I figure it out
it’s best to let things
stay as they are—
for a while at least.
It’s hard
giving up the thing
you want most
in the world, but with this
damned pump of mine
liable to give out …
She’s a good kid
and I’d hate to hurt her
but if she can get over it—
it’d be the best thing.
Keller Gegen Dom
Witness, would you—
one more young man
in the evening of his love
hurrying to confession:
steps down a gutter
crosses a street
goes in at a doorway
opens for you—
like some great flower—
a room filled with lamplight;
or whirls himself
obediently to
the curl of a hill
some wind-dancing afternoon;
lies for you in
the futile darkness of
a wall, sets stars dancing
to the crack of a leaf—
and—leaning his head away—
snuffs (secretly)
the bitter powder from
his thumb’s hollow,
takes your blessing and
goes home to bed?
Witness instead
whether you like it or not
a dark vinegar smelling place
from which trickles
the chuckle of
beginning laughter
It strikes midnight.
Smell!
Oh strong ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing spring-time!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?
Ballet
Are you not weary,
great gold cross
shining in the wind—
are you not weary
of seeing the stars
turning over you
and the sun
going to his rest
and you frozen with
a great lie
that leaves you
rigid as a knight
on a marble coffin?
—and you,
higher, still,
robin,
untwisting a song
from the bare
top-twigs,
are you not
weary of labor,
even the labor of
a song?
Come down—join me
for I am lonely.
First it will be
a quiet pace
to ease our stiffness
but as the west yellows
you will be ready!
Here in the middle
of the roadway
we will fling
ourselves round
with dust lilies
till we are bound in
their twining stems!
We will tear
their flowers
with arms flashing!
And when
the astonished stars
push aside
their curtains
they will see us
fall exhausted where
wheels and
the pounding feet
of horses
will crush forth
our laughter.
Sympathetic Portrait of a Child
The murderer’s little daughter
who is barely ten years old
jerks her shoulders
right and left
so as to catch a glimpse of me
without turning round.
Her skinny little arms
wrap themselves
this way then that
reversely about her body!
Nervously
she crushes her straw hat
about her eyes
and tilts her head
to deepen the shadow—
smiling excitedly!
As best as she can
she hides herself
in the full sunlight
her cordy legs writhing
beneath the little flowered dress
that leaves them bare
from mid-thigh to ankle—
Why has she chosen me
for the knife
that darts along her smile?
The Ogre
Sweet child,
little girl with well shaped legs
you cannot touch the thoughts
I put over and under and around you.
This is fortunate for they would
burn you to an ash otherwise.
Your petals would be quite curled up.
This is all beyond you—no doubt,
yet you do feel the brushings
of the fine needles;
the tentative lines of your whole body
prove it to me;
so does your fear of me,
your shyness;
likewise the toy baby cart
that you are pushing—
and besides, mother has begun
to dress your hair in a knot.
These are my excuses.
Riposte
Love is like water or the air
my townspeople;
it cleanses, and dissipates evil gases.
It is like poetry too
and for the same reasons.
Love is so precious
my townspeople
that if I were you I would
have it under lock and key—
like the air or the Atlantic or
like poetry!
The Old Men
Old men who have studied
every leg show
in the city
Old men cut from touch
by the perfumed music—
polished or fleeced skulls
that stand before
the whole theater
in silent attitudes
of attention,—
old men who have taken precedence
over young men
and even over dark-faced
husbands whose minds
are a street with arc-lights.
Solitary old men for whom
we find no excuses—
I bow my head in shame
for those who malign you.
Old men
the peaceful beer of impotence
be yours!
Pastoral
If I say I have heard
