Selected Poems, 1956-1968 Read online

  I wanted to be

  when I was seven years old

  a perfect man

  who kills

  W H E N I M E E T Y O U I N T H E

  S M A L L S T R E E T S

  When I meet you in the small streets

  of rain-streaked movies

  and old-fashioned shaving equipment,

  you smile at me from my blood, saying:

  an obsolete wisdom would have married us

  when I was fourteen, 0 my teacher.

  I walk through your Moorish eyes

  into sun and mathematics. I polish

  Holland diamonds, and deep into Russia

  I codify in one laser verse the haphazard

  numbers leaping from each triangular storyoh all world-hated flashing work

  I make precise

  for the sake of the perfect world.

  Like jigsaw pieces married too early

  in the puzzle we are pried apart

  for every new experiment, as if simplicity

  and good luck were not enough to build

  a rainbow through gravity and mist.

  I T H A S B E E N S O M E T I M E

  It has been some time

  since I took away

  a woman's perfume on my skin

  I remember tonight

  how sweet I used to find it

  and tonight I've forgotten nothing

  of how little it means to me

  knowing in my heart

  we would never be lovers

  thinking much more about suicide and money

  A P E R S O N W H O E A T S M E A T

  A person who eats meat

  wants to get his teeth into something

  A person who does not eat meat

  wants to get his teeth into something else

  If these thoughts interest you for even a moment

  you are lost

  I 233

  W H O W I L L F I N A L L Y S A Y

  Who will finally say

  you are perfect

  Who will choose you

  in order to edit your secrets

  I sing this for your children

  I sing this for the crickets

  I sing this for the army

  for all who do not need me

  Whom will you address

  first thing tomonow morning

  your dreams so bureaucratic

  you refuse to appear in them

  How beautiful the solemn are

  Yes I have noticed you

  Whoever gives you money

  will be remembered for his pride

  I love to speak to you this way

  knowing how you came to me

  leaving everything unsaid

  that might employ us

  When you are torn

  when your silver is torn

  take down this book and find

  your place in my head

  234 I

  W A I T I N G T O T E L L T H E D O C T O R

  Waiting to tell the doctor

  that he failed

  and that I failed

  I count the few remaining coins

  I should have dropped at Monte Carlo

  in the little wishing well

  they offer you with the gun

  still thinking about you

  and the sparks between us

  dull, milky and peculiar now

  like dimes that have been dipped

  in mercury too long ago

  Last night I asked my brain

  to put back into my loins

  my love for you

  Free at last I fell asleep

  both of us naked and hungry

  I am sure you willed me

  the fullest audience with your body

  on condition I die

  What did you leave in my room

  on my bed

  against the wall

  that is so cold and impossible and greedy

  I 235

  I T ' S G O O D T O S I T W I T H P E O P L E

  It's good to sit with people

  who are up so late

  your other homes wash away

  and other meals you left

  unfinished on the plate

  It's just coffee

  and a piano player's cigarette

  and Tim Hardin's song

  and the song in your head

  that always makes you wait

  I'm thinking of you

  little Frederique

  with your white white skin

  and your stories of wealth

  in Normandy

  I don't think I ever told you

  that I wanted to save the world

  watching television

  while we made Jove

  ordering Greek wine and olives for you

  while my friend scattered

  dollar bills over the head

  of the belly-dancer

  under the clarinettes of Eighth Avenue

  listening to your plans

  for an exclusive pet shop in Paris

  Your mother telephoned me

  she said I was too old for you

  and I agreed

  but you came to my room

  one morning after a long time

  because you said you loved me

  From time to time I meet men

  who said they gave you money

  and some girls have said

  that you weren't really a model

  Don't they know what it means

  to be lonely

  lonely for boiled eggs in silver cups

  lonely for a large dog

  who obeys your voice

  lonely for rain in Normandy

  seen through leaded windows

  lonely for a fast car

  lonely for restaurant asparagus

  lonely for a simple prince

  and an explorer

  I'm sure they know

  but we are all creatures of envy

  we need our stone fingernails

  on another's beauty

  we demand the hidden love

  of everyone we meet

  the hidden love not the daily love

  Your breasts are beautiful

  warm porcelain taste

  of worship and greed

  Your eyes come to me

  under the perfect spikes

  of imperishable eyelashes

  Your mouth living

  on French words

  and the soft ashes of your make-up

  Only with you

  I did not imitate myself

  only with you

  I 237

  I asked for nOlhing

  your long long fingers

  deciphering your hair

  your lace blouse

  borrowed from a photographer

  the bathroom lights

  flashing on your new red fingernails

  your tall legs at attemion

  as I watch you from my bed

  while you brush dew

  from the mirror

  to work behind the enemy lines

  of your masterpiece

  Come to me if you grow old

  come to me if you need coffee

  D O N O T F O R G E T O L D F R I E N D S

  Do not forget old friends

  you knew long before I met you

  the times I know nothing about

  being someone

  who lives by himself

  and only visits you on a raid

  M A R I T A

  MARITA

  PLEASE FIND ME

  I AM ALMOST 30

  H E S T U D I E S T O D E S C R I B E

  He studies to describe

  the lover he cannot become

  failing the widest dreams of the mind

  &: settling for visions of God

  The tatters of his discipline

  have no beauty

  that he can hold so easily

  as your beauty
/>   He does not know how

  to trade himself for your love

  Do not trust him

  unless you love him

  I 239

  I N D E X O F F I R S T L I N E S

  A cloud of grasshoppers,

  A cross didn't fall on me,

  A kite is a victim you are sure of,

  A person who eats meat,

  Aren't you tired,

  As I lay dead,

  As the mist leaves no scar,

  Beneath my hands,

  62

  Beside the shepherd dreams the beast,

  33

  Between the mountains of spices,

  73

  Calm, alone, the cedar guitar,

  Catching winter in their carved nostrils,

  7

  Claim me, blood, if you have a story,

  203

  Clean as the grass from which,

  z86

  Come back to me,

  I78

  Come, my brothers,

  I04

  Come upon this heap,

  99

  Created fires I cannot love,

  202

  Do not arrange your bright flesh in the sun,

  Do not forget old friends,

  During the first pogrom they,

  Edmonton, Alberta, December 1966, 4 a.m.,

  225

  Evidently they need a lot

  IIB

  Eyes: . . . . . . Medium,

  I22

  Finally I called the people I didn't want to hear from, I03

  Flowers for Hitler the summer yawned,

  I34

  For a lovely instant I thought she would grow mad,

  9

  For you,

  76

  For your sake I said I will praise the moon,

  52

  Foreign God, reigning in earthly glory,

  2z3

  Found once again shamelessly ignoring

  I93

  Give me back my fingerprints,

  2II

  Give me back my house,

  I7I

  Go by brooks, love,

  4 3

  24 1

  God, God, God, someone of my family,

  72

  He has returned from countless wars,

  8

  He pulled a flower,

  22

  He studies to describe,

  2 39

  He was beautiful when he sat alone, he was like me,

  he had,

  205

  He was lame,

  I95

  He was wearing a black moustache and leather hair,

  126

  Here we are at the window . . . ,

  185

  His blood on my arm is warm as a bird,

  4

  His last love poem,

  97

  His pain, unowned, he left,

  102

  Hitler the brain-mole looks out of my eyes,

  98

  How you murdered your family,

  16

  Hurt once and for all into silence,

  44

  I almost went to bed,

  68

  I am a priest of God,

  207

  I am locked in a very expensive suit,

  90

  I am one of those who could tell . .

  78

  I am sorry that the rich man must go,

  168

  I am too loud when you are gone,

  195

  I ask you where you want to go,

  I)O

  I believe you heard your master sing,

  214

  I don't believe the radio stations,

  95

  I do not know if the world has lied,

  87

  I had it for a moment,

  1)5

  I have not lingered in European monasteries,

  45

  I have two bars of soap,

  6o

  I heard of a man,

  )0

  I long to hold some lady,

  64

  I met a woman long ago,

  198

  I met you,

  227

  I once believed a single line,

  124

  I see you on a Greek mattress,

  188

  I stepped into an avalanche,

  217

  I want your warm body to disappear,

  142

  I was the last passenger of the day,

  128

  I wonder how many people in this city,

  42

  I would like to remind,

  167

  242

  If I had a shining head,

  I2

  If this looks like a poem,

  56

  If your neighbor disappears,

  JI

  In almond trees lemon trees,

  208

  In his black armour,

  30

  In many movies I came upon an idol,

  I40

  In the Bible generations pass

  I92

  Is there anything emptier,

  89

  It has been some time,

  233

  It's good to sit with people,

  236

  It's just a city, darling,

  224

  It's so simple,

  I I4

  It swings, Jocko,

  46

  I've seen some lonely history,

  200

  January 28 1962,

  9I

  Layton, when we dance our freilach,

  69

  Listen all you bullets,

  I7 3

  Listen to the stories,

  93

  Loving you, flesh to flesh, I often thought,

  59

  MARITA,

  239

  Martha they say you are gentle,

  Ioo

  My friend walks through our city this winter night,

  I76

  My lady can sleep,

  58

  My lady was found mutilated,

  26

  My love, the song is less than sung,

  54

  My lover Peterson,

  20

  My rabbi has a silver buddha,

  II6

  Nothing has been broken,

  I84

  One night I burned the house

  loved,

  I90

  Out of some simple part of me,

  III

  Out of the land of heaven,

  7I

  Poems! break out!

  II)

  Queen Victoria,

  243

  Several faiths,

  I 32

  She sings so nice,

  2 3 I

  She tells me a child built her house,

  J2

  Silence,

  70

  Snow is falling,

  20I

  So you're the kind of vegetarian,

  I8J

  Somewhere in my trophy room

  I96

  Strafed by the Milky Way,

  IJ9

  Suzanne takes you down,

  209

  Suzanne wears a leather coat,

  I89

  The big world will lind out,

  174

  The broom is an army of straw,

  226

  The coherent statement was made,

  IJI

  The day wasn't exactly my own,

  88

  The famous doctor held up Grandma's stomach,

  92

  The flowers that I left in the ground,

  38

  The miracle we all are waiting for,

  IJ4

  The moon dangling wet like a half-plucked eye,

  28

  The naked weeping girl,

  II

  The nightmares do not suddenly,

  18I

  The pai
n-monger came home,

  1 1 5

  The reason I write,

  2JI

  The snow was falling,

  I75

  The stony path coiled around me,

  I 19

  The sun is tangled,

  21

  The torture scene developed under a glass bell,

  I I7

  The warrior boats from Portugal,

  I4

  There are some men,

  40

  This could be my little,

  ro6

  This is for you,

  221

  This morning I was dressed by the wind,

  216

  Those unshadowed ligures, rounded lines of men,

  5

  Tonight I will live with my new white skin,

  IJ7

  Toronto has been good to me,

  I64

  Towering black nuns frighten us,

  24

  Two hours off the branch and burnt,

  IJ8

  Two went to sleep,

  I9I

  Under her grandmother's patchwork quilt,

  65

  244

  Waiting to tell the doctor,

  235

  We meet at a hotel,

  129

  Whatever cities are brought down,

  4 1

  When I hear you sing,

  194

  When I meet you in the small streets,

  232

  When I paid the sun to run,

  187

  When this American woman,

  IO

  When we learned that his father

  123

  When with lust I am smitten,

  67

  When you kneel below me,

  6I

  When young the Christians told me,

  3

  Who is purer,

  roB

  Who will finally say,

  234

  With all Greek heroes,

  r8

  With Annie gone,

  68

  You dance on the day you saved,

  172

  You do not have to love me,

  223

  You have the lovers,

  50

  You know where I have been,

  197

  You live like a god,

  229

  You recited the Code of Comparisons,

  165

  You tell me that silence,

  39

  I 245

  Document Outline

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CONTENTS

  I. Let Us Compare Mythologies

  II. The Spice-Box of Earth

  III. Flowers for Hitler

  IV. Parasites of Heaven

  V. New Poems

  Index of First Lines