SIMPLE ACCOUNT OF A POET’S LIFE

IN 1892 When literature and art in America Presented a mildewed but decorous mien, He was born. During the first months of his life His senses had not yet learned to endure The majestic babble of old sterilities. The vacuum of his brain Felt a noisy thinness outside, Which it could not hear or see, And gave it the heavier substance Of yells that were really creation Fighting its way to form. (When babies shriek they seek Power in thought and action. Life objects to their intent And forces their voices to repent.) At the age of four he lived inwardly, With enormous shapeless emotions Taking his limbs, like waves. His mind was vapour censured By an occasional protest That mumbled and could not be heard. People to him were headless figures— Bodies surmounted by voices That tickled like feathers, or struck like rocks. Missiles thrown from moving mountain-tops And leaving only resentment at their touch. At ten the voices receded To invisible meanings That toyed with flesh-protected secrets of faces. The voices made promises Which the faces continually evaded, And often the voices in vengeance Changed a lip or an eye-brow To repeat their neglected demands. When swung to him the voices Were insolent enigmas, Tripping him as he stood Midway between fright and indifference. He sometimes tittered tranquilly At the obvious absurdity of this. His rages were false and sprang From aloof thoughts chanting over their chains. The immediate cause of each rage Merely opened a door Upon this changeless inner condition. That species of intoxicated thought Which men describe as emotion Used its merriment to blind his eye-sight. But anger, whose real roots are in the mind, Tendered him times of hot perception. He noticed that children held flexible flesh That wisely sought a variety of patterns— Flesh intent upon correcting Its closeted effect— While older people enticed their flesh Into erect and formal lies Repeated until their patience died And they tried an unpracticed rebellion. This was a formless revelation, Unattended by words But throwing its indistinct contrast Over his broad one-colored thought. At sixteen he employed words To flay the contrast into shapes. At seventeen he decided To emulate the gay wisdom of children’s flesh. He deliberately borrowed whiskey To wipe away the lessons of older people Lest they intrude their sterility Upon his plotting exuberance. He placed his hands on women, Gently, boldly, as one Experimenting with a piano. He stole money, begged on street-corners, And answered people with an actual knife Merely to give his thoughts and emotions A changing reason for existence. Moderation seemed to him A figure half asleep and half awake And mutilating the truth of each condition. At twenty-four his flesh became tired, And to amuse the weariness His hands wrote poetry. He had done this before, But only as a gleeful reprimand To the speed of his limbs. Now he wrote with the motives of one Whose flesh is passing into less visible manners. At times he returned to more concrete motions, To befriend the handmaiden of his flesh, But gradually he longed For the complete secrecy of written creation, Enjoying the novelty of a hiding-place. In 1962 He died with a grin at the fact That literature and art in America Were still presenting a mildewed, decorous mien.