STILL LIFE WITH VILLEINS AND IRIS

Once upon a time, there, lived a man all his life.

The wood, the thatch, the stones are washed away,

But underneath the iris stubs and rock, a knife

Or bowl or pot or broken cup could say

What was his daily bread. From the fields

Ralph came home, smelling like a horse or hay,

To swill his soup and want his wife

And laid her down, yes, every night

And went to sleep with bad dreams of the Devil

Riding the Scarlet Whore up steep and down.

Iris grow there now, their purple roots

Reach the nearest damp and, digging, clutch

At dreams of long ago and curl around the midden

Where he ate; and maybe some old bone that walked

Within the underling, chalks the flower white.

SUBURBAN NOCTURNE

On this level plot of ground, almost a square

Except for the five-foot stretch behind the house

Where hemlock and lilac screen the neighbors,

An Algonquian chief and eight of his tribe,

Exhausted from stalking the scattering deer,

Lay down at dusk beside spent horses

And slept, uneasy sprawled around a fire.

Perhaps there was one who kept on riding,

Riding, riding the deer, the creeks and ditches,

Who leapt with the deer to a deeper forest

And dark, deadlocked in branches and antlers,

Awoke, astonished, to hunt among the stars.

OUR INHERITED HOUSE

Suppose a god up there in the attic,

Maybe golden, lost among past days,

Some broken thing, not past mending,

That, pieced together, we could praise.

Suppose we found the pieces, arms, a leg,

And fused them to the torso, torso to the head,

And, as we did, the rafters, full of light

Lit up the fears we shatter in our bed.

Suppose the luminous mouth to speak,

Hands raised in a gesture of peace

To call us through the window to the sky—

My love, would we believe our blazing hearts,

Or come back here to the living room to die

IN MEMORY OF V.R.LANG (1924-1956)

I wore this very dress

The night that Virgil died.

I was there and I remember the brown brocade

With pearls like tears gleaming on the bodice.

We lounged at court, at ease, on lavender cushions,

Toasting Augustus, when Maecenas brought the news.

I remember you held his wrinkled ringless hands,

Avoiding relevant words. He looked like Death.

You rose to depart, draped like an autumn goddess,

The jewel I gave you burning at your throat,

And fainted. I caught you as you drifted down.

But, you were no friend to Virgil, wrote him no poems.

The hurt was deeper. Once we stood in the Forum

And stared at a pompous hearse. Your beautiful eyes,

Full of the tears of the ages, said everything dies.

PROMETHEUS

There was nothing in the paper bag but fire

Which I, unmoved, removed for other men

Moving away and away and toward the bag

As though under water rather than air.

They seemed indifferent but I could see

Excitement, once in a while, in their eyes,

When, especially bright and clear, flames

Passed from my cold hands to theirs.

THE PRODIGAL SON

My little drunken father, speak the words

Again that burned your sons. I will

Listen now with burnished ears and eyes

Golden with experience. Your love

Is moving now your touch is gone.

How far and such a road I traveled (sigh).

I come back almost too late to find you dead.

My feet! My feet, how many steps

On the jewels of the world and clean

Yet. My hands? You ask to see my hands?

You know, as well as I, they were not used.

But I have turned and turned and, coming home,

Have you at a distance in my arms.

OVERTURE III

Once yesterday, or maybe yesterday, at dawn,

I sat in the garden, mending The Poet's head,

One ear beyond repair, the other trumpeted,

Mouth dumb; but in his blue and lidless eyes

I heard the hoofbeats of The Cowboy's mare

And, cautious lest my movement summon him,

Rose, mysterious to shut the garden gate.

The hoofbeats dwindled. I returned, surprised

To find The Cowboy seated in my cast-iron chair,

Slouched and arrogant, fumbling to undo

The bloodied bandage in The Poet's hair.

I rustled. Even the words I spoke were dry:

"You are my image; the broken speechless face

You hold within your hands is my face too."

ATLANTIS II

Here in Atlantis the slopes I walk

Look like the streets on Beacon Hill:

Salt encrusts on everything like snow;

The sea I breathe is thick blue air;

And fish, up there, are aeroplanes.

This green-gold dome adrift, was once the Capitol;

That ivory archway where I went to church;

That rubble, where I first made love,

A shattered column in the thoroughfare.

Phosphorescent people pass, pale

Irishmen perhaps, engulfed. And I

Construct these verses while we drown!

FIRST DAYS AT BARMACO STATION

Nothing to drink in this desert for days.

Black girls bring me rose-colored waters.

They wrap cool ribbons around my head.

The food is a bane, a pain, a poison.

I lie for hours curled on my bed.

I pack and unpack my box and my trunk.

The northbound train carries others away.

Evenings, I walk with the village daughters.

These natives mean nothing to me--their ways

Are strange and sober. I would be drunk!

THE FERRET

My father standing with me by a woodshed spoke:

There are a million rabbits in that cord of wood.

With a weathered stick of lathe he pointed to a wedge

Where between the logs our old black spaniel

On her belly slipped in and chased them out

Like a ferret, said my father, like a ferret.

I took then the figures of his speech for fact

And even to this day when I recall my father

I see the woodshed where he stood like a magician,

The silver stick of lathe, the stack of wood, the wedge

With rabbits and rabbits and a ferret coming out.

THE FOREST

When, days later, we reached the end of the path

And lay at last among voluptuous leaves,

We swore we never should see days go by so fast again.

By day our words were marked by time, but all night long

The language that we spoke was, like the brightest star,

Fixed, it seems, forever, in one place.

Did you find out alone the high road back?

I know you sleep among the rows of empty houses now,

While I lie here, still, tangled in these leaves.

INTAGLIO WITH BIRDS

From Cherry Street, the mainway of my capital,

I walked across the tracks and out of town,

Leagued with goldfinches for the afternoon,

And, if brown thrushes were my heart's desire,

I said it simply so, brown thrushes are my heart's desire,

Nestled in the bitterbud and bridal wreath.

NAME YOUR POISON

That night, adrift, my lips upon your throat,

What potion did I drink, what poison,

That, when I think of you, recalls the passion,

The dark waves rushing at the boat.

THE PIED PIPER

The tune I played was only music;

Only the tone of my flute was magic,

Was what the children of that tropic,

That winter heard and found so tragic.