Selected Poems, 1956-1968 Read online

  As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent

  because now you believe it is the first human voice

  heard in that room.

  The garments you let fall grow into vines.

  You climb into bed and recover the flesh.

  You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.

  You create an embrace and fall into it.

  There is only one moment of pain or doubt

  as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your

  body,

  but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

  I 51

  O W N I N G E V E R Y T H I N G

  For your sake I said I will praise the moon,

  tell the colour of the river,

  find new words for the agony

  and ecstasy of gulls.

  Because you are close,

  everything that men make, observe

  or plant is close, is mine:

  the gulls slowly writhing, slowly singing

  on the spears of wind;

  the iron gate above the river;

  the bridge holding between stone fingers

  her cold bright necklace of pearls.

  The branches of shore trees,

  like trembling charts of rivers,

  call the moon for an ally

  to claim their sharp journeys

  out of the dark sky,

  but nothing in the sky responds.

  The branches only give a sound

  to miles of wind.

  With your body and your speaking

  you have spoken for everything,

  robbed me of my strangerhood,

  made me one

  with the root and gull and stone,

  and because I sleep so near to you

  I cannot embrace

  or have my private love with them.

  52 I

  You worry that I will leave you.

  I will not leave you.

  Only strangers travel.

  Owning everything,

  I have nowhere to go.

  I 53

  T H E P R I E S T S A Y S G O O D B Y E

  My love, the song is less than sung

  when with your lips you take it from my tonguenor can you seize this firm erotic grace

  and halt it tumbling into commonplace.

  No one I know can set the hook

  to fix lust in a longing look

  where we can read from time to time

  the absolute ballet our bodies mime.

  Harry can't, his face in Sally's crotch,

  nor Tom, who only loves when neighbours watchone mistakes the ballet for the chart,

  one hopes that gossip will perform like art.

  And what of art? When passion dies

  friendship hovers round our flesh like flies,

  and we name beautiful the smells

  that corpses give and immortelles.

  I have studied rivers: the waters rush

  like eternal fire in Moses' bush.

  Some things live with honour. I will see

  lust burn like fire in a holy tree.

  Do not come with me. When I stand alone

  my voice sings out as though I did not own

  my throat. Abelard proved how bright could be

  the bed between the hermitage and nunnery.

  You are beautiful. I will sing beside

  rivers where longing Hebrews cried.

  54 I

  As separate exiles we can learn

  how desert trees ignite and branches burn.

  At certain crossroads we will win

  the harvest of our discipline.

  Swollen flesh, minds fed on wilderness­

  Oh, what a blaze of love our bodies press!

  I 55

  T H E C U C K O L D 'S S O N G

  If this looks like a poem

  I might as well warn you at the beginning

  that it's not meant to be one.

  I don't want to turn anything into poetry.

  I know all about her part in it

  but I'm not concerned with that right now.

  This is between you and me.

  Personally I don't give a damn who led who on:

  in fact I wonder if I give a damn at all.

  But a man's got to say something.

  Anyhow you fed her 5 McKewan Ales,

  took her to your room, put the right records on,

  and in an hour or two it was done.

  I know all about passion and honour

  but unfortunately this had really nothing to do with

  either:

  oh there was passion I'm only too sure

  and even a little honour

  but the important thing was to cuckold Leonard Cohen.

  Hell, I might just as well address this to the both of you:

  I haven't time to write anything else.

  ·

  I've got to say my prayers.

  I've got to wait by the window.

  I repeat: the important thing was to cuckold Leonard

  Cohen.

  I like that line because it's got my name in it.

  What really makes me sick

  is that everything goes on as it went before:

  I'm still a sort of friend,

  I'm still a sort of lover.

  But not for long:

  that's why I'm telling this to the two of you.

  s6 I

  The fact is I'm turning to gold, turning to gold.

  It's a long process, they say,

  it happens in stages.

  This is to inform you that I've already turned to clay.

  D E A D S O N G

  As I lay dead

  In my love-soaked bed,

  Angels came to kiss my head.

  I caught one gown

  And wrestled her down

  To be my girl in death town.

  She will not fly.

  She has promised to die.

  What a clever corpse am II

  I s7

  M Y L A D Y C A N S L E E P

  My lady can sleep

  Upon a handkerchief

  Or if it be Fall

  Upon a fallen leaf.

  I have seen the hunters

  Kneel before her hem­

  Even in her sleep

  She turns away from them.

  The only gift they offer

  Is their abiding grief-

  1 pull out my pockets

  For a handkerchief or leaf.

  T R A V E L

  Loving you, flesh to flesh, I often thought

  Of travelling penniless to some mud throne

  Where a master might instruct me how to plot

  My life away from pain, to love alone

  In the bruiseless embrace of stone and lake.

  Lost in the fields of your hair I was never lost

  Enough to lose a way I had to take;

  Breathless beside your body I could not exhaust

  The will that forbid me contract, vow,

  Or promise, and often while you slept

  I looked in awe beyond your beauty.

  Now

  I know why many men have stopped and wept

  Half-way between the loves they leave and seek,

  And wondered if travel leads them anywhere­

  Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek,

  The windy sky's a locket for your hair.

  I 59

  I H A V E T W O B A R S O F S O A P

  I have two bars of soap,

  the fragrance of almond,

  one for you and one for me.

  Draw the bath,

  we will wash each other.

  I have no money,

  I murdered the pharmacist.

  And here's a jar of oil,

  just like in the Bible.

  Lie in my arms,

  I'll make your flesh glisten.

  I have no money,

&nb
sp; I murdered the perfumer.

  Look through the window

  at the shops and people.

  Tell me what you desire,

  you'll have it by the hour.

  I have no money,

  I have no money.

  6o I

  C E L E B R A T I O N

  When you kneel below me

  and in both your hands

  hold my manhood like a sceptre,

  When you wrap your tongue

  about the amber jewel

  and urge my blessing,

  I understand those Roman girls

  who danced around a shaft of stone

  and kissed it till the stone was warm.

  Kneel, love, a thousand feet below me,

  so far I can barely see your mouth and hands

  perform the ceremony,

  Kneel till I topple to your back

  with a groan, like those gods on the roof

  that Samson pulled down.

  1 6 1

  B E N E A T H M Y H A N D S

  Beneath my hands

  your small breasts

  are the upturned bellies

  of breathing fallen sparrows.

  Wherever you move

  I hear the sounds of closing wings

  of falling wings.

  I am speechless

  because you have fallen beside me

  because your eyelashes

  are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

  I dread the time

  when your mouth

  begins to call me hunter.

  When you call me close

  to tell me

  your body is not beautiful

  I want to summon

  the eyes and hidden mouths

  of stone and light and water

  to testify against you.

  I want them

  to surrender before you

  the trembling rhyme of your face

  from their deep caskets.

  When you call me close

  to tell me

  your body is not beautiful

  I want my body and my hands

  to be pools

  for your looking and laughing.

  A S T H E M I S T L E A V E S N O S C A R

  As the mist leaves no scar

  On the dark green hill,

  So my body leaves no scar

  On you, nor ever will.

  When wind and hawk encounter,

  What remains to keep?

  So you and I encounter,

  Then turn, then fall to sleep.

  As many nights endure

  Without a moon or star,

  So will we endure

  When one is gone and far.

  I L O N G T O H O L D S O M E L A D Y

  I long to hold some lady

  For my love is far away,

  And will not come tomorrow

  And was not here today.

  There is no flesh so perfect

  As on my lady's bone,

  And yet it seems so distant

  When I am all alone:

  As though she were a masterpiece

  In some castled town,

  That pilgrims come to visit

  And priests to copy down.

  Alas, I cannot travel

  To a love I have so deep

  Or sleep too close beside

  A love I want to keep.

  But I long to hold some lady,

  For flesh is warm and sweet.

  Cold skeletons go marching

  Each night beside my feet.

  N O W O F S L E E P I N G

  Under her grandmother's patchwork quilt

  a calico bird's-eye view

  of crops and boundaries

  naming dimly the districts of her body

  sleeps my Annie like a perfect lady

  Like ages of weightless snow

  on tiny oceans filled with light

  her eyelids enclose deeply

  a shade tree of birthday candles

  one for every morning

  until the now of sleeping

  The small banner of blood

  kept and flown by Brother Wind

  long after the pierced bird fell down

  is like her red mouth

  among the squalls of pillow

  Bearers of evil fancy

  of dark intention and corrupting fashion

  who come to rend the quilt

  plough the eye and ground the mouth

  will contend with mighty Mother Goose

  and Farmer Brown and all good stories

  of invincible belief

  which surround her sleep

  like the golden weather of a halo

  Well-wishers and her true lover

  may stay to watch my Annie

  sleeping like a perfect lady

  I Gs

  under her grandmother's patchwork quilt

  but they must promise to whisper

  and to vanish by morning-

  all but her one true lover.

  66 1

  S O N G

  When with lust I am smitten

  To my books I then repair

  And read what men have written

  Of flesh forbid but fair

  But in these saintly stories

  Of gleaming thigh and breast

  Of sainthood and its glories

  Alas I find no rest

  For at each body rare

  The saintly man disdains

  I stare 0 God I stare

  My heart is stained with stains

  And casting down the holy tomes

  I lead my eyes to where

  The naked girls with silver combs

  Are combing out their hair

  Then each pain my hermits sing

  Flies upward like a spark

  I live with the mortal ring

  Of flesh on flesh in dark

  S O N G

  I almost went to bed

  without remembering

  the four white violets

  I put in the button-hole

  of your green sweater

  and how I kissed you then

  and you kissed me

  shy as though I'd

  never been your lover

  F O R A N N E

  With Annie gone,

  Whose eyes to compare

  With the morning sun?

  Not that I did compare,

  But I do compare

  Now that she's gone.

  6s 1

  L A S T D A N C E A T T H E F O U R P E N N Y

  Layton, when we dance our freilach

  under the ghostly handkerchief,

  the miracle rabbis of Prague and Vilna

  resume their sawdust thrones,

  and angels and men, asleep so long

  in the cold palaces of disbeief,

  gather in sausage-hung kitchens

  to quarrel deliciously and debate

  the sounds of the Ineffable Name.

  Layton, my friend Lazarovitch,

  no Jew was ever lost

  while we two dance joyously

  in this French province,

  cold and oceans west of the temple,

  the snow canyoned on the twigs

  like forbidden Sabbath manna;

  I say no Jew was ever lost

  while we weave and billow the handkerchief

  into a burning cloud,

  measuring all of heaven

  with our stitching thumbs.

  Reb Israel Lazarovitch,

  you no-good Romanian, you're right!

  Who cares whether or not

  the Messiah is a Litvak?

  As for the cynical,

  such as we were yesterday,

  let them step with us or rot

  in their logical shrouds.

  We've raised a bright white flag,

  I 6g

  and here's our battered fathers' cup of wine,

  and now is music

 
; until morning and the morning prayers

  lay us down again,

  we who dance so beautifully

  though we know that freilachs end.

  S U M M E R H A I K U

  For Frank and Marian Sco tt

  Silence

  and a deeper silence

  when the crickets

  hesitate

  O U T O F T H E L A N D O F H E A V E N

  For Marc Chagall

  Out of the land of heaven

  Down comes the warm Sabbath sun

  Into the spice-box of earth_

  The Queen will make every Jew her lover_

  In a white silk coat

  Our rabbi dances up the street,

  Wearing our lawns like a green prayer-shawl,

  Brandishing houses like silver flags.

  Behind him dance his pupils,

  Dancing not so high

  And chanting the rabbi's prayer,

  But not so sweet.

  And who waits for him

  On a throne at the end of the street

  But the Sabbath Queen.

  Down go his hands

  Into the spice-box of earth,

  And there he finds the fragrant sun

  For a wedding ring,

  And draws her wedding finger through.

  Now back down the street they go,

  Dancing higher than the silver flags.

  His pupils somewhere have found wives too,

  And all are chanting the rabbi's song

  And leaping high in the perfumed air_

  Who calls him Rabbi?

  Cart-horse and dogs call him Rabbi,

  And he tells them:

  The Queen makes every Jew her lover_

  I 7 1

  And gathering on their green lawns

  The people call him Rabbi,

  And fill their mouths with good bread

  And his happy song.

  P R A Y E R O F M Y W I L D G R A N D F A T H E R

  God, God, God, someone of my family

  hated your love with such skill that you sang

  to him, your private voice violating

  his driiDl like a lost bee after pollen

  in the brain. He gave you his children

  opened on a table, and if a ram

  ambled in the garden you whispered nothing

  about that, nor held his killing hand.

  It is no wonder fields and governments

  rotted, for soon you gave him all your range,

  drove all your love through that sting in his brain.

  Nothing can flourish in your absence

  except our faith that you are proved through him

  who had his mind made mad and honey-combed.

  72 I

  I S A I A H

  For G.C.S.

  Between the mountains of spices

  the cities thrust up pearl domes and filigree spires.

  Never before was Jerusalem so beautiful.

  In the sculptured temple how many pilgrims,

  lost in the measures of tambourine and lyre,

  kneeled before the glory of the ritual?

  Trained in grace the daughters of Zion moved,

  not less splendid than the golden statuary,

  the bravery of ornaments about their scented feet.