Selected Poems, 1956-1968 Read online

  the brave von Silverhaired Ambassadors

  who resigned in '41?

  Wipe that smirk off your face.

  Captain Marvel signed the whip contract.

  Joe Palooka manufactured whips.

  Li'l Abner packed the whips in cases.

  The Katzenjammer Kids thought up experiments.

  Mere cogs.

  Peekaboo Miss Human Soap.

  It never happened.

  0 castles on the Rhine.

  0 blond SS.

  Don't believe everything you see in museums.

  126 1

  I said WIPE THAT SMIRK including

  the mouth-foam of superior disgust.

  I don't like the way you go to work every morning.

  How come the buses still run?

  How come they're still making movies?

  I believe with a perfect faith in the Second World War.

  I am convinced that it happened.

  I am not so sure about the First World War.

  The Spanish Civil War-maybe.

  I believe in gold teeth.

  I believe in Churchill.

  Don't tell me we dropped fire into cribs.

  I think you are exaggerating.

  The Treaty of Westphalia has faded like a lipstick

  smudge on the Blarney Stone.

  Napoleon was a sexy brute.

  Hiroshima was Made in Japan out of paper.

  I think we should let sleeping ashes lie.

  I believe with a perfect faith in all the history

  I remember, but it's getting harder and harder

  to remember much history.

  There is sad confetti sprinkling

  from the windows of departing trains.

  I let them go. I cannot remember them.

  They hoot mournfully out of my daily life.

  I forget the big numbers,

  I forget what they mean.

  I apologize to the special photogravure section

  of a I945 newspaper which began my education.

  I apologize left and right.

  I apologize in advance to all the folks

  in this fine wide audience for my tasteless closing remarks.

  I 1 27

  Braun, Raubal and him

  Hitler and his ladies

  (I have some experience in these matters),

  these three humans,

  I can't get their nude and loving bodies out of my mind.

  T H E B U S

  I was the last passenger of the day,

  I was alone on the bus,

  I was glad they were spending all that money

  just getting me up Eighth Avenue.

  Driver! I shouted, it's you and me tonight,

  let's run away from this big city

  to a smaller city more suitable to the heart,

  let's drive past the swimming pools of Miami Beach,

  you in the driver's seat, me several seats back,

  but in the racial cities we'll change places

  so as to show how well you've done up North,

  and let us find ourselves some tiny American fishing village

  in unknown Florida

  and park right at the edge of the sand,

  a huge bus pointing out,

  metallic, painted, solitary,

  with New York plates.

  uB 1

  T H E R E S T I S D R O S S

  We meet at a hotel

  with many quarters for the radio

  surprised that we've survived as lovers

  not each other's

  but lovers still

  with outrageous hope and habits in the craft

  which embarrass us slightly

  as we let them be known

  the special caress the perfect inflammatory word

  the starvation we do not tell about

  We do what only lovers can

  make a gift out of necessity

  Looking at our clothes

  folded over the chair

  I see we no longer follow fashion

  and we own our own skins

  God I'm happy we've forgotten nothing

  and can love each other

  for years in the world

  1 129

  H O W T H E W I N T E R G E T S I N

  I ask you where you want to go

  you say nowhere

  but your eyes make a wish

  An absent chiropractor

  you stroke my wrist

  I'm almost fooled into

  greasy circular snores

  when I notice your eyes

  sounding the wall for

  dynamite points

  like a doctor at work on a TB chest

  Nowhere you say again in a kiss

  go to sleep

  First tell me your wish

  Your lashes startle on my skin

  like a seismograph

  An airliner's perishing drone

  pulls the wall off our room

  like an old Band-aid

  The winter comes in

  and the eyes I don't keep

  tie themselves to a journey

  like wedding tin cans

  Ways Mills

  November z963

  P R O P A G A N D A

  The coherent statement was made

  by father, the gent with spats to

  keep his shoes secret. It had to

  do with the nature of religion and

  the progress of lust in the twentieth

  century. I myself have several

  statements of a competitive

  coherence which I intend to spread

  around at no little expense. I

  love the eternal moment, for

  instance. My father used to remark,

  doffing his miniature medals, that

  there is a time that is ripe for

  everything. A little extravagant,

  Dad, I guess, judging by values.

  Oh well, he'd say, and the whole

  world might have been the address.

  O P I U M A N D H I T L E R

  Several faiths

  bid him leapopium and Hitler

  let him sleep.

  A Negress with

  an appetite

  helped him think

  he wasn't white.

  Opium and Hitler

  made him sure

  the world was glass.

  There was no cure

  for matter

  disarmed as this:

  the state rose on

  a festered kiss.

  Once a dream

  nailed on the sky

  a summer sun

  while it was high.

  He wanted a

  blindfold of skin,

  he wanted the

  afternoon to begin.

  One law brokennothing held.

  The world was wax,

  his to mould.

  Nol He fumbled

  for his history dose.

  The sun came loose,

  his woman dose.

  Lost in a darkness

  their bodies would reach,

  the Leader started

  a racial speech.

  I 133

  F O R A N Y O N E D R E S S E D I N M A R B L E

  The miracle we all are waiting for

  is waiting till the Parthenon falls down

  and House of Birthdays is a house no more

  and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.

  The medals and the records of abuse

  can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust,

  but like whips certain perverts never use,

  compel our flesh in paraly�ing trust.

  I see an orphan, lawless and serene,

  standing in a corner of the sky,

  body something like bodies that have been,

  but not the scar of naming in his eye.

  Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside.

  Light, wind, cold, dark-the
y use him like a bride.

  F O L K

  flowers for hitler the summer yawned

  flowers all over my new grass

  and here is a little village

  they are painting it for a holiday

  here is a little church

  here is a school

  here are some doggies making love

  the flags are bright as laundry

  flowers for hitler the summer yawned

  1 34 I

  I H A D I T F O R A M O M E N T

  I had it for a moment

  I knew why I must thank you

  I saw powerful governing men in black suits

  I saw them undressed

  in the arms of young mistresses

  the men more naked than the naked women

  the men crying quietly

  No that is not it

  I'm losing why I must thank you

  which means I'm left with pure longing

  How old are you

  Do you like your thighs

  I had it for a moment

  I had a reason for letting the picture

  of your mouth destroy my conversation

  Something on the radio

  the end of a Mexican song

  I saw the musicians getting paid

  they are not even surprised

  they knew it was only a job

  Now I've lost it completely

  A lot of people think you are beautiful

  How do I feel about that

  I have no feeling about that

  I had a wonderful reason for not merely

  courting you

  It was tied up with the newspapers

  I saw secret arrangements in high offices

  I saw men who loved their worldliness

  even though they had looked through

  big electric telescopes

  they still thought their worldliness was serious

  I 135

  not just a hobby a taste a harmless affectation

  they thought the cosmos listened

  I was suddenly fearful

  one of their obscure regulations

  could separate us

  I was ready to beg for mercy

  Now I'm getting into humiliation

  I've lost why I began this

  I wanted to talk about your eyes

  I know nothing about your eyes

  and you've noticed how little I know

  I want you somewhere safe

  far from high offices

  I'll study you later

  So many people want to cry quietly beside you

  I N D E P E N D E N C E

  Tonight I will live with my new white skin

  which I found under a millennium of pith clothing

  None of the walls jump when I call them

  Trees smirked you're one of us now

  when I strode through the wheat in my polished boots

  Out of control awake and newly naked

  I lie back in the luxury of my colour

  Somebody is marching for me at me to me

  Somebody has a flag I did not invent

  I think the Aztecs have not been sleeping

  Magic moves from hand to hand like money

  I thought we were the bank the end of the line

  New York City was just a counter

  the crumpled bill passed across

  I thought that heroes meant us

  I have been reading too much history

  and writing too many history books

  Magic moves from hand to hand and I'm broke

  Someone stops the sleepwalker in the middle of the opera

  and pries open his fist finger by finger

  and kisses him goodbye

  I think the Aztecs have not been sleeping

  no matter what I taught the children

  I think no one has ever slept but he

  who gathers the past into stories

  Magic moves from hand to hand

  Somebody is smiling in one of our costumes

  Somebody is stepping out of a costume

  I think that is what invisible means

  I 1 37

  T H E H O U S E

  Two hours off the branch and burnt

  the petals of the gardenia curl and deepen

  in the yellow-brown of waste

  Your body wandered close

  I didn't raise my hand to reach

  the distance was so familiar

  Our house is happy with its old furniture

  the black Venetian bed stands on gold claws

  guarding the window

  Don't take the window away

  and leave a hole in the stark mountains

  The clothesline and the grey clothespins

  would make you think we're going to be together always

  Last night I dreamed

  you were Buddha's wife

  and I was a historian watching you sleep

  What vanity

  A girl told me something beautiful

  Very early in the morning

  she saw an orange-painted wooden boat

  come into port over the smooth sea

  The cargo was hay

  The boat rode low under the weight

  She couldn't see the sailors

  but on top of all the hay sat a monk

  Because of the sun behind he seemed

  to be sitting in a fire

  like that famous photograph

  I forgot to tell you the story

  She surprised me by telling it

  and I wanted her for ten minutes

  I really enjoyed the gardenia from Sophia's courtyard

  1 38 1

  You put it on my table two hours ago

  and I can smell it everywhere in the house

  Darling I attach nothing to it

  T H E L I S T S

  Strafed by the Milky Way

  vaccinated by a snarl of clouds

  lobotomized by the bore of the moon

  he fell in a heap

  some woman's smell

  smeared across his face

  a plan for Social Welfare

  rusting in a trouser cuff

  From five to seven

  tall trees doctored him

  mist roamed on guard

  Then it began again

  the sun stuck a gun in his mouth

  the wind started to skin him

  Give up the Plan give up the Plan

  echoing among its scissors

  The women who elected him

  performed erotic calisthenics

  above the stock-reports

  of every hero's fame

  Out of the corner of his stuffed eye

  etched in minor metal

  under his letter of the alphabet

  he clearly saw his tiny name

  Then a museum slid under

  his remains like a shovel

  I 139

  O R D E R

  In many movies I came upon an idol

  I would not touch, whose forehead jewel

  was safe, or if stolen-mourned.

  Truly, I wanted the lost forbidden city

  to be the labyrinth for wise technicolor

  birds, and every human riddle

  the love.fed champion pursued

  I knew was bad disguise for greed.

  I was with the snake who made his nest

  in the voluptuous treasure, I dropped

  with the spider to threaten the trail-bruised

  white skin of the girl who was searching

  for her brother, I balanced on the limb

  with the leopard who had to be content

  with Negroes and double-crossers

  and never tasted but a slash of hero flesh.

  Even after double-pay I deserted

  with the bearers, believing every rumour

  the wind brought from the mountain pass.

  The old sorceress, the spilled wine,

  the black
cards convinced me:

  the timeless laws must not be broken.

  When the lovers got away with the loot

  of new-valued life or love, or bought

  themselves a share in time by letting

  the avalanche seal away for ever

  the gold goblets and platters, I knew

  a million ways the jungle might have been

  meaner and smarter. As the red sun

  came down on their embrace I shouted

  from my velvet seat, Get them, get them,

  to all the animals drugged with anarchy and happiness.

  August 6, I96J

  D E S T I N Y

  I want your warm body to disappear

  politely and leave me alone in the bath

  because I want to consider my destiny.

  Destiny! why do you find me in this bathtub,

  idle, alone, unwashed, without even

  the intention of washing except at the last moment?

  Why don't you find me at the top of a telephone pole,

  repairing the lines from city to city?

  Why don't you find me riding a horse through Cuba,

  a giant of a man with a red machete?

  Why don't you find me explaining machines

  to underprivileged pupils, negroid Spaniards,

  happy it is not a course in creative writing?

  Come back here, little warm body,

  it's time for another day.

  Destiny has fled and I settle for you

  who found me staring at you in a store

  one afternoon four years ago

  and slept with me every night since.

  How do you find my sailor eyes after all this time?

  Am I what you expected?

  Are we together too much?

  Did Destiny shy at the double Turkish towel,

  our knowledge of each other's skin,

  our love which is a proverb on the block,

  our agreement that in matters spiritual

  I should be the Man of Destiny

  and you should be the Woman of the House?

  Q U E E N V I C T O R I A A N D M E

  Queen Victoria

  my father and all his tobacco loved you

  I love you too in all your forms

  the slim unlovely virgin anyone would lay

  the white figure floating among German beards

  the mean governess of the huge pink maps

  the solitary mourner of a prince

  Queen Victoria

  I am cold and rainy

  I am dirty as a glass roof in a train station

  I feel like an empty cast-iron exhibition

  I want ornaments on everything

  because my love she gone with other boys

  Queen Victoria

  do you have a punishment under the white lace

  will you be short with her

  and make her read little Bibles

  will you spank her with a mechanical corset

  I want her pure as power

  I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats

  will you wash the easy bidets out of her head