Delusions, Etc. Read online

  I shod myself & said goodbye to Sally

  Murmurs of other farewells half broke my heart

  I set out sore indeed.

  The High King failed to blossom on my enterprise.

  Solely the wonderful sun shone down like lead.

  Through the ridges I endured,

  down in no simple valley I opened my eyes,

  with my strong walk down in the vales & dealt with death.

  I increased my stride, cured.

  Lines to Mr Frost

  FELLED in my tracks by your tremendous horse

  slain in its tracks by the angel of good God,

  I wonder toward your marvellous tall art

  warning away maybe in that same morning

  you squandered afternoon of your great age

  on my good gravid wife & me, with tales

  gay of your cunning & colossal fame

  & awful character, and—Christ—I see

  I know & can do nothing, and don’t mind—

  you’re talking about American power and how

  somehow we’ve got to be got to give it up—

  so help me, in my poverty-stricken way

  I said the same goddamn thing yesterday

  to my thirty kids, so I was almost ready

  to hear you from the grave with these passionate grave

  last words, and frankly Sir you fill me with joy.

  He Resigns

  AGE, and the deaths, and the ghosts.

  Her having gone away

  in spirit from me. Hosts

  of regrets come & find me empty.

  I don’t feel this will change.

  I don’t want any thing

  or person, familiar or strange.

  I don’t think I will sing

  any more just now;

  or ever. I must start

  to sit with a blind brow

  above an empty heart.

  No

  SHE says: Seek help! Ha-ha Ha-ha & Christ.

  Gall in every direction, putrid olives,

  stench of the Jersey flats, the greasy clasp

  crones in black doorways afford their violent clients

  A physicist’s lovely wife grinned to me in Cambridge

  she only liked, apart from getting gamblers hot

  & stalk out on them, a wino for the night

  in a room off Scollay Square, a bottle, his efforts

  Dust in my sore mouth, this deafening wind,

  frightful spaces down from all sides, I’m pale

  I faint for some soft & solid & sudden way out

  as quiet as hemlock in that Attic prose

  with comprehending friends attending—

  a certain reluctance but desire here too,

  the sweet cold numbing upward from my burning feet,

  a last & calm request, which will be granted.

  The Form

  MUTINOUS and free I drifted off

  unsightly. I did not see the creatures watch.

  I had forgotten about the creatures, which

  were kind, and whether any of them was mine.

  I am a daemon. Ah, when Mother was ill

  a Sister took me into their little chapel

  to admire the plaster angels: ‘Mine are real,’

  I said, ‘and fly around the chapel on my farm.’

  O torso hurled high in great ’planes from town

  down on confulsing town, brainsick applause

  thick to sick ear, through sixteen panicked nights

  a trail of tilted bottles. I had no gun,

  and neither Wednesday nor Thursday did buy one

  but Friday and I put it in my bag

  and bought a wide-eyed and high-yaller whore

  for company of darkness. Deep in dream

  I saw myself upreared like William the Silent

  over his tomb in Delft, armoured and impotent;

  she shook me screaming. In another place

  I shuddered as I combed and saw my face.

  Swallowing, I felt myself deranged

  and would be ever so. He has spewed me out.

  I wandered, for some reason, raging, home

  where then I really hurt. All that life ahead alone

  vised me from midnight. I prepared for dawn.

  An odd slight thought like a key slid somewhere:

  ‘Only tomorrow.’ Wondering, I said: ‘Oh.

  It’s possible, then.’

  My light terrible body unlocked, I leaned upon You.

  Ecce Homo

  LONG long with wonder I thought you human,

  almost beyond humanity but not.

  Once, years ago, only in a high bare hall

  of the great Catalan museum over Barcelona,

  I thought you might be more—

  a Pantocrator glares down, from San Clemente de Tahull,

  making me feel you probably were divine,

  but not human, through that majestic image.

  Now I’ve come on something where you seem both—

  a photograph of it only—

  Burgundian, of painted & gilt wood,

  life-size almost (not that we know your Semitic stature),

  attenuated, your dead head bent forward sideways,

  your long feet hanging, your thin long arms out

  in unconquerable beseeching—

  A Prayer After All

  FATHER, Father, I am overwhelmed.

  I cannot speak tonight.

  Do you receive me back into Your sight?

  It seems it must be so, for

  strangely the Virgin came into my mind

  as I stood beside my bed—

  whom I not only have not worshipped

  since childhood, but also

  harsh words have said of, that she pushed her Son

  before his time was come

  which he rebuked her for, and leaving home

  repudiated hers & her—

  and for no reason, standing in the dark

  before I had knelt down

  (as is my custom) to speak with You, I found

  my tongue feeling its way

  thro’ the Hail Mary, trying phrase by phrase

  its strangeness, for the unwelcome

  to my far mind estranged, awaiting some

  unacceptable sense, and

  Father I was amazed I could find none

  and I have walked downstairs

  to sit & wonder: You must have been Theirs

  all these years, and They Yours,

  and now I suppose I have prayed to You after all

  and Her and I suppose she is the Queen of Heaven

  under Your greater glory, even

  more incomprehensible but forgiving glory.

  Back

  I WAS out of your Church for 43 years, my Dear;

  adopted back in, welling blood.

  Admire the techniques of your ministers

  I must, succeeding, but could not enjoy them

  during the rite: for the man in fury,

  possessed by his own tumultuous & burning energy,

  to bring to a halt is hard as tungsten carbide

  and crook his knees is harder than to die.

  Exceptional, singular, & mysterious,

  ochered, forbidden to utter,

  the revolted novice & veteran thro’ cold night

  vigilant in the forest, a caring beast,

  becoming sacral, perforates his nose

  at first glow, in honour of the Mother.

  Whose coming to be is constant,

  Thou hast caused her coming-to-be in beauty.

  Hello

  Hello there, Biscuit! You’re a better-looking broad

  by much than, and your sister’s dancing up & down.

  ‘I just gave one mighty Push’

  your mother says, and we are all in business.

  I thought your mother might powder my knuckles

  gript at one point, with wild eyes on my tie

  ‘Don
’t move!’ and then the screams began,

  they wheeled her off, and we are all in business.

  I wish I knew what business (son) we’re in

  I can’t wait seven weeks to see her grin

  I’m not myself, we are all changing here

  direction and velocity, to accommodate you, dear.

  IV SCHERZO

  Navajo Setting the Record Straight

  ‘WARRIOR Who Went With a Crowd, my sand-painter

  grandfather,’

  said Axel no-middle-initial Mankey Jr

  to the Marine sarge, ‘served at Fort Wingate

  as a sergeant-major scout, and he was buried

  with full military honors in Arlington.

  So screw you, Sergeant, and your Greek accent.

  Moreover, from the black world into the blue

  came The First People, to the yellow world,

  and finally into the present sick white world

  thro’ a giant reed,—which may be seen to this day

  near Silverton, Colorado. Yah-ah-teh.’

  His unbound black locks wind-flared as back at Left & Right

  Mittens

  motherless next to the earth-covered log hogan of Mrs Hetty

  Rye.

  Henry by Night

  HENRY’S nocturnal habits were the terror of his women.

  First it appears he snored, lying on his back.

  Then he thrashed & tossed,

  changing position like a task fleet. Then, inhuman,

  he woke every hour or so—they couldn’t keep track

  of mobile Henry, lost

  at 3 a.m., off for more drugs or a cigarette,

  reading old mail, writing new letters, scribbling

  excessive Songs;

  back then to bed, to the old tune or get set

  for a stercoraceous cough, without quibbling

  death-like. His women’s wrongs

  they hoarded & forgave, mysterious, sweet;

  but you’ll admit it was no way to live

  or even keep alive.

  I won’t mention the dreams I won’t repeat

  sweating & shaking: something’s gotta give:

  up for good at five.

  Henry’s Understanding

  HE was reading late, at Richard’s, down in Maine,

  aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,

  my good wife long in bed.

  All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,

  putting the marker in the book, & sleep,

  & wake to a hot breakfast.

  Off the coast was an island, P’tit Manaan,

  the bluff from Richard’s lawn was almost sheer.

  A chill at four o’clock.

  It only takes a few minutes to make a man.

  A concentration upon now & here.

  Suddenly, unlike Bach,

  & horribly, unlike Bach, it occurred to me

  that one night, instead of warm pajamas,

  I’d take off all my clothes

  & cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff

  into the terrible water & walk forever

  under it out toward the island.

  Defensio in Extremis

  I SAID: Mighty men have encamped against me,

  and they have questioned not only the skill of my defences

  but my sincerity.

  Now, Father, let them have it.

  Thou knowest, whatever their outcry & roar,

  in quietness I read my newly simple heart

  after so far returning.

  O even X, great Y, fine Z

  splinter at my procedures and my ends.

  Surely their spiritual life is not what it might be?

  Surely they are half-full of it?

  Tell them to leave me damned well alone with my insights.

  Damn You, Jim D., You Woke Me Up

  I THOUGHT I’d say a thing to please myself

  & why not him, about his talent, to him

  or to some friend who’d maybe pass it on

  because he printed a sweet thing about me

  a long long time ago, & because of gladness

  to see a good guy get out of the advertising racket

  & suddenly make like the Great Chicago Fire—

  yes that was it, fine, fine—(this was a dream

  woke me just now)—I’ll get a pen & paper

  at once & put that down, I thought, and I went

  away from where I was, up left thro’ a garden

  in the direction of the Avenue

  but got caught on a smart kid’s escalator

  going uphill against it, got entangled,

  a girl was right behind me in the dark,

  they hoisted up some cart and we climbed on

  & over the top & down, thinking Jesus

  I’ll break my arse but a parked car broke the fall

  I landed softly there in the dark street

  having forgotten all about the Great Chicago Fire!

  V

  Somber Prayer

  O MY Lord, I am not eloquent

  neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken …

  but I am slow of speech, of a dim tongue.

  He mentions, here, Thy ‘counsel and dominion’;

  so I will borrow Newton’s mouth. Spare me

  Uccello’s ark-locked lurid deluge, I’m

  the brutal oaf from the barrel stuck mid-scene,—

  or ghost me past the waters … Miriam …

  A twelve-year-old all solemn, sorry-faced,

  described himself lately as ‘a lifetime prick.’

  Me too. Maladaptive devices.

  At fifty-five half-famous & effective, I still feel rotten about

  myself.

  Panicky weekdays, I pray hard,

  not worthy.

  Sucking, clinging, following, crying, smiling,

  I come Your child to You.

  Unknowable? perhaps not altogether

  I DARE interpret: Adonai of rescue.

  Whatever and ever other I have lain skew over

  however O little else around You know

  I doubt I’m wrong on this.

  Augustine and Pascal swore the same strange.

  Yet young men young men in the paddies rescue.

  Add Sway omnicompetent, add pergalactic Intellect,

  forbearance invisible, a tumbling thunder of laughter

  (or whence our so alert pizzazz & laughter?),

  an imagination of the queens of Chartres the kings there, if

  these only, still

  we’re trans-acting with You.

  Minnesota Thanksgiving

  FOR that free Grace bringing us past terrible risks

  & thro’ great griefs surviving to this feast

  sober & still, with the children unborn and born,

  among brave friends, Lord, we stand again in debt

  and find ourselves in the glad position: Gratitude.

  We praise our ancestors who delivered us here

  within warm walls all safe, aware of music,

  likely toward ample & attractive meat

  with whatever accompaniment

  Kate in her kind ingenuity has seen fit to devise,

  and we hope—across the most strange year to come—

  continually to do them and You not sufficient honour

  but such as we become able to devise

  out of a decent or joyful conscience & thanksgiving.

  Yippee!

  Bless then, as Thou wilt, this wilderness board.

  A Usual Prayer

  ACCORDING to Thy will: That this day only

  I may avoid the vile

  and baritone away in a broader chorus

  of to each other decent forbearance & even aid.

  Merely sensational let’s have today,

  lacking mostly thinking,—

  men’s thinking being eighteen-tenths deluded.

  Did I get this figure out of St Isaac of Syria?
r />   For fun: find me among my self-indulgent artbooks

  a new drawing by Ingres!

  For discipline, two self-denying minus-strokes

  and my wonted isometrics, barbells, & antiphons.

  Lord of happenings, & little things,

  muster me westward fitter to my end—

  which has got to be Your strange end for me—

  and toughen me effective to the tribes en route.

  Overseas Prayer

  GOOD evening. At the feet of the king, my Lord,

  I fall seven & yet seven times.

  Behold what insult has Your servant suffered

  from Shuwardata and Milkiln & his ilk.

  Put them under saws, & under harrows of iron,

  & under axes of iron, make them pass thro’ the brick-kiln

  lest at any time they flirt at me again.

  Enjoin them to the blurred & breathless dead.

  The Valley of the Cheesemakers has disappeared

  also, my Lord. Your precincts are in ruin,

  your revenues ungathered. Minarets

  blot our horizon as I pen, my Lord.

  I feel myself a deep & old objection.

  You gave me not a very able father,

  joyless at last, Lord, and sometimes I hardly

  (thinking on him) perform my duty to you.

  Ah then I mutter ‘Forty-odd years past.

  Do I yet repine?’ and go about your business,—

  a fair wind and the honey lights of home

  being all I ask this wind-torn foreign evening.

  Amos

  FOR three insane things evil, and for four,

  will I vex Pekin in the latter days,

  their ancestors shall suffer for their children

  in turbid horror: so saith the Lord.

  For three insane things evil, and for four,

  grieve will I Kremlin presently, & the Urals,

  & Omsk, and I will tear their leaderhood

  that many may fly home: saith the Lord.

  For three insane things evil, and for four,

  torment will I the North & South & East

  & West with understanding, where they stand,

  and I will unman & de-parent them

  and will deprive them: thus saith the Lord.