The room that so sweet-seeming is
contracted, as a cell,
and I, in a state of being various,
imploded at its door
and bid the wall farewell –
a kiss to earth
that flappered in the half-life air
in-between the now and then or
hazing in the shushing din
of a dim
forevermore.
—
The squelch of midnight seconds
noises in the corner
while here beside the lamplight
. . . . I bat a tired eye
while there astride the wardrobe
. . . . they sibilate a sigh
while near inside the cradle
. . . . a child sounds a cry
and meantime do I cast
. . . . glancingly at wayworn hands
. . . . . . . . counting moments till they die
and birth out loud again.
—
Improper Novella
Swallowing the whole of time
I eat at a piece of toast
And dab my chin with a paper square
While waiting patiently for despair
To enter on a hobbyhorse
In rooms of madeleines and gorse
Inside the kingdom drear.
And calmly now I bide my hours
I fill a vase with graveyard flowers
To brighten up my smallish room
In which the yellow walls have holes
In which the holes have longer holes
But no one is the wiser
Until one hears a smash and crash
(The vase is all in shards!)
And then we all get on once more,
Asleep in lapis linens.
—
It is only the last stretch
of a hunger pit in the stomach
. . . . . . . . . . . hit in the stomach
by a senseless foe
with whom I shall never wish
good acquaintance
but who can kiss goodbye
to the more ghoulish things?
We stare at the navel
only to pass the time of day.
—
The Girl before the Mirror
The girl of hollow bones,
. . . . whose flesh was dust,
gasped a yawn through hollow teeth,
. . . . broken bones of broken porcelain
. . . . in a broken angel choir.
She wore the slimmest nightgown,
. . . . of pale string and pale thread,
which traced her hollow figure
. . . . imperially straight
. . . . and of the languid air.
And in the furthest powder-room
. . . . before the furthest glass
she plaited golden filaments
. . . . taking care taking care
. . . . not to gaze astray.
But then! but then!
. . . . the vapid air was shudderingly rent
roiling with the sediment
. . . . of the sallow sound
. . . . that is
. . . . hollow bones in hollow rooms
. . . . . . . . where everything or nothing
. . . . . . . . has always come before
. . . . fracturing like years
. . . . in silent desperate sleep.
—
It is just as well
that I am there,
at the bottom of
the basin
small and dull and
smooth and
mindless mouthless;
gravity congealed in a mass
and was too thick
for reason
to make a
pond-splash eyeballed thoughtful mirrorless
thud.
—
My memory is tossed
to the bargain bin
anyhow
so I give my two-cents
for free;
but this is all,
this is it, the thing –
that we are free
(after all)
to forget –
forgiving is a given,
but forgetting –
is something else,
not related, even
(the knot is not naught)
till I understood that
bad enunciation
is not the worst of it
and I slept to forget
and forgot.
—
The Picture I Get of the Neighbors
when Sitting on the Front Stairs
on a Sweltering Day
Outside the tenement where there are women
Howling from gray windows
In this uproarious heat, sponge curlers in their hair,
I watch from a step across the way
As a boy rubs something clean on his shirt,
Very solemnly, then dances off, up the ash can street.
The dust of New York kicks up at his little feet
And blesses the air, momentarily, with the hurrah
Of a bandit, young in the liberty of his cause.
Something catches my throat
And I hack up the soot of twelve years in a dirty town.
I am forgetting
The groceries haven’t been bought and
I am sitting here
With sooty shirtsleeves and a graybeard face.
The boy is at the corner and, turning it,
Abandons me to the shouting match up above.
—
Red Parachute Pants
Red parachute pants
blow up around two
spindly legs the color
of wheat on a
perfect blue day,
ball-of-crystal sky,
in the high, high heat
of a blarney afternoon.
You are sipping tea –
a blubbering glass –
while in the back of
your eye, a fly
spins round, the song of
squalor in the joy
of one hundred
hushed balloons.
—
A little blackbird warbles at the gate
Singly in this evening-time;
My mother’s serving tea, I will be late
From weeping with the blackbird’s rhyme.
—
Tabula Rasa
There is not a lick of truth
inside my head for it is bare
and I forgot the past
oh long ago in a slip of human
decency and the common man
by way of reply had said the
head is a sacred place and
showed me to the ablution font
so I could splash my face
and save my soul
but I apologized discreetly
and spoke my regrets that
I had no towel and
so I kneeled low then walked
away in a sorry state of
mind
and I traveled for some time
before I came upon a mirror
and stopped a whit to
rest
and sitting down I
faced the glass and in the
glass my face shone white
against the smoky night
and there was nothing
lovely there – only two
eyes a mouth a smallish nose
a sweep of whiting hair
and whether I had my
father’s looks I could scarcely
say
for a vacant head was
spared no truths inside a looking-
glass
and after time
I wildly saw
the world was
frosting over then,
while I was without scarf in
the infinite wind and
my teeth went chattering away.
—
1
Hand inside jar
the danger weighs heavy
but to the obsessive mind
escape is an irresistible art.
2
All hands are waving fast
inside a black-box room:
I am thicker than a house of tar
staring at the clock.
3
Sitting on the little bed
I pass away the hours.
White light by linen curtains,
gold key on silver sheets.
In my thoughts I have no place to go.
—
There is one more star
on the tip of my tongue
to illume the blackest sky.