Stiff-backed in a train carriage, smiling across,
The kindly gentleman opens up his black bag
To coax a little girl into puzzles and games,
Her laughing mother looking fondly on.
Pert cherubs, an ever-enlarging harem
Of prepubescent mademoiselles, all his own!
Meticulously fussing in his college studio,
He poses another darling for the camera.
Seductive visions, collected to be cherished…
Malarial fever of perverse invention,
Gadgets and improvements, sophic sleights,
Self-patented methods of being a self.
Stammering nonce, vestal virgin of the word,
He catalogues monstrous hoards of letters,
Each trophy arranged by precise protocol,-
‘Explanatory”,”advisory”,”diverting”, “offended”.
Walking acrostic,the player and the game,
Salvaging shipwrecks from sleepless nights,
Knotty paradoxes,delicious freaks of logic,
He savours the biblical violence of puns.
Rowing on the river, by Elysian meadows,
The exultant reverend extemporizes a tale
To bright little Alice, rapt as she coxes,
“Promise, Mr Dodgson, to write it all down!”.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The Venerable Gnome's Remarks
Laconic light says everything,
Blent with every place and time;
Thesaurus earth’s imagining
Lives by synonym and rhyme.
The cherry stone’s a batholith,
A planet’s magnetic core;
Fruiting flesh cleaves to pith
And grows into its contour.
The gardener by his occult art
Prunes a necessary end,
Grafts a cutting from his heart,
Some stunted growth to mend.
Mountain stumps muster heights
Of land long-weathered;
The farmer’s goat protests, fights
But stays fast-tethered.
Grit has edged into the shell,
Reserved beneath deep sands;
Above, a ship rings its bell,
Summoning on deck all hands.
Silence in the mouth is rolled,
Savour of ruins, forgotten kings,
And men who murdered all for gold
And envied birds their wings.
Blent with every place and time;
Thesaurus earth’s imagining
Lives by synonym and rhyme.
The cherry stone’s a batholith,
A planet’s magnetic core;
Fruiting flesh cleaves to pith
And grows into its contour.
The gardener by his occult art
Prunes a necessary end,
Grafts a cutting from his heart,
Some stunted growth to mend.
Mountain stumps muster heights
Of land long-weathered;
The farmer’s goat protests, fights
But stays fast-tethered.
Grit has edged into the shell,
Reserved beneath deep sands;
Above, a ship rings its bell,
Summoning on deck all hands.
Silence in the mouth is rolled,
Savour of ruins, forgotten kings,
And men who murdered all for gold
And envied birds their wings.
Wild Card
I can see through you,
Read the cards in your hand.
I am here to take your money.
Do you believe me to be the strongest, the best?
Well, then, I am, I am.
I scrutinize your every mannerism,
As you give yourself away;
Be you timid, or aggressive,
I catch the false notes.
There you are, stripped bare,
The unsuspecting loser,
Thinking yourself oh-so clever
Even as you throw the game away.
I will step aside to watch you fall in slow motion,
Then kick your corpse with pleasure.
I will mesmerize you; bend your will
to my own
Drive you to suicide then show you
That you held the winning hand after all.
I live for my opponents;
I con them, manipulate them, get them where I want them,
Wait very patiently
Then deliver the killer punch.
What fun to misplay a few hands on purpose,
To bluff and counter-bluff.
Who is the sucker here?
You think it is me?
With a raise too aggressive
Or a call too timid,
With the tiniest gesture,
Sooner or later
You will give yourself away;
Sure that you alone
Can defy the odds,
You will overplay your hand.
We are the night’s assassins,
Men who like to win,
Edging towards the showdown,
Ready to go broke.
Here you need your sixth sense to survive.
Look into the others’ minds,
See their agonies and delusions,
Feel the whims of fate.
At times you almost feel divine,
Letting the energy flow through you,
Taking over your thoughts and decisions,
Guiding you serenely one way or the other,
Until you just know that you are going to win,
If only you listen to the voice within,
Your hand steady, your patience absolute,
Doing everything for a reason.
There you are, always keeping score,
Counting your money,
Keeping your show on the road,
One day a millionaire, the next day broke.
Do you have the nerve to back your own instincts,
To take your life in your own hands?
Believe in no one and nothing,
Wage silent war with all your ingenuity,
Superstitious and cruel.
Out of a myriad possibilities,
I am dealt a single hand,
A single combination of chances.
I take my life to the table
And play.
I am the businessman juggling figures,
The politician telling lies,
The cheating spouse,
The manipulative child.
Sometimes, it seems, I want to, I have to, lose,
The agony makes me happy for a while,
In this foul world that only pleases fools.
Read the cards in your hand.
I am here to take your money.
Do you believe me to be the strongest, the best?
Well, then, I am, I am.
I scrutinize your every mannerism,
As you give yourself away;
Be you timid, or aggressive,
I catch the false notes.
There you are, stripped bare,
The unsuspecting loser,
Thinking yourself oh-so clever
Even as you throw the game away.
I will step aside to watch you fall in slow motion,
Then kick your corpse with pleasure.
I will mesmerize you; bend your will
to my own
Drive you to suicide then show you
That you held the winning hand after all.
I live for my opponents;
I con them, manipulate them, get them where I want them,
Wait very patiently
Then deliver the killer punch.
What fun to misplay a few hands on purpose,
To bluff and counter-bluff.
Who is the sucker here?
You think it is me?
With a raise too aggressive
Or a call too timid,
With the tiniest gesture,
Sooner or later
You will give yourself away;
Sure that you alone
Can defy the odds,
You will overplay your hand.
We are the night’s assassins,
Men who like to win,
Edging towards the showdown,
Ready to go broke.
Here you need your sixth sense to survive.
Look into the others’ minds,
See their agonies and delusions,
Feel the whims of fate.
At times you almost feel divine,
Letting the energy flow through you,
Taking over your thoughts and decisions,
Guiding you serenely one way or the other,
Until you just know that you are going to win,
If only you listen to the voice within,
Your hand steady, your patience absolute,
Doing everything for a reason.
There you are, always keeping score,
Counting your money,
Keeping your show on the road,
One day a millionaire, the next day broke.
Do you have the nerve to back your own instincts,
To take your life in your own hands?
Believe in no one and nothing,
Wage silent war with all your ingenuity,
Superstitious and cruel.
Out of a myriad possibilities,
I am dealt a single hand,
A single combination of chances.
I take my life to the table
And play.
I am the businessman juggling figures,
The politician telling lies,
The cheating spouse,
The manipulative child.
Sometimes, it seems, I want to, I have to, lose,
The agony makes me happy for a while,
In this foul world that only pleases fools.
War in the Labyrinth
The eye on manoeuvrres
Constructs a terrain,
A battleground of souls.
Is it true we can escape
From rooms full of knick-knacks,
The tyranny of hollow objects
And “good taste”?
Shall we return to ourselves in triumph,
Skeletons singing?
Mother Hell has borne another litter.
Look; a man, so tiny,
A frightened rabbit running,
Fleeing the earth’s upheaval,
Clinging to the ground,
Crying out to God,
Whom he suddenly believes in.
Wolfskinned, bearskinned,
Exiled from humankind,
The warriors, the neophytes,
Breathe fire.
Buried alive,
Speechless corpses,
They are heaved
Into a ditch.
Do we only dream them,
The unseen foe?
Men, like us,
Small, earth-coloured,
Startled from under rocks
And bushes.
On the edge
Of never-having-been,
We dwell in severance,
With severance to come.
Stripped of prideful skin,
Blindfolded,
Branded,
Maimed,
We make nowhere home.
The Ice Age crushes us
With glaciers.
Superstition slithers under the skin;
Rumour’s voodoo rides us.
Welcome to the trance.
Do you too wish to pledge your heart
To the pyre,
To be burned transparent?
Stuttering, mute,
The dismembered
Huddle, blindly staring,
In the hospital grounds,
Demonic spasms quaking
Their puppet bodies,
Their white-knuckled hands
Clenching nothing.
Blood of the slain
Runs off through the proper channels.
Horses turned to glue.
Someone somewhere
Lights a cigar.
And the loveless sleep in their own arms,
Unable to trust what they might reach.
Constructs a terrain,
A battleground of souls.
Is it true we can escape
From rooms full of knick-knacks,
The tyranny of hollow objects
And “good taste”?
Shall we return to ourselves in triumph,
Skeletons singing?
Mother Hell has borne another litter.
Look; a man, so tiny,
A frightened rabbit running,
Fleeing the earth’s upheaval,
Clinging to the ground,
Crying out to God,
Whom he suddenly believes in.
Wolfskinned, bearskinned,
Exiled from humankind,
The warriors, the neophytes,
Breathe fire.
Buried alive,
Speechless corpses,
They are heaved
Into a ditch.
Do we only dream them,
The unseen foe?
Men, like us,
Small, earth-coloured,
Startled from under rocks
And bushes.
On the edge
Of never-having-been,
We dwell in severance,
With severance to come.
Stripped of prideful skin,
Blindfolded,
Branded,
Maimed,
We make nowhere home.
The Ice Age crushes us
With glaciers.
Superstition slithers under the skin;
Rumour’s voodoo rides us.
Welcome to the trance.
Do you too wish to pledge your heart
To the pyre,
To be burned transparent?
Stuttering, mute,
The dismembered
Huddle, blindly staring,
In the hospital grounds,
Demonic spasms quaking
Their puppet bodies,
Their white-knuckled hands
Clenching nothing.
Blood of the slain
Runs off through the proper channels.
Horses turned to glue.
Someone somewhere
Lights a cigar.
And the loveless sleep in their own arms,
Unable to trust what they might reach.
Egyptian Baraka
You, who drink tea in the date palm’s shade,
A few steps and you are in the desert,
With the Nile running south to north
And the sun chasing east to west,
And you at the crossroads,
Always at the crossroads.
Stones, sand and dust are your birthright,
Where wild dogs and jackals patrol
And the mountainside caves
Are filled with bits of ancient bones.
Can you hunker down, sit still
And live with the gods?
We are dead men in the house of life,
Praying for the river to rise to sixteen ells,
The number of abundance.
In the hands of Osiris,
In the hands of Jesus,
Are the crook and flail.
Cut me a coffin from a sycamore tree
And I shall float downriver,
Lying on my back.
Mother, light a candle for your son.
A few steps and you are in the desert,
With the Nile running south to north
And the sun chasing east to west,
And you at the crossroads,
Always at the crossroads.
Stones, sand and dust are your birthright,
Where wild dogs and jackals patrol
And the mountainside caves
Are filled with bits of ancient bones.
Can you hunker down, sit still
And live with the gods?
We are dead men in the house of life,
Praying for the river to rise to sixteen ells,
The number of abundance.
In the hands of Osiris,
In the hands of Jesus,
Are the crook and flail.
Cut me a coffin from a sycamore tree
And I shall float downriver,
Lying on my back.
Mother, light a candle for your son.
Gods and Men
Some say the gods are with us still,
That they never even left us,
They are here in our letters,
Seldom glimpsed,
But not to be denied.
Mercurial is the word for it,
The way they evanesce,
These presences,
Outliving liturgy and rhyme.
Are the gods displeased with us?
Does our literature offend them?
When Ajax Oileus
Saw Calchas walking
He knew just from his gait
That it was Poseidon in disguise.
Perhaps you know the feeling.
Carefully the gods select
Those to whom they appear.
They judge their effects most shrewdly.
Centaurs are still needed,
Grazing among the trees,
Subtle as apostrophes and semi-colons.
Socrates was proud
To call himself a nympholept;
And who knows but drowning
Made Hylas wise?
What you scry in the water
Is yours to work with,
That quivering dazzling force.
The spider’s lexicon will trap you
Just like any other fly.
The offices of sound allow you this:
A puissant gesture, a winning glance.
The gods, too, were mortal once.
That they never even left us,
They are here in our letters,
Seldom glimpsed,
But not to be denied.
Mercurial is the word for it,
The way they evanesce,
These presences,
Outliving liturgy and rhyme.
Are the gods displeased with us?
Does our literature offend them?
When Ajax Oileus
Saw Calchas walking
He knew just from his gait
That it was Poseidon in disguise.
Perhaps you know the feeling.
Carefully the gods select
Those to whom they appear.
They judge their effects most shrewdly.
Centaurs are still needed,
Grazing among the trees,
Subtle as apostrophes and semi-colons.
Socrates was proud
To call himself a nympholept;
And who knows but drowning
Made Hylas wise?
What you scry in the water
Is yours to work with,
That quivering dazzling force.
The spider’s lexicon will trap you
Just like any other fly.
The offices of sound allow you this:
A puissant gesture, a winning glance.
The gods, too, were mortal once.
Goth Girl (Moonflower)
Ah the scary Egypt of her skin!
Black Madonna,
I will light a candle for you.
This twisted romance
Exalts its victims.
The moonflower blooms only at night.
Always the strange one,
The shadows’ favourite,
She knows imagination
To be true revenge.
Only those with pennies on their eyes
Can truly love life.
Black, red and white,
She sees Venus rising
In her silver skull-ring.
At home among headstones
And stone angels,
She wanders,scrying epitaphs.
“Drink wine with the dead,” she says,
“Black wine…”
With black wax she seals
A black-edged letter
And covers the mirrors,
Sets lilies in a vase.
She fingers a spider’s web rosary of skulls,
And sleeps in a coffin of words.
Her hands are full of red ankhs,
Looping questions.
Always the crossroads,
The decisions of art,
Holding on, contemplating, patiently,
Bearing the tension,
To see what emerges
From sperm and ovum.
She loves the taste of wormwood,
And the green fire of death.
She balances
The perforated spoon over the bulbous glass
And, drizzling water over the sugar cube,
Watches the seagreen turn milky.
In her garden
She grows monkshood and digitalis.
Someday, she whispers, I will find the black rose.
And in the meantime
There are black tulips, black sweet William,
Ace of spades.
And now let us dine
On black truffle with white asparagus,
And toast the night in ancient red wine
From a bottle sleeved in cobwebs and dust.
Black Madonna,
I will light a candle for you.
This twisted romance
Exalts its victims.
The moonflower blooms only at night.
Always the strange one,
The shadows’ favourite,
She knows imagination
To be true revenge.
Only those with pennies on their eyes
Can truly love life.
Black, red and white,
She sees Venus rising
In her silver skull-ring.
At home among headstones
And stone angels,
She wanders,scrying epitaphs.
“Drink wine with the dead,” she says,
“Black wine…”
With black wax she seals
A black-edged letter
And covers the mirrors,
Sets lilies in a vase.
She fingers a spider’s web rosary of skulls,
And sleeps in a coffin of words.
Her hands are full of red ankhs,
Looping questions.
Always the crossroads,
The decisions of art,
Holding on, contemplating, patiently,
Bearing the tension,
To see what emerges
From sperm and ovum.
She loves the taste of wormwood,
And the green fire of death.
She balances
The perforated spoon over the bulbous glass
And, drizzling water over the sugar cube,
Watches the seagreen turn milky.
In her garden
She grows monkshood and digitalis.
Someday, she whispers, I will find the black rose.
And in the meantime
There are black tulips, black sweet William,
Ace of spades.
And now let us dine
On black truffle with white asparagus,
And toast the night in ancient red wine
From a bottle sleeved in cobwebs and dust.
Apparently Not
I kiss the globe of silence. It is the season of mimes. Our bodies reinvent us.
The thorn tree flowers for the dead. Tangerine sunset flows under the bridge.
Your smile: puppet theatre spinning through space.
In phantasmagoria,cinema of semblances, I strike another lightning, a bargain, a choice.
Transcontinental pollen travels unseen on winds of speech.
Superstition of habit contains me.
Snowy promises are melting, and all is hesitation.
One by one, the tarot cards are laid.
Tribunals in attics and basements reckon the river’s rise,the apple’s fall.
Lying mouth,have you tasted the sweetness of ash?
Silence after anger. A subtle poison distils drop by drop.Grating metal, and blizzards at the poles.
Every moment’s threshold arraigns you. Doubt falls upon you with a thrush’s beak.
Truth rises overhead, stars seen in daytime from the bottom of a well.
Anemophilous mind, what will the next wind bring?
I must walk forever the tightrope between Here and There.
Every day I perjure my essence.
The antipodes are mine.The glass globe whirls with intermingling reflections.
A moment ago, it must have been, I sucked in the insufferably sweet tang of apple juice, cool from the carton.
The mind reclines like a bored sultan amid silken pillows. I extemporize a self from sensation,intuition,contemplation,decision,velleity,
volition,action,absorption,contrition.
“I see,” says the dark sad voice.
Peek-a-boo world, now you see me, now you don’t.
Too much lassitude and misunderstanding.
Life in parenthesis becomes us. All our meanwhiles evaporate in the sky; perhaps they return as rain.
Notes of a slow sad music arabesque on the stave of night.
The thorn tree flowers for the dead. Tangerine sunset flows under the bridge.
Your smile: puppet theatre spinning through space.
In phantasmagoria,cinema of semblances, I strike another lightning, a bargain, a choice.
Transcontinental pollen travels unseen on winds of speech.
Superstition of habit contains me.
Snowy promises are melting, and all is hesitation.
One by one, the tarot cards are laid.
Tribunals in attics and basements reckon the river’s rise,the apple’s fall.
Lying mouth,have you tasted the sweetness of ash?
Silence after anger. A subtle poison distils drop by drop.Grating metal, and blizzards at the poles.
Every moment’s threshold arraigns you. Doubt falls upon you with a thrush’s beak.
Truth rises overhead, stars seen in daytime from the bottom of a well.
Anemophilous mind, what will the next wind bring?
I must walk forever the tightrope between Here and There.
Every day I perjure my essence.
The antipodes are mine.The glass globe whirls with intermingling reflections.
A moment ago, it must have been, I sucked in the insufferably sweet tang of apple juice, cool from the carton.
The mind reclines like a bored sultan amid silken pillows. I extemporize a self from sensation,intuition,contemplation,decision,velleity,
volition,action,absorption,contrition.
“I see,” says the dark sad voice.
Peek-a-boo world, now you see me, now you don’t.
Too much lassitude and misunderstanding.
Life in parenthesis becomes us. All our meanwhiles evaporate in the sky; perhaps they return as rain.
Notes of a slow sad music arabesque on the stave of night.
Accidental Man
Shapechanging shiver-world,
Whirlpool of innumerable destructions,
Irresistibly I wish my self into place.
Poised in descent, fortunate shadow,
Something decides me,
Precipitated from the turbulent solution.
Sodden clothes drip on the washing-line.
Grass, meek and invincible, pulses.
My father stands pruning his favourite apple tree.
All things, in time, return to the root,
And tremble again with mysterious commission.
The damp black soil smells of feeling
Caught from a pigeon’s wings.
An appletree’s shade, sly fusty savour,
Tickles, yeasts the doughy mind
And quizzical sensation startles
The moment’s tendril-ends.
Tunnelling through days,
I sacrifice to a preternatural precision,
Sworn to read the inner stranger’s palm.
How to master the correct technique
To seduce each obstacle’s singular gift,
Absorbing until absorbed?
The mysteries of equilibrium
Hold us ransom-
Rich bewilderment,
Feminine sensuality of thought.
Self-swindlers, proud of the mastered trick,
We limp through the amateur theatricals
Of lopsided men.
Evening’s apocalypse tempers me
Where I lease desire,
Husbanding the world under flesh.
Hesitations on the stairway,
Fumbled exchanges…
What feeds the underwater flame?
The self cannot be paraphrased
Or translated,
Or banished to parenthesis.
The philatelist proudly scrutinizes
A triangular stamp;
The butterfly collector scrambles
After a twinkle of wings.
Whirlpool of innumerable destructions,
Irresistibly I wish my self into place.
Poised in descent, fortunate shadow,
Something decides me,
Precipitated from the turbulent solution.
Sodden clothes drip on the washing-line.
Grass, meek and invincible, pulses.
My father stands pruning his favourite apple tree.
All things, in time, return to the root,
And tremble again with mysterious commission.
The damp black soil smells of feeling
Caught from a pigeon’s wings.
An appletree’s shade, sly fusty savour,
Tickles, yeasts the doughy mind
And quizzical sensation startles
The moment’s tendril-ends.
Tunnelling through days,
I sacrifice to a preternatural precision,
Sworn to read the inner stranger’s palm.
How to master the correct technique
To seduce each obstacle’s singular gift,
Absorbing until absorbed?
The mysteries of equilibrium
Hold us ransom-
Rich bewilderment,
Feminine sensuality of thought.
Self-swindlers, proud of the mastered trick,
We limp through the amateur theatricals
Of lopsided men.
Evening’s apocalypse tempers me
Where I lease desire,
Husbanding the world under flesh.
Hesitations on the stairway,
Fumbled exchanges…
What feeds the underwater flame?
The self cannot be paraphrased
Or translated,
Or banished to parenthesis.
The philatelist proudly scrutinizes
A triangular stamp;
The butterfly collector scrambles
After a twinkle of wings.
Under Neptune
Redeem me,
I would buy back my soul…
Sometimes eloquent,
Sometimes mute,
The daimon aspires
Towards the divine…
Dissolve,
Merge,
Forget aloneness
And death…
The waters,
The warm blue waters,
I have never ceased to dream of them…
Now come the false messiahs
And the true,
The dreams of the foetus
And the teratism
In this age of drowning.
O, Melusine,
Melusine…
No need of gods
And heroes
And monsters,
Man is mystery enough…
Does the right hand know
What the left hand is about?
Floating in my bathtub,
Archipelagoes of skin
Breaking though the surface,
Warm sheen slithers over me
Deliciously,
Soothes the aches,
Seduces, lulls, protects…
This immersion
Is both enchantment
And terror-
Drops and oceans,
Can you really make me new?
The baby is emerging,
Blood-and-water-slimed…
Nammu,
The sea,
You are essence and fate,
And my life is water,
Sperm,
Fish.
This is the world of illusion:
Rain, sap, semen, milk and blood,
Circulating
Through the endless succession
Of created worlds,
Each of which is swallowed
By the ocean whence it rose.
Fantasies, longings, nightmares and unknown powers
Roil me from the source,
Rich in imagination
And deception.
Pharaoh of desires,
Are you ready to die?
Lie down in the sarcophagus,
Embark with the sun.
Osiris stands before you,
With his phallus of clay.
The addict cries for release
Yet one hand reaches still
For the redeemer’s black gift,
The bewitching poison
That vouchsafes paradise.
In the baptismal font
I scry strange shadows
Moving in the ocean;
Will the Holy Ghost
Invest our Mass,
Or will death be the only fusion?
This is the séance
Of the mind
And flesh,
When phantoms intrude
And ectoplasm revels.
Are the planets out of kilter?
Emotions run amok,
Quaking the world’s womb
With black hysteria.
The mesmerist’s hands
Lift ritual in the air,
Invoking elementals;
Chant, beat and dance
Steal beneath the bounds
For the liturgy of waves.
Pleasure’s martyr, invite the whip
For your suffering will be
Salvation, as you expiate
Sin in fierce penance;
The empress, fate,
Means to hurt you
And by fierce blows
Draw the venom out.
In the mirrors
The faces and bodies
Of lover and beloved
Interchange;
Perfection breaks its acolytes
With a ruthless sneer
As they fool themselves
With glamour.
We will be Caesars of the invisible,
And transform state and spirit
As one, with one flourish,
Serving new devotions
Where passion and compassion meet.
I would buy back my soul…
Sometimes eloquent,
Sometimes mute,
The daimon aspires
Towards the divine…
Dissolve,
Merge,
Forget aloneness
And death…
The waters,
The warm blue waters,
I have never ceased to dream of them…
Now come the false messiahs
And the true,
The dreams of the foetus
And the teratism
In this age of drowning.
O, Melusine,
Melusine…
No need of gods
And heroes
And monsters,
Man is mystery enough…
Does the right hand know
What the left hand is about?
Floating in my bathtub,
Archipelagoes of skin
Breaking though the surface,
Warm sheen slithers over me
Deliciously,
Soothes the aches,
Seduces, lulls, protects…
This immersion
Is both enchantment
And terror-
Drops and oceans,
Can you really make me new?
The baby is emerging,
Blood-and-water-slimed…
Nammu,
The sea,
You are essence and fate,
And my life is water,
Sperm,
Fish.
This is the world of illusion:
Rain, sap, semen, milk and blood,
Circulating
Through the endless succession
Of created worlds,
Each of which is swallowed
By the ocean whence it rose.
Fantasies, longings, nightmares and unknown powers
Roil me from the source,
Rich in imagination
And deception.
Pharaoh of desires,
Are you ready to die?
Lie down in the sarcophagus,
Embark with the sun.
Osiris stands before you,
With his phallus of clay.
The addict cries for release
Yet one hand reaches still
For the redeemer’s black gift,
The bewitching poison
That vouchsafes paradise.
In the baptismal font
I scry strange shadows
Moving in the ocean;
Will the Holy Ghost
Invest our Mass,
Or will death be the only fusion?
This is the séance
Of the mind
And flesh,
When phantoms intrude
And ectoplasm revels.
Are the planets out of kilter?
Emotions run amok,
Quaking the world’s womb
With black hysteria.
The mesmerist’s hands
Lift ritual in the air,
Invoking elementals;
Chant, beat and dance
Steal beneath the bounds
For the liturgy of waves.
Pleasure’s martyr, invite the whip
For your suffering will be
Salvation, as you expiate
Sin in fierce penance;
The empress, fate,
Means to hurt you
And by fierce blows
Draw the venom out.
In the mirrors
The faces and bodies
Of lover and beloved
Interchange;
Perfection breaks its acolytes
With a ruthless sneer
As they fool themselves
With glamour.
We will be Caesars of the invisible,
And transform state and spirit
As one, with one flourish,
Serving new devotions
Where passion and compassion meet.
Cybernaut
To enter the Heavenly City,
Radiant with sapphire, emerald, amethyst and chrysoprase,
Floating on clouds…
I sit before my computer,
Seeking a home for the soul.
New technologies of desire
Call the fallen in,
Beyond the Primum Mobile,
Into the Empyrean.
Dante Alighieri is setting out,
His guide a man dead for a thousand years.
He is paper and a voice.
One reader after another
Draws up intricate maps of Dante’s Hell,
Complete with precise measurements and cartographic projections.
In the nave of the Arena Chapel in Padua,
Gabriel kneels, announcing to Mary a son,
And our eyes reach through the wall
Into the space beyond.
Out there, my journeys cannot be measured,
In my perfect body,
My body of light.
Radiant with sapphire, emerald, amethyst and chrysoprase,
Floating on clouds…
I sit before my computer,
Seeking a home for the soul.
New technologies of desire
Call the fallen in,
Beyond the Primum Mobile,
Into the Empyrean.
Dante Alighieri is setting out,
His guide a man dead for a thousand years.
He is paper and a voice.
One reader after another
Draws up intricate maps of Dante’s Hell,
Complete with precise measurements and cartographic projections.
In the nave of the Arena Chapel in Padua,
Gabriel kneels, announcing to Mary a son,
And our eyes reach through the wall
Into the space beyond.
Out there, my journeys cannot be measured,
In my perfect body,
My body of light.
Thangka of Tibet
Stone, stone and scant soil,
Dragons of heat and cold lashing the body,
Summer squalls of lightning
Blows sandstorms and hail,
Avalanches of light sear the mind,
Thunder chases across the grasslands,
Only 40 million years ago
All this was under the Sea of Tethys.
Black, white or red, the serpent spirits
Coil electric about precious stones;
The demoness lies supine across
The land, naked, knees raised
And splayed, vulva exposed,
And rock-ogresses
Stalk after human prey.
Nail the earth down with daggers,
With words, tent pegs, mountains.
The sixty years of Jupiter’s solar orbit,
The five periods of twelve years,
The auspicious conjunction of every twelve years
Call us to purification.
All-penetrating and embracing light
And emptiness; within it is vision;
And within the sphere of vision
Is constantly transmuting illusion
Of appearances in the world.
The master pierces a rock with his staff
And clears a path for the willing.
Outward resounds the concentric circles
Of the seed-syllable of the goddess,
Out of emptiness, to be invoked.
The chakras of the earth call you
To explore the energy, the current
And discover in yourself the same.
Approaching for the first time the cave
Of power so long sought, through hardship
And peril, the pilgrim becomes a giant,
Senses heighten; colours are brighter;
Shapes more focused; hearing is keener;
Smell, taste and touch all on fire;
He feels weightless, floating,
Thoughts drift in and out, free
Of attachment; time stops in bliss,
And the signs of the new life
Arise in his path….
They carry the broken corpse
Up the mountainside into the sky;
And at dawn the butchers shear the hair,
Open up the body, eviscerate the organs,
Amputate the limbs, cut up the flesh
Into small pieces and pound the bones
To powder with a rock; then the pieces
Are spread around and the vultures
Are summoned, and fall upon the feast,
And what they leave the dogs will take.
Dragons of heat and cold lashing the body,
Summer squalls of lightning
Blows sandstorms and hail,
Avalanches of light sear the mind,
Thunder chases across the grasslands,
Only 40 million years ago
All this was under the Sea of Tethys.
Black, white or red, the serpent spirits
Coil electric about precious stones;
The demoness lies supine across
The land, naked, knees raised
And splayed, vulva exposed,
And rock-ogresses
Stalk after human prey.
Nail the earth down with daggers,
With words, tent pegs, mountains.
The sixty years of Jupiter’s solar orbit,
The five periods of twelve years,
The auspicious conjunction of every twelve years
Call us to purification.
All-penetrating and embracing light
And emptiness; within it is vision;
And within the sphere of vision
Is constantly transmuting illusion
Of appearances in the world.
The master pierces a rock with his staff
And clears a path for the willing.
Outward resounds the concentric circles
Of the seed-syllable of the goddess,
Out of emptiness, to be invoked.
The chakras of the earth call you
To explore the energy, the current
And discover in yourself the same.
Approaching for the first time the cave
Of power so long sought, through hardship
And peril, the pilgrim becomes a giant,
Senses heighten; colours are brighter;
Shapes more focused; hearing is keener;
Smell, taste and touch all on fire;
He feels weightless, floating,
Thoughts drift in and out, free
Of attachment; time stops in bliss,
And the signs of the new life
Arise in his path….
They carry the broken corpse
Up the mountainside into the sky;
And at dawn the butchers shear the hair,
Open up the body, eviscerate the organs,
Amputate the limbs, cut up the flesh
Into small pieces and pound the bones
To powder with a rock; then the pieces
Are spread around and the vultures
Are summoned, and fall upon the feast,
And what they leave the dogs will take.
On Mount Athos
A ladder hangs down the cliff face to a hermitage high on a sea-gazing rock;
Monks have clambered down these rickety steps for millennia,
Renouncing the world to praise God,
Lowering baskets on pulleys for the alms of passing fishermen.
On these cliff paths you cannot free yourself,
Unless you face the worst evils within
And see through them.
Long shadows of cypress trees trammel the hill
And ravens gyre overhead.
This is the Garden of the Virgin:
Chestnut and fir and holly oak,
Monasteries with terraced gardens, olive groves and vineyards,
Thirteen days behind the rest of the world.
Read, if you can, the chrysobuls of time.
Here you must transfigure the passions
To recover the essence,
The truth of yourself and the world.
Three times the monk circumambulates the courtyard,
Striking the semantron on his shoulder,
Summoning the faithful into the church’s ark.
To be vigilant is all,
To practise the goldsmith’s attention,
The iconographer’s love.
A narrow path above the sea,
A bridge of prickly pears and purple irises,
The air nectar-sweet, the cliffs broom-yellow,
Sparrows flitting in the olive groves...
This is your way.
Wake and pray;
Thereby engage the world,
Putting one foot before the other, time and time again,
Onward into liturgy, service and grace.
And, after all,
All you are doing
Is walking.
Monks have clambered down these rickety steps for millennia,
Renouncing the world to praise God,
Lowering baskets on pulleys for the alms of passing fishermen.
On these cliff paths you cannot free yourself,
Unless you face the worst evils within
And see through them.
Long shadows of cypress trees trammel the hill
And ravens gyre overhead.
This is the Garden of the Virgin:
Chestnut and fir and holly oak,
Monasteries with terraced gardens, olive groves and vineyards,
Thirteen days behind the rest of the world.
Read, if you can, the chrysobuls of time.
Here you must transfigure the passions
To recover the essence,
The truth of yourself and the world.
Three times the monk circumambulates the courtyard,
Striking the semantron on his shoulder,
Summoning the faithful into the church’s ark.
To be vigilant is all,
To practise the goldsmith’s attention,
The iconographer’s love.
A narrow path above the sea,
A bridge of prickly pears and purple irises,
The air nectar-sweet, the cliffs broom-yellow,
Sparrows flitting in the olive groves...
This is your way.
Wake and pray;
Thereby engage the world,
Putting one foot before the other, time and time again,
Onward into liturgy, service and grace.
And, after all,
All you are doing
Is walking.
Mandala
Now the ripening:
Cultivating and rehearsing death,
Becoming the right sacrifice,
Finding the light that shines
At the moment of death;
Germinating and growing in the womb,
Developing into infant, child and adult
With conscious care.
Forms, feelings, perceptions, volition and consciousness
Whirl me about in this world.
Everything begins and ends at Mt Meru;
Climbing phantasmal slopes into the sky’s circle,
Through winds and rainbows and lightning,
The cravings and agonies of the overmighty self.
Can I use the inner and outer wheels of time,
Matching my mind and body to their spin?
Winds from all quarters course through me
About the zodiac, the riding planets,
And all is waking, dreaming, deep sleep or bliss –
Cleanse the winds and know emptiness,
Creating your mandala, taking control…
Purify with incense and saffron water
The crystal vase of pacification
And the gold vase of submission
And the silver vase of increase.
The offering fire melts and boils
All the old impurities in the skull-cup
Until they turn the colour of the moon.
Closer and closer to the centre,
Approaching, ever more clearly you behold
The void, most excellent and sublime;
When this mandala is done,
When we are Buddhas of the world,
We shall annihilate the image,
And pour it into the river,
Watching the concentric circles vanish.
Cultivating and rehearsing death,
Becoming the right sacrifice,
Finding the light that shines
At the moment of death;
Germinating and growing in the womb,
Developing into infant, child and adult
With conscious care.
Forms, feelings, perceptions, volition and consciousness
Whirl me about in this world.
Everything begins and ends at Mt Meru;
Climbing phantasmal slopes into the sky’s circle,
Through winds and rainbows and lightning,
The cravings and agonies of the overmighty self.
Can I use the inner and outer wheels of time,
Matching my mind and body to their spin?
Winds from all quarters course through me
About the zodiac, the riding planets,
And all is waking, dreaming, deep sleep or bliss –
Cleanse the winds and know emptiness,
Creating your mandala, taking control…
Purify with incense and saffron water
The crystal vase of pacification
And the gold vase of submission
And the silver vase of increase.
The offering fire melts and boils
All the old impurities in the skull-cup
Until they turn the colour of the moon.
Closer and closer to the centre,
Approaching, ever more clearly you behold
The void, most excellent and sublime;
When this mandala is done,
When we are Buddhas of the world,
We shall annihilate the image,
And pour it into the river,
Watching the concentric circles vanish.
Yantra
So you build, conserve and finally dissolve
Forms, working with square, circle, triangle
And point; welcome to the spider’s web,
The seed-sound’s expanding contracting vibration,
An atom,
A star.
This is your revelation, your instructions,
These charts to navigate by,
And now you are inside the sacred enclosure,
Inside the body of the god,
The pilgrim maze.
The earthenware jar sits spherical and auspicious,
Filled with water, with the universe,
The nectar of immortality.
You are here to translate, to transform,
As best you can, in confused times,
Making a circuit
From star to star.
Out from the nucleus
Force-lines radiate outwards in concentric circuits
And dissolve at the outer limits.
Dissolve the gross in the subtle;
Multiple powers rouse you within the yantra,
Towards wisdom and perfection,
Divine, heroic, terrifying, demonic or peaceful,
Stripping reality to the bone,
As out of contradiction and paradox
Harmony struggles to achievement.
Forms, working with square, circle, triangle
And point; welcome to the spider’s web,
The seed-sound’s expanding contracting vibration,
An atom,
A star.
This is your revelation, your instructions,
These charts to navigate by,
And now you are inside the sacred enclosure,
Inside the body of the god,
The pilgrim maze.
The earthenware jar sits spherical and auspicious,
Filled with water, with the universe,
The nectar of immortality.
You are here to translate, to transform,
As best you can, in confused times,
Making a circuit
From star to star.
Out from the nucleus
Force-lines radiate outwards in concentric circuits
And dissolve at the outer limits.
Dissolve the gross in the subtle;
Multiple powers rouse you within the yantra,
Towards wisdom and perfection,
Divine, heroic, terrifying, demonic or peaceful,
Stripping reality to the bone,
As out of contradiction and paradox
Harmony struggles to achievement.
Dancing the Rumba
The world sits on a woman’s hips.
The face, impassive, eyes staring high
Is an African mask,
As the bodies, ruled by rhythm,
Shake and rotate,
The hymn of the virgin and the whore.
The woman hardly moves her feet,
Concentrating on contortions
And shuffling within a small square;
While the man circles endlessly round her,
Showing off with cocky flair,
Sometimes charging in at her,
Without ever touching,
Only to retreat, defeated by her power,
Till eventually she feigns
Surrender to his gestures,
Catching the kerchief he tosses
To throw it coquettishly back.
The moment when navels meet;
That is the source,
The transaction of life for death,
The lethal snakebite,
A fiery fall
Into the Congo’s currents.
Never was the low so high,
Nor the high so low;
Nor truth and lie so close;
Nor the open so closed
And the closed so open;
In this consecrating desecration,
This beautiful revolt.
The face, impassive, eyes staring high
Is an African mask,
As the bodies, ruled by rhythm,
Shake and rotate,
The hymn of the virgin and the whore.
The woman hardly moves her feet,
Concentrating on contortions
And shuffling within a small square;
While the man circles endlessly round her,
Showing off with cocky flair,
Sometimes charging in at her,
Without ever touching,
Only to retreat, defeated by her power,
Till eventually she feigns
Surrender to his gestures,
Catching the kerchief he tosses
To throw it coquettishly back.
The moment when navels meet;
That is the source,
The transaction of life for death,
The lethal snakebite,
A fiery fall
Into the Congo’s currents.
Never was the low so high,
Nor the high so low;
Nor truth and lie so close;
Nor the open so closed
And the closed so open;
In this consecrating desecration,
This beautiful revolt.
Dashiell Hammett (1894 – 1961)
Tall sword of a man in a dark suit,
Intense eyes staring out suspiciously
From under a soft felt hat,
Slender-fingered gambler’s hands
Playing no one’s game but his own,
He never lied and never faked,
Walking proudly with maverick grace.
He preferred the honesty of silence
To the casual corruption of words,
Sifting truth from lies, trusting no one,
Turning from the random godless world
To alcohol, women and cards.
All was chaos and injustice,
But one brave man alone with his conscience
Could shore up the walls of civilisation
With small decent actions, futile, of course.
He eked out some precarious order
In terse astringent prose, sinews of thought
Bruised in the pugilistic onslaught;
There was a kind of honour in that.
Shadow man stalking the criminal streets,
Switchblade glint in his suffering eyes,
He had witnessed every kind of evil,
Had moved among thugs and racketeers,
Psychopaths and elegant con men,
Treading warily in a world of deception
And treachery, of sudden crazy violence.
Cynical loner in clever disguises,
He revelled in the cunning manhunt,
Tracking his prey from town to town,
Patient, resourceful, excited by danger.
He never believed in any kind of permanence,
Carried his life in a false-bottomed suitcase,
Out there in the real unromantic America
Where the good and the gentle got killed.
Intense eyes staring out suspiciously
From under a soft felt hat,
Slender-fingered gambler’s hands
Playing no one’s game but his own,
He never lied and never faked,
Walking proudly with maverick grace.
He preferred the honesty of silence
To the casual corruption of words,
Sifting truth from lies, trusting no one,
Turning from the random godless world
To alcohol, women and cards.
All was chaos and injustice,
But one brave man alone with his conscience
Could shore up the walls of civilisation
With small decent actions, futile, of course.
He eked out some precarious order
In terse astringent prose, sinews of thought
Bruised in the pugilistic onslaught;
There was a kind of honour in that.
Shadow man stalking the criminal streets,
Switchblade glint in his suffering eyes,
He had witnessed every kind of evil,
Had moved among thugs and racketeers,
Psychopaths and elegant con men,
Treading warily in a world of deception
And treachery, of sudden crazy violence.
Cynical loner in clever disguises,
He revelled in the cunning manhunt,
Tracking his prey from town to town,
Patient, resourceful, excited by danger.
He never believed in any kind of permanence,
Carried his life in a false-bottomed suitcase,
Out there in the real unromantic America
Where the good and the gentle got killed.
The Creaking Chair
In silence
The high sound of my nervous system,
The low sound of my circulation.
The world is all murmurs and alarms in my blood.
A displacement of air,
A periodic vibration.
I dwell among shades.
And weather the body’s long audition,
The séance of noisy spirits.
Feel the earth-hum,
Free oscillations too subtle for the ear;
All is atmosphere.
The echoing drip of a kitchen tap
Expands my mind
To the size of the universe.
In ancient China
A musician plays the ch’in,
Reserving for his subtlest touch
Just the motion of his bloodstream.
The high sound of my nervous system,
The low sound of my circulation.
The world is all murmurs and alarms in my blood.
A displacement of air,
A periodic vibration.
I dwell among shades.
And weather the body’s long audition,
The séance of noisy spirits.
Feel the earth-hum,
Free oscillations too subtle for the ear;
All is atmosphere.
The echoing drip of a kitchen tap
Expands my mind
To the size of the universe.
In ancient China
A musician plays the ch’in,
Reserving for his subtlest touch
Just the motion of his bloodstream.
Las Vegas
Reek of money and cigar smoke,
Ceaseless prestidigitation
Of dealers’ hands,
And baleful eyes watch
From every wall and corner…
Fiery cauldron in the darkness,
Headlights streaming in along the highway
And weird lights in the sky,
And all those nameless bodies
Buried out in the desert…
Early in the morning, exhausted gamblers
Slump over green tables,
Marooned in light-puddles,
Wan dummies in tuxedos and glittering dresses
Sit mummified, playing ghostly baccarat,
And pallid hookers linger on sidewalks,
Lined with gimcrack wedding chapels.
The weary Paiutes trekked across the valley
And pitched their tents here;
They gathered seeds, sweet sage and wild celery,
Camas and caraway,and the bulbs of the sego lily,
And ate, with relish, locusts and rattlesnakes;
They hunted elks and bears in the mountains,
And smeared their bodies with red paint;
They thrived in this desert, and buried their dead
With eagles, under the killing sky.
When the Spaniards arrived, they took one look
And went the long way round, afraid to venture in,
Leaving a blank space on their maps.
Needs, desires; - in the end, who can tell the difference?
Only think the thought and the appetite appears.
You don’t even know you’re alive!
Load your gun with golden bullets
And fire them into the sky;
Here you can lick up the drunkenness of life
Like champagne off a showgirl’s behind.
There you are, standing in the nuclear blast,
Grinning skull gangster with neon skin,
Gambling it all on the dice-throw,
On the turn of the roulette wheel.
Drive the golden spike into the heart of life;
Study the cards at the blackjack table;
Ghosts move through the gilded mirrors
In the hotel of laughing corpses.
The heat is a white tiger on your back.
Time to make a killing and get out.
Bugsy Siegel slumps on the couch
In a Beverley Hills mansion,
Three well-aimed bullets in his handsome face,
One of his eyes shot out.
That was how the movie ended.
As he always said:
“We only kill each other.”
Right up to the end,
He still thought he could win,
Out of luck and out of his mind,
Doublecrossing everyone, even himself,
Blinded by the desert.
He himself always loved to kill,
To hear his victims scream and beg;
He had to be the one to pull the trigger,
The Angel of Death, manicured and suave,
Careful not to get blood on his suit.
This, the kid from Hell’s Kitchen,
Who had dropped waterbombs
On passing cops’ heads,
Snatched purses
And stole from blind men’s cups.
Ceaseless prestidigitation
Of dealers’ hands,
And baleful eyes watch
From every wall and corner…
Fiery cauldron in the darkness,
Headlights streaming in along the highway
And weird lights in the sky,
And all those nameless bodies
Buried out in the desert…
Early in the morning, exhausted gamblers
Slump over green tables,
Marooned in light-puddles,
Wan dummies in tuxedos and glittering dresses
Sit mummified, playing ghostly baccarat,
And pallid hookers linger on sidewalks,
Lined with gimcrack wedding chapels.
The weary Paiutes trekked across the valley
And pitched their tents here;
They gathered seeds, sweet sage and wild celery,
Camas and caraway,and the bulbs of the sego lily,
And ate, with relish, locusts and rattlesnakes;
They hunted elks and bears in the mountains,
And smeared their bodies with red paint;
They thrived in this desert, and buried their dead
With eagles, under the killing sky.
When the Spaniards arrived, they took one look
And went the long way round, afraid to venture in,
Leaving a blank space on their maps.
Needs, desires; - in the end, who can tell the difference?
Only think the thought and the appetite appears.
You don’t even know you’re alive!
Load your gun with golden bullets
And fire them into the sky;
Here you can lick up the drunkenness of life
Like champagne off a showgirl’s behind.
There you are, standing in the nuclear blast,
Grinning skull gangster with neon skin,
Gambling it all on the dice-throw,
On the turn of the roulette wheel.
Drive the golden spike into the heart of life;
Study the cards at the blackjack table;
Ghosts move through the gilded mirrors
In the hotel of laughing corpses.
The heat is a white tiger on your back.
Time to make a killing and get out.
Bugsy Siegel slumps on the couch
In a Beverley Hills mansion,
Three well-aimed bullets in his handsome face,
One of his eyes shot out.
That was how the movie ended.
As he always said:
“We only kill each other.”
Right up to the end,
He still thought he could win,
Out of luck and out of his mind,
Doublecrossing everyone, even himself,
Blinded by the desert.
He himself always loved to kill,
To hear his victims scream and beg;
He had to be the one to pull the trigger,
The Angel of Death, manicured and suave,
Careful not to get blood on his suit.
This, the kid from Hell’s Kitchen,
Who had dropped waterbombs
On passing cops’ heads,
Snatched purses
And stole from blind men’s cups.
Francois Couperin at the Court of Louis XIV
I
Simple at the clavecin, he sits,
Fingers touching love itself…
What precise melancholy
Proceeds from monstrous life!
Young Apollo excels at the masked ball
And the billiard table,
Serene master of the world.
His daydream is the people’s missal.
Letters from Bach used as lids
For jam-pots; sly under his perruque,
The courtier smiles ironically,
Turning a waspish bon mot.
II
And the gallantry of His Majesty,
And the coquetry and deportment of the ladies,
And the frivolities of the fête champêtre,
And the streets’ commotion,
And the soldiers parading,
And the antics of saltimbanques and players,
And the geometric strolls in summer gardens
And the carrolling of hydraulic organs in grottoes…
The spiders of civilization
Toil their webs with finesse,
Fabricating stellar dentelle
For minds to caress.
Now sensibility
Reaches true acuity,
Pressed by self-control.
What desperate sympathies inform the hour,
The hour of man’s undoing?
“Remain gay and lively,”
Said Bussy-Rabutin to Mme de Sévigné,
Both old and counting their ailments,
“Take nothing too seriously
And then you will live another thirty years, at least!
And I will wait for you in Paradise.”
III
After victory, defeat;
After glory, corruption;
The elegant and magnificent
Fall to tenderness at last.
And the wistful hours compose their melodies.
What remains is an atmosphere,
Appeals of a ghost in an empty corridor.
Love, simple love, keep me in your good graces,
Point me the way by moonlight through the woods.
IV
Merry company,
This man you cannot do without:
Black-robed in the corner,
Mouth turned down,
A thousand choice sorrows in his eyes.
V
May we now both please and purify the soul:
Ferocious puissance polishes its claw
In rondeau, chaconne and sarabande.
This age of wonted deaths
Will be rejuvenescence.
We have no climate but the airs and movements of time.
Let sound befriend the lonely
And save of them what it can.
Deny no grace or cadence
To carry you home.
This life, so glad and grave,
Is all devotion.
Restless music fights to a final hush.
God, truth, man:
It is all in the fingering of a phrase.
These falls and rises educate us in poise.
To the noble, the slightest token is illumination.
To be civilized, that is our malady and pride.
Who knows what keeps the funambulist in the air?
Study the sinuosity of the cat,
And render your life as supple.
VI
The suspension of a semiquaver,
The measure of an interval:
From such choices
Is a world composed.
Dumbly he ponders
In a blue room,
Less the Sun King
Than the Man in the Moon.
Simple at the clavecin, he sits,
Fingers touching love itself…
What precise melancholy
Proceeds from monstrous life!
Young Apollo excels at the masked ball
And the billiard table,
Serene master of the world.
His daydream is the people’s missal.
Letters from Bach used as lids
For jam-pots; sly under his perruque,
The courtier smiles ironically,
Turning a waspish bon mot.
II
And the gallantry of His Majesty,
And the coquetry and deportment of the ladies,
And the frivolities of the fête champêtre,
And the streets’ commotion,
And the soldiers parading,
And the antics of saltimbanques and players,
And the geometric strolls in summer gardens
And the carrolling of hydraulic organs in grottoes…
The spiders of civilization
Toil their webs with finesse,
Fabricating stellar dentelle
For minds to caress.
Now sensibility
Reaches true acuity,
Pressed by self-control.
What desperate sympathies inform the hour,
The hour of man’s undoing?
“Remain gay and lively,”
Said Bussy-Rabutin to Mme de Sévigné,
Both old and counting their ailments,
“Take nothing too seriously
And then you will live another thirty years, at least!
And I will wait for you in Paradise.”
III
After victory, defeat;
After glory, corruption;
The elegant and magnificent
Fall to tenderness at last.
And the wistful hours compose their melodies.
What remains is an atmosphere,
Appeals of a ghost in an empty corridor.
Love, simple love, keep me in your good graces,
Point me the way by moonlight through the woods.
IV
Merry company,
This man you cannot do without:
Black-robed in the corner,
Mouth turned down,
A thousand choice sorrows in his eyes.
V
May we now both please and purify the soul:
Ferocious puissance polishes its claw
In rondeau, chaconne and sarabande.
This age of wonted deaths
Will be rejuvenescence.
We have no climate but the airs and movements of time.
Let sound befriend the lonely
And save of them what it can.
Deny no grace or cadence
To carry you home.
This life, so glad and grave,
Is all devotion.
Restless music fights to a final hush.
God, truth, man:
It is all in the fingering of a phrase.
These falls and rises educate us in poise.
To the noble, the slightest token is illumination.
To be civilized, that is our malady and pride.
Who knows what keeps the funambulist in the air?
Study the sinuosity of the cat,
And render your life as supple.
VI
The suspension of a semiquaver,
The measure of an interval:
From such choices
Is a world composed.
Dumbly he ponders
In a blue room,
Less the Sun King
Than the Man in the Moon.
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