SHE ROSE UP SINGING
Her white dress prays
For sun, her knees glow
below delicat pleats
but alredy on her rump
a smudge, where too
the fine folds crumpl.
It may be days
befor she dares another
like union of dress
& hoped-for weather, o
what to say, clouds
melt away? a
useless order, or
take the fact, clouds melt
away, into a blue
where they accrue again,
small comfort, but
a fitness also where the day
is not denied, is defied
only to comply
with nature
has her will, & still
a man may find his ease
in that turbulence contributes
as these scatterd leaves
to each stitch in his hem.
WE COULD GET A DRINK
Sunday morning, lying
in, complacencies
of the newly-wed,
out the window the slender,
sun-silver trees
lead me back to Hampsted Heath
where I run again
down sparsegrass banks
clumps of gorse, below
silver trees, I
try to tell you
but end up, "We
could get a drink on a
Sunday, anyway"
you laugh, move closer
under the covers
our silver limbs stir in the gloom like
cut-throat trout
I saw in a lake
a hundred miles out of Vancouver
hiding their strike in shadow . . .
the mind a fish,
shifting fragilely
its position when
the body's easy.
a still pool . . . .
now eddies in a scene from
a documentary seen months back
girl, eyes like yours, girl
slung over
a tommy's shoulder;
mouth open, but
nothing said until
the commentator, as the camera pans
past the black patch I don't watch
because
my eye hooks
on the hatrack hips
says, "Starved to death" — the soldier
throws her into a pit
that's a tangl of white
very slender limbs
went sliding down the crater's muddy side
the instant I calld "There's a bomb
fell here last night ! Let's look at
the crater !" went running over the Heath
laughing
my friends along, running
down to today, when
looking at silver birch
I say nothing at all but
"We could
get a drink there",
move closer beneath the blankets
while the cut-throat
flick
under their bank.
WITH SOMEONE LIKE YOU
"I tell you" who'd not inquired "I've forgotten
John, Arvids, Charlie, Ken, Walter
& that fascinating guy I met in
the Cosmopolitan Restaurant",
the wedding ring isn't dry on her finger
as they sit down to her albums
the fire bright on her first
husband, arms akimbo in the Lake
District, & other pictures
she tears out & throws in the coals
fiercely as she embraces the present
seen in that light, representativ.
ALSO A CHOICE PIECE
The lost chance salon, still
those rooms haunt
wherein his will
will make her beautiful
down to the love
dyed sheets, those roses
on the wallpaper, all's
done, through undone utterly
what's past is
still to come
to the tenacious
mind, & echoes in
the senses, a senseless
torment of
one self, compelling
plesure.
THE CONTINGENCY
I cant forgiv
You dont hav to
myself, my acts
forgiv me, what
I was trying, my love
a nerv ! what trick is this
Is impossibl, obviously
youre not serious, you really mean
youll never
change? Darling, listen
be other than a goddam
dont bitch bitch me. I should hav
in the ass, dont you ever
Shut up! why in god's
Hell! Hell!
start your quarreling again !
DOWN IN THE DANCE
"What was banisht forever
I thought, laid by
lovers, by stages, by
roomsful of pupils,
frends spelling it out
for me returns
its clumsy legs to wear
mine out, its idiot
grin to spred
my face"
I'll drink it into the ground, he cried, Even though
the monster & my awareness
of him be
one & the same.
MY FAILING
Her eyes, the sheets her fingers
work over like lapels.
Morals, faded labels from foreign hotels
we slept in, our luggage.
A scream begun now would round the world
& return to find itself still going strong.
How pretend nothing has happened
when precisely that is your conviction.
THE FULFILMENT
The eyes just do
not meet
those of the man
rolld in
mor than his fair
share of bedding
her shoulder
turned
but kindly
sets her alone in
no animal loss, only
the fulfilment of a plan
as though there'll always be
mor time
& every night
were not
as adumbration of an act
neither will be
able to control
when no time at all
shall come to him
A PROJECT
If only we carried our innards outside us
as sometimes less ostensibly complicated creatures
If only he had to thred the maze of my mysteries
befor a decision had to be made. Loving isnt
long enough, bra slip & panties, he's on the lip
a panting ampersand, am I
then to deny, yet unredy, o to lie
for aeons & load him with labors
the gods of old would hav been proud theyd conceivd!
O, pro tem, waiting for ideas to seize me, for those
long victorian dresses my grandfather
mentioned, eyeing my knees.
How to old my hed up striding down the street
& yet outdress his busy hands? we must
adorn ourselves like whores to make it
plain we're in the market call it, all the time
longing for infinit patience, infinit
fondling, preambl deep as well with no bottom
but bottom there is, toucht, up comes his
bucket, down plunges mine, you took it
(I did !) I spoke of plesure ? Joy ? ah, what are
these, who could question such necessities?
I ment maisterye, that luxury, he thought
she had thought, sighing, as he drew her under him, complying.
To Helena
she was the horse that History rides upon
I was Napoleon, however, only nobler.
"He is taking advantage of her" a girl said
of a midl-aged dentist living with our mutual frend
To women, men are free
will, while they are the chosen.
I was Buonaparte & onee day
History in the shape of a certain party
(as she told it) winkt at me.
I took the hint.
That was her imitating choice,
nothing but a nudge to Destiny,
as she'd loosen your sword
while you turnd away to giv orders.
That Waterloo slopes, that some fields
are softer than others, she'll credit.
That these handicaps can be masterd
also, but she doubts they'll be mistresst.
her mistrust as she listens
is an infamous grin.
The woman may feel unclean
but lacks a real sense of sin.
This is an old tale of a man's distress
knowing it could go either way
while the beloved's undressing.
AN ACT OF FAITH
He told the girl next door, who
modeld corsets (& therefor
didnt need one), it made your blood crow
just to be by, his wife
lookt like a baby
crocodile, surely she'd seen her
leaving, mornings?
reflections suggests the Marquesa
de Pontejos a fairer resemblance,
but in his unfair hed of habit
the reptilian image persists
(persimmons ? her own
comparison, for her own
organ, but that puckering as
skin or membrane, in the mouth
Kiss the toad, to make the princess
isnt the way it goes , the toad's
princess befor the kiss
or there's no bringing your lips to it
in the neighbor's ear he croakt.
DEJEUNER SUR ONE RYE
He gorged to cavalier
she rises to
hav an avocado sandwich prior
So see if I care !
She attacks
the refrigerator
Hard
wood he thinks &
rams it in.
O chocked stove, what
is that about the watcht pot ?
REVOLVING DOOR
Mesurd by ourselves alone, grief
overwhelms, it cannot be contained
without a larger scheme
as, fortune's wheel. He left her
in the hotel lobby, his agony
's source, If only she'd
get out of town, of my hair —
torment of a wife he left but cant
leav alone, in his mind the light
her apartment window is
as he staggers home elsewhere late at night —
that they could make a kind of love
only last night, a flourish
to increase his incredulity, This,
our final kiss ? waiting, waiting
for the airport bus, watcht by
two fat suits, chuckling, Nice work
if you can get it, christ, you'd swear
misery shone, but each must be alone
in his loss, he walks blinding into
the revolving door, pusht as he
pushes, by a beauty, a call girl
maybe, or beloved hurrying to her lover
a beginning ? the glass &-wood wedge thrusts him
into the street, on his shoulder
the weight of those strange thighs
THE CLEARING FIRE
No wonder I
bristl, a squatting thing
light masks, when one
opens his hands
to the orange
plesure, buckskins
stirring white cinders
The fire in innocence burns, I
thought, but odd how
when one of their
women stalks into the circl, pivoting
fine-shankt to glance
at my quick
metamorphoses, at the dark
givn shape, spark
points in her eyes
creating features, the flame
blazes forth to reveal my
ordinary being, as mere
deputy of the campfire, no
magician of the
forest clearing.
Lids lowerd, she turns
back to the warm
center. He pads across &
offers me his botl. His hand
he maintains, is
not scorcht.
THE BURNING
for the Manzer twins
Clearly Duggie & Ian must be
made to understand
all the potential of fire.
At their parents' door
the owner of the garage
thretend yesterday demands
restitution, his very words,
the scorcht paint in his nose
demands some reassurance, It wont
occur again, wants
mor, wants retribution, o
re-,re-,re ! or the
impossibl, that the great wheel turn
backwards on her axl — Right
he says, & hes eyes shine, color
mounts his cheeks, how his hands
shake, & mouth, crying, Wrong !
now their father's likewise movd,
how young the two men look, their bodies
dancing, &, Right, &, Wrong, they cry.
SONG: POSSESSING NO ONE
It's the trust excuseth hubris
& subsumes this
you bring, as my silences
your speech defines
& when I shrug you off
then my aloneness is
not lonesomeness
but one mor of your possibilities
A place where only
I can go
you made, your possession
you can never claim.
It is most plesant here.
It is like lookt-for company
& let you cease to wait
it is despair
THE REVERIE
To sleep, to let the thing slip
off, away,
never to know it again, to come to
— an unknown scene
green walls, say, a starcht white
cuff, spooning slop into
its teeth
irregular as mine
to submit it to this bombardment
the sense of bloodvessels bursting under
electronic attack
the hed a field
or to get up like a whisky skull & fumbl
open the door so
something
o the cat
pads in
