Collecte Works (52 page)

Black as those beside Troy

but sailless tar-preserve-black fish barges

and orange and Chinese red rowboats

in which the three virtues

               knowledge, humanity, energy

infrequently ride.

Ask me rather what kind of people

           —here they kick the book of poetry open—

because you can't keep people from water

they'll cut thru to it                                                               20

rut thru in the soft

dig under and come up in the middle,

by water they go for Helen

in water seek their own image

fish Sunday's quiet

by water uncork their beer

on days off

                     to see light behave

                     double moon on the wave

water where bobbed likely the first life on earth.                      30

Right of way—

you can't keep em from it.

Ask me what kind of children.

Who are the kids of the calm-moving wet,

of Saturday-Sunday parents.

One with listening eyes like yours

little Sat Sun shall we say

sits in the thinning wild rice

watching wide sky wash

away from the laundry.                                                         40

One.

What we have is the Sunday school crowd

laying waste the countryside

with their long sticks.

Beat the grass

whip Queen Anne's lace

bow low, my family of young poplars

oh holy day

The sons and the daughters

on their way to water,                                                            50

your floaters, your doters,

your wigglers, your little pond scum

turtle torturers, danglers of frogs

in any mud puddle

your wuttle-gutt goop longs

             —they can't talk—

the pings and the ack acks

dealing death to the little green thing

cute kids

kee-yute tribe                                                                         60

who at six steer the motor boat

straight to the dock

No they can't talk

they combust

or they mush it

Dennie's the spitwit kid

chewer of seaweed inland

             juices, breaks up into acids

related to what was his name

                who could speak no English                                    70

                his tongue runneth all on buttered fish

yet asleep in his army blankets

as sweet a child as any

And there's always the army

to make a man of him.

Take his brother, 19,

no better butter-mutter

no clear song, fished out

left town

         empty in the head                                                           80

                               swish swash

but good with three bullets on a knife

                  After me

                              backward

                                   the cockpit

                                           fell out

                  Give me silk

                              or nylon

                                   and down

                                           with your art                                90

You saw Guppy the fleet type submarine, Paul

I give you Gulpy

To hear him

he could hold up his arm

and keep the bomb from falling

or he could drop it.

Frog jabber

grab her

she's mine to pierce

ready for love                                                                       100

Gloater, soaker, roaring river boater

emptied, poured out, done,

stick out your tongue

mammoth oar-muscle baby

The day of the giant armored fishes

                      was a clear thing

Five-year-old Chief Noise

guns strewn over his lawn

his Uncle a Justice

held us up one night by the garden gate                                  110

throws the cat by the tail at noon

cries to get her in out of the rain

                         after dark

He'll take no backwash from anybody

What does the father do?

                      He steals. I mean

                      he works for a steel company.

Well, why not?—

steals from himself

as they from him                                                                  120

his time, his life.

His pleasure in his work

                 flows by.

He's left loved

for the spending of his wages

                        on things he won't want.

All children begin with the life of the mind—

if there were no marsh or stream

imagine it

99 children go into business                                                  130

                                 selling angleworms,

the hundredth develops free fingers in John Sebastian brook

Boys who play the fiddle never amount to anything

the storekeeper screamed

with the radio in his face

so he raised his son to shop work

turn screws, grind scissors

and in the end own stores

               force his rivals to the wall then buy em out

                            selling and buying                                     140

                            how are you dying

                                    worn out at fifty

                                              nevermind the mind

while poets and players

of serious song

stand the stress

All along the water

50,000 crusading children

beat their way to the pretty sea shells.

Find yourself a starfish and you'll see the sea open                   150

And still there's no miracle.

Sold into slavery

sold

Brother

           sold to the factory assembly line

           for “a worthwhile goal—an automobile”

           costing more than my house.

           The boy overshot his goal at dusk

           hit a cow on the road

           that carried no lantern                                                160

           jumped over the moon

           slid into a grave ready-blossoming

                             —wild mustard and quack—

           the car repaired

           sold

Road boat upset

hooked as by love

the greatest thrill

since his tongue froze to the pump handle

this is the boy who'd defend you in war                                  170

and so doing crush you

haul over and love you

When other friendships are forgot

yours will still be hot

Put that in your Opus

5 f's for forte

One boy there was with a camera:

“I need nests 6 or 7 feet from the ground

and on which the sun shines

most of the day. Prothonotary, please.                                    180

I'm told if anybody knows where these nests are

it will be you.”

He was a minister's son

                  I never saw him—

                                         driven off his course by the wind

Comes a measure marked autumn

the passing of the little summer people,

schools of leaves float downstream

past lonely piers

soft still-water twilight                                                          190

morning ice on the minnow bucket

Riddle me this:

                             book

                             brook

                                             Bach

                                             unlock

                                                             ships'

                                                             gifts

and I'll tell you

how freedom grows                                                             200

Two other MS versions of the five-page poem survive: one went to Dahlberg on Aug. 30, 1955, for inclusion in a proposed but never published anthology. It is titled “Part V of
FOR PAUL,
9 year old violinist” and it includes the following variants:

line 3: are bound for England?

lines 5-8: The direct speech is enclosed in quotation marks.

line 66: “Dennie” is replaced by “Danny”.

lines 175-76 (“Put that…forte”) are omitted and replaced by the following excerpt from an early and subsequently rejected (see p. 136) “
FOR PAUL
” poem:

The elegant office girl

is power-rigged.

She carries her nylon hard-pointed

breast uplift

like parachutes

half-pulled.

The third long MS version of the poem is in FPOP with the following variants:

line 3: are to be bound for England?

lines 5-8: The direct speech is enclosed in quotation marks.

line 66: “Dennie” is replaced by “Reggy,”

line 126: “The elegant office girl” lines above are inserted between “on things he won't want” and “All children begin…”.

The “
FOR PAUL: CHILD VIOLINIST
” selection in
Quarterly Review of Literature
8.2 (1955): 117-19, included what LN described in an Aug. 30, 1955, letter to Dahlberg as a “section” of the long poem “Dear Paul”: lines 1-16 (“dear Paul:…in frequently ride.”) and lines 127-32 (“All children begin…John Sebastian Brook”). Here is her Nov. 16, 1955, statement to Dahlberg: “The reason I took a section out (for
Quart. Rev. of Lit.)
of the long
FOR PAUL
poem I sent you was that it wasn't going with editors as it was and the mood of those few lines seemed to fit in with the others for Weiss [ed. of
QRL
]. But I have always felt that that long poem, section V of the series which I called
FOR PAUL,
is a whole, a rangy, perhaps too long poem but nevertheless a poem.”

The poem “
Autumn
” in
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse
. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1, is drawn from lines 188-91 of “Dear Paul” (see p.217).

T&G
and
MLBW
duplicate the
QRL
version to which they add lines 10-14 from “Your father to me in your eighth summer” (see p. 146) followed and concluded by lines 186-91 (“Comes a measure marked autumn”…“morning ice on the minnow bucket”).

The
T&G
and
MLBW
versions make two revisions: line 16 reads, “Sometimes ride.” and line 28 (of the present text) reads, “Yes, comes a measure marked Autumn”.
MLBW
differs from
T&G
in the addition of line 18: if there were no marsh or stream.

EA uses only lines 1-16, printing them in quatrains with an amended line 9: You ask what kind of boats

My father said “I remember   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

In poem I of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP SEVEN
” MS (undated, probably 1952/3) there is a second stanza:

Play those little records again

no sweeter music

than the violin.

The Aug. 30, 1955, MS sent to Dahlberg adds an additional line to the start of the second stanza, “Now I enjoy the stove” and revises “records” to “discs”.

FPOP revises line 11 to “Now I need a stove”.

Revised to the present text for “
THREE POEMS,
”
Granta
71.12456 (1964/5): 19.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 9.

No quotation marks used until
MLBW.

You know, he said, they used to make   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

In poem II of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP SEVEN
” MS (undated, probably 1952/3) and in FPOP, lines 1-2 read:

The old man said you know they used

to make mincemeat with meat,

He built four houses   
MFT, T&G, MLBW
[FPOP, EA, VV].

Poem III of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP SEVEN
” (undated, probably 1952/3).

In a numbered group of “
FOUR POEMS,
”
Black Mountain Review
6 (Spring 1956): 192.

In Europe they grow a new bean while here   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

An undated early MS:

In Russia they grow a new bean (being) while here

we tie bundles of grass

with a strand of itself as they used to American grain

—against the cold blast

around my house—my neighbor: Do yet in Russia I guess

From his sister in Maine: We've found a nice warm place

(in the hay?)

for the winter. Charlie sleeps late, I'm glad for his sake,

it shortens the day.

Around my house in America yet.

variant final line: Around my house old bean in America yet.

A second MS, dated Dec. 1, 1951, shows the following line revisions:

line 1: In Russia they grow a new bean while here

line 3: With strands of itself as they used to American grain,

line 10: Around my house the old bean in America yet.

Poem IV in “
FOR PAUL: GROUP SEVEN
” (undated, probably 1952/3) revises:

line 3: with strands of itself—as my grandfolks used to grain

line 5: From my cousin in Maine: We've found a nice warm place

The rest of the poem is revised to the present text.

A change from “Russia” to “Europe” is marked on the above MS in LZ's hand. However, in “Changes in
FOR PAUL
” (Jan. 29, 1955), LN notes: “I kept: In Russia they grow a new bean but changed Russia to Europe!” The change is hers and it occurs two or three years after the above MS. My speculation is that LZ would have retrieved his copy of the undated (probably 1952/3) MS in order to examine her revision and, at the same time, would have inscribed her change.