470

I am alive—I guess—
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory—
And at my finger’s end—

The Carmine—tingles warm—
And if I hold a Glass
Across my Mouth—it blurs it—
Physician’s—proof of Breath—

I am alive—because
I am not in a Room—
The Parlor—Commonly—it is—
So Visitors may come—

And lean—and view it sidewise—
And add “How cold—it grew”—
And “Was it conscious—when it stepped
In Immortality?”

I am alive—because
I do not own a House—
Entitled to myself—precise—
And fitting no one else—

And marked my Girlhood’s name—
So Visitors may know
Which Door is mine—and not

Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now——
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled¸ like Blake's.
Who exhibits

The birthmarks that are his trademark——
The scald scar of water,
The ****
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that
His hair long and plausive
*******
******* a glitter
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody's done for.

Go to sleep—though of course you will not—
to tideless waves thundering slantwise against
strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray
dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind,
scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady
car rails!  Sleep, sleep!  Gulls’ cries in a wind-gust
broken by the wind; calculating wings set above
the field of waves breaking.
Go to sleep to the lunge between foam-crests,
refuse churned in the recoil.  Food!  Food!
Offal!  Offal!  that holds them in the air, wave-white
for the one purpose, feather upon feather, the wild
chill in their eyes, the hoarseness in their voices—
sleep, sleep . . .

Gentlefooted crowds are treading out your lullaby.
Their arms nudge, they brush shoulders,
hitch this way then that, mass and surge at the crossings—
lullaby, lullaby!  The wild-fowl police whistles,
the enraged roar of the traffic, machine shrieks:
it is all to put you to sleep,
to soften your limbs in relaxed postures,
and that your head slip sidewise, and your hair loosen
and fall over your eyes and over your mouth,
brushing your lips wistfully that you may dream,
sleep and dream—

A black fungus springs out about the lonely church doors—
sleep, sleep.  The Night, coming down upon
the wet boulevard, would start you awake with his
message, to have in at your window.  Pay no
heed to him.  He storms at your sill with
cooings, with gesticulations, curses!
You will not let him in.  He would keep you from sleeping.
He would have you sit under your desk lamp
brooding, pondering; he would have you
slide out the drawer, take up the ornamented dagger
and handle it.  It is late, it is nineteen-nineteen—
go to sleep, his cries are a lullaby;
his jabbering is a sleep-well-my-baby; he is
a crackbrained messenger.

The maid waking you in the morning
when you are up and dressing,
the rustle of your clothes as you raise them—
it is the same tune.
At table the cold, greeninsh, split grapefruit, its juice
on the tongue, the clink of the spoon in
your coffee, the toast odors say it over and over.

The open street-door lets in the breath of
the morning wind from over the lake.
The bus coming to a halt grinds from its sullen brakes—
lullaby, lullaby.  The crackle of a newspaper,
the movement of the troubled coat beside you—
sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
It is the sting of snow, the burning liquor of
the moonlight, the rush of rain in the gutters packed
with dead leaves:  go to sleep, go to sleep.
And the night passes—and never passes—

328

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroa—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—

And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.  Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt.  Rip Van Winkle.  Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross:  four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.  All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.  A toad to Diana!

Lean forward.  Punch the steerman
behind the ear.  Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge!  Screams!  Crash!
The end.  I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch!  All threads cut!
Death!  Black.  The end.  The very end—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful:  the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.  All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny **** flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth:  Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.  The End.  I sit
examining my red handful.  Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.

Love you?  It’s
a fire in the blood, *****-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.  You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman?  Fighters.  Playfellows.
White round thighs!  Youth!  Sighs—!
It’s the fillip of novelty.  It’s—

Mountains.  Elephants ******* along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.  It’s
the fillip of novelty.  It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee.  You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you!  I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.  Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.—Always!  Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.  Clean.  All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.—
It’s the grey moon—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

By-the-why, Joker
I know your gaming.

Making sidewise rules
You waggle the stakes.

Shame, shame on your head
And to your careless smirk.

You’ve gnawed and ground  
Until my outline’s blurred…

Sisters, pull me up!  
From this deathly fairground.

957

As One does Sickness over
In convalescent Mind,
His scrutiny of Chances
By blessed Health obscured—

As One rewalks a Precipice
And whittles at the Twig
That held Him from Perdition
Sown sidewise in the Crag

A Custom of the Soul
Far after suffering
Identity to question
For evidence’t has been—

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—

And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me.  Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish—reappear—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt.  Rip Van Winkle.  Diana.
If I were young I would try a new alignment—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross:  four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad.  All toads are happy
and belong in gardens.  A toad to Diana!

Lean forward.  Punch the steerman
behind the ear.  Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge!  Screams!  Crash!
The end.  I sit above my head—
a little removed—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving,—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch!  All threads cut!
Death!  Black.  The end.  The very end—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful:  the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine.  All stuff of the blind emotions.
But—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time—The eye awake!—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny **** flattened upon it under
a weight of air—For the first time!—
or a yawning depth:  Big!
Swim around in it, through it—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff—
God how I love you!—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch.  The End.  I sit
examining my red handful.  Balancing
—this—in and out—agh.

Love you?  It’s
a fire in the blood, *****-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning.  You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman?  Fighters.  Playfellows.
White round thighs!  Youth!  Sighs—!
It’s the fillip of novelty.  It’s—

Mountains.  Elephants ******* along
against the sky—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces.  It’s
the fillip of novelty.  It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee.  You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you!  I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river.  Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.—Always!  Always!
And the white moon already up.
White.  Clean.  All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye—awake!
backed by the emotions—blind—
River and mountain, light and rain—or
rain, rock, light, trees—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers—rivers meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.—
It’s the grey moon—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

**** me sidewase-- sidewise apparently,
i can't get a word in between these red dots and
Red snakes biting at my letters's ankles
At least when I'm pen ning I have the option to ignore that im an *******

You **** gobbling weak kneed slack jawed fool

Alright Alright let's take it easy I'm simply trying to help
No one would ever doubt your genius
But your spelling can certainly take a little
Critazisms?
Is that how you
Spelt?

Dont patronize me **** it

I may not be the best friend
My presence is seasonal
I skinny dip in chaos time and time again
Coming out stronger. Sharper.
Tempered by my own humility

I may not be the best friend
I forget to call and check in
Knowing you’ll find me when you need me
For my hearts radar is always pinging
With possibility of real connection

I may not be the best friend
Social cues go largely unnoticed
Preferring my sidewise reality
To the ingrained cattle calls of
Lemmings marching ever on

I may not be the best friend
For shallow waters and empty hearts
Hiding behind strangling walls
You feel are your protection
Keeping you in, and life out

I may not be the best friend
For my warning label does not read
Fragile! Handle with care.
It simply declares in red bold letters
‘Bravery Required’

I remember my own Conceiving,
Stridulation of a loosen springs
Of jalopy parked somewhere in the rear
Of an upper level of a parking on the
Skirts of town forgotten by me but
Remembrance still is vivid as if I am
Creeping on my four to to the shaking
Out of tune a little vehicle with lights out
Both rear and front and litters of used Condoms with ***** filling and leaking
From its rubber carcass and butts Smothered though some flickering still
In the darkness of night on the skirt of
The forgotten town where misty and Panting glass was to and fro to and fro
Up and down and sidewise with a chance
Limb or feet splattered against sideways Windows leaving a print of sole with
All its interlaces and wrinkles and crinkles
And toes with torn flannel out of passion
Or just lost on the skirts of the town
Forgotten by Everyone but me where I am standing
Watching my own conceiving by monster
Of a doubled backs back in the car in the
Town where lights of out but reek was
There as if inherent in the very concrete
And all blocks and bricks and levels and
Tiers and I remember there my own
Conceiving as I was standing there on my
Own four and creeping up to swaying Lizzie and getting on my hind double
And approaching the panted and misty
Window with my both eyes reflecting
And glancing back at me at which a
Moment ever I arise with sweat
A-dripping down my temples and back
And cheeks and arms and breast
And wall in front of me in the dark
Town forgotten by everyone but me in the
Car where I remember was my own
Conceiving

Spectrum reflection
A blessing disguise
What's out is what's in
Swivel sidewise

Molehill mountains
Storms in teacups
All muss and fuss
A far off close-up

A wing and a prayer
A chance and a dance
Face and Embrace
The mighty expanse

The Lord commands from heaven
and flowers bloom in the green garden.
Morning birds chirp again and again
They sing the songs only to Him
from hearts without any hesitation.

The clouds shower rain down by the order of God
and greenness comes back to the yellow grass
All praises to the Creator of the universe!

The dawn smiles by the touch of God
The daylight follows His mind
and the dusk looks to pray to Him.

The river flows with the babbles
The salt and freshwater stream sidewise
But they don't mix it up with each other!

The winds flow randomly
As if that's so intimate to earth
It talks to the green forest.

The galaxies and stars obey whom?
Who turns the day into night?
All the heads bow to Him!

the wind chafes the manacle
clank born maniacal, sidewise Wednesday-
stuck where the chemicals calm down
the real things-
stuck to your windshield.
something like a varmint
in between
doing nothing at all
and being so dead
it can’t be a
miracle.

but the going keep going when the staying is a vacancy
as wide as the dark side of the Truth.
you can go there with your strawberry eyes
but not all of you, see too much
until you do… with all your candles
out of mind.

and all your utter lack of proof.