Collected Poems 1931-74 (31 page)

How loud the perfume of common gin

How morose the pigment that covers a lipid

How soft the equal gauze of quits

How purple the pits of amazing berries

How snuff the cough of the rough shark

Your sake, my sake, his sake, her sake

Everyone is entitled to one sake.

1980/
1972

Such was the sagacious Suchness of the Sage

That all of a sudden in his old age

He was uplifted bodily by

A wonderful Umptiousness.

He became Umptious in the highest degree.

A heraldic uproariousness of mind possessed him

And he said:
If
so
things
are,
why
let
them
be.

Enough
of
the
doctors
of
high
degree

Whose
rhetoric
is
the
purest
road-haulage,

Damn
the
deep freeze,
bugger
the
cold
storage

Of
minds
as
cold
as
a
lavatory
seat.

I
will
just
squat
here
in
my
umptious
extravagance

Until
all
the
extremes
agree
to
meet.

It was another way of saying

That he had discovered the heraldic law

Namely, that while someone somewhere

Weeps and tears his hair with his claws

In some other spot someone is laughing:

And both from the same damn cause.

Look
not
for
reason
anywhere;
but
keep

Revelation
for
those
who
least
care.

Be
umptious
if
you
can,
it's
everywhere.

Be
umptious
asleep,
awake,
dressed
or
undressed.

The
scrumptiousness
of
Umptiousness
can
not
be
overstressed.

Is
your
gaiety
fully
enigmatic,

Or
are
you
at
odds
with
some
bedwetting
ghost?

A
mouse
gnawing
at
a
coffin
is
not
static.

Why
do
the
many
never
reach
the
Most?

To
decode
even
the
narrow
and
finite

Stuff
of
life
is
to
tumble
upon
answers.

If
only
space
had
edges
it
would
bite.

If
time
flowed
more
it
would
melt
into
dancers.

The
best
philosopher
of
the
cryptic
mode

Is
at
best
a
primrose
in
the
carnal
mind.

He
only
discovers
what
he
set
out
to
find.

There
is
no
sense
in
all
your
deadlock.

Consider
the
bees,
they
are
all
born
out
of
wedlock.

Enough
of
this
huge
fornication
rosary,

Wearisome
are
the
great
commonplaces.

They
have
no
aptitude
for
death,
agree,

The
million
upon
million
non-Umptious
faces.

In
the
days
of
all
our
Yore

Folklore
was
the
only
Yolklore

Imprinting
was
the
natural
sire

Of
earth
air
water
fire.

Now
to
our
vapid
visual
age

We
present
our
whitewashed
cage,

The
present
burns
in
iron
symmetry

With
love
built
in
like
a
geometry.

If
cleanliness
is
next
to
Godliness

Umptiousness
is
a
sort
of
Sumptuousness,

Umption
the
ultimate
fruit

Of
holy
Gumption.

It
is
not
a
question
of
being
conscious

Or
washing
your
little
white
hands
like
Pontius.

So spake the Sage, disbursing Suchness

Like a fine sow, a more than Muchness.

To have broad canopy with zip and twang

Is the mark of the sage in his cosmic charabanc.

Pain
may
be
relieved
so
often

By
its
own
intensification.

How
well
we
know
those
elephant
neuroses

Lead
to
the
girls
who
always
dish
out
doses.

Live
the
life
of
a
stowaway
in
this
world,

All
places,
languages
or
nations,

Old
couples
clinging
together
like
tired
gloves

Images
of
disaster
in
a
renewal
of
patience.