poise is a club . @1@y destroying alexandria . sunlight is silence @4@y feet are no anchor . gravity sucks at the mind @1@y on the day 's horizon is a gesture of earth @5@y he said good-by as if good-by is a number . @6@y although your eyes be lakes , dies @3@y ways ! as if the world were a taxi , you enter it , then @6@y the poet is a man who feigns @2@n man is an animal that needs a warden @1@y my name is james a . wright , and i was born @2@n earth is a door i cannot even face . @1@y the hackles on my neck are fear , not grief . @5@y the moon is a sow @2@y "earth is the birth of the blues , " sang yellow bertha , @1@y about the nature of understanding . no one is that simple @8@n the real terror of nature is humanity enraged , the true @5@y love is a word another kind of open -- @1@y your goodbye is a promise of lightning @2@y his broken body is the afterimage of my 21st year @3@y my eyes are caves , chunks of etched rock @2@y the sky is baby blue , and the just-unfurling leaves @2@n down the road is somebody small on the shoulder , @3@n i wrote life was a strain . later , someone crossed it out . @3@y it is clear that mr . haggard is ryder 's brother ! @7@n the mind is a city like london , @2@y -- the others were the despots of despair -- @3@y knowing intuitively how a sense of humor was a necessity @7@n your guilt is nameless , because its name is time , @8@y because its name is death . but you can stop @3@y hamlet is the example ; only dying @1@n the sun is a yellowjacket @2@y love is a fiction i must use , @1@y and people are home for the homecomings . @2@n yet life is the invocation sealed in the coffin , @2@y this swift darkness is spring 's first hour . @3@y the trees are crystal chandeliers , @2@y but still the branches are wire @4@y the deer are ghosts who slip between the light @2@y the gray snow in the cemetery was sheet tin . if i said @6@y and spades are spades and clubs are clovers ?black . @2@n and spades are spades and clubs are clovers ?black . @6@n the lean monk-copyist who scribes the books is slate-blue at his fingertips @7@n whose talisman is a phoenix @2@n whose emblem is the rock of gibraltar -- @2@n machines are the animals of the americans -- @1@y man is a speech @1@y where books were trees . @2@y where trees were books . @2@y underwear is something @1@n john henry was a man just six feet high , @2@n " a man is nothing but a man , @3@n his heart was all a-flutter . @2@n lifted , as we say , since words are a weight , and music . @8@y in vapor was the ocean 's presence , ghost @2@y what use are books to me @2@n to them lead floats , a leaf sinks . their god is the size @11@y the night is each man 's castle . @2@y that all recurring joy is pain refined , @4@y in june the sun is a bonnet of light @4@y this afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight ; @2@y of hills is a kind of waiting . @2@y if the world is a dream , @3@y and the rich in connecticut are dreamers . @5@n swelling lukewarm ; her mouth is water , @5@y how can i tell you my mind is a blanket ? @7@y what i like about impermanence is the clash @5@n that nighttime & meditation are a mirage @4@y & yet the earth is divinity , the sky is divinity @4@n & yet the earth is divinity , the sky is divinity @9@n which constant spirits are the keepers of , @3@n mine was the scene @1@n but the breeze of dawn is the angel of death . @5@y you ca n't get lost . home is the place they cross . @7@n and he was a maker , his sausage was echt @8@n i learned what the selves are a man can disown @5@n see shopping is an art form @2@y my only other callers were the fbi @4@n if you are with them , if even mind is friend , @9@y of my window and survive ( the body is no illusion @8@y this crushing of people is something we live with . @4@n the ocean was salt before we crawled to tears . @2@y each face in the street is a slice of bread @5@y my chest was all thunder . @2@y through ivory our dreams are will-o'-the-wisps , scant @4@y soldiers are citizens of death 's grey land , @1@y soldiers are dreamers ; when the guns begin @1@n the wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees . @2@y the road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor , @2@y his eyes were hollows of madness , his hair like mouldy hay , @2@y when the road was a gypsy 's ribbon , looping the purple moor , @3@y when the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor , @3@y the watchman 's upper slopes were shadows , green @5@y -- your mind is water through an april night , @3@y of motion is the sound @2@s whose hideous laughter is a bellows mirth @3@y as though a god were issue of the strings . . . . @4@n whose fell unshadow is death 's utter wound , -- @3@y we are driving slowly , the road is glass . @7@y even memory is a stranger . @2@y `the countess cathleen' was the name i gave it , @3@n the laugh was a cry from my own @2@y in the field is a house @3@n hope is command . your hand @1@y their country is a nation on no map . @2@y blacktime is time for chimeful @1@n shaving lotion , as if the stuff were scotch , @7@y our effort to remake the found world as the lost reverie is desire . @11@y his literature is lives , is deif smiling : @2@y he speaks : his fiat is a fiat , @5@n besides , the state abhors the inner life , finds its rich wantlessness , its invisible reverie uninteresting because unmanageable , damned because unusable . incapable of inactivity , the state cannot submit to stillness and seeks precisely to create the desire it will manage . it requires neither pensive persons nor upright citizens but a smiling multitude . the state is a midas . every absence and invisibility it would make bright material , for what is invisible ?deif 's resolve to return the money or patient grief recollecting the spilt petals of his lost jasmine ?what is invisible the state believes deplorable , knows to be dangerous . such is the anxiety that caused the president to lift a finger , to touch deif . @61@s whitman 's father was a carpenter . @3@n that all workmen are singers . @3@n to other laws : "weight is the measure of @5@n unclean is the nature and name of the enchantment . @1@n going to bed was a journey . @3@y the fateful masks are faces , gods are men ; @3@y the fateful masks are faces , gods are men ; @7@y the telephone is flaubert 's parrot and it flitters @2@y of her . the telephone is the guignol of @5@y city of rock and ice , that men are freaks , @8@n it is not you i love ?it is the form @7@n the thought of death is peppermint to you @4@y scarce fresher is the mountain-sod @2@n but , ah ! its heart , its heart was stone , @9@y but for peace her soul was yearning , @5@n "o sohrab , an unquiet heart is thine ! @6@n what pointed roofs are these advance ? -- @3@s whose culture is the brethren 's care ; @2@n and what sedged brooks are thames 's tributaries ; @4@n thy rights are empire : urge no meaner claim , -- @2@y answer 'd the lovely maid and said : "i am a watry weed , @9@y and their ways are fill 'd with thorns . @3@y his breast is love 's all worship 'd tomb , @2@y " no peace be thine , " exclaimed , "away , away ! " @3@n inventing one . in brief , all arts are mine ; @8@n outside was all noon and the burning blue . @1@n "i am the resurrection and the life . " @1@n take away love , and our earth is a tomb ! @7@y first , every sort of monk , the black and whitethe black and the white black friars are dominicans ; white friars are carmelites , @17@n first , every sort of monk , the black and whitethe black and the white black friars are dominicans ; white friars are carmelites , @22@n his name is guidi -- he 'll not mind the monks -- @2@n no! yonder sparkle is the citadel 's @3@n our low life was the level 's and the night 's ; @3@n what matter to me if their star is a world ? @7@y and with god be the rest ! @3@n what , they lived once thus at venice where the merchants were the kings , @11@y that fate is thine -- no distant date ; @2@n hissing , but stingless ?they were slain for food . @5@n what matters if the road be head or heart ? @5@y but juan was receiv 'd with much "empressement " -- @2@n my whole life was a contest , since the day @3@y my limbs are bow 'd , though not with toil , @2@n to him this dungeon was a gulf , @4@y the thriftiest man is the cheerfulest ; @3@n what on earth was the helmsman to do ? @3@n " 'if your snark be a snark , that is right : @4@n among thise othere folk was criseyda , @4@n of dardanus , ther opyn is the cheyne . " @5@n burning hot is the ground , liquid gold is the air ; @8@y if hopes were dupes , fears may be liars ; @2@y the night is chill , the cloud is gray : @2@n the night is chill ; the forest bare ; @2@n and my name is geraldine : @3@n the knight 's bones are dust , @4@y the western wave was all a-flame . @3@y friendship is a sheltering tree ; @1@y those lips are thine -- thy own sweet smiles i see , @2@n ( a sight to which our eyes are strangers yet ) @7@y to me the children of my youth are lords , @7@y and whose most tender mercy is neglect . @5@n her smiles are lightning though her pride despair , @2@y you , to whom love was peace , that now is rage ; @5@n ( whose soul is sense ) cannot admit @3@y can life be a blessing , @2@n can life be a blessing if love were away ? @2@n where queens are form 'd , and future heroes bred ; @2@n and herringman was captain of the guard . @2@n kind is death that ends my pain , @1@y kind is death that ends my pain , @1@s in easy dialogue is fletcher 's praise : @3@s but now , not i , but poetry is curs 'd ; @8@n slight was the thing i bought , @1@n said his client was a martyr @3@y what held it though on one side was a tree @7@n no more ; where ignorance is bliss , @5@n until somehow yer soul is sort o ' wrapped round everything . @4@y an' watch beside a loved one 's bed , an' know that death is nigh ; @13@n my stuff is flesh , not brass ; my senses live , @2@n jewels are baubles ; 't is a sin @1@y a thing of beauty is a joy for ever : @4@n and in her bearing was a sort of hope , @4@n "beauty is truth , truth beauty , -- that is all @1@n so thou wast blind ; -- but then the veil was rent , @10@n the mourners said , " and death is rest and peace ; " @7@y the image is the adversary old , @2@n whose aim is vanity , and whose end is pain ! @2@n whose aim is vanity , and whose end is pain ! @8@n for age is opportunity no less @2@n as of a rock was the shock ; @4@y relenting hero 's gentle heart was strook : @5@n another world was search 'd , through oceans new , @2@n that all the household things are things she knew . @5@n niagara is no noisier . by stealth @1@n whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain , @3@y wherefore to be inconstant is no care : @4@n not only under ground are the brains of men @4@s now that the fields are dank , and ways are mire , @9@n this snuff-box will i stake , the prize is mine . @8@n cardelia . but of what marble must that breast be form 'd , @9@y and the skies are sunlit for him . @3@n the mountain sheep are sweeter , @3@y here mixture is addition grown ; @2@n your clothes were curtains @2@y for we knew not the month was october , @6@n when love is liberty , and nature , law : @2@y pant on thy lip , and to thy heart be press 'd ; @9@n the proper study of mankind is man . @5@n but strength of mind is exercise , not rest : @4@n reason the card , but passion is the gale ; @6@y vice is a monster of so frightful mien , @1@y and beads and pray 'r books are the toys of age : @6@y for there christ is the king 's attorney , @3@y how plesant was the jurney down the old dusty lane , @2@n and my words are no shadow on your town -- @3@y they 've had him dancing till his toes were tender , @8@n the guerdon of new childhood is repose : ? @5@y forebodings are the fiends of recreance ; @1@y that love 's complete communion is the end @5@n its bounce was music to her ear . @2@y that juice was wormwood to her tongue , @2@y so this wing 'd hour is dropt to us from above . @5@s hath guest fire-fledg 'd as thine , whose lord is love ? @9@y that when the peace is garner 'd in from strife , @4@n there the dreams are multitudes : @3@n o their glance is loftiest dole , @3@y a pal 's last need is a thing to heed , so i swore i would not fail ; @5@n that someone had stolen the woman you loved ; that her love was a devil 's lie ; @12@y all losses are restor 'd , and sorrows end . @2@n my mistress ' eyes are nothing like the sun ; @4@y if hairs be wires , black wires grow on her head . @2@y and merry larks are ploughmen 's clocks , @3@y mine is another faith " ?thus much i spoke @1@n unchangeable ! a shrine is rais 'd to thee , @4@n the breath of the moist earth is light , @6@y unfathomable sea ! whose waves are years , @5@y his winding-sheet is shame ; @2@y for the cherub cat is a term of the angel tiger . @4@y for the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of god to him exceedingly . @6@y let all the rest be thine . @4@n where cause is none , but to your rest depart . @2@n and crafty reynold was a priest ordained , @3@n calm was the day , and through the trembling air @1@n you are deceiv 'd , love is no work of art , @6@y "how is the dean ? " -- "he 's just alive . " @1@n what bud was the shell of a blossom @2@n but sweet as the rind was the core is ; @5@n to the shrine where a sin is a prayer ; @6@y in a twilight where virtues are vices , @5@y round skies where a star is a stain , @5@y then love was the pearl of his oyster , @2@y cry out ; for the phrygian is priest , @6@n all whose flowers are tears , and round his temples @3@y but a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love . @4@n but where at last the sea 's line is the sky 's @8@n for the breath of thy lips is freedom , and freedom 's the sense of thy spirit , the sound of thy song , @6@y thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy , twin-featured and fruitful of births divine , @4@y "life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die . " @1@y days more glad than their flight was fleet . @6@n my knights are all adulterers like his own , @2@n spat -- pish -- the cup was gold , the draught was mud . " @6@y spat -- pish -- the cup was gold , the draught was mud . " @11@y that stood with open doors , whereout was roll 'd @7@s light was gawain in life , and light in death @1@n and shook him thro ' the north . ill doom is mine @10@n for friend and foe were shadows in the mist , @4@y had held the field of battle was the king : @6@n seeing obedience is the bond of rule . @2@y for so the whole round earth is every way @6@n for man is man and master of his fate . @2@n thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud ; @4@y what time his tender palm is prest @5@n the living soul was flash 'd on mine , @3@y the two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away ; @5@y no ?she never loved me truly ; love is love for evermore . @8@n half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the two . @1@n death is the end of life ; ah , why @1@n dear is the memory of our wedded lives , @1@n that bright and fierce and fickle is the south , @6@y that prospect was the gate of heav'n , that day @2@y he fills it ; days and hours are blinds . @7@y whose echo is heav'n 's bliss . @2@y i too lived , brooklyn of ample hills was mine , @8@n the universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion . ) @2@y and the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted , @8@y the ship is anchor 'd safe and sound , its voyage closed and done , @2@n and i know that the hand of god is the promise of my own , @8@y and i know that the spirit of god is the brother of my own , @8@y and that a kelson of the creation is love , @7@y the armfuls are pack 'd to the sagging mow . @2@n the deacons are ordain 'd with cross 'd hands at the altar , @2@n whose girdle was the parish bounds , @2@y the blue sky is the temple 's arch , @3@y the loftiest place is that seat of grace @3@n and as molten lead were the tears we shed @4@y and the warder is despair . @3@y but god 's eternal laws are kind @5@n whose dwelling is the light of setting suns , @2@y the child is father of the man ; @2@y with better knowledge how the heart was fram 'd @6@y a privacy of glorious light is thine ; @5@n and my delight is causer of this strife . @3@n it was evening . the garden hedge was all aflower . @7@n as all the heavens were a bell , @4@y for mee be witness all the host of heav'n , @2@n th ' event is fear 'd ; should we again provoke @3@n first , what revenge ? the towrs of heav'n are fill 'd @9@n may i express thee unblam 'd ? since god is light , @9@y his back was turnd , but not his brightness hid ; @2@n uncheckt , and of her roaving is no end ; @6@n the desert , fowls in thir clay nests were couch't ; @8@n thus we rejoyc 'd , but soon our joy is turn 'd @9@n or where plain was raise hill , or over-lay @3@n so little here , nay lost ; but eve was eve , @9@n all men are sons of god ; yet thee i thought @2@n nor whether your name is base or brave ; @4@n that one thing is success , ? @3@n i in life was the circuit judge , a maker of notches , @3@y our hall-boy service is a joke ; @3@n yf any other thing be lackt @4@n for mine own bosom is the paradise @4@y calm was the sea to which your course you kept , @1@n time is a kind friend , he will make us old . @1@y whose touch is fire , appears , @2@y my bones are guitar strings @2@y death is a fisherman , the world we see @1@y our life is nothing but a winter 's day ; @2@y remember each man vanquish 'd is a foe : @5@n i the light foot hears you and the brightness begins god-step at the margins of thought , quick adulterous tread at the heart . who is it that goes there ? where i see your quick face notes of an old music pace the air , torso-reverberations of a grecian lyre . in goya 's canvas cupid and psyche have a hurt voluptuous grace bruised by redemption . the copper light falling upon the brown boy 's slight body is carnal fate that sends the soul wailing up from blind innocence , ensnared by dimness into the deprivations of desiring sight . but the eyes in goya 's painting are soft , diffuse with rapture absorb the flame . their bodies yield out of strength . waves of visual pleasure wrap them in a sorrow previous to their impatience . a bronze of yearning , a rose that burns the tips of their bodies , lips , ends of fingers , nipples . he is not wingd . his thighs are flesh , are clouds lit by the sun in its going down , hot luminescence at the loins of the visible . but they are not in a landscape . they exist in an obscurity . the wind spreading the sail serves them . the two jealous sisters eager for her ruin serve them . that she is ignorant , ignorant of what love will be , serves them . the dark serves them . the oil scalding his shoulder serves them , serves their story . fate , spinning , knots the threads for love . jealousy , ignorance , the hurt . . . serve them . ii this is magic . it is passionate dispersion . what if they grow old ? the gods would not allow it . psyche is preserved . in time we see a tragedy , a loss of beauty the glittering youth of the god retains -- but from this threshold it is age that is beautiful . it is toward the old poets we go , to their faltering , their unaltering wrongness that has style , their variable truth , the old faces , words shed like tears from a plenitude of powers time stores . a stroke . these little strokes . a chill . the old man , feeble , does not recoil . recall . a phase so minute , only a part of the word in- jerrd . the thundermakers descend , damerging a nuv. a nerb . the present dented of the u nighted stayd . states . the heavy clod ? cloud . invades the brain . what if lilacs last in this dooryard bloomd ? hoover , roosevelt , truman , eisenhower -- where among these did the power reside that moves the heart ? what flower of the nation bride-sweet broke to the whole rapture ? hoover , coolidge , harding , wilson hear the factories of human misery turning out commodities . for whom are the holy matins of the heart ringing ? noble men in the quiet of morning hear indians singing the continent 's violent requiem . harding , wilson , taft , roosevelt , idiots fumbling at the bride 's door , hear the cries of men in meaningless debt and war . where among these did the spirit reside that restores the land to productive order ? mckinley , cleveland , harrison , arthur , garfield , hayes , grant , johnson , dwell in the roots of the heart 's rancor . how sad "amid lanes and through old woods " echoes whitman 's love for lincoln ! there is no continuity then . only a few posts of the good remain . i too that am a nation sustain the damage where smokes of continual ravage obscure the flame . it is across great scars of wrong i reach toward the song of kindred men and strike again the naked string old whitman sang from . glorious mistake ! that cried : " the theme is creative and has vista . " "he is the president of regulation . " i see always the under side turning , fumes that injure the tender landscape . from which up break lilac blossoms of courage in daily act striving to meet a natural measure . iii ( for charles olson ) psyche 's tasks -- the sorting of seeds wheat barley oats poppy coriander anise beans lentils peas -- every grain in its right place before nightfall ; gathering the gold wool from the cannibal sheep ( for the soul must weep and come near upon death ) ; harrowing hell for a casket proserpina keeps that must not be opend . . . containing beauty ? no! melancholy coild like a serpent that is deadly sleep we are not permitted to succumb to . these are the old tasks . you 've heard them before . they must be impossible . psyche must despair , be brought to her insect instructor ; must obey the counsels of the green reed ; saved from suicide by a tower speaking , must follow to the letter freakish instructions . in the story the ants help . the old man at pisa mixd in whose mind ( to draw the sorts ) are all seeds as a lone ant from a broken ant-hill had part restored by an insect , was upheld by a lizard ( to draw the sorts ) the wind is part of the process defines a nation of the wind -- father of many notions , who ? let the light into the dark ? began the many movements of the passion ? west from east men push . the islands are blessd ( cursed ) that swim below the sun , man upon whom the sun has gone down ! there is the hero who struggles east widdershins to free the dawn and must woo night 's daughter , sorcery , black passionate rage , covetous queens , so that the fleecy sun go back from troy , colchis , india . . . all the blazing armies spent , he must struggle alone toward the pyres of day . the light that is love rushes on toward passion . it verges upon dark . roses and blood flood the clouds . solitary first riders advance into legend . this land , where i stand , was all legend in my grandfathers ' time : cattle raiders , animal tribes , priests , gold . it was the west . its vistas painters saw in diffuse light , in melancholy , in abysses left by glaciers as if they had been the sun primordial carving empty enormities out of the rock . snakes lurkd guarding secrets . those first ones survived solitude . scientia holding the lamp , driven by doubt ; eros naked in foreknowledge smiling in his sleep; and the light spilld , burning his shoulder -- the outrage that conquers legend -- passion , dismay , longing , search flooding up where the beloved is lost . psyche travels life after life , my life , station after station , to be tried without break , without news , knowing only -- but what did she know ? the oracle at miletus had spoken truth surely : that he was serpent-desire that flies thru the air , a monster-husband . but she saw him fair whom apollo 's mouthpiece said spread pain beyond cure to those wounded by his arrows . rilke torn by a rose thorn blackend toward eros . cupidinous death ! that will not take no for an answer . iv oh yes ! bless the footfall where step by step the boundary walker ( in maverick road the snow thud by thud from the roof circling the house -- another tread ) that foot informd by the weight of all things that can be elusive no more than a nearness to the mind of a single image oh yes ! this most dear the catalyst force that renders clear the days of a life from the surrounding medium ! yes , beautiful rare wilderness ! wildness that verifies strength of my tame mind , clearing held against indians , health that prepared to meet death , the stubborn hymns going up into the ramifications of the hostile air that , decaptive , gives way . who is there ? o , light the light ! the indians give way , the clearing falls . great death gives way and unprepares us . lust gives way . the moon gives way . night gives way . minutely , the day gains . she saw the body of her beloved dismemberd in waking . . . or was it in sight ? finders keepers we sang when we were children or were taught to sing before our histories began and we began who were beloved our animal life toward the beloved , sworn to be keepers . on the hill before the wind came the grass moved toward the one sea , blade after blade dancing in waves . there the children turn the ring to the left . there the children turn the ring to the right . dancing . . . dancing . . . and the lonely psyche goes up thru the boy to the king that in the caves of history dreams . round and round the children turn . london bridge that is a kingdom falls . we have come so far that all the old stories whisper once more . mount segur , mount victoire , mount tamalpais . . . rise to adore the mystery of love ! ( an ode ? pindar 's art , the editors tell us , was not a statue but a mosaic , an accumulation of metaphor . but if he was archaic , not classic , a survival of obsolete mode , there may have been old voices in the survival that directed the heart . so , a line from a hymn came in a novel i was reading to help me . psyche , poised to leap -- and pindar too , the editors write , goes too far , topples over -- listend to a tower that said , listen to me ! the oracle had said , despair ! the gods themselves abhor his power . and then the virgin flower of the dark falls back flesh of our flesh from which everywhere . . . the information flows that is yearning . a line of pindar moves from the area of my lamp toward morning . in the dawn that is nowhere i have seen the willful children clockwise and counter-clockwise turning . @170@s i the light foot hears you and the brightness begins god-step at the margins of thought , quick adulterous tread at the heart . who is it that goes there ? where i see your quick face notes of an old music pace the air , torso-reverberations of a grecian lyre . in goya 's canvas cupid and psyche have a hurt voluptuous grace bruised by redemption . the copper light falling upon the brown boy 's slight body is carnal fate that sends the soul wailing up from blind innocence , ensnared by dimness into the deprivations of desiring sight . but the eyes in goya 's painting are soft , diffuse with rapture absorb the flame . their bodies yield out of strength . waves of visual pleasure wrap them in a sorrow previous to their impatience . a bronze of yearning , a rose that burns the tips of their bodies , lips , ends of fingers , nipples . he is not wingd . his thighs are flesh , are clouds lit by the sun in its going down , hot luminescence at the loins of the visible . but they are not in a landscape . they exist in an obscurity . the wind spreading the sail serves them . the two jealous sisters eager for her ruin serve them . that she is ignorant , ignorant of what love will be , serves them . the dark serves them . the oil scalding his shoulder serves them , serves their story . fate , spinning , knots the threads for love . jealousy , ignorance , the hurt . . . serve them . ii this is magic . it is passionate dispersion . what if they grow old ? the gods would not allow it . psyche is preserved . in time we see a tragedy , a loss of beauty the glittering youth of the god retains -- but from this threshold it is age that is beautiful . it is toward the old poets we go , to their faltering , their unaltering wrongness that has style , their variable truth , the old faces , words shed like tears from a plenitude of powers time stores . a stroke . these little strokes . a chill . the old man , feeble , does not recoil . recall . a phase so minute , only a part of the word in- jerrd . the thundermakers descend , damerging a nuv. a nerb . the (422) present dented of the u nighted stayd . states . the heavy clod ? cloud . invades the brain . what if lilacs last in this dooryard bloomd ? hoover , roosevelt , truman , eisenhower -- where among these did the power reside that moves the heart ? what flower of the nation bride-sweet broke to the whole rapture ? hoover , coolidge , harding , wilson hear the factories of human misery turning out commodities . (500) for whom are the holy matins of the heart ringing ? noble men in the quiet of morning hear indians singing the continent 's violent requiem . harding , wilson , taft , roosevelt , idiots fumbling at the bride 's door , hear the cries of men in meaningless debt and war . where among these did the spirit reside that restores the land to productive order ? mckinley , cleveland , harrison , arthur , garfield , hayes , grant , johnson , dwell in the roots of the heart 's rancor . how sad "amid lanes and (600) through old woods " echoes whitman 's love for lincoln ! there is no continuity then . only a few posts of the good remain . i too that am a nation sustain the damage where smokes of continual ravage obscure the flame . it is across great scars of wrong i reach toward the song of kindred men and strike again the naked string old whitman sang from . glorious mistake ! that cried : " the theme is creative and has vista . " "he is the president of regulation . " i see always the under side (700) turning , fumes that injure the tender landscape . from which up break lilac blossoms of courage in daily act striving to meet a natural measure . iii ( for charles olson ) psyche 's tasks -- the sorting of seeds wheat barley oats poppy coriander anise beans lentils peas -- every grain in its right place before nightfall ; gathering the gold wool from the cannibal sheep ( for the soul must weep and come near upon death ) ; harrowing hell for a casket proserpina keeps that must not be opend . . . containing beauty ? no (800)! melancholy coild like a serpent that is deadly sleep we are not permitted to succumb to . these are the old tasks . you 've heard them before . they must be impossible . psyche must despair , be brought to her insect instructor ; must obey the counsels of the green reed ; saved from suicide by a tower speaking , must follow to the letter freakish instructions . in the story the ants help . the old man at pisa mixd in whose mind ( to draw the sorts ) are all seeds as a lone ant (900) from a broken ant-hill had part restored by an insect , was upheld by a lizard ( to draw the sorts ) the wind (925) is part of the process defines a nation of the wind -- father of many notions , who ? let the light into the dark ? began the many movements of the passion ? west from east men push . the islands are blessd ( cursed ) that swim below the sun , man upon whom the sun has gone down ! there is the hero who struggles east widdershins to free the dawn and must woo night 's daughter , sorcery , black passionate rage , covetous queens , so that the fleecy sun go back from troy , colchis , india . . . all the blazing armies spent , he must struggle alone toward the pyres of day . the light that is love rushes on toward passion . it verges upon dark . roses and blood flood the clouds . solitary first riders advance into legend . this land , where i stand , was all legend in my grandfathers ' time : cattle raiders , animal tribes , priests , gold . it was the west . its vistas painters saw in diffuse light , in melancholy , in abysses left by glaciers as if they had been the sun primordial carving empty enormities out of the rock . snakes lurkd guarding secrets . those first ones survived solitude . scientia holding the lamp , driven by doubt ; eros naked in foreknowledge smiling in his sleep; and the light spilld , burning his shoulder -- the outrage that conquers legend -- passion , dismay , longing , search flooding up where the beloved is lost . psyche travels life after life , my life , station after station , to be tried without break , without news , knowing only -- but what did she know ? the oracle at miletus had spoken truth surely : that he was serpent-desire that flies thru the air , a monster-husband . but she saw him fair whom apollo 's mouthpiece said spread pain beyond cure to those wounded by his arrows . rilke torn by a rose thorn blackend toward eros . cupidinous death ! that will not take no for an answer . iv oh yes ! bless the footfall where step by step the boundary walker ( in maverick road the snow thud by thud from the roof circling the house -- another tread ) that foot informd by the weight of all things that can be elusive no more than a nearness to the mind of a single image oh yes ! this most dear the catalyst force that renders clear the days of a life from the surrounding medium ! yes , beautiful rare wilderness ! wildness that verifies strength of my tame mind , clearing held against indians , health that prepared to meet death , the stubborn hymns going up into the ramifications of the hostile air that , decaptive , gives way . who is there ? o , light the light ! the indians give way , the clearing falls . great death gives way and unprepares us . lust gives way . the moon gives way . night gives way . minutely , the day gains . she saw the body of her beloved dismemberd in waking . . . or was it in sight ? finders keepers we sang when we were children or were taught to sing before our histories began and we began who were beloved our animal life toward the beloved , sworn to be keepers . on the hill before the wind came the grass moved toward the one sea , blade after blade dancing in waves . there the children turn the ring to the left . there the children turn the ring to the right . dancing . . . dancing . . . and the lonely psyche goes up thru the boy to the king that in the caves of history dreams . round and round the children turn . london bridge that is a kingdom falls . we have come so far that all the old stories whisper once more . mount segur , mount victoire , mount tamalpais . . . rise to adore the mystery of love ! ( an ode ? pindar 's art , the editors tell us , was not a statue but a mosaic , an accumulation of metaphor . but if he was archaic , not classic , a survival of obsolete mode , there may have been old voices in the survival that directed the heart . so , a line from a hymn came in a novel i was reading to help me . psyche , poised to leap -- and pindar too , the editors write , goes too far , topples over -- listend to a tower that said , listen to me ! the oracle had said , despair ! the gods themselves abhor his power . and then the virgin flower of the dark falls back flesh of our flesh from which everywhere . . . the information flows that is yearning . a line of pindar moves from the area of my lamp toward morning . in the dawn that is nowhere i have seen the willful children clockwise and counter-clockwise turning . @925@s whose flowers are flames lit to the lady . @2@y whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words @2@y my heart was a stone , a dumb @2@y i knew that sugar was love . @4@y i knew sugar was love . @3@y do n't you know sugar was love . @5@y america 's educators & preachers are the mental-dictators @5@y the only thing left in the room was death @7@y a wave are taxonomy i believe @2@n their voices rise . . the pine trees are guitars , @8@y or salamander -- whose home is fire . the hills @5@y i may seem thine , who in effect am none . @8@n this beaten way thou beatest i fear is hell 's own track . " @7@y and last year 's leaves are smoke in every lane ; @5@n which if i refuse to miss may be miss is mine . @9@n that is , if tree were a tree . @5@n for silence is the song sublime , @2@y till every living thing be friends again , @4@y selling was the weather and a place to live , and @1@y the facing of the well . their stairs were furniture . @8@n the case was walnut -- no tracery around the pipes , @2@n pedals for the naturals were strips that flared @4@s richard arkwright was a barber . he toured the @2@n mine is the hour . @1@n if this latter be the one we are to take @3@n this walk is news . its bodies point me always @2@y and barks : "what is happiness ? " @4@n but social as teacups : no hare is an island . @7@y the paint was blistering -- @2@n one early symptom was the boundary . @3@y and vico says gods and goddesses are the self writ large -- @6@y a young dead man is oil , an old dead man is water . @4@y a young dead man is oil , an old dead man is water . @11@y a young dead man is bread and butter , an old dead man is bread and @4@y a young dead man is bread and butter , an old dead man is bread and @13@y the dead man is the flywheel of the spinning planet . @3@y the dead man is the future , was always the future , can never be @3@s its bill of fare was rock and sand ; the tailings were its dung ; @4@y love is a man @1@y that my fingers are places of prayer @3@y each upstep is a rasp , each kneeling @2@y the grandam of my grandam was the lyre -- @5@y life 's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain . @4@y the pitcher 's stuff is all junk @4@n the ball park is an artifact , @3@n over why why . causation is sequence @5@y his name , his name is death . @5@y though his grandmother was a Warlock , @3@n the pike is a fish who always has his prey @2@n keep away , son , these lakes are salt . these flowers @7@n 12 . i am wondering if you got the idea be a manu @10@n its tense is aorist . @2@n the years are smoke . @2@y if faith is a tree that sorrow grows @2@y with eggs and applejack . life is a paradox . @6@y do n't ask . the whole sweet world is a garden . @8@y the old chronological towers are ash , are prisms of disfigurement , symbolic of a world cancelled by consumptive inmelodias . as for alchemical transition , we face the raising of new sea walls , of banished and re-engendered electorates , trying to cope with new intensities of weather , as the anomalous hypnotically increases with the power of inverse subjective . the body is now weighed on a broken axial cart , its blood conjoined as it rises within a nuclear darkness of ravens . so as piscean chronology now shatters , dawn becomes an unclaimed resurrection , a tumultuous eikon of skin no longer formed around its old dendritic artifacts . the calendar of draconian enfeeblement with its integers of the past 20 centuries , erased , its linear babels darkened by the extreme necessity for a new perpendicular burst , transmuting in demeanour , with history consumed in a roll of flaming aural dice , with its wizardry of tools subsumed in arcane vibration , turned into a power of splendiferous scorpions . the psychic wounds of the past eclipsed in this new millenium by the power of smelted dragon 's blood . and so , i speak of a new being of symbols , of lucid catacombs and spirals , its language being spun in fabulous iguana iridium . now , with the decayed constitutional stages exploded by telepathy , by invulnerable oneiric intuitives , the mental axis transmutes , like a reddened swan , with a new cosmic skeletal reprieve , afloat amongst the forces of the primeval lightning field , taking on the dharma of the great sustained emotion of eternity . @4@y some souls are bank tellers ; @2@y if the art of loneliness is landscape , @5@y but rotgut was the shortcut to epiphanies . @2@y a liar is a liar is a liar . that 's his act . @2@n a liar is a liar is a liar . that 's his act . @5@n but then . tueur is human . and what rhymes with bilge is bilge . @12@n my mistress ' eyes are nothing @4@y other ones are sentries , guarding double entries , @2@n its scent was neither snake nor rat , @2@n ripeness is nothing . @1@y made byron sick . food is a metaphor for existence . @5@y from where even watching is an anachronism , @4@y our own cities were the ones we wanted to bomb ! @3@n my hair is the color of chopped maples . @2@n and life is colour and warmth and light , @2@y that what he thought were sun-kissed hills are rags upon the floor . @7@y democracy is the shit . @1@y relativity is the shit . @1@y dictators are the shit . @1@y menken is the shit . @1@y her wine was dew of the wild white rose , @2@y but she hangs on , and my shout and my shrinking are nothing to her , @11@n "i am no son of thine ! -- " @1@n the sky is cloudy , yellowed by the smoke . @2@n my needle through the word whose root is love . @7@y the peace with which the moving heavens are fraught , @7@n " the bell , the bell is ringing ! give me back my rusty sword . @6@n gray men in overcoats are ghosts blown past the door . @4@y mourn like the lost . water is slate , far down . @6@y then air is kisses , kisses @2@y 'the islands are prisons and no one returns , @2@y the world is everything that is the case . @2@n the law was a devil to cheat as you pleased @2@y at the far end of the platform is a tunnel , and the train @7@n it is but that my soul is sighing , @6@y poetry is the grinding of a multiplicity @1@y by what manner is the soul joined to @3@n down the hall was someone with a glove @3@n that the body is something less @3@n i myself am helli myself am hell an echo of satan speaking in john milton 's paradise lost : " which way i fly is hell ; myself am hell " ( book 4 , line 75 ) ; @24@s a silver luciferlunar baedeker...lucifer a baedeker is a series name of popular guidebooks . another modern poem with "baedeker " in the title is t . s . eliot 's "burbank with a baedeker : bleistein with a cigar " ( 1919 ) . lucifer is the former angel name for satan , which has been used to name the morning star , that is the planet venus @6@s of all perfection flesh is heir to , @4@y such stuff is nought but mere tautology , @2@n and yet what thoughtless force was mine ! @5@n faces whose hair is leaves and grapes @3@y that my love is nothing because i have borne no children , @3@n nor smear my love with names . love is a cliff , @8@y the night is a sentinel . @2@y to a violent sea , or of having the closeness of the others be air @13@s the sedate one is this month 's skittish one @3@n the couples are parading ; everyone is in a holiday mood . @2@n this passion is the scholar 's heritage , @2@n my trade is courage and atrocities . @2@n when big prints were the rage . @3@n yesterday . his face is corn - @4@y my cuticles are a mess . oh honey , by the way , @2@n and he knows his skin is glass , @5@y mindful that melancholy is a sin , though @3@n better than rage is the post-dinner quiet , @3@n "greek tragedy " of course is the sort of thing @5@n understatement is the privilege of a god , we must @1@y was a madman . coleridge was a drug addict , with severe @5@n suffering was life 's penalty ; wisdom armed one @1@y against madness ; speech was temporary ; poetry was truth . @8@y because the body 's dwelling is stone , perched over water , @5@y death is death and none other . @1@n my name is johnson -- @2@n what i remember through the windshield 's splintering lens is time , a mailbox @9@y and his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring @7@y when solomon was king . @2@n it is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth , @5@y the crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery ; @8@y and above the ships are palaces of brown , black-bearded chiefs , @4@n and below the ships are prisons , where with multitudinous griefs , @4@n some moment when the moon was blood @5@y last night the kings of the earth were chill @7@n where struggle is home to the beast in us . @2@y over my head are the firs for rafter ; @3@n the mantilla is lace @2@n whose blackness is air @2@y my frog is a frog that is hopelessly hoarse , @2@n my frog is a frog with a reason , of course , @2@n my frog is a frog that cannot croak a note , @2@n my frog is a frog with a frog in its throat . @2@n and its airborne personnel , but still their mouths were a mash @9@y perhaps the sadness is a way of seeming free , @3@y while what lurks below the surface is another story , @6@y the sky was a show of flashing @2@y " the downing street accord is lots of @5@n the sun was god 's eye . @2@y the chrysler building was a pin . @3@y where deafness was an asset . i did well , @2@n in the beginning was the word @3@n and the word was nigger @3@n and the word was death to all niggers @3@n and the word was death to all life @3@n and the word was death to all @3@n the genesis was life @2@y the genesis was death @2@y in the beginning was the deed @3@n and the deed was death @3@n her hair was three-quarters her height @2@n in the moment was the music of being wanted . @3@n whose confidence is a game of marbles @2@y i love sweets , -- heaven would be dying on a bed of vanilla ice cream ... but my true self is thin , all profile and effortless gestures , the sort of blond elegant girl whose body is the image of her soul . -- my doctors tell me i must give up this ideal ; but i will not ... cannot . only to my husband i 'm not simply a " case . " but he is a fool . he married meat , and thought it was a wife . . . . why am i a girl ? i ask my doctors , and they tell me they do n't know , that it is just "given . " but it has such implications -- ; and sometimes , i even feel like a girl . . . . now , at the beginning of ellen 's thirty-second year , her physical condition has deteriorated still further . her use of laxatives increases beyond measure . every evening she takes sixty to seventy tablets of a laxative , with the result that she suffers tortured vomiting at night and violent diarrhea by day , often accompanied by a weakness of the heart . she has thinned down to a skeleton , and weighs only 92 pounds . . . . about five years ago , i was in a restaurant , eating alone with a book . i was not married , and often did that ... -- i 'd turn down dinner invitations , so i could eat alone ; i 'd allow myself two pieces of bread , with butter , at the beginning , and three scoops of vanilla ice cream , at the end , -- sitting there alone with a book , both in the book and out of it , waited on , idly watching people , -- when an attractive young man and woman , both elegantly dressed , sat next to me . she was beautiful -- ; with sharp , clear features , a good bone structure -- ; if she took her make-up off in front of you , rubbing cold cream again and again across her skin , she still would be beautiful -- more beautiful . and he , -- i could n't remember when i had seen a man so attractive . i did n't know why . he was almost a male version of her , -- i had the sudden , mad notion that i wanted to be his lover ... -- were they married ? were they lovers ? they did n't wear wedding rings . their behavior was circumspect . they discussed politics . they did n't touch ... -- how could i discover ? then , when the first course arrived , i noticed the way each held his fork out for the other to taste what he had ordered ... they did this again and again , with pleased looks , indulgent smiles , for each course , more than once for each dish -- ; much too much for just friends ... -- their behavior somehow sickened me ; the way each gladly put the food the other had offered into his mouth -- ; i knew what they were . i knew they slept together . an immense depression came over me ... -- i knew i could never with such ease allow another to put food into my mouth : happily myself put food into another 's mouth -- ; i knew that to become a wife i would have to give up my ideal . . . . even as a child , i saw that the "natural " process of aging is for one 's middle to thicken -- one 's skin to blotch ; as happened to my mother . and her mother . i loathed "nature . " at twelve , pancakes became the most terrible thought there is ... i shall defeat "nature . " in the hospital , when they weigh me , i wear weights secretly sewn into my belt . . . . january 16 . the patient is allowed to eat in her room , but comes readily with her husband to afternoon coffee . previously she had stoutly resisted this on the ground that she did not really eat but devoured like a wild animal . this she demonstrated with utmost realism .... her physical examination showed nothing striking . salivary glands are markedly enlarged on both sides . january 21 . has been reading faust again . in her diary , writes that art is the "mutual permeation " of the "world of the body " and the "world of the spirit " says that her own poems are "hospital poems ... weak -- without skill or perseverance ; only managing to beat their wings softly . " february 8. agitation , quickly subsided again . has attached herself to an elegant , very thin female patient . homo-erotic component strikingly evident . february 15 . vexation , and torment . says that her mind forces her always to think of eating . feels herself degraded by this . has entirely , for the first time in years , stopped writing poetry . . . . callas is my favorite singer , but i 've only seen her once -- ; i 've never forgotten that night ... -- it was in tosca , she had long before lost weight , her voice had been , for years , deteriorating , half itself ... when her career began , of course , she was fat , enormous -- ; in the early photographs , sometimes i almost do n't recognize her ... the voice too then was enormous -- healthy ; robust ; subtle ; but capable of crude effects , even vulgar , almost out of high spirits , too much health ... but soon she felt that she must lose weight , -- that all she was trying to express was obliterated by her body , buried in flesh -- ; abruptly , within four months , she lost at least sixty pounds ... -- the gossip in milan was that callas had swallowed a tapeworm . but of course she had n't . the tapeworm was her soul ... -- how her soul , uncompromising , insatiable , must have loved eating the flesh from her bones , revealing this extraordinarily mercurial ; fragile ; masterly creature ... -- but irresistibly , nothing stopped there ; the huge voice also began to change : at first , it simply diminished in volume , in size , then the top notes became shrill , unreliable -- at last , usually not there at all ... -- no one knows why . perhaps her mind , ravenous , still insatiable , sensed that to struggle with the shreds of a voice must make her artistry subtler , more refined , more capable of expressing humiliation , rage , betrayal ... -- perhaps the opposite . perhaps her spirit loathed the unending struggle to embody itself , to manifest itself , on a stage whose mechanics , and suffocating customs , seemed expressly designed to annihilate spirit ... -- i know that in tosca , in the second act , when , humiliated , hounded by scarpia , she sang vissi d'arte -- "i lived for art " -- and in torment , bewilderment , at the end she asks , with a voice reaching harrowingly for the notes , " art has repaid me like this ? " i felt i was watching autobiography -- an art ; skill ; virtuosity miles distant from the usual soprano 's athleticism , -- the usual musician 's dream of virtuosity without content ... -- i wonder what she feels , now , listening to her recordings . for they have already , within a few years , begun to date ... whatever they express they express through the style of a decade and a half -- ; a style she helped create ... -- she must know that now she probably would not do a trill in exactly that way , -- that the whole sound , atmosphere , dramaturgy of her recordings have just slightly become those of the past ... -- is it bitter ? does her soul tell her that she was an idiot ever to think anything material wholly could satisfy ? ... -- perhaps it says : the only way to escape the history of styles is not to have a body . . . . when i open my eyes in the morning , my great mystery stands before me ... -- i know that i am intelligent ; therefore the inability not to fear food day-and-night ; this unending hunger ten minutes after i have eaten ... a childish dread of eating ; hunger which can have no cause , -- half my mind says that all this is demeaning ... bread for days on end drives all real thought from my brain ... -- then i think , no . the ideal of being thin conceals the ideal not to have a body -- ; which is not trivial ... this wish seems now as much a "given " of my existence as the intolerable fact that i am dark-complexioned ; big-boned ; and once weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds ... -- but then i think , no . that 's too simple , -- without a body , who can know himself at all ? only by acting ; choosing ; rejecting ; have i made myself -- discovered who and what ellen can be ... -- but then again i think , no . this i is anterior to name ; gender ; action ; fashion ; matter itself , -- ... trying to stop my hunger with food is like trying to appease thirst with ink . . . . march 30 . result of the consultation : both gentlemen agree completely with my prognosis and doubt any therapeutic usefulness of commitment even more emphatically than i . all three of us are agreed that it is not a case of obsessional neurosis and not one of manic-depressive psychosis , and that no definitely reliable therapy is possible . we therefore resolved to give in to the patient 's demand for discharge . . . . the train-ride yesterday was far worse than i expected ... in our compartment were ordinary people : a student ; a woman ; her child ; -- they had ordinary bodies , pleasant faces ; but i thought i was surrounded by creatures with the pathetic , desperate desire to be not what they were : -- the student was short , and carried his body as if forcing it to be taller -- ; the woman showed her gums when she smiled , and often held her hand up to hide them -- ; the child seemed to cry simply because it was small ; a dwarf , and helpless ... -- i was hungry . i had insisted that my husband not bring food ... after about thirty minutes , the woman peeled an orange to quiet the child . she put a section into its mouth -- ; immediately it spit it out . the piece fell to the floor . -- she pushed it with her foot through the dirt toward me several inches . my husband saw me staring down at the piece ... -- i did n't move ; how i wanted to reach out , and as if invisible shove it in my mouth -- ; my body became rigid . as i stared at him , i could see him staring at me , -- then he looked at the student -- ; at the woman -- ; then back to me ... i did n't move . -- at last , he bent down , and casually threw it out the window . he looked away . -- i got up to leave the compartment , then saw his face , -- his eyes were red ; and i saw -- i 'm sure i saw -- disappointment . . . . on the third day of being home she is as if transformed . at breakfast she eats butter and sugar , at noon she eats so much that -- for the first time in thirteen years ! -- she is satisfied by her food and gets really full . at afternoon coffee she eats chocolate creams and easter eggs . she takes a walk with her husband , reads poems , listens to recordings , is in a positively festive mood , and all heaviness seems to have fallen away from her . she writes letters , the last one a letter to the fellow patient here to whom she had become so attached . in the evening she takes a lethal dose of poison , and on the following morning she is dead . " she looked as she had never looked in life -- calm and happy and peaceful . " . . . dearest . -- i remember how at eighteen , on hikes with friends , when they rested , sitting down to joke or talk , i circled around them , afraid to hike ahead alone , yet afraid to rest when i was not yet truly thin . you and , yes , my husband , -- you and he have by degrees drawn me within the circle ; forced me to sit down at last on the ground . i am grateful . but something in me refuses it . -- how eager i have been to compromise , to kill this refuser , -- but each compromise , each attempt to poison an ideal which often seemed to me sterile and unreal , heightens my hunger . i am crippled . i disappoint you . will you greet with anger , or happiness , the news which might well reach you before this letter ? your ellen . @38@s stoics replied that life is war , illusion @4@y the beaches were all lava , variegated , @2@y this whole palazzo is the property @3@n art is history 's nostalgia , it prefers a thatched @1@y "his name was hector . " @2@n hollowed his face ; to find that the sea was a love @9@y mer was both mother and sea . in his lost canoe @1@n for thine is the kingdom , the glory , and the power , @2@n maybe these events are nature 's sleight of hand , and the real @3@y boortree is bower tree , where i played 'touching tongues ' @1@n attenuation is strength . ( donne @1@y light is this instant , far-seeing @1@y like a hat -- a kid 's life is a cinch . @8@y whose look is charnel . lusters , intent and blind , @2@y restore that grace ! indeed , the look is grace @8@y contemplation , not yet relaxed . his hands are void @8@n ten years are time enough to be dismayed @2@n your ghosts are plato 's christians in the cave . @2@y narcissus is vocabulary . hermes decorates @1@y person ; every son-of-a-bitch is christ , at least rousseau ; @4@n and believe all human community is lies and bullshit @5@y his nose was a wick . @2@y what can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments ? i was small , like everyone . life was a string of precautions : do n't kiss the squirrel before you bury him , do n't suck candy , pop balloons , drop watermelons , watch tv. when the new gloves appeared one christmas , tucked in soft tissue , i heard it trailing me : do n't lose the yellow gloves . i was small , there was too much to remember . one day , waving at a stream -- the ice had cracked , winter chipping down , soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches -- i let a glove go . into the stream , sucked under the street . since when did streets have mouths ? i walked home on a desperate road . gloves cost money . we did n't have much . i would tell no one . i would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket . i knew my mother 's eyes had tears they had not cried yet , i did n't want to be the one to make them flow . it was the prayer i spoke secretly , folding socks , lining up donkeys in windowsills . to be good , a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night . if you do n't get in my bed , i will be good . and they listened . i had a lot to fulfill . the months rolled down like towels out of a machine . i sang and drew and fattened the cat . do n't scream , do n't lie , do n't cheat , do n't fight -- you could hear it anywhere . a pebble could show you how to be smooth , tell the truth . a field could show how to sleep without walls . a stream could remember how to drift and change -- next june i was stirring the stream like a soup , telling my brother dinner would be ready if he 'd only hurry up with the bread , when i saw it . the yellow glove draped on a twig . a muddy survivor . a quiet flag . where had it been in the three gone months ? i could wash it , fold it in my winter drawer with its sister , no one in that world would ever know . there were miracles on harvey street . children walked home in yellow light . trees were reborn and gloves traveled far , but returned . a thousand miles later , what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos ? part of the difference between floating and going down . @22@s i said , " today is monday . i want little more @5@n do not think relationship is wealth . @4@y the river is a variety of land , @2@y far down from one rim is the bay with flocks of teal , @5@n a second look , and the bleating lambs were birds -- @8@y as if banishing love is a fix . as if the stars go out when we shut our @4@y the efflux of the soul is happiness , here is happiness , @5@n the fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman , @5@y my call is the call of battle , i nourish active rebellion , @2@n but when these leafless beds were all aglow @5@n deep buried in the forest was a nook , @5@n even as the teacher is the child 's -- i said @4@n thy songs were riddles hard to mortal ear . @2@y one day , then another . for mine are the terms . " @8@n his bin was morning light , @2@y my body is a pebble to them , they tend it as water @2@y to buddha every distinct thing is illusion @5@n work is something that you do @1@n or forgotten . the woods are a mangle @5@y hour is the hour , we were like that then -- @1@n at the feet of a young man whose name is saul . @9@n parcels of light . "angels are women ; i know that . " @5@n silence is an envelope noise is paper @5@y silence is an envelope noise is paper @1@y beneath the squeeze on my heart is a stranglehold . @6@y is all hers , and sticks to her like burrsburrs in the phrase " sticks to her like burrs , " these are prickly flower heads . one other definition of a burr is a circle of light about the moon or a star. , blessed baby @33@s todd 's hardware was dust and a monkey -- @3@y of being the dead center of things , where pain is the gateway @10@y who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish , @15@s moloch the incomprehensible prison ! moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and congress of sorrows ! moloch whose buildings are judgment ! moloch the vast stone of war ! moloch the stunned governments ! @18@s moloch whose mind is pure machinery ! moloch whose blood is running money ! moloch whose fingers are ten armies ! moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb ! @31@s moloch whose love is endless oil and stone ! moloch whose soul is electricity and banks ! moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius ! moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen ! moloch whose name is the mind ! @12@s moloch whose love is endless oil and stone ! moloch whose soul is electricity and banks ! moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius ! moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen ! moloch whose name is the mind ! @20@s moloch whose love is endless oil and stone ! moloch whose soul is electricity and banks ! moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius ! moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen ! moloch whose name is the mind ! @29@s moloch whose love is endless oil and stone ! moloch whose soul is electricity and banks ! moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius ! moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen ! moloch whose name is the mind ! @39@s matter is water . @1@n and the song is joy , is life , @3@y the across the street is windows @4@n because a song is a mountain put into @3@y words and landscape is the feeling that @3@y and you are . life is experience . @5@y and that ideas were governments turned into men ; @3@y shrugged . janos was a friend from the university , @3@n fighting a war is a plausible @3@n the glades are dusk , and soft the grass , where the flower of the elder gleams , @2@y path a horse fence where fences are horses @6@y to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down @7@n to let a table be a place for eating & not a desk @4@n and the hondurans were masters of their land . @3@n and " a gongressman was chipper than a mule , " @4@n as they should be . sleep is a drug ; @6@y one ca n't eat art . but dust is art , @8@y new york new york . love is a means of travel , so you dye @6@y that his experience of his being and mine of his and his of mine were things entirely apart , @14@n all march is shambles , shards . yet no amber @2@y granite and ice are colours of the heart . @3@y a view is a mountain speaking @2@y closed door is panic , and spaces grow immense with memory , like @2@y here the man with the shovel is king . @6@y everyone is a friend of his own pathology . @1@n where my children are distances , horizons : @3@y the saulis are borrowit and to the bliss can go , @2@n my name is colin clout . @2@n their purpose is ambition , @2@n provo is a place where there is no reason to be . @1@n passing is june , another ; peony 's scent ; postcards @1@n they say days are scrolls write only what you want remembered @3@y ( the new age victor is the one who gets @5@n but what pierced me at that moment like an axe was the recognition @10@y told your friend that the gist of war was boredom @8@y the night is a clock chiming @2@y the night is a clock chiming @2@s the night is a clock chiming @2@s the night is a clock chiming @2@s dark is the world , where your light shined never ; @1@n if rubies , loe hir lips be rubies sound : @6@y if pearles , hir teeth be pearles both pure and round ; @5@y the rest be works of natures wonderment , @2@n then love is sin , and let me sinful be . @2@y where love is chasteness , pain doth learn delight , @2@y let not mine eyes be hell-driv'n from that light ; @4@n singsing ... sing this line is an example of epanalepsis , the poetic technique of beginning and ending the line with the same word . then my muse , now io paean io paean homer began his hymn to apollo with these words , which serve as a latinized version of the phrase " sing muse .. . " sing , @5@n debasement is the password of the base , @1@y mardohai simhon claimed the silk scarf he wore around his neck was a mirror . "look , " he said , "my head is separated from my body by a scarf . who dares give me the life if i say i walk with a knotted mirror under my chin ? " the scarf reflects a face , and you think it is of flesh . "night is the mirror . day the scarf . moon and sun reflected features . but my true face , brothers , where did i lose it ? " at his death , a large scar was discovered on his neck . the meaning of this anecdote was discussed by the rabbis . reb alphandery , in his authority as the oldest , spoke first . " a double mirror , " he said , " separates us from the lord so that god sees himself when trying to see us , and we , when trying to see him , see only our own face . " "is appearance no more than the reflections thrown back and forth by a set of mirrors ? " asked reb ephraim . "you are no doubt alluding to the soul , reb alphandery , in which we see ourselves mirrored . but the body is the place of the soul , just as the mountain is the bed of the brook . the body has broken the mirror . " " the brook , " continued reb alphandery , " sleeps on the summit . the brook 's dream is of water , as is the brook . it flows for us . our dreams extend us . "do you not remember this phrase of reb alsem 's : ' we live out the dream of creation , which is god 's dream . in the evening our own dreams snuggle down into it like sparrows in their nests . ' " and did not reb hames write : 'birds of night , my dreams explore the immense dream of the sleeping universe . '" "are dreams the limpid discourse between the facets of a crystal block ? " continued reb ephraim . " the world is of glass . you know it by its brilliance , night or day . " " the earth turns in a mirror . the earth turns in a scarf , " replied reb alphandery . " the scarf of a dandy with a nasty scar , " said reb ephraim . ( "words are inside breath , as the earth is inside time . " - reb mares ) and yukel said : " the bundle of the wandering jew contains the earth and more than one star . " "whatever contains is itself contained , " said reb mawas . the story i told you , as well as the commentaries it inspired , will be recorded in the book of the eye . the ladder urges us beyond ourselves . hence its importance . but in a void , where do we place it ? ( "god is sculpted . " - reb moyal ) @11@s mardohai simhon claimed the silk scarf he wore around his neck was a mirror . "look , " he said , "my head is separated from my body by a scarf . who dares give me the life if i say i walk with a knotted mirror under my chin ? " the scarf reflects a face , and you think it is of flesh . "night is the mirror . day the scarf . moon and sun reflected features . but my true face , brothers , where did i lose it ? " at his death , a large scar was discovered on his neck . the meaning of this anecdote was discussed by the rabbis . reb alphandery , in his authority as the oldest , spoke first . " a double mirror , " he said , " separates us from the lord so that god sees himself when trying to see us , and we , when trying to see him , see only our own face . " "is appearance no more than the reflections thrown back and forth by a set of mirrors ? " asked reb ephraim . "you are no doubt alluding to the soul , reb alphandery , in which we see ourselves mirrored . but the body is the place of the soul , just as the mountain is the bed of the brook . the body has broken the mirror . " " the brook , " continued reb alphandery , " sleeps on the summit . the brook 's dream is of water , as is the brook . it flows for us . our dreams extend us . "do you not remember this phrase of reb alsem 's : ' we live out the dream of creation , which is god 's dream . in the evening our own dreams snuggle down into it like sparrows in their nests . ' " and did not reb hames write : 'birds of night , my dreams explore the immense dream of the sleeping universe . '" "are dreams the limpid discourse between the facets of a crystal block ? " continued reb ephraim . " the world is of glass . you know it by its brilliance , night or day . " " the earth turns in a mirror . the earth turns in a scarf , " replied reb alphandery . " the scarf of a dandy with a nasty scar , " said reb ephraim . ( "words are inside breath , as the earth is inside time . " - reb mares ) and yukel said : " the bundle of the wandering jew contains the earth and more than one star . " "whatever contains is itself contained , " said reb mawas . the story i told you , as well as the commentaries it inspired , will be recorded in the book of the eye . the ladder urges us beyond ourselves . hence its importance . but in a void , where do we place it ? ( "god is sculpted . " - reb moyal ) @67@s and the thunder was someone with a shotgun @3@y the new moon ones were wolves @4@n the buildings were mountains @2@y the infant is an eye looking @2@y its sorrow is christ 's , dewlap @2@n 1 . when handling the past in the present tense , chronology is of the utmost importance . suppose i say i 'm eight years old and all the rooms of my father 's house are larger than life . then i say two days after my first divorce , the only landscape i know is simplified , bone-smooth . the past remains practically undisturbed . but suppose i reverse the order in which the episodes are recreated , and time goes on a rampage , and i find myself coming and going . journeys on land have a spherical tendency because this is always at some level the nature of the ter- rain . the anthill crumbles in the rain and the ants returning with more provisions walk past the leveled mound ; having noticed noth - ing , they keep looking for home . though each mouth carries its crumb of substance , tradition and evolution will see to it that it is n't eaten until the journey has been completed . it 's not unusual for the ants to walk repeatedly over the ruins . a squirrel chases itself so fast around the trunk of a palm tree that it appears to be standing still , like propeller blades in midflight . ( i used to know the cause of this illusion . ) i say someone 's at the door , somebody please get the door although i have n't lived there in years . somebody please get the door . i want nothing more than my share of the past . 2. true . there are degrees of isolation . sixteen days after a shopping center collapses like a punctured lung in seoul , south korea , a nine - teen-year-old girl is found alive in an elevator shaft . her only nour- ishment throughout the ordeal is an apple that a monk gives her in a dream . the doctors are skeptical and attribute her survival , instead , to "her false perception of time . " the brain -- with its network of rivers and tributaries , the flow rigorously controlled -- is taxed by a sudden drought . or an apple passes from one hand to another . in both versions , extraordinary measures achieve a modicum of nor- malcy , shaken again when a boy -- age thirteen , his circadian rhythms still fighting the syncopation of jet lag -- walks out the window on the thirtieth floor of a swedish building . they 're calling it " a sleep- walking accident , " as if sleep were a cognitive state . if that were the case , our sheep and our prayers would keep us up all night , count- ing and repenting , and there would be degrees of salvation . i can tell you that none of this is true , but much of it is , and you will not for- give me when you discover that i 've led you to believe otherwise . the truth , in one form or another , has ways of finding you . blame it on your false perception of the facts . time the sniper has lapses in which its eyes tire and its focus falters and it aims at itself . so the window opens ; the girl shakes the rubble from her dress ; a monk , gathering apples in his robe , almost catches the falling boy . 3. they say that when the who performed at leeds university on valentine 's day 1970 , pete townshend played against his own echo during some of those riveting excursions he launched into through - out the band 's quarter-hour-long offering of "my generation . " i lis - ten to it differently now . i wait for the echo they tell me is there , preceding each note , and it 's as if i were experiencing the music a pri- ori . i listen to the chords or whole riffs bouncing off the walls versus sound in real time . doing so , i miss the actual song , which is also delayed because this is , after all , a recording . once , the concept of real time was redundant . before the first gramophone . before we learned to manipulate the speed of things to come . and long before that , the idea of a spirit that takes over for the temporary body was already popular . perhaps our first attempt to deny the unavoidable . one new religion offers immortality . for a price . unlike traditional religions in which death is a prerequisite , this one teaches the body to bypass the soul , that middle man who always gets in the way , and the here-and-now becomes a here-and-always . it 's all up here , one of its members says to me , pointing his index finger at his temple , as if mimicking a gun . i may actually want to die before i get old , i think , the radio as loud as it 'll go , one chord after another bouncing off the walls so many years ago at leeds , the road much longer than i 'd expected , the signal grow- ing weaker and one station giving way to another . from feedback to static to a preacher who invites me or commands me or dares me to lay my hands on the radio . both hands , he says . i raise my legs , raise my whole body ( although it 's not levitation or anything nearly as glam - orous ) to steady the steering wheel . 4 . in the book of ironies they forgot to write that a superstitious woman will end up marrying an atheist . curiously , in all the cases i know , it 's the man who does n't believe . the woman is always open at the very least to the possibility of that " something out there . " at times her superstitions are proof of god 's constant tinkering with the cogs and wheels of the soul . there are atheists with proof of a finite world , atheists in need of a finite world , reformed atheists whose image of god has become so pure over the years that it has gone from inevitable to unnecessary to simply impossible . one believer argues that only the next life makes this one tolerable and lends it purpose , that only the idea of being part of something cir- cular can keep us from going mad , because true madness is linear and the points at either end are clearly defined . this is an uncom - fortable thought for her . i wonder if her belief is , more than any- thing , a way to keep at bay this linear derangement . the atheist lying beside her is beginning to sink into sleep when she speaks : she has carefully chosen this moment , thinking he 's vulnerable enough to say what she wants to hear . he sits on the edge of the bed and won- ders for a moment what it would be like to take that leap forward ; or backward , which is something she does n't mention : believers of her kind tend to discount any previous incarnations , as if eternity began here . being here , he says to himself as he has said to her so many times , is the point . then he tries to think his way back to sleep : wedding band , crown , zero , smoke ring , lasso , hula hoop . @1022@s 1 . when handling the past in the present tense , chronology is of the utmost importance . suppose i say i 'm eight years old and all the rooms of my father 's house are larger than life . then i say two days after my first divorce , the only landscape i know is simplified , bone-smooth . the past remains practically undisturbed . but suppose i reverse the order in which the episodes are recreated , and time goes on a rampage , and i find myself coming and going . journeys on land have a spherical tendency because this is always at some level the nature of the ter- rain . the anthill crumbles in the rain and the ants returning with more provisions walk past the leveled mound ; having noticed noth - ing , they keep looking for home . though each mouth carries its crumb of substance , tradition and evolution will see to it that it is n't eaten until the journey has been completed . it 's not unusual for the ants to walk repeatedly over the ruins . a squirrel chases itself so fast around the trunk of a palm tree that it appears to be standing still , like propeller blades in midflight . ( i used to know the cause of this illusion . ) i say someone 's at the door , somebody please get the door although i have n't lived there in years . somebody please get the door . i want nothing more than my share of the past . 2. true . there are degrees of isolation . sixteen days after a shopping center collapses like a punctured lung in seoul , south korea , a nine - teen-year-old girl is found alive in an elevator shaft . her only nour- ishment throughout the ordeal is an apple that a monk gives her in a dream . the doctors are skeptical and attribute her survival , instead , to "her false perception of time . " the brain -- with its network of rivers and tributaries , the flow rigorously controlled -- is taxed by a sudden drought . or an apple passes from one hand to another . in both versions , extraordinary measures achieve a modicum of nor- malcy , shaken again when a boy -- age thirteen , his circadian rhythms still fighting the syncopation of jet lag -- walks out the window on the thirtieth floor of a swedish building . they 're calling it " a sleep- walking accident , " as if sleep were a cognitive state . if that were the case , our sheep and our prayers would keep us up all night , count- ing and repenting , and there would be degrees of salvation . i can tell you that none of this is true , but much of it is , and you will not for- give me when you discover that i 've led you to believe otherwise . the truth , in one form or another , has ways of finding you . blame it on your false perception of the facts . time the sniper has lapses in which its eyes tire and its focus falters and it aims at itself . so the window opens ; the girl shakes the rubble from her dress ; a monk , gathering apples in his robe , almost catches the falling boy . 3. they say that when the who performed at leeds university on valentine 's day 1970 , pete townshend played against his own echo during some of those riveting excursions he launched into through - out the band 's quarter-hour-long offering of "my generation . " i lis - ten to it differently now . i wait for the echo they tell me is there , preceding each note , and it 's as if i were experiencing the music a pri- ori . i listen to the chords or whole riffs bouncing off the walls versus sound in real time . doing so , i miss the actual song , which is also delayed because this is , after all , a recording . once , the concept of real time was redundant . before the first gramophone . before we learned to manipulate the speed of things to come . and long before that , the idea of a spirit that takes over for the temporary body was already popular . perhaps our first attempt to deny the unavoidable . one new religion offers immortality . for a price . unlike traditional religions in which death is a prerequisite , this one teaches the body to bypass the soul , that middle man who always gets in the way , and the here-and-now becomes a here-and-always . it 's all up here , one of its members says to me , pointing his index finger at his temple , as if mimicking a gun . i may actually want to die before i get old , i think , the radio as loud as it 'll go , one chord after another bouncing off the walls so many years ago at leeds , the road much longer than i 'd expected , the signal grow- ing weaker and one station giving way to another . from feedback to static to a preacher who invites me or commands me or dares me to lay my hands on the radio . both hands , he says . i raise my legs , raise my whole body ( although it 's not levitation or anything nearly as glam - orous ) to steady the steering wheel . 4 . in the book of ironies they forgot to write that a superstitious woman will end up marrying an atheist . curiously , in all the cases i know , it 's the man who does n't believe . the woman is always open at the very least to the possibility of that " something out there . " at times her superstitions are proof of god 's constant tinkering with the cogs and wheels of the soul . there are atheists with proof of a finite world , atheists in need of a finite world , reformed atheists whose image of god has become so pure over the years that it has gone from inevitable to unnecessary to simply impossible . one believer argues that only the next life makes this one tolerable and lends it purpose , that only the idea of being part of something cir- cular can keep us from going mad , because true madness is linear and the points at either end are clearly defined . this is an uncom - fortable thought for her . i wonder if her belief is , more than any- thing , a way to keep at bay this linear derangement . the atheist lying beside her is beginning to sink into sleep when she speaks : she has carefully chosen this moment , thinking he 's vulnerable enough to say what she wants to hear . he sits on the edge of the bed and won- ders for a moment what it would be like to take that leap forward ; or backward , which is something she does n't mention : believers of her kind tend to discount any previous incarnations , as if eternity began here . being here , he says to himself as he has said to her so many times , is the point . then he tries to think his way back to sleep : wedding band , crown , zero , smoke ring , lasso , hula hoop . @312@s 1 . when handling the past in the present tense , chronology is of the utmost importance . suppose i say i 'm eight years old and all the rooms of my father 's house are larger than life . then i say two days after my first divorce , the only landscape i know is simplified , bone-smooth . the past remains practically undisturbed . but suppose i reverse the order in which the episodes are recreated , and time goes on a rampage , and i find myself coming and going . journeys on land have a spherical tendency because this is always at some level the nature of the ter- rain . the anthill crumbles in the rain and the ants returning with more provisions walk past the leveled mound ; having noticed noth - ing , they keep looking for home . though each mouth carries its crumb of substance , tradition and evolution will see to it that it is n't eaten until the journey has been completed . it 's not unusual for the ants to walk repeatedly over the ruins . a squirrel chases itself so fast around the trunk of a palm tree that it appears to be standing still , like propeller blades in midflight . ( i used to know the cause of this illusion . ) i say someone 's at the door , somebody please get the door although i have n't lived there in years . somebody please get the door . i want nothing more than my share of the past . 2. true . there are degrees of isolation . sixteen days after a shopping center collapses like a punctured lung in seoul , south korea , a nine - teen-year-old girl is found alive in an elevator shaft . her only nour- ishment throughout the ordeal is an apple that a monk gives her in a dream . the doctors are skeptical and attribute her survival , instead , to "her false perception of time . " the brain -- with its network of rivers and tributaries , the flow rigorously controlled -- is taxed by a sudden drought . or an apple passes from one hand to another . in both versions , extraordinary measures achieve a modicum of nor- malcy , shaken again when a boy -- age thirteen , his circadian rhythms still fighting the syncopation of jet lag -- walks out the window on the thirtieth floor of a swedish building . they 're calling it " a sleep- walking accident , " as if sleep were a cognitive state . if that were the case , our sheep and our prayers would keep us up all night , count- ing and repenting , and there would be degrees of salvation . i can tell you that none of this is true , but much of it is , and you will not for- give me when you discover that i 've led you to believe otherwise . the truth , in one form or another , has ways of finding you . blame it on your false perception of the facts . time the sniper has lapses in which its eyes tire and its focus falters and it aims at itself . so the window opens ; the girl shakes the rubble from her dress ; a monk , gathering apples in his robe , almost catches the falling boy . 3. they say that when the who performed at leeds university on valentine 's day 1970 , pete townshend played against his own echo during some of those riveting excursions he launched into through - out the band 's quarter-hour-long offering of "my generation . " i lis - ten to it differently now . i wait for the echo they tell me is there , preceding each note , and it 's as if i were experiencing the music a pri- ori . i listen to the chords or whole riffs bouncing off the walls versus sound in real time . doing so , i miss the actual song , which is also delayed because this is , after all , a recording . once , the concept of real time was redundant . before the first gramophone . before we learned to manipulate the speed of things to come . and long before that , the idea of a spirit that takes over for the temporary body was already popular . perhaps our first attempt to deny the unavoidable . one new religion offers immortality . for a price . unlike traditional religions in which death is a prerequisite , this one teaches the body to bypass the soul , that middle man who always gets in the way , and the here-and-now becomes a here-and-always . it 's all up here , one of its members says to me , pointing his index finger at his temple , as if mimicking a gun . i may actually want to die before i get old , i think , the radio as loud as it 'll go , one chord after another bouncing off the walls so many years ago at leeds , the road much longer than i 'd expected , the signal grow- ing weaker and one station giving way to another . from feedback to static to a preacher who invites me or commands me or dares me to lay my hands on the radio . both hands , he says . i raise my legs , raise my whole body ( although it 's not levitation or anything nearly as glam - orous ) to steady the steering wheel . 4 . in the book of ironies they forgot to write that a superstitious woman will end up marrying an atheist . curiously , in all the cases i know , it 's the man who does n't believe . the woman is always open at the very least to the possibility of that " something out there . " at times her superstitions are proof of god 's constant tinkering with the cogs and wheels of the soul . there are atheists with proof of a finite world , atheists in need of a finite world , reformed atheists whose image of god has become so pure over the years that it has gone from inevitable to unnecessary to simply impossible . one believer argues that only the next life makes this one tolerable and lends it purpose , that only the idea of being part of something cir- cular can keep us from going mad , because true madness is linear and the points at either end are clearly defined . this is an uncom - fortable thought for her . i wonder if her belief is , more than any- thing , a way to keep at bay this linear derangement . the atheist lying beside her is beginning to sink into sleep when she speaks : she has carefully chosen this moment , thinking he 's vulnerable enough to say what she wants to hear . he sits on the edge of the bed and won- ders for a moment what it would be like to take that leap forward ; or backward , which is something she does n't mention : believers of her kind tend to discount any previous incarnations , as if eternity began here . being here , he says to himself as he has said to her so many times , is the point . then he tries to think his way back to sleep : wedding band , crown , zero , smoke ring , lasso , hula hoop . @780@s but our sustenance is a laugh , a grief , @3@y the red one is the poppy . @3@n i marvel of what substance was the mould @5@n their words are spears @2@y in love , if love be love , if love be ours , @5@n unfaith in aught is want of faith in all . @3@n all things were nothing to give , @2@y mine is the heart at your feet @1@n that your body and soul are mine . @5@n if one might , death were no divorce . @5@y "fear is a snare . why should i be afraid . " @1@y calm is the sea ; the waves work less and less : @1@n dead is the root whence all these fancies grew . @1@n so true a fool is love that in your will @4@n thy fadere is the king of blis . " @2@n when i wake up , i can remember touching the back of your neck , the cut of your hair blunt under my fingers . in the dream you have met my mother . my sisters and i are living in a grand house where i have no room of my own . one of my sisters has delineated her property by stringing a rope from which she will hang photographs of our dead father . at the beginning of christianity , a bishop established what is called the " canon of truth " in order to unify feuding believers into a single way of apprehending the sacred . his teachings excluded the workings of imagination as subjective , vulnerable to self-interest , and possibly insane . your neck , the blunt cut of your hair sharp and fragrant on my fingers . you come to the big house , you have just met my mother at a party where curtains of royal blue fell to the floor . the music by scarlatti . my hair is turning gray . i look in the mirror . the familiar dark hairs are fine and smooth , the white are rough and thick like the fiber of which clouds are woven . i want to pluck out the white hairs , but my tweezer falls through them like logic through the sense of dreams . i am getting old , soon it will be too late . your hand will slide from my skin like silk falling from a polished table . in the big house you come to me , and i show you my rectangle of floor . it is here i will put my couch and desk , separated from my sister and her pictures of our dead father by the edges of my body , myself , my thinking . you consider me . we stand there for a while . my sister is attaching the large photographs of our father to a rope . i look into the mirror at my white hair . i have sworn i will never dye it , but now i must . the white hairs are growing as fast as snow falls across a landscape . soon snow will obliterate the town and countryside , there will be no houses visible , cars will disappear under the mass of it , trees will become poignant marks on a dangerous blank . my sister strings photographs of our dead father along the rope , attaching them with small invisible clips . i wait for you . i think about your face , how you are becoming bald , and then i remember touching you for the first time , the back of your neck . i was wondering how to find you , what i would discover there . it made me almost cry that you stayed perfectly still , certain , it seemed , that what i was imparting was of utmost consequence . i moved my fingers tentatively , as if finding first knowledge in a terrain i could slip beneath , into a garden . i remembered that when i woke up . that and your sticky skin . certain early christian ideologues denigrated imagination as outside the realms of good and evil . my mother is no longer dead , and you have met her . the air is transparent , the colors dark wood and pale amber . i am standing at the mirror watching white hair grow in as fast as snow . what time is the train coming ? you sit at the window , your legs crossed . courtly and at ease , you scrutinize my face until i am self-conscious . i become aware that you are waiting for me . i do n't know how to get to you . some early christians , those who came to be persecuted as heretics , believed that a part of god is perpetually hidden from us . in relation to that realm of the deity dwells imagination , unceasingly seeking understanding of what is concealed . i can see you on the window seat in an elegantly cut suit , as if wearing such clothes were a form of grace . i remember you in that suit , standing in the hotel , turning on your heel to look for me . now the window is tall behind you , twilight gathering outside the glass , cedars black beyond the roses . i am not dead , yet i am mute as the dead usually are in dreams . you are speaking in a clear voice , explaining you have met my mother and that i look like her . before sleep , i was reading about early christianity . when i woke up from the long dream , there we were in the taxicab , my arms tentative around you , my fingers seeking the back of your neck . i felt clearly the blunt edge of your newly cut hair , the stickiness of your skin , that mortal stickiness - when my mother 's mother was sixty , her hair was still dark . when my mother died at fifty , her hair was still black , though as she sickened , it turned white , black receding as life did . i stand at the mirror , its rare wide-beveled glass framed by oak carved to leaves and flowers . i am scrutinizing myself . my face is not ageing , but my hair is turning white , cloaking the trees , falling on the meadow , windblown across the frozen lake . what heresy is it that you come to me in a dream , knowing everything ? the tall windows rise to the ceiling , but i do n't lift my eyes . i do n't want to lose sight of you . outside , the cedars . beyond them a smooth body of water . @599@s when i wake up , i can remember touching the back of your neck , the cut of your hair blunt under my fingers . in the dream you have met my mother . my sisters and i are living in a grand house where i have no room of my own . one of my sisters has delineated her property by stringing a rope from which she will hang photographs of our dead father . at the beginning of christianity , a bishop established what is called the " canon of truth " in order to unify feuding believers into a single way of apprehending the sacred . his teachings excluded the workings of imagination as subjective , vulnerable to self-interest , and possibly insane . your neck , the blunt cut of your hair sharp and fragrant on my fingers . you come to the big house , you have just met my mother at a party where curtains of royal blue fell to the floor . the music by scarlatti . my hair is turning gray . i look in the mirror . the familiar dark hairs are fine and smooth , the white are rough and thick like the fiber of which clouds are woven . i want to pluck out the white hairs , but my tweezer falls through them like logic through the sense of dreams . i am getting old , soon it will be too late . your hand will slide from my skin like silk falling from a polished table . in the big house you come to me , and i show you my rectangle of floor . it is here i will put my couch and desk , separated from my sister and her pictures of our dead father by the edges of my body , myself , my thinking . you consider me . we stand there for a while . my sister is attaching the large photographs of our father to a rope . i look into the mirror at my white hair . i have sworn i will never dye it , but now i must . the white hairs are growing as fast as snow falls across a landscape . soon snow will obliterate the town and countryside , there will be no houses visible , cars will disappear under the mass of it , trees will become poignant marks on a dangerous blank . my sister strings photographs of our dead father along the rope , attaching them with small invisible clips . i wait for you . i think about your face , how you are becoming bald , and then i remember touching you for the first time , the back of your neck . i was wondering how to find you , what i would discover there . it made me almost cry that you stayed perfectly still , certain , it seemed , that what i was imparting was of utmost consequence . i moved my fingers tentatively , as if finding first knowledge in a terrain i could slip beneath , into a garden . i remembered that when i woke up . that and your sticky skin . certain early christian ideologues denigrated imagination as outside the realms of good and evil . my mother is no longer dead , and you have met her . the air is transparent , the colors dark wood and pale amber . i am standing at the mirror watching white hair grow in as fast as snow . what time is the train coming ? you sit at the window , your legs crossed . courtly and at ease , you scrutinize my face until i am self-conscious . i become aware that you are waiting for me . i do n't know how to get to you . some early christians , those who came to be persecuted as heretics , believed that a part of god is perpetually hidden from us . in relation to that realm of the deity dwells imagination , unceasingly seeking understanding of what is concealed . i can see you on the window seat in an elegantly cut suit , as if wearing such clothes were a form of grace . i remember you in that suit , standing in the hotel , turning on your heel to look for me . now the window is tall behind you , twilight gathering outside the glass , cedars black beyond the roses . i am not dead , yet i am mute as the dead usually are in dreams . you are speaking in a clear voice , explaining you have met my mother and that i look like her . before sleep , i was reading about early christianity . when i woke up from the long dream , there we were in the taxicab , my arms tentative around you , my fingers seeking the back of your neck . i felt clearly the blunt edge of your newly cut hair , the stickiness of your skin , that mortal stickiness - when my mother 's mother was sixty , her hair was still dark . when my mother died at fifty , her hair was still black , though as she sickened , it turned white , black receding as life did . i stand at the mirror , its rare wide-beveled glass framed by oak carved to leaves and flowers . i am scrutinizing myself . my face is not ageing , but my hair is turning white , cloaking the trees , falling on the meadow , windblown across the frozen lake . what heresy is it that you come to me in a dream , knowing everything ? the tall windows rise to the ceiling , but i do n't lift my eyes . i do n't want to lose sight of you . outside , the cedars . beyond them a smooth body of water . @711@s he saw the moon , "o yonder is the moon , @7@n mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey , @5@n the cheat ! on briers her buds were strung ; @7@n and all her face was honey to my mouth , @4@y he pass 'd with ease , gold was the word ; @7@n till love be trust . @2@y our distance is love 's severance ; sense divides , @2@y when absent , every minute is a year : @5@y strephon , who found the room was void , @6@n age is naught but sorrow . @1@y to thee , whose temple is all space , @5@y and all my heart be love . @4@y her only levity is patience , @3@y men were deceivers ever , @1@n fond are life 's lustful joys ; @1@n though beauty be the mark of praise , @2@n brilliance is a carcass @1@y life is a cry followed by laughter . @1@y how can the walls be floors if the floors @4@n 1.a ) the body and the material things of the world are the key to any @11@n the interviewer was a poet . mann offered him no coffee , and @2@n that the hot wind is friend , lifter of stones , trembler of heavy @4@y for though your manic tribe is mine , the boreal chargers , @5@n so utterly absorbed that love is a distraction ; even @5@n dear miss , first of all i want to say that i have enjoyed the imaginary possibility , built of course on the fact that such possibility does exist in nature : i have seen the birds and other forms of nonhumanity occur in such postures that must be with men and women ....i have imagined myself in such postures with you , where flight was discouraged only by the inherent possibility of the firm horizontal ... as men give vast lands to little papers with line and color , i have imagined more on the surface of your body , giving all the universe in this model .... yet , i must be curious about your breasts ...curious ...hungry is the word , to see , to touch , to taste ....i am curious as to how your hands undress your body . i am interested in your mind : will you undress in front of me ? will you permit me the unparalleled pleasure of taking your clothes off ? i feel that if i should have my penis in your vagina i should have your love ; for you do not receive the wretched hardness of my desire into the sweet body of yourself without that you have not come to love me for reasons , if love has reasons , i cannot tell .... your admirer @120@s cities are places are conversion , you said . but i am citiless . @1@n cities are places are conversion , you said . but i am citiless . @3@y sex please now . petunias are an apology @5@y long ago , this desert was an inland sea . in the mountains @5@n at the carnival , robo-boy sees only things he recognizes . the ferris wheel is an overgrown version of his own bells and whistle eyes . his flashers , his mother calls them . the tilt-a-whirl is the angle his head tilts when the flirt program goes into effect , usually in the vicinity of a cindy or a carrie , though once he found himself tilting at the school librarian which caused him to wheel in reverse into the civil war section knocking over a cart of books that were waiting to be shelved under b . there 's a dangerously low stratosphere of pink cotton-candy clouds being carried around by the children . if robo-boy goes near them , the alarms will go off . it 's the kind of sticky that would cause joint-lock for sure . in a darker , safer corner robo-boy finds the whack-a-mole game . he pays a dollar and starts whacking the plastic moles on their heads each time they pop up from the much-dented log . he wins bear after bear . it 's only when he 's lugging them home , the largest one skidding face-down along the sidewalk getting dirt on its white nose and light blue belly , that he remembers the program : wac-a-mole realism(tm ) -- the disc on the installer 's desk . suddenly it all fits together : the way a deliciously strange thought will start wafting out of his unconscious -- and then wham , it disappears . @36@s my name is a household word , writes the hid teacher @2@y the horse was midnight @2@y i would have freed thousands mo , if dey had known dey were slaves . harriet @12@n in a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or dress goods or leather stuff for @5@n the law was move or die . lively from tigers ; @2@y our day is night when we sit in rows of the classroom . @2@y the sun is no enemy to the eye looking west . @2@y i have a sister who takes care of animals , whose artistry is flesh @12@y reddening the bare skin around the wound . the odors are a mixture @10@n the elegies were a medicine prescribed by the physicians @2@y the empty hallway ; the past is the self 's ghoul . @6@y his back is a saddle where lovers have ridden . @2@y the horizon h is the point where vision ends @3@n where people were days becoming months and years . @2@y the wind of my breath is a hurricane : @5@y but the word is mindful of itself @3@n they say a ghost is a ghost @4@n yes , the sun at its zenith , winged figure with arms extended , and a white ship , exactly correct . let me tell you what it is you said . the lovers ' limbs twist like a river . their talk is a naming or being named . my back sometimes aches . their talk hides in the telling . the wind moves us . wands comes and cups , gardens , someone in a cloak , the wind moves us , laws , young girl and the bird at her wrist , colors , bright yellow or blue . i am a woman or man under green sky , garden to my right and then it 's the following day . i am woman or man under emerald sky , wind brushes the river 's surface , we talk until our talk becomes hidden . @43@y talk is a naming . @1@y talk is a naming or a being named . . . @1@y whose doldrums are meadows spinning into brush , @2@y her name was sara and we kept it at that . @2@n the soul is forgiveness because it knows forgiveness . @2@y and his screen is stripes and he knows he saved his work @3@y god was momentum then , @1@y that looks personal , private . this tank is nothing @8@n what is the world ? the word is wilderness . @7@y what is the answer ? the answer is the world . @7@n what is the beginning ? a beginning is happiness . @7@y paul was the sort @1@n zeus : it is to be assumed that i do not exist while most people in the vision assume that i do exist . this is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience . i have to talk like this because i am the lord of both kinds of sky -- and i do n't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs , i mean the bright sky and the burning sky . i have no intention of showing you my limits . the players in this poem are players . they have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter ] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players . i have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play . i am called zeus and i know this . @98@s zeus : it is to be assumed that i do not exist while most people in the vision assume that i do exist . this is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience . i have to talk like this because i am the lord of both kinds of sky -- and i do n't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs , i mean the bright sky and the burning sky . i have no intention of showing you my limits . the players in this poem are players . they have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter ] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players . i have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play . i am called zeus and i know this . @98@s a father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life is the amount of time he has spent worrying about it . @13@n those people were a kind of solution . @2@y "in the star " "it is a star " "it is autonomous " " star & it 's mild " "is @5@n my father 's farm is an apple blossomer . @4@n his fields are oceans of heat , @2@y my father 's farm is an icicle , @4@y today is friday . @1@n his left leg was meal . crayfish in the hair . @3@y the risk is a part of the rhythm @2@n mentions that hearing is silver @3@y the name is orestes @2@n no one can escape , what use is strength , you ca n't @7@n and behind was memory like the white sheet one night in an enclosure @2@n the perfume was flowers ground upon stones . @2@y to cleanse our vision : the fish were silver , @7@y martin was a man no one came close to knowing . @1@n was a joke because " a singer is nothing " -- @7@y " a singer is nothing . " why did he sing ? @3@y as the season of cold is the season of darkness @5@n else all beasts were tigers , @3@y without which earth is sand @3@n the sky is cloud on cloud @2@n the sky is cloudy @2@n