Poems

Dawn?—no, the stunted transparency of dawn— Color taken from the birth of a white throat And shaken in a still cup till it gradually reaches strength A sudden scattering of strained light— The smile has lived and seemed to die. Thought?—no, the invisible shudder of a perfume Trying to leave the shadowy pain of a flesh-flower A whisp of it whips itself away, And leaves the rest—a cool, colorless struggle. Sadness?—no, the growth of a pale inclination Which knows not what it is; Which tries to form the beginning of a swift question, But has not yet developed trim lips. And then what seems a smile But is the sleeping body of a laugh. It almost awakes, and throws out Long breaths, in a green and yellow din.

His anger was a strained yellow wire. You leapt into it thinking to snap it, But it flung you off silently.

Her happiness was too apparent— Pleasant flesh in which you sensed heavy blood-clots.

Veering, weary birds were her hatreds. They rested on you for years, Then circled away, still weary.

Her sorrows were clumsy, black bandages Which seemed to hide wide wounds, But only covered scratches.

You are a broad, growing sieve. Men and women come to loosen your supple frame, And weave another slim square into you— Or perhaps a blue oblong, a saffron circle. People fling their powdered souls at you: You seem to loose them, but retain The shifting shadow of a stain on your rigid lines.

Distorted ducks, smirking women and potshaped blossoms Fastened to pale plates, you are dreary symbols of those who painted you. O ducks, you were made by women Who sway in and out of the waters of life, Content to catch morsels of food from birds flying overhead. And you smirking women, were painted by men Who unrolled little souls on plates, Gave them faces which could not quite hide their ugliness ... You alone almost baffle me, potshaped blossoms— Were you fashioned by childless women, who made you the infants Denied them by life?

Her forehead is the wind-colored, sun-stilled wall of a country church. Trailing cloud-shudders overhead narrow it to a thin band of vague light: Two tarnished, exultant cerements of earth—cheeks—meet it, And the three speak clearly, languidly.

Life was a frayed, pampered lily to him— A lily which still clung to his gray coat, Like an unbidden word whitening the death of a smile. The half-smooth perfume of it touched the slanting, cambric curtain of his soul, And stirred it to low song.