June 2011
22 posts
1 tag
The Building of the Skyscraper
The steel worker on the girder
Learned not to look down, and does his work
And there are words we have learned
Not to look at,
Not to look for substance
Below them. But we are on the verge
Of vertigo.
There are words that mean nothing
But there is something to mean.
Not a declaration which is truth
But a thing
Which is. It is the business of the poet
‘To suffer the things of the...
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Ferry
Gleams, a green lamp
In the fog:
Murmur, in almost
A dialogue
Siren and signal
Siren to signal.
Parts the shore from the fog,
Rise there, tower on tower,
Signs of stray light
And of power.
Siren to signal
Siren to signal.
Hour-gongs and the green
Of the lamp.
Plash. Night. Plash. Sky.
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Homosexuality
Roses that wear roses
Enjoy mirrors.
Roses that wear roses must enjoy
The flowers they are worn by.
Roses that wear roses are dying
With a mirror behind them.
None of us are younger but the roses
Are dying.
Men and women have weddings and funerals
Are conceived and destroyed in a formal
Procession.
Roses die upon a bed of roses
With mirrors weeping at them.
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Real Article
Everything I know
is something I’ve repeated.
Lazy horn solo
tries to wander off,
but can’t,
or does,
and we don’t notice.
Veterans Day flags
lap idly
at their poles.
The day is warm.
“The.”
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Windy Afternoon
Through the wood
on his motorcycle piercing
the hawk, the jay
the blue-coated policeman
Woods, barren woods,
as this typewriter without an object
or the words that from you
fall soundless
The sun lowering
and the bags of paper
on the stoney ledge
near the waterfall
Voices down the roadway
and leaves falling over there
a great vacancy
a huge left over
The quality of the day...
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Return
Quiet as is proper for such places;
The street, subdued, half-snow, half-rain,
Endless, but ending in the darkened doors.
Inside, they who will be there always,
Quiet as is proper for such people—
Enough for now to be here, and
To know my door is one of these.
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from Six Significant Landscapes
III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way the ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.
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A Feather.
A feather is trimmed, it is trimmed by the light and the bug and the post, it is trimmed by little leaning and by all sorts of mounted reserves and loud volumes. It is surely cohesive.
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A Fire.
What was the use of a whole time to send and not send if there was to be the kind of thing that made that come in. A letter was nicely sent.
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Watering the Horse
How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse’s mane!
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Witness
Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.
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from Landscapes
II. Virginia
Red river, red river,
Slow flow heat is silence
No will is still as a river
Still. Will heat move
Only through the mocking-bird
Heard once? Still hills
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,
White trees, wait, wait,
Delay, decay. Living, living,
Never moving. Ever moving
Iron thoughts came with me
And go with me:
Red river, river, river.
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Arthur Mitchell
Slim dragonfly
too rapid for the eye
to cage—
contagious gem of virtuosity—
make visible, mentality.
Your jewels of mobility
reveal
and veil
a peacock-tail.
*Note: Tumblr won’t recognize the staggered lineation.
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Meditatio
When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs
I am compelled to conclude
That man is the superior animal.
When I consider the curious habits of man
I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.
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A White Paper
And if he thought that
All was foreign—
As, gas and petrol, en-
gine full of seeds, barking to hear the night
The political contaminations
Of what he spoke,
Spotted azaleas brought to meet him
Sitting next day
The judge, emotions,
The crushed paper heaps.
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Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit...
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Reflective
I found a
weed
that had a
mirror in it
and that
mirror
looked in at
a mirror
in
me that
had a
weed in it
Rural California
I’ve been reading for the first half of my comprehensive exams. Internet is rare in these mountains. I’ll be posting—and occasionally phoning-in—some good poems.
