As I sit at my desk wishing
I did not have to edit a book
on poetry and painting a
subject that fascinates me
usually, but today is not as
usual, being today, white sky,
decent amount of sunlight,
forty one degrees in Central Park,
and it makes sense to dream of
Chicago, another big city
with two major league ballclubs,
and the pleasure of seeing Paul
and you, too, Elaine, whom
I never get to see often enough
in our own city of the subway series
the champagne gallery and
the tech wreck on wall street,

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere,
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
That never touch with inarticulate pang
Those dying generations-at their song.
The One remains, the many change and pass
The expiring swan, and as he sings he dies.
The earth, the stars, the light, the day, the skies,
A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines,
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too-
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,

'Twas in a little western town
An ancient Maiden dwelt:
Her name was MISS, or MISTRESS, Brown,
Or DEBORAH, or DEBBY: She
Was doom'd a Spinster pure to be,
For soft delights her breast ne'er felt:
Yet, she had watchful Ears and Eyes
For ev'ry youthful neighbour,
And never did she cease to labour
A tripping female to surprize.

And why was she so wond'rous pure,
So stiff, so solemn--so demure?
Why did she watch with so much care
The roving youth, the wand'ring fair?
The tattler, Fame, has said that she

Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.
II
Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves they used to say, and it may be that we were:
Where the price of life is a naked knife and dammed are nine in ten,
It doesn't do to be curious in the Legion Etrangère.
III

Laid now on his smooth bed
For the last time, watching dully
Through heavy eyelids the day's colour
Widow the sky, what can he say
Worthy of record, the books all open,
Pens ready, the faces, sad,
Waiting gravely for the tired lips
To move once -- what can he say?

His tongue wrestles to force one word
Past the thick phlegm; no speech, no phrases
For the day's news, just the one word ‘sorry';
Sorry for the lies, for the long failure
In the poet's war; that he preferred
The easier rhythms of the heart

They tell me that your heart
has been found in Iowa,
pumping along Interstate 35.
Do you want it back?

When the cold comes on
this fast, it's Iowa again--
where pollen disperses
evenly on the dented Fords,

where white houses sag
by the town's corn silos,
where people in the houses
sicken on corn dust.

Auctions sell entire farms.
It's not the auctions that's upsetting
but what they sell, the ragged towel
or the armless doll, for a dollar.

I hear they've found

When these dead leaves were green, love,
   November's skies were blue,
And summer came with lips aflame,
   The gentle spring to woo;
And to us, wandering hand in hand,
   Life was a fairy scene,
That golden morning in the woods
   When these dead leaves were green!

How dream-like now that dewy morn,
   Sweet with the wattle's flowers,
When love, love, love was all our theme,
   And youth and hope were ours!

Days of nothingness
Days of clear skies the temperature descending
Days of no telephone calls or all the wrong ones
Days of complete boredom and nothing
is happening
Days of 1967 coming to a close in the frigid condition of chest
cold and cough
drops
Days of afternoons in the life of a young girl
not being on time
Days of daydreams exploding
Days of utter frustration
Days of my film being cursed and myself
with the curse never lifting
Days of closed windows to keep the cold
out the livingroom warm

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all.

I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

I am a Day . . .
My sky is grey,
My wind is wild,
My sea high-piled:
In year of days the first
In misery . . .
Oh pity me!
I am a Day
Accurst.
II
"Sweet Day, not curst but blest:
Behold upon my breast
My baby born
Your early morn.
Safe in my arms alway . . .
Oh precious Day,
let tempest be,
You are to me
In heart of mine
Divine."

* * * * * * *

I am a Day . . .
From dawn's pure ray
Like to a peerless gem
In summer's diadem,