His Toy, His Dream, His Rest Read online

  I once was a slip.

  120

  Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout

  or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds

  downward & up bring real.

  Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out,

  beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds:

  I’ll feed you how I feel:—

  of avocado moist with lemon, yea

  formaldehyde & rotting sardines O

  in our appointed time

  I would I could a touch more fully say

  my consentless mind. The senses are below,

  which in this air sublime

  do I repudiate. But foes I sniff!

  My nose in all directions! I be so brave

  I creep into an Arctic cave

  for the rectal temperature of the biggest bear,

  hibernating—in my left hand sugar.

  I totter to the lip of the cliff.

  121

  Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it,

  the whole humiliating Human round,

  out of this & that.

  He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat

  who now need never mind his nostril-hair

  nor a critical error laid bare.

  He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell

  and wrote a-many books & he wrote well.

  Peace to the bearded corpse.

  His last book was his best. His wives loved him.

  He saw in the forest something coming, grim,

  but did not change his purpose.

  Honest & cruel, peace now to his soul.

  He never loved his body, being full of dents.

  A wrinkled peace to this good man.

  Henry is half in love with one of his students

  and the sad process continues to the whole

  as it swarmed & began.

  122

  He published his girl’s bottom in staid pages

  of an old weekly. Where will next his rages

  ridiculous Henry land?

  Tranquil & chaste, de-hammocked, he descended—

  upon which note the fable should have ended—

  towards the ground, and

  while fable wound itself upon him thick

  and coats upon his tongue formed, white, terrific:

  he stretched out still.

  Assembled bands to do obsequious music

  at hopeless noon. He bayed before he obeyed,

  doing at last their will.

  This seemed perhaps one of the best of dogs

  during his barking. Many thronged & lapped

  at his delicious stone.

  Cats to a distance kept—one of their own—

  having in mind that down he lay & napped

  in the realm of whiskers & fogs.

  123

  Dapples my floor the eastern sun, my house faces north,

  I have nothing to say except that it dapples my floor

  and it would dapple me

  if I lay on that floor, as-well-forthwith

  I have done, trying well to mount a thought

  not carelessly

  in times forgotten, except by the New York Times

  which can’t forget. There is always the morgue.

  There are men in the morgue.

  These men have access. Sleepless, in position,

  they dream the past forever

  Colossal in the dawn comes the second light

  we do all die, in the floor, in the morgue

  and we must die forever, c’est la mort

  a heady brilliance

  the ultimate gloire

  post-mach, probably in underwear

  as we met each other once.

  124

  Behold I bring you tidings of great joy—

  especially now that the snow & gale are still—

  for Henry is delivered.

  Not only is he delivered from the gale

  but he has a little one. He’s out of jail

  also. It is a boy.

  Henry’s pleasure in this unusual event

  reminds me of the extra told at Hollywood & Vine

  that TV cameras

  were focussed on him personally then & there

  and ‘Just a few words … Is it what you meant?

  Was there a genuine sign?’

  Couvade was always Henry’s favourite custom,

  better than the bride biting off the penises, pal,

  remember? All the brothers

  marrying her in turn & dying mutilated

  until the youngest put in instead a crowbar, pal,

  and pulled out not only her teeth but also his brothers’ dongs & no doubt others’.

  125

  Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water,

  wholly in dark, time limited, different from

  initiations now:

  the class in writing, clothed & dry & light,

  unlimited time, till Poetry takes some,

  nobody reads them though,

  no trumpets, no solemn instauration, no change;

  no commissions, ladies high in soulful praise

  (pal) none,

  costumes as usual, turtleneck sweaters, loafers,

  in & among the busy Many who brays

  art is if anything fun.

  I say the subject was given as of old,

  prescribed the technical treatment, tests really tests

  were set by the masters & graded.

  I say the paralyzed fear lest one’s not one

  is back with us forever, worsts & bests

  spring for the public, faded.

  126

  A Thurn

  Among them marble where the man may lie

  lie chieftains grand in final phase, or pause,

  ‘O rare Ben Jonson’,

  dictator too, & the thinky other Johnson,

  dictator too, backhanders down of laws,

  men of fears, weird & sly.

  Not of these least is borne to rest.

  If grandeur & mettle prompted his lone journey

  neither oh crowded shelves

  nor this slab I celebrates attest

  his complex slow fame forever (more or less).

  I imagine the Abbey

  among their wonders will be glad of him

  whom some are sorry for his griefs across the world

  grievously understated

  and grateful for that bounty, for bright whims

  of heavy mind across the tiresome world

  which the tiresome world debated, complicated.

  127

  Again, his friend’s death made the man sit still

  and freeze inside—his daughter won first prize—

  his wife scowled over at him—

  It seemed to be Hallowe’en.

  His friend’s death had been adjudged suicide,

  which dangles a trail

  longer than Henry’s chill, longer than his loss

  and longer than the letter that he wrote

  that day to the widow

  to find out what the hell had happened thus.

  All souls converge upon a hopeless mote

  tonight, as though

  the throngs of souls in hopeless pain rise up

  to say they cannot care, to say they abide

  whatever is to come.

  My air is flung with souls which will not stop

  and among them hangs a soul that has not died

  and refuses to come home.

  128

  A hemorrhage of his left ear of Good Friday—

  so help me Jesus—then made funny too

  the other, further one.

  There must have been a bit. Sheets scrubbed away

  soon all but three nails. Doctors in this city O

  will not (his wife cried) come.

  Perhaps he’s for it. If that Filipino doc

  had diagnosed ah here in Washington

  that ear-infection ha

  he’d ha
ve been grounded, so in a hall for the ill

  in Southern California, they opined.

  The cabins at eight thou’

  are pressurized, they swore, my love, bad for—

  ten days ago—a dim & bloody ear,

  or ears.

  They say are sympathetic, ears, & hears

  more than they should or

  did.

  129

  Thin as a sheet his mother came to him

  during the screaming evenings after he did it,

  touched F.J.’s dead hand.

  The parlour was dark, he was the first pall-bearer in,

  he gave himself a dare & then did it,

  the thing was quite unplanned,

  riots for Henry the unstructured dead,

  his older playmate fouled, reaching for him

  and never will he be free

  from the older boy who died by the cottonwood

  & now is to be planted, wise & slim,

  as part of Henry’s history.

  Christ waits. That boy was good beyond his years,

  he served at Mass like Henry, he never did

  one extreme thing wrong

  but tender his cold hand, latent with Henry’s fears

  to Henry’s shocking touch, whereat he fled

  and woke screaming, young & strong.

  130

  When I saw my friend covered with blood, I thought

  This is the end of the dream, now I’ll wake up.

  That was more years ago

  than I care to reckon, and my friend is not

  dying but adhering to an élite group

  in California O.

  Why did I never wake, when covered with blood

  I saw my fearful friend, his nerves are bad

  with the large strain of moving,

  I see his motions, stretcht on his own rack,

  our book is coming out in paperback,

  Henry has not ceased loving

  but wishes all that blood would flow away

  leaving his friend crisp, ready for all

  in the new world O.

  I see him brace, and on that note I pray

  the blood recede like an old folderol

  and he spring up & go.

  131

  Come touch me baby in his waking dream

  disordered Henry murmured. I’ll read you Hegel

  and that will hurt your mind

  I can’t remember when you were unkind

  but I will clear that block, I’ll set you on fire

  along with our babies

  to save them up the high & ruined stairs,

  my growing daughters. I am insane, I think,

  they say & act so.

  But then they let me out, and I must save them,

  High fires will help, at this time, in my affairs.

  I am insane, I know

  and many of my close friends were half-sane

  I see the rorschach for the dead on its way

  Prop them up!

  Trade us a lesson, pour me down a sink

  I swear I’ll love her always, like a drink

  Let pass from me this cup

  132

  A Small Dream

  It was only a small dream of the Golden World,

  now you trot off to bed. I’ll turn the machine off,

  you’ve danced & trickt us enough.

  Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled

  from the second floor, fail to impress your mother

  and I am the only other

  and I say go to bed! We’ll meet tomorrow,

  acres of threats dissolve into a smile,

  you’ll be the Little Baby

  again, while I pursue my path of sorrow

  & bodies, bodies, to be carried a mile

  & dropt. Maybe

  if frozen slush will represent the soul

  which is to represented in the hereafter

  I ask for a decree

  dooming my bitter enemies to laughter

  advanced against them. If the dream was small

  it was my dream also, Henry’s.

  133

  As he grew famous—ah, but what is fame?—

  he lost his old obsession with his name,

  things seemed to matter less,

  including the fame—a television team came

  from another country to make a film of him

  which did not him distress:

  he enjoyed the hard work & he was good at that,

  so they all said—the charming Englishmen

  among the camera & the lights

  mathematically wandered in his pub & livingroom

  doing their duty, as too he did it,

  but where are the delights

  of long-for fame, unless fame makes him feel easy?

  I am cold & weary, said Henry, fame makes me feel lazy,

  yet I must do my best.

  It doesn’t matter, truly. It doesn’t matter truly.

  It seems to be solely a matter of continuing Henry

  voicing & obsessed.

  134

  Sick at 6 & sick again at 9

  was Henry’s gloomy Monday morning oh.

  Still he had to lecture.

  They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry

  to rise up yet once more again and come oh.

  They figured he was a fixture,

  nuts to their bolts, keys to their bloody locks.

  One day the whole affair will fall apart

  with a rustle of fire,

  a wrestle of undoing, as of tossed clocks,

  and somewhere not far off a broken heart

  for hire.

  He had smoked a pack of cigarettes by 10

  & was ready to go. Peace to his ashes then,

  poor Henry,

  with all this gas & shit blowing through it

  four times in 2 hours, his tail ached.

  He arose, benign, & performed.

  135

  I heard said ‘Cats that walk by their wild lone’

  but Henry had need of friends. They disappeared

  Shall I follow my dream?

  Clothes disappeared in a backward sliding, zones

  shot into view, pocked, exact & weird:

  who is what he seem?

  I will tell you now a story about Speck:

  after other cuts, he put the knife in her eye,

  one of the eight:

  he was troubled, missionary: and Whitman

  of the tower murdered his wife & mother

  before (mercy-killings) he set out.

  Not every shot went in. But most went in:

  in just over an hour

  with the tumor thudding in his brain

  he killed 13, hit 33:

  his empty father said he taught him to respect guns

  (not persons).

  136

  Whíle his wife earned the living, Rabbi Henry

  studied the Torah, writing commentaries

  more likely to be burnt than printed.

  It was rumoured that they needed revision.

  Smiling, kissing, he bent his head not with ‘Please’

  but with austere requests barely hinted,

  like a dog with a bone he worried the Sacred Book

  and often taught its fringes.

  Imperishable enthusiasms.

  I have only one request to make of the Lord,

  that I may no longer have to earn my living as a rabbi

  ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image’

  The sage said ‘I merit long life if only because

  I have never left bread-crumbs lying on the ground.

  We were tested yesterday & are sound,

  Henry’s lady & Henry.

  It all centered in the end on the suicide

  in which I am an expert, deep & wide.’

  137

  Many’s the dawn sad Henry has seen in,

  many’s the sun has lit
his slouch to sleep,

  many’s a song to sing or vigil keep

  of thought if you’re made that way.

  An incantation comes in nines: ‘tahn . . bray’:

  heroes’ bodies, in circles, thin,

  collapsing. I don’t understand this dream,

  said Henry to himself in slippers: why,

  things are going to pieces.

  The furious bonzes sacked vast the Khmer temple

  and thought fled: into the jungle. It was that simple.

  Long after, spread the treatises.

  Learned & otherelse, upon the ruins.

  How is it faith finds ever matters rough?

  My honey must flow off in the great rains,

  as all the parts thereto do thereto belong

  ha, and we are pitched toward the last love,

  the last dream, the last song.

  138

  Combat Assignment

  Henry, moot, grunted. Like a lily of the valley

  he dangled in the breeze of dreadful thought.

  Look for the worst!

  We came toward the world, did we not, accursed,

  as witness crimes, but some craved out of that

  like a Calcutta alley.

  Grope for the cause. That won’t be far away.

  The Secretary of the Interior

  may dog it from his grasp, or

  we are divided together for the day

  and all the some who have to say to me

  are comfortably established, see?

  There happened to occur a roar in the suctions

  which rolled off the atmosphere, so we all gasped.

  We do not know.

  Perhaps it’s as well the atmosphere rolled away:

  think Dutch of the problems that would solve

  including ours.

  On which have sat so many distinguished friends,

  old leather chair, take rest.

  Your guts are showing.

  139

  Green grieves the Prince over his girl forgone

  In the mists of the Hebrew & the Irish past

  in the mists of the American past

  I see him visit her, riding past at dawn

  to watch her silver hair in a turret high

  why did he leave her?

  Grumbled to himself upon this ground the Rabbi

  months. The knowing Books opened themselves in vain.