| ECOLOGY | SOCIOGRAMS | PLACES | IDENTITY | INTIMACIES |
| VIOLENCE | DEATH | GODS | WORLD |
On alternate Sundays
of odd months on
every week of June
and every week of December
when not in the North Atlantic
then in the South Atlantic,
wherever,
there the tide comes in and
I fell in love.
Take off your blue hat.
and lift up your face.
You would not want me more.
The tide moves in slow
and more and more I stand in it.
I see a gull chasing a fish,
a hopping kingfisher
on the sand where I stand
The sky is moving and
my hips are covered,
the tide is in, when did I love you?
How could I know?
There are always winds
blowing upon our love
and the water has slight waves
that wash my knees
before a tide was there and is now withdrawn,
back to where the tide is in
I neither advanced nor retreated
and stood bemused. The
Almanac of Tables of Tides
will tell you I loved you
when I kissed you,
I loved you on your birthday,
now what about you?
I don't remember,
not the first September day,
nor the night we lost our way
nothing, why, I don't know.
I loved you the day
I bought you the blue hat,
yes, also the afternoon at tea
when you twisted the lemon so.
I don't remember. It doesn't exist.
There is no day for me,
no day I fell in love.
So don't ask.
Between the clay and dust
enough stands and stands for enough.
Before the days between
is the ancient eternal garden
After the glad times
the gardening may resume weakly
In the search is the comprehension.
Comprehending the search is love.
We love each other better so to understand
as we understand, we love each other.
So love is the clay,
love is the dust,
love is the endless before,
love is the always after.
I.
Velvet of the hand of dawn
felt my legs stuck out
of the sheet that entwined us.
Before I could see I sensed
abutting me your warm
and smooth hard rump.
Before the dissolution of night
I could hear a faraway bird
out towards the hidden sea
where our cliff swept down,
and a dry leaf skittering on marble floor,
scratching,
stopped,
scraping,
like my fingernail on your skin.
Lively sole leaf,
sweet breath of infant air,
the cry of lonely birds,
murky blue the world,
the sea, shore, sky --
the looming of color
through hazy sleep and night.
My eyes would in the beginning see
patio tiles, flowering vases,
the shape of the lofty room,
your draped form stirring against slumber,
sloughing dreams from the crescent moment.
II.
All silence; all still; deaf, pantomimic gloom.
The prickling mind darts like a panicked mouse
in the soundless present,
out of our world.
Come back our world!
We beg you start up noise!
Loud motor racket;
blow horns; screech brakes;
alarms, sirens, slams --
smack us into booming life,
we cannot breathe without you!
But the lightening world
is a levitating tomb of sounds;
adamantine silence.
We die in it.
A final gasp escapes you
and my chest freezes.
We are carved forever on the headband
of the temple rosy in the dawn light
on the promontary standing out to sea.
Kore! Kouros!
Round and round the frieze of the high stone
marching with the turn of Earth.
Our hearts are on the altar deep inside.
III.
The first column rises white
to receive the entablature of
a moonshining face
with wide brown eyes.
A woman in happy shock
steps quite nakedly
upon a spring
whose waters
sprinkle up to her.
Then lies a man
upon the floor
while a woman
drapes across a bed,
and looks into his eyes.
Her hair tickles him.
A man and a woman
lean over a balcony,
hand upon hand,
eyes cast into space.
Their toes push them up to see below.
He sings in the shower
and the water pours down on him,
while she stands and smiles
at her neat form in the mirror.
They ascend the stone
staircase and he pushes aside
the heavy dewed briar with
his free hand to lead her
along the path.
She skips to high step
and holds a bunch of grapes
above his head and he
snaps at them while his
palms press upon her breasts.
He shoves her down
upon the grassy moat
to stare at the morning star.
Diamond in violet dawn,
drop luck down on us!
They come too late to dress
the eccentric black wounds
of the old castle. They emerge
upon its highest turret
and cede possession to advancing Sun.
The dusty road from the castle
borders their retreat by cactus,
with chameleon sentinels.
They stride along, swinging their
arms like cheerful lively apes.
They are struck down
by Sun as they touch
the beach. Yellow-misted
sands slide into pale waters.
They slip in immensely humbled.
Floating on the water, they are
looking down below at striped fish
that stare unwaveringly back
through a blue ridge of reeds.
Slipping beneath the surface,
he arches up secretly,
but she bows down doubled
to plant a sweet soft kiss
on his salty bed of mouth.
At the rock's edge out to sea,
a wind drives rough waves in,
and the frightened swimmers
rear up to breathe high.
They turn and splash for the cove,
swimming through the canyons,
flapping upon the ledge
beyond the slaps of the spray.
A chorus chants warnings
as the volcano bellows smoke,
but they laugh and they too
pant and huff into the serene sky.
They sit at a small round table
nose to nose
and hold small cups
of strong black coffee.
IV.
Has breakfast been ordered?
Has breakfast...
Breakfast... Are we all around the frieze?
And can the mold be shattered?
Have the white hard columns
melted down to formless
sheeted heaving clay
of mere low existence,
sculpted foolishly by
tugging morning breeze
into what we are like before breakfast,
amorphous members and murmurs?
We need not fear the jealous gods again,
but the masque of an irritable maid,
suspicious of our bandied smiles.
My love bobs among the sea of faces
bridgeable despite the presences between,
not nameable or touchable, not hotly engaged,
but deftly netted by my words and address
to her dark eyes from the depths.
Now and then the fisher's stern voice
pursues his own glance, and
irrelevantly softens resting upon her,
while loudly thumps his heart.
If it stays upon her,
"Louder," someone may plead.
Then, too, the voice resumes,
eventually to overtake
its rational rhetorical point
and to conceal as well from other
faces unmentionable discrimination
against their attention,
a deceit that passes quickly
nor is reflected in the black-curled
serious face of pressed lip
essaying to embrace
the general argument
so tightly formed,
thus missing the arching mind.
Here is a cosmic song about love. It is presented fifth-hand: my literal verse rendition in hexameter is based upon a number of translations of what is ultimately a tenth century A.D. manuscript in Greek (the earliest extant -- as written down in the seventh-century B.C. and reedited in the next century) of Homer's Odyssey, which reports what was sung by a blind harpist, Demodocos, in a time and place that have been debatable questions for over two thousand years.
Alcinous the King announced the event:
"Now, all and one of you dancers, Phaeacia's finest!
form in your corps de ballet so our stranger and guest can tell all his
friends upon going back home, we're surpassing all manner of mankind.
We are the paramount sailors on sea, and in running a foot race,
singing of songs, and in dancing. So someone around us here go,
go without loitering, bring to us here for Demodocos'
use, that precious harp that so clearly resounds; it's the lyre
carefully standing, it's somewhere, I know, within one of our great halls."
Sacred commands of Alcinous! Quickly arose a herald,
seeking to find and to fetch him the resonant harp from its palace place.
Rising as well were a chosen nine men who were Lords Ceremonial,
publicly called, whenever the people foregathered and needed ordering.
These cleared out space for the dancing to come; they measured a broad ring.
Meanwhile the herald returned; he carried the clear-intoned lyre.
Taking the lyre in hand, Demodocos moved in the midst of the young boys
standing there, skilled in the dance though they blossomed with fair youth.
Down stamped their feet on the floor made for beautous magical dances.
Spellbound Odysseus marvelled as dancing feet twinkled in mid-air!
Whereupon the song of the Love Affair begins:
Striking his masterly chords in the prelude to singing his sweet song,
Demodocos charmingly told of Ares' love affair and Aphrodite,
Golden of Crown. In secret they lay in the home of Hephaestos.
Ares came carrying all manner of gifts to dishonor the Lord's bed.
Straightaway then went with the news, of course, Helios, who'd spotted them loving.
Shocked and dismayed was Hephaestos to hear of the painful story.
Deep down below to the depths of his forge he proceeded; there,
placing a thunderbolt stone on the block of the anvil, he struck and
struck off unbreakable fetters that no one could hope to dissolve, for
fixing the lovers in bondage, right where they loved, was his fierce aim.
Then, having fashioned his snare, imbued with a wrath against Ares,
up to his chamber he went, by his bedstead of love, and all over,
everywhere, round the four posts of the bed he moved, spreading the ligaments,
dropping a number of them from above, from the beams to the floor, too,
fine as the web of a spider, so fine that the Blessed Immortals,
looking for them could not see them, such excellent craft was he capable of.
Soon as the bonds had been stretched over all of the lovers' trysting couch,
Hephaestos pretended to move on the way to his well-founded Lemnos,
dearly loved island. Wherewith unwavering gaze of the Golden-bridled Ares
fixed without fail on Hephaestos, Most Famed among Artisans, going
home. And Ares straight made his way to the house of the Famous Hephaestos,
eager for love of Cytherean Aphrodite of the Bright Crown.
She had in fact come before him just now from her father, mighty Son
of Chronos, and rested herself to wait his arrival. Ares
entered directly the house, reached for her hands, and spoke calling her name:
"Dearest one, come to bed now with me; let us together lie.
Hephaestos is no longer here or about and I do think he's gone.
Lemnos must have him; he's gone to his Sintians who talk like barbarians."
He spoke like that, and she was quite thrilled to lie in his arms.
Going to bed, they laid themselves together. But upon them
showered the bonds engineered by versatile Hephaestos, tight drawn.
Try as they might, they couldn't remove their limbs or even move them.
They then did realize no way could be found to escape the close bonds.
Nearing them now, having turned himself back before reaching his Lemnos,
came close the Famous, the Strong-armed, the God with Disabled Legs.
Helios had watched as before and again had delivered the story.
So, to his mansion once more he returned, his heart so heavy.
Standing astride of the door he was seized by a wild anger.
Terrible cries went up; all of the Gods heard his shouting:
"Zeus, my father and all of you Blessed Gods who are Eternal, come down!
See for yourselves here a laughable matter, unyielding fact.
Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus, has ever shunned my lameness, but
loved Annhilator Ares who is handsome and straightfooted,
born to stumble that I am! Yet no one to blame save my parents.
Better they had not begotten me. Here you can see how this pair
climbed into my bed and twine around each other so lovingly.
I am torn apart by the sight. But believe me, their desire will vanish.
However in love, their lust is gone, and an end to their fornication.
Nevertheless, the trap and the net will not let them go free.
Gifts that I gave for the right to the bride, with her eyes of a spaniel,
first must be paid back to me by her father; fair though his daughter,
she is a wanton and reckless." So spoke Hephaestos,
seeing the Gods had now met at the house by its brazen threshold.
Poseidon came, the Mover of Earth, and Hermes the Helper, too.
Lord and Director of Far-Removed Works, Apollo: he came.
(Goddesses were absent, they remained home, away from the shameful scene.)
Standing around the door, then, were the Gods, the Givers of Good Things.
Laughter arose from the Blessed Gods, inextinguishably gleeful
they were at the sight of Hephaestos' shrewd craft and cunning,
saying amongst themselves, glancing at each other, "Bad deeds
prosper poorly. The slow one can catch the most swift. See how
Hephaestos, though slow he may be, has caught up with Ares,
fastest of Gods who command high Olympus. Lame though he be,
yet he has caught him by skill, so Ares must pay the just fine
owed by one in adultery." To each other they spoke in this manner.
Apollo, Lord and the son of Great Zeus, said aside to God Hermes,
"Hermes, the Son of Great Zeus, and our Messenger, Giver of Good Things:
would you be willing, on oath, to wed with the Golden Aphradite,
even though trapped by strong bonds?" The Messenger God,
Slayer of Argus, retorted: "Would that this happened to myself!
Yes, O Master Apollo, Unfailing Marksman. If unbreakable
bindings of three times the number would fasten me down, yes,
and all of the goddesses were to be looking upon the two of us.
Would that it happened that I should be sleeping with Golden Aphrodite!"
Speeches like this caused new laughter to rise from the Heavenly Deities.
Poseidon laughed not at all; he besought on the contrary Hephaestos,
Supreme-of-all-Craftsmen, to let go of Ares, speaking in winged words:
"Loose him. I promise, when ordered by you, to compel him to pay you
all that is right, and I swear this before all these Gods, the Immortals."
Famous and Strong-armed Hephaestos replied: "Do not ask this.
Think, Poseidon, Earth-Surrounder. Bail for a reprobate!
How can I place you in bondage among the Immortal Gods,
granted that Ares will avoid both the debt and the bail and depart."
Still the Shaker-of-Earth was insistent; Poseidon declared,
"Surely if Ares shall flee from his debt I shall pay you, Hephaestos."
Then the Famous, the Strong-Armed Hephaestos conceded in answer:
"I am not right to deny you, nor would such an action be proper."
Suddenly, so saying, the Mighty Hephaestos unfastened the bindings.
Straightaway, freed from their powerful bonds, the Lovers sprang upwards.
Ares proceeded to Thrace, but Aphrodite, Lover of Laughter,
went to Cyprus, to Paphos, her domain with her fragrant-smoke altar.
There she was bathed by the Graces, who salved her with oils of immortals,
ointment refulgent on Gods who are Deathless. And they clothed her body.
Such was the beauty of raiment, the vision astonished the eyes.
Happy Ending.
The opera is over, its audience charmed and relaxed:
This was the song that the famous bard sang and Odysseus rejoiced;
glad in his heart was the guest while he listened; glad, too, the Phaeacians,
men of long oars, famed for their sea-going vessels.
Forthwith Alcinous bade Halius and Laodamas to dance by themselves.
No one could match them. They grasped in their hands a beautiful purple
ball that Polybus the Wise One had fashioned for them and their dancing.
One would lean backwards and toss it up high at the shadowy clouds. His
brother would leap off the ground in the air, and skillfully catch it,
even not touching the ground with his feet until holding it firmly.
Showing their skill at casting the ball straight up high was a prelude;
Now they began a new dance on the bounteous earth, flinging the same ball
to and fro, to and fro, as other youths stood in the wings, beating time.
Great was the din that arose! Odysseus then turned to Alcinous,
saying: Lord and Renowned among Mankind, you boasted of your dancers;
best you had said that they be, and true are your words in our full sight.
Looking upon them, amazement takes hold of me here."
Alcinous is gladdened by this praise. He impetuously ordains that all manner of rich gifts be heaped up for the guest to carry along home when he leaves Scheria.
Since you left me ten minutes ago
there’s been nothing to report
though I have a minute by minute account.
Shall I call you immediately to
tell you how stunning
nothing but nothing at all can be?
Surely you know.
You don't pretend to all there is, so
you must have something of nothing too.
The first minute passed in breathing,
the second staring
out the large window without seeing.
I got a glass and turned on the faucet,
drank water, returned
now to see what was really outside;
but then I thought
I had not turned off the faucet and the
fourth minute went to proving I had so.
It took sixty seconds to wash your
long hairs from the bath
and study their whirls in the vortex.
I thought your face might have left my mind.
I dug out pictures
of you, close up, not smiling enough.
I told myself that I drank too much
and left the glasses
standing next to the hollowed cushions.
You should be home by now.
Long minutes have passed in
stupid symptoms of withdrawal
from my addictive erotic hour.
Swirl and declaim on the stage
green-eyed mistress from
great Eastern plains!
Born slave-holder!
Your firm brown hands
screwed an earring on me
at the Restaurant zum Ochsen.
I bowed meekly to my fate
and smiled to let others smile.
As I walk the late path home
the owls are speaking:
is it too late?
The earring pinches,
it gleams and tickles.
Green lakes like Ultima Thule!
In these calm Swiss hills
a farmer was fined for
putting a tight ring
through his cow's nose.
It was slipped on,
this slave bracelet
after I'd drunk much wine:
"Sehr Egyptische," meaning
"Yankee go Home!"
A lover in the proper image,
subdued, romantische.
But slaves lie and
when you come to inspect the chain
and search my face,
asking hopefully, "Did you
wear it all night as I said?"
I will answer "Ja wohl."
And since slaves are tricky,
will even complain of hurt
and have you kiss my ear.
Furthermore slaves are humble,
and naturally remove their mistress' shoes,
assuming the duty to massage.
So when this next night comes,
mistress is slave and
slave is master.
How bold you are to
stride and project upon the
grand empty stage of the Athenaeum
and bow to your audience of one.
While you call out "Got-te!"
in two syllables,
I stroke my earring
like the holster of a gun.
Practice time is soon over.
Sleep well.
Call me later.
I'll ring your bell
In hopes of greater
Lunch than Supper was
If you don't buzz
Me.
In the days of my doubtings,
when your love seemed so far and unreachable,
and I lived in search of myself in the eyes of others,
when the days with you ended.
The days of my doubtings.
when the times crawled interminable and deadly slow,
and I tried to find things important without you,
so hopelessly far from you.
Now that I have you,
This old world will happily smile at me,
for it knows what a love,
how true a love I've had for you.
Those days of my doubtings,
when I believed I was nothing, no account at all,
and my life was a deep yawning chasm,
they're lit up by you now forever.
(Lyrics to a song by Walter Cavalieri, Philadelphia,12/93)
If I didn't know
what lay up high,
I would love thy knee's
sinewed bones so dainty thin
below bold winky dimples
nor ever heed thy thigh,
reached slipping smoothly
up the curved calves of thine
from such low amorous
beginnings, nor would I play
till old with crimpled crotch,
neither never scotch to
rub my bearded chin
upon thine podium feminine.
My love is a towering wave
that chokes me and hurls
me into blindness and fury.
My love is a hot wide beach
that spreads me exhausted
a tan star on sand.
My love is a candle relit
by idea and desire against
the gusts of dark breeze.
My lover is a staunch cedar
that pricks me when I
touch its brown nuts.
My lover is the Great Bear
who travels among the stars
with me, distantly moving.
My lover is the island
that waters and rests me
until I must go.
Oh, take away my love, and lover stay!
Oh, give me my lover; no, take him away!
It's been a long two weeks,
but I have no trouble
imagine you as you were and will be,
more as you must be now,
nor will I tell you about your beauty
though all women no matter how feministic
if only secretly are pleased
to be beautiful and hear it said.
But surely you see that I spend
so much time communicating on
frankly intellectual subjects of
intelligence and perspicacity
that I cannot be skating simply
on smooth ice toward an open gate.
I like to imagine Stylida as it was
last when you were briefly there
and the prow of the ship,
so lucky were we to have it
calm enough and yet devoid of others.
Define our love -- not so, too brief to state,
not too brief to picture dimensions to be explored.
How to regard it. How to raise its shoots.
Where are you? Are you lit like a Roman candle?
Your legs, are they spread apart
as you stand, when you sit?
Are your eyes soft and shining.
That is my fear. Or jealousy.
That I have kindled a fire and left it unattended.
Am I jealous; confident though I am,
I know that when one is in love with me,
one becomes more attractive to others.
Everyone will know.
Every moth will kindle itself on the flame.
Yet someone may get through.
Never leave your love unguarded.
Its advertisement is powerfully vague.
I shall have to shoulder my way through the crowd.
Beat it! Get lost! Scram!
Do you know thise American slang?
No actually I don't work so obviously,
how then do I work my way back to the central fire?
You will see, when it happens again.
Watch closely. Since you will be coming
to stay, it will be in slow motion.
I went to an immense cocktail party.
It is that wicked time of year.
Full of despair, overwork, high expectations,
countless crises and collapses.
I visited Donna my dear friend
who was depressed and furiously setting up
a New Year's Party for forty persons
in her place that is overrun with housepainters.
I called you and called the evil consular official
who was unsympathetic and unhelpful.
I told him that I would give him
whatever proof the government might want
to satisfy that you would be returned
to France upon the expiration of your visa.
He was cycnical. Many French women
and I suppose French men are anxious
to have a lover come to America,
but how antiquated his mentality;
the States are hardly an obsessive attraction
to the French of today.
A long weekend. Basta.
I sent a cable of 218 words
explaining the plan to have you
come, work, visit, and return.
Then I lunched with Jessie, eggs benedict
at the One First Avenue Hotel,
we walked miles then stopping
to shop for a dress for her.
A magnificent extemporizing comic
was holding forth on Washington Square.
He had a great audience to practice on
and is already one of the obscene best.
I called Jill, talked reasonably of many things,
even of Carl's eccentricities
and Mike, her friend, his drunkenness.
He is never mean-tempered though,
even when quite smashed. A nice guy.
Else, of course, she would have none of him.
And will probably be having none of him more
because of the sauce and
because he is also uneducated, dull,
not because he can't buy her a fistful of diamonds,
that's Jill, no taste for
the millions she might have.
Dick Cornuelle and I talked for an hour
about starting up a newsletter
to advise large companies about political stability
and the business climate of the world,
Globex we would called it.
That's enough and I am off to Donna's party,
no more as a host there,
as a decently behaved guest I trust
and a fitting sponsor for an innocent French girl abroad.
(Paraphrase of a note left by Z )
How is my love to die,
bit by bit, day by day?
I cannot wait much longer,
for the love affair is over,
without a kiss,
not a word,
Nothing.
I waited six days,
six nights...
when old hopes are lost
amd new hope won't come...
It is clearly that
a love affair is over,
I think, it is over.
Pure suffering,
"It's my problem,"
words that make my breast freeze.
Sweep all these bills away
Pour me your café au lait
Two loving consorts are we,
of marriage bonds quite free,
so fucking stays frivolous,
obliging serendipitous:
No "Clean up your mess,"
nor "Wear a smart dress."
Incessant amnesia
of what'all must please you.
Your perusal, as usual,
(I can tell at a glance)
portends but your futtocks
embracing my buttocks.
Where are my pants?
There is not enough of you
for recompense of times beyond count
when chasms gashed across me
for a thousand times gifted with
sights and sounds of you,
there can be a mere once of true embrace.
Why must another, many another, look like you
in ankle, in hair, loft and stride,
your ghost cannot be already
while you live, yet is.
A glance has been stolen from you
and returned to me by a stranger
-- please collect it --
with a step, smile, wink, color, leg, dress
tight high breasts and several graceful arms
Siva tempted Brahma in creation;
a phone ring, a bowl of soup,
grasp for recall, grasp from despair,
a long beach unfolds your curves.
Never enough of you
to recompense for times
beyond count when voids of time
open, the sun burns forever,
the night is never ending,
the boat will not dock
the cardgame meet the dawn.
I have not enough of you
to pay for the tricks of sight and sound
of your spontaneous combustion.
He loved her for the hate he bore her.
the burning bacon on the fire
the toilet paper running along the floor,
the curlers as bad as the set hair,
the badly trained children
a responsibility she discounted,
the buttons that were only for display purposes
and hidden whenever another one popped.
Nonsense, stupid, folly of railings
what reason for the obscenity of
compatability, it just is.
He showed this all when he
tweaked her cheeks or lips or breast,
and when they got too old
he could still wreak his will
upon her and more so by dying
a bit early so she had to
care for him and not he for her.
After she and I subsided
from our bursts of lust
I said "You are not dead."
"No"
"You breathe now."
"You are the great Professor of Breath."
A professor of respiration must spend
little time on the problem. Would it
not be strange and wonderful if he did more?
"Students, all lessons of respiration
can be based on the case of love,
especially on coitus, and we shall
give the course over to the case."
Then the parents protest and deans
remonstrate and trustees exclaim,
aroused from their dutiful torpor.
But other courses are built about
a bridge, a house, a cell, a battle,
often a person -- so long as most
that must be said can be said,
What's the difference?
"Well what is the difference to you?"
"That I choose it, as is my right."
But she was saying, "If you're
so damned alive, brew the coffee,
I'm loving-dead."
Although cast down by winter, the sun
pushes its way through the drapes
of your room, and has them
raise faint colors from its paintings,
so the grey griffins turn green
and the church steeples' slates gleam.
In its tenth volume your encyclopedia tells
clearly how the sun distinguishes for me
day from night, bright from dull, times for love,
but your love has already lit up my eyes,
even from far away Athenian stones
sprinkling colors upon the world,
rainbows in the smallest specks and threads.
I can explain it well, foreign love,
for your perplexed tongue.
The mother lode of light is yours,
and nowhere is it well explained how
life comes forth from my dark cave
smiling with full will and hands outstretched.
| Copyrights held by Metron Publications (Text and books) and MAB (Artwork). |
|---|