Collecte Works (23 page)

stood at my door in the cold days

when the wolf was expected.

She lay her brown nose inside my coat.

We two unfortunate dogs.

                 ”Oh ivy green

         oh ivy green—”

you spoke your poem

as we walked a city terrace

and said if you could hear—sneeze

      sneeze on the corner—

             Handel clean

Christmas would be green

Christmas would be cherished.

             To the mother

       ivy

does not matter

with her son's cold no better

unless a friend should hold her

             warm in a green

                         cover

then Christmas would be cherished

Christmas would be cherished.

As I shook the dust

from my father's door

I saw young Aeneas

on the shore

mulling the past

—a large town

and a wartime island—

a pleasure now.

I'll wait, he said,

till a star shows

that's gone

when it snows.

They live a cool distance

inside today's woods.

My cutting friends' concise art

—intelligence in beauty—

          exacts their violinist son

          to make it come clean-sung.

Their further woods—

they live without food-heavy table,

soft bed, the whole easy lot of us,

the sick, thick leaf-tickling outersurface

lot of us.

     A tough game, art,

     humanity's other part.

Violin Debut

Carnegie Hall, the great musicbox—

lift: the lid on the hard-working parts

of the boy whose smooth power

is saved—

his tone and more: what he's done with his life

—those two who sent the flow thru him have done—

he's been true to himself, a knife

behaved.

OTHER POEMS

             Horse, hello

I too live hot before the final flash

                       cavort for others' gain

We toss our shining heads

in an ever increasing standard of sweat

The mind deranged, Democritus

Who knows us, friend—

our indicator needles shot off scale—

Spinoza, Burns, Xenophanes knew us

in days when thought arose and kindly stayed—

All creatures whatsoever desire this glow

Energy glows at the lips—

a cigarette—

measure the man pending…

under him droppings

larger, whiter than owls'—

What thought burns here?

Hi, Hot-and-Humid

That June she's a lush

Marshmushing, frog bickering

moon pooling, green gripping

fool

keep cool

Woman in middle life

raises hot fears—

a few cool years after these

then who'll remember

flash to black

I gleamed?

We physicians watch the juices rise

                    as we tend

                    to bend her

toward the soft-blowing air.

Girl, personal grass,

                   we saved you

                   waved you

closer. Don't despise us

                   if we ask

                   or do not ask:

what for?

1937

In the picture soldiers

moving thru a field

of flowers,

Spanish reds.

The flowers of war

move cautiously

not to tread

the wild heads.

Here we last,

lilacs, vacant lots,

taxes, no work,

debts, the wind widens

the grass.

In the old house

the clocks are dead,

past dead.