The Heart Is Strange (10 page)

FROM

His Thought Made Pockets & The Plane Buckt

(1958)

They Have

A thing O say a sixteenth of an inch

long, with whiskers

& wings it doesn’t use, & many legs,

has all this while been wandering in a tiny space

on the black wood table by my burning chair.

I see it has a feeler of some length

it puts out before it.

That must be how it was following the circuit

of the bottom of my wine-glass, vertical: Mâcon: I thought

it smelt & wanted some but couldn’t get hold.

Now here’s another thing, on my paper, a fluff

of legs, and I blow: my brothers & sisters go away.

But here he’s back, & got between the pad

& padback, where I save him and

shift him to my blue shirt, where he is.

The other little one’s gone somewhere else.

They have things easy.

The Poet’s Final Instructions

Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down

near Cedar Avenue in Minneap,

when my crime comes. I am blazing with hope.

Do me glory, come the whole way across town.

I couldn’t rest from hell just anywhere,

in commonplaces. Choiring & strange my pall!

I might not lie still in the waste of St Paul

or buy
D A D ’ S
root beer; good signs I forgive.

Drop here, with honour due, my trunk & brain

among the passioning of my countrymen

unable to read, rich, proud of their tags

and proud of me. Assemble all my bags!

Bury me in a hole, and give a cheer,

near Cedar on Lake Street, where the used cars live.

from
The Black Book (iii)

Lover & child, a little sing.

From long-lockt cattle-cars who grope

Who near a place of showers come

Foul no more, whose murmuring

Grows in a hiss of gas will clear them home:

Away from & toward me: a little soap,

Disrobing,
Achtung!
in a dirty hope,

They shuffle with their haircuts in to die.

Lift them an elegy, poor you and I,

Fair & strengthless as seafoam

Under a deserted sky.

A Sympathy, A Welcome

Feel for your bad fall how could I fail,

poor Paul, who had it so good.

I can offer you only: this world like a knife.

Yet you’ll get to know your mother

and humourless as you do look you will laugh

and all the others

will
NOT
be fierce to you, and loverhood

will swing your soul like a broken bell

deep in a forsaken wood, poor Paul,

whose wild bad father loves you well.

American Lights, Seen From Off Abroad

Blue go up & blue go down

to light the lights of Dollartown

Nebuchadnezzar had it so good?

wink the lights of Hollywood

I never think, I have so many things,

flash the lights of Palm Springs

I worry like a madwoman over all the world,

affirm the lights, all night, at State

I have no plans, I mean well,

swear the lights of Georgetown

I have the blind staggers

call the lights of Niagara

We shall die in a palace

shout the black lights of Dallas

I couldn’t dare less, my favorite son,

fritter the lights of Washington

(I have a brave old So-and-so,

chuckle the lights of Independence, Mo.)

I cast a shadow, what I mean,

blurt the lights of Abilene

Both his sides are all the same

glows his grin with all but shame

‘He can do nothing night & day,’

wonder his lovers. So they say.

‘Basketball in outer space’

sneers the White New Hampshire House

I’ll have a smaller one, later, Mac,

hope the strange lights of Cal Tech

I love you one & all, hate shock,

bleat the lights of Little Rock

I cannot quite focus

cry the lights of Las Vegas

I am a maid of shots & pills,

swivel the lights of Beverly Hills

Proud & odd, you give me vertigo,

fly the lights of San Francisco

I am all satisfied love & chalk,

mutter the great lights of New York

I have lost your way

say the white lights of Boston

Here comes a scandal to blight you to bed.

‘Here comes a cropper.’ That’s what I said.

Lévanto

7 October 1957

Mr. Pou & the Alphabet

(1961)

Mr. Pou & the Alphabet—which he do not like

A is for
awful
, which things are;

B is for
bear
them, well as we can.

C is for
can
we? D is for
dare
:

E is for
each
dares, being a man.

(What does a man do? bears and dares;

and how does a little boy fare? He fares.)

F is for
floor
we stamp wif our foot,

G is for
grimy
we getting from play,

H is for
Hell
wherein they do put

the bad guys, maybe. Oh, and I is for ‘
Ay
’

(And this will puzzle the Little Pou,

but his mommy can explain it. Do.)

J is for
Jackknife
which later will come,

when Poukie is bigger, K is for
key
.

L is for
Little
Pou, M is for some

men
who have definite reason to be.

And N is for
now
, the best time of all,

And O is for
ouch
when it hurts—quite so.

P is for
Poukie
, of Paul and
piano
,

and Q is for
quiet
, while Mommy tells Paul.

R is for
rudiments
Poukie now learn.

S is for
sea-horse
, erect fish, weird,

T is for
Turks
whom we take by the beard.

U is for
utter
-don’t-know-where-to turn.

V is for
vowels
the Pou is to learn.

(So vivid splendid subjects hide ahead,

the stars, the grasses, asses and wisemen, letters and the word.)

W’s for
why
, which ask and ask;

X is for
Xmas
, where I cannot be.

Y is for
Yes
(do his Daddy love he?)

Z is for
zig-zag
—a part of our task.

(Straight’s better, but few can.

My Xmas hope: boy head for man.)

Formal Elegy

(1964)

Formal Elegy

I

A hurdle of water, and O these waters are cold

(warm at outset) in the dirty end.

Murder on murder on murder, where I stagger,

whiten the good land where we have held out.

These kills were not for loot,

however Byzantium hovers in the mind:

were matters of principle—that’s worst of all—

& fear & crazed mercy.

Ruby, with his mad claim

he shot to spare the Lady’s testifying,

probably is sincere.

No doubt, in his still cell, his mind sits pure.

II

Yes, it looks like a wilderness—pacem appellant.

Honour to Patrolman Tippit. Peace to the rifler’s widow.

Seven, I believe, play fatherless.

III

Scuppered the yachts, the choppers, big cars, jets.

Nobody goes anywhere,

lengthened (days) into TV.

I am four feet long, invisibly.

What in the end will be left of us is a stare,

underwater.

If you want me to join you in confident prayer, let’s

not.

I sidled in & past, gazing upon it,

the bier.

IV

Too Andean hopes, now angry shade.—

I am an automobile. Into me climb

many, and go their ways. Onto him climbed

a-many and went his way.

For a while we seemed to be having a holiday

off from ourselves—ah, but the world is wigs,

as sudden we came to feel

and even hís splendid hair kept not wholly real

fumbling & falsing in & out of the Bay of Pigs,

the bad moment of this excellent man,

suffered by me as a small car can.

Faithful to course we stayed.

V

Some in their places are constrained to weep.

Stunned, more, though.

Black foam. A weaving snake. An invulnerable sleep.

It doing have to come so.

All at once, hurtless, in the tide of applause

& expectation. I write from New York

where except for a paraplegic exterminator—

a gracious & sweet guy—

nobody has done no work

lately

VI

It’s odd perhaps that Dallas    cannot after their crimes

criminals protect or Presidents.

Fat Dallas, a fit set.

I would not perhaps have voted for him next time.

Images of Mr Kennedy blue the air,

who is little now, with no chance to grow great,

but who have set his touch across the State,

true-intended, strong

VII

My breath comes heavy, does my breath.

I feel heavy about the President’s death.

VIII

I understand I hear I see I read

schoolgirls in Dallas when the white word came

or slammed, cheered in their thoughtful grades,

brought-up to a loving tone.

I do not sicken but somewhat with shame

I shift my head an inch; who are my own.

I have known a loving Texas    woman in parades

and she was boastful & treacherous.

That boringest of words, whereas here I blush,

‘education’, peters to a nailing of us.

IX

An editor has asked me in my name

what wish or prophecy I’d like to state

for the new year. I am silent on these occasions

steadily, having no love for a fool

(which I keep being) but I break my rule:

I do all-wish the bullets swim astray

sent to the President, and that all around

help, and his heart keep sound.

I have a strange sense

                                   he’s about to be the best of men.

Amen.

X

It’s quiet at Arlington. Rock Creek is quiet.

My pr
ī
mers, with Mount Auburn. Everybody should

have his sweet boneyards. Yet let the young not go,

our apprentice King! Alas,

muffled, he must. He seemed good:

brainy in riot, daring, cool.

                                                         So

let us abandon the scene of disorder. Drop

them shattered bodies into tranquil places,

where moulder as you will. We compose our faces

cold as the cresting waters; ready again.

The waters break.

All black & white together, stunned, survive

the final insolence to the head of you;

bow.

Overwhelmed-un, live.

A rifle fact is over, pistol facts

almost entirely are too.

The man of a wise face opened it to speak:

Let us continue.

FROM

Love & Fame

(1970)

Cadenza on Garnette

‘If I had said out passions as they were,’

plain-saying Wordsworth confided down deep age,

‘the poems could never have been published.’

Ha! a confrère.

She set up a dazing clamour across this blood

in one of Brooks Hall’s little visiting rooms.

In blunt view of whoever might pass by

we fondled each other’s wonders.

One night she couldn’t come down, she had a cold,

so I took away a talkative friend of hers,

to squirrel together inklings as to Garnette,

any, no matter what, she did, said, was.

O it flowed fuller than the girl herself,

I feasted on Louise.

I all but fell in love with her instead,

so rich with news.

Allen long after, being taxed obscenely

in a news-sheet of Spoleto, international town,

complained to me next day: His aim was tell it all.

Poets! . . Lovers & secrets!

How did we break off, now I come to it,

I puzzle. Did she date somebody else

& I warred with that & she snapped ‘You don’t own me’

or did the flare just little by little fall?

so that I cut in & was cut in on,

the travelling spotlights coloured, the orchestra gay,

without emphasis finally,

pressing each other’s hand as he took over.

Freshman Blues

My intense friend was tall & strongly made,

almost too handsome—& he was afraid

his penis was too small.

We mooted it, we did everything but examine it

whether
in se
or by comparison

to the great red joy a pecker ought to be

to pump a woman ragged. Only kid sisters,

he muttered, want to somersault with me.

Thought much I then on perforated daddy,

daddy boxed in & let down with strong straps,

when I my friends’ homes visited, with fathers

universal & intact.

McGovern was critical: I treated my girl
slight

who was so kind to me I climbed in bed

with her, with our pajamas, an icy morning

when I’d stayed overnight

by her mother’s kindness, flustered by my status,

listening then downstairs.

Tom took her over and I ceased to fear

her nervous & carbuncled brother Thornton.

Images of Elspeth

O when I grunted, over lines and her,

my Muse a nymphet & my girl with men