hell harder than horn

 

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...’s long lengths announced thy birth From a shell harder than horn. Thy soft albino gaze Spoke to my spirit

(c) It is queer enough here, perhaps. Some rare new tedium is taking shape. I smell the jumps ahead. Can a cat milk a hen?

  1. (a) A whisper of what, You round dog? — Is the wasp tender? John-of-the-thumbs jumping; Commodities, here we come!

(b) A shape comes to stay: The long flesh. I know the way out of a laugh; I’m a twig to touch, Pleased as a knife.

  1. (a) You all-of-a-sudden gods, There’s a ghost loose in the long grass! My sweetheart’s still in her cave. Give waked the wrong wind: I’m alone with my ribs; The lake washes its stones. You’ve seen me, prince of stinks, Naked and entire. Exalted? Yes, — By the lifting of the tail of a neighbor’s cat, Or that old harpy secreting toads in her portmanteau.

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Mamma! Put on your dark hood; It is long way to somewhere else. The shade says: love the sun. I have — La, la, The light turns. The moon still abides. I hear you, alien on the moon. Is the sun under my arm? My sleep deceives me. Has the dark a door? I’m somewhere else, — I insist! I am —

⑥ O LULL ME, LULL ME

  1. (a) One sigh stretches heaven. In this, the diocese of mice, Who’s bishop of breathing?

(b) How still she keeps herself. Blessed be tapir. Not all animals Move about.

(c) Tell me, great lords are sting, Is it time to think? When I say things fond, I hear singing. O my love’s light as a duck On a moon-forgotten wave!

(d) The sea has many streets; The beach rises with the wave. I know my own bones:

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...the finger. This dirt is lonesome for grass. Are the rats dancing? The cats are. And you, Cat after great milk and vasty fishes, A moon loosened from a stay’s eye, Twiced me nicely, — In the green of my sleep, In the green.

  1. (a) Mother of blue and the many changes of hay, This tail hates a flat path. Give let my nose out; I could melt down a stone, — How is it with the long birds? May I look too, loved eye? It’s a wink beyond the world. In the slow rain, who’s afraid? We’re king and queen of the right ground. I’ll risk the winter for you.

(b) You tree beginning to know, You whisper of kidneys, We’ll swinge the instant! — With jots and jogs and cinders on the floor. The sea will be there, the great squawky streets Biting themselves perhaps; The shrillest frogs; And the ghost of some great howl Dead in a wall.

(c) On the high-noon of thighs, In the springtime of stones, We’ll stretch with the great stems. We’ll be at the business of what might be Looking toward what we are —

  1. (a) You child with a breast’s heart, Make me a bird or a bear!

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I can’t catch a bush.

  1. (a) The herrings are awake. What’s all the singing between? — Is it with whispers and kissing? — I have listened into the last wave. The grass says what the wind says: Begin with the rock; End with water.

(b) When I stand, I’m almost a tree. Leaves, do you like me any? A swan needs a pond. The worm and the rose Both love Rain.

  1. (a) O small bird wakening, Light as a hand among blossoms, Hardly any old angels are around any more. The air’s quiet under the small leaves. The dust, the long dust, stays. The spiders sail into summer. It’s time to begin! To begin!

⑤ GIVE WAY, YE GATES

  1. (a) Believe me, knot of gristle, I bleed like a tree; I dream of nothing but boards; I could love a duck.

(b) Such music in a skin! A bird sings in the bush of your bones. Tufty, the water’s loose.

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(c) Her feet said yes. It was all my. I said to the gate, Who else knows What water does? Dew ate the fire.

(d) I know another fire Has roots.

③ BRING THE DAY

  1. (a) Bees and lilies there were, Bees and lilies there were, Either to other, — Which would you rather? Bees and lilies were there.

(b) The green grasses, — would they? The green grasses? — She asked her skin To let me in: The far leaves were for it.

(c) Forever is easy, she said — How many angels do you know? — And over by Algy’s Something came by me, It wasn’t a goose, It wasn’t a puddle.

(d) Everything’s closer. Is this a cage? The chill’s gone from the moon. Only the woods are alive. I can’t marry the dirt.

(e) Give a biscuit. I’m melted already. The white weather hates me. Why is how I like it.

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I’ve played with the fishes Among the unwrinkling ferns In the wake of a ship of wind; But now the instant ages, And my thought hunts another body. I’m sad with the little owls.

  1. (a) Touch and arouse. Suck and sob. Curse and moan. It is a cold scrape in a low place. The dead crow dries on a pole. Shapes in the shadows Watch.

(b) The mouth asks. The handle takes. These wings are from the wrong nest. Who stands in a hole Never spills.

(c) I hear the clip of an old wind. The cold knows when to come. What beats in me. I still bear.

(d) The deep stream remembers: Once I was a pond. What slides away Provides.

④ SENSIBILITY! O LA!

  1. (a) I’m the serpent of somebody else. See! She’s sleeping like a lake: — Glory to seize, I say.

(b) In the fair night of some dim brain, Thou wert marmorean-born. I name thee: wench of things, A true zephyr — haunted woodie.

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One father is enough. (d) Maybe God has a house But not here.

② I NEED, I NEED

  1. (a) A deep dish. Lumps in it. I can’t taste my mother. Hoo. I know the spoon. Sit in my mouth.

(b) A sneeze can’t sleep. Diddle we care Cloudly.

(c) Went down cellar, Talked to a faucet; The drippy water Had nothing to say.

(d) Whisper me over, Why don’t you, begonia, There’s no alas Where I live.

(e) Scratched the wind with a stick. The leaves liked it. Do the dead bite? Mamma, she’s a sad fat.

(f) A dove said dove all the day. A hat is a house I hide in his.

  1. (a) Even steven, all is less: I haven’t time for sugar, Put your finger in your face, And there will be a bager.

(b) One is a two is I know what you is:

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You’re not very nice, — So touch my toes twice.

(c) I know you are my nemesis So bibble where the pebble is. The Trouble is with NO and Yes As you can see I guess I guess.

(d) I wish I was a pifflebob I wish I was a fumy I wish I had ten thousand hats, And made a lot of money.

(e) Open a hole and see the sky: A duck knows something You and I don’t. Tomorrow is Friday.

(f) Not you I need. Go play with your nose. Stay in the sun, Snake-eyes.

  1. (a) Stop the larks. Can I have my heart back? Today I saw a beard in a cloud. The ground cried my name: Good-bye for being wrong. Love helps the sun. But not enough.

  2. (a) When you plant, spit in the pot. A pick likes to hit ice. Hooray for me and the mice! — The cats are all right.

(b) Hear me, soft ears and roundy stones! It’s a dear life I can touch. Who’s ready for pink and frisk? My hoe eats like a goat.

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(e) I keep dreaming of bees. The flesh has airy bones. Going is knowing. I see; I seek; I’m near. Be true, Skin.

② THE VISITANT

  1. (a) A cloud moved close. The bulk of the wind shifted. A tree swayed over water. A voice said: Stay. Stay by the slip-ooze. Stay.

(b) Dearest tree, I said, may I rest here? A ripple made a soft reply. I waited, alert as a dog. The leech clinging to a stone waited; And the crab, the quiet breather.

  1. (a) Slow, slow as a fish she came, Slow as as a fish coming forward, Swaying in a long wave; Her skirts not touching a leaf, Her white arms reaching towards me.

(b) She came without sound, Without brushing the wet stones, In the soft dark of early evening She came, The wind in her hair, The moon beginning.

  1. (a) I woke in the first of morning. Staring at a tree, I felt the pulse of a stone.

(b) Where’s she now, I kept saying. Where’s she now, the mountain’s downy girl?

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(c) But the bright day had no answer. A wind stirred in a web of appleworms; The tree, the close willow, swayed.

⑤ A LIGHT BREATHER

(a) The spirit moves, Yet stays: Stirs as a blossom stirs, Still wet from its bud-sheath, Slowly unfolding, Turning in the light with its tendrils; Plays as a minnow plays, Tethered to a limp weed, swinging, Tail around, nosing in and out of the current, Its shadows loose, a watery finger; Moves, like the snail, Still inward, Taking and embracing its surroundings, Never wishing itself away, Unafraid of what it is, A music in a hood, A small thing, Singing.

④ ELEGY FOR JANE

My student, Thrown by a Horse

(a) I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils; And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile; And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped And she balanced in the delight of her thought, for her, A wren, happy, tail into the wind, Her song trembling the twigs and small branches. The shade sang with her; The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing;

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