Part 4

New words are my desire, new verbs to scan, Chaste paradigms that never sold themselves, And adverbs from the leaf-talk of the elves, With dog-faced articles, unknown to man; Low-pattered syllables that trot like sheep Round out my mouth and mind with holy peace, And I have found redemption and surcease In Babylonian nouns like bulls asleep.

Who can be hopeless saying “Bethmacoon”? “Aleery” is an opiate for all pain. —And I shall swim beneath the Idiot’s Moon, And climb the crags that tower in my brain To feel the kreeth of Morning touch my lips, Where Ocean plays with his smaranthian ships.

NEARSIGHT

When Spruggles takes his glasses off, he sees. Globular people strut like walking trees Through a strange, oozy mist that melts to air Some thirty feet before his blinking stare And all the edgy corners of the streets Are puffed and bulged like bottle-’scaped Afreets! —There are no definitions. All is dim. A yellowy underworld, where trolleys swim Enormous as a magic, and the least Rice-powdered shop-girl, like a vesting priest Assumes estranged beauty, cloudy-far, Desirous as a water-mirrored star. —The houses are cartoons—So is his wife— He thinks “Grotesque” would be the word for Life.

BEFORE MICHAEL’S LAST FIGHT

The lightning quivers up in Gabriel’s hand, Whetting his sword on a bleak ridge of cloud, And all the stars of hell are crying loud At the bright insult of that sparking brand. The demon-torn and devastated land Smokes like a field of salt wild fire has plowed, Athwart it towers Satan, thunder-browed, Black at his side his Princely Evils stand.

After our fated triumph, some will drink, Those who had girls will kiss the girls they had; But I shall wander on the starry brink And feel divine, and, beautifully sad, Sing my one song about you to the void; And make the angels horribly annoyed.

ALWAYS THE SONNETTEER

Though I were old and mad and poor and dumb, And your name were a blasphemy to say For which men came and beat me, every day, With seven-foot bull-hide whips—yet should they come, Red smiles upon them, since I had no tongue, And gasp with horror ... at black ant platoons Wheeling in ordered state to form the runes, The hero-word I knew when I was young!

With this poor body, worn to rags and skin By the chained stalk of the uneasy mind, I’d take the blows and watch the fun begin; Groping among the stars, meantime, to find The Dipper made a letter—seen by God— And Mars, perhaps, might serve as period.

PORTRAIT OF YOUNG LOVE

If you were with me—as you’re not, of course, I’d taste the elegant tortures of Despair With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue; Puzzle for days on one particular stare, Or if you knew a word’s peculiar force, Or what you looked like when you were quite young.

You’d lift me heaven-high—till a word grated. Dash me hell-deep—oh that luxurious Pit, Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity, Where Love’s an epicure not quickly sated! What mournful musics wander over it, Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

Such bitter joyousness I’d have, and action, Were you here—be no more the fool who broods On true Adventure till he wakes her scorning— But we’re too petty for such noble warning! And I find just as perfect satisfaction In analyzing these, and other moods!

TWO MORE MUSES

When this amusing planet is bereft of me, They will depart who made my noonshine night; The dwarfed and crippled wizard to the left of me, And the enormous lady on my right!

The lovely largeness thinks of silver sandals, Pale marbles swallowed up in yellow rain, Dear ruffians dicing long beneath blurred candles, Romance and thunder and the Spanish Main.

But, as she pours each sparkling hope before me, His ivory eyes unstopper just a chink, And, low remarking “too much sweet might bore me!” He slips a painted acid in the drink,

Which I must taste, intolerably bitter, Sauterne and quinine, saccharine and gall, And try to please than both when death were fitter, And never have my true desire at all!

So chained we sit—until I leave the human— And I shall praise old Skullface, if he can But rid me of that smooth and comely woman, And the small, laughing, devil-twisted man!

OPERATION

(_For J. F. C. Jr._)

Bound to the polished table, arm and leg, I lay and watched, with loud, disgusting fear, The army of the instruments draw near, Hook, saw, sleek scissor and distorted peg; My eyes were like a spaniel’s when they beg, The nurses’ purpose was so very clear ... And though I tried to bite one in the ear She stayed as white and silent as an egg.

Time, the superb physician, drew his breath, “I’ll just remove Youth, Health and Love,” he said, “The rest is for Consulting-Surgeon Death.” God how I hated that peremptory head! As through the ether came his sickening drawl “Now this won’t hurt.... Oh, it won’t hurt at all.”

THE TRAPEZE PERFORMER

(_For C. M._)

Fierce little bombs of gleam snap from his spangles, Sleek flames glow softly on his silken tights, The waiting crowd blurs to crude darks and whites Beneath the lamps that stare like savage bangles; Safe in a smooth and sweeping arc he dangles And sees the tanbark tower like old heights Before careening eyes. At last he sights The waiting hands and sinuously untangles....

Over the sheer abyss so deadly-near He falls, like wine to its appointed cup, Turns like a wheel of fireworks, and is mine. Battering hands acclaim our triumph clear. —And steadfast muscles draw my sonnet up To the firm iron of the fourteenth line.

EPITAPH TO BE SPOKEN

When I am very dead and rather cold, Say merely this, “Here lies a rebel town, Whose alleyways contained for chief renown Gods, logwood, cassia, antelopes and gold. Here traffickers embarked for desperate shores, Here was a bickering of steel at times; And fifty thousand unconvicted crimes That shocked the souls out of my counselors.

Friend of my arrogance, city I burned, Have peace—now you are prouder grown than Troy; And will not bring me lions, or a flower. Or cauterize the fools we both have spurned; Or hasten, singing, toward a mad employ, On two thick stilts, some thousand yards an hour.”

JUDGMENT

“He’ll let us off with fifty years!” one said. And one, “I always knew that Bible lied!” One who was philanthropic stood aside, Patting his snivelling virtues on the head. “Yes, there may be some—pain,” another wheezed. “One rending touch to fit the soul for bliss.” “A bare formality!” one seemed to hiss. And every one was pink and fed and pleased.

Then thunder came, and with an earthquake sound Shook those fat corpses from their flabby languor! The sky was furious with immortal anger, We miserable sinners hugged the ground: Seeing through all the torment, saying “Yes,” God’s quiet face, serenely merciless.

BOARDING-HOUSE HALL

First the stuffy upholstered smell of the chairs began To puff a few sighs of dust, and the sticky-varnished Reek of the cheap worn wood had a verse to scan About Love and Death and Beauty, fly-spotted and tarnished.

“I never liked her at all!” said a green glass bowl, And a whiff of anger whitened the broken plaster, “Her eyes were too big!” cried a smell with paws like a mole. “She was slinky,” the pinks spoke. “Thin,” creaked a broken castor.

“She was greedy. She never loved him. She powdered her nose.” Pale-calm as a specter’s gem in the shadow-playtime, The ghost of the perfume hid in her hair arose And shook dark wealth from its robes and possessed the daytime.

Like a scented tree of Egypt it burgeoned above, For a space of quiet like myrrh, for the flash of a feather.... They were still, who had seen the dead, happy face of Love ... —And the smells of the onions trooped up the stairs together.

BLOOD BROTHERS

The blunt snouts of a dozen worms or so Were busy at the thing that had worn clothes, As conscientious as a lot of clowns And quite as self-absorbed. Beside the grave A figure stood in armor, stood and blazed With the pale dazzle of an April moon, Rippling a steely silver from his wings That trembled in their fierce desire for air; Armed like an angel, blazoned like a king, And proud as charging seas first seen at dawn. The worms raised up their heads and spoke to him. He answered like a father to his children, Praising them all for honest, quiet work, And pointing out new pastures. And they bowed; Again became a stir among corruption. He looked upon the seethe with steady eyes Of awful friendship. So I left them there, The three immortal parts of John J. Jones.

WATCHMEN

Six of us were your guards, slayers of fear, Humor, the parti-colored, juggling knives, Rhyme with a sonnet train of elfin wives, Friendship, as solid-indolent as beer; Love with his harp you thought a trifle queer, But most amusing—if he walked in gyves. Trust and myself made pillows of our lives. And so you bore with us for quite a year.

You wearied. Humor twinkled to a star. Rhyme turned a broker and began to add. I’m sure that Friendship went entirely mad; And Love crept stalely drunk from bar to bar. Only remained the bald old dog, blind Trust And I—and we shall growl till both are dust.

“LES CRUCHES CASSÉES”

Even old sofas can be reupholstered, Covered with chintz that blinks with dragon’s eyes; Worm-eaten chairs that tell too many lies May yet be painted, puttied, somehow bolstered; A rickety piano has a tuner To plink it back to musical surprise; And frugal housewives, strictly pennywise, Cement burst jugs and make them healthy sooner.

But where’s the tinker-devil who will clout Our cracked-up selves till they hold love once more? Oh you can smooth your curlylocks, no doubt! Look what a mess we’ve made on Life’s clean floor! You can’t patch leaky clay. There are no cures. And it was your fault, yours! “_No, yours!_” Yours! “_Yours!_”

P. P. C.—MADAM LIFE

All through the heavy plush of afternoon, Your muffin-hands in your upholstered lap, I listened to your voice like maple-sap Trickle and whisper from its sugary spoon Grandmother-talk, a drowning warm lagoon, Weakling advice, slow anecdotes of pap— And longed for fins to wave or wings to flap, Or anything to end the visit soon.

Now the call ceases—there shall be no other— Dowager Life, I bend above your hand. Flung from your hothouse to the tempest-smother Your fright calls Death and dares not understand! Such a nice chat! Oh, taking leave is hard! But—here’s my body for a calling-card!

POSITIVELY THE LAST PERFORMANCE!

So here’s an end—and all the truth of you Is said that can be said—and all the lies. Clear for the fools who never saw your eyes, Since you insist we are not one, but two. Well, fifty years remain to jingle through In which we will not meet, as you surmise; And, after that dull masque has changed its guise, Suppose we make the sun our rendezvous?

Naked and white and beautiful you stand, Reining your fire-maned coursers with one hand, And birds are in your laughter as you turn That gaze of clear perfection to my own, And meet the petal-kiss that seems to burn, And makes us less divisible than stone!

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.