100 Selected Poems Read online

  whereupon its fellow five

  crumbs chuckled as if they were alive

  and number two took up the song,

  might i’m called and did no wrong

  cried the third crumb, i am should

  and this is my little sister could

  with our big brother who is would

  don’t punish us for we were good;

  and the last crumb with some shame

  whispered unto God, my name

  is must and with the others i’ve

  been Effie who isn’t alive

  just imagine it I say

  God amid a monstrous din

  watch your step and follow me

  stooping by Effie’s little, in

  (want a match or can you see?)

  which the six subjunctive crumbs

  twitch like mutilated thumbs:

  picture His peering biggest whey

  coloured face on which a frown

  puzzles, but I know the way—

  (nervously Whose eyes approve

  the blessed while His ears are crammed

  with the strenuous music of

  the innumerable capering damned)

  –staring wildly up and down

  the here we are now judgment day

  cross the threshold have no dread

  lift the sheet back in this way.

  here is little Effie’s head

  whose brains are made of gingerbread

  12

  Spring is like a perhaps hand

  (which comes carefully

  out of Nowhere)arranging

  a window,into which people look(while

  people stare

  arranging and changing placing

  carefully there a strange

  thing and a known thing here)and

  changing everything carefully

  spring is like a perhaps

  Hand in a window

  (carefully to

  and fro moving New and

  Old things,while

  people stare carefully

  moving a perhaps

  fraction of flower here placing

  an inch of air there)and

  without breaking anything.

  13

  who knows if the moon’s

  a balloon,coming out of a keen city

  in the sky–filled with pretty people?

  (and if you and i should

  get into it,if they

  should take me and take you into their balloon,

  why then

  we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

  than houses and steeples and clouds:

  go sailing

  away and away sailing into a keen

  city which nobody’s ever visited,where

  always

  it’s

  Spring)and everyone’s

  in love and flowers pick themselves

  14

  i like my body when it is with your

  body. It is so quite new a thing.

  Muscles better and nerves more.

  i like your body. i like what it does,

  i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

  of your body and its bones, and the trembling

  -firm-smooth ness and which i will

  again and again and again

  kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

  i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

  of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

  over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

  and possibly i like the thrill

  of under me you so quite new

  15

  little tree

  little silent Christmas tree

  you are so little

  you are more like a flower

  who found you in the green forest

  and were you very sorry to come away?

  see i will comfort you

  because you smell so sweetly

  i will kiss your cool bark

  and hug you safe and tight

  just as your mother would,

  only don’t be afraid

  look the spangles

  that sleep all the year in a dark box

  dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

  the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

  put up your little arms

  and i’ll give them all to you to hold

  every finger shall have its ring

  and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy

  then when you’re quite dressed

  you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see

  and how they’ll stare!

  oh but you’ll be very proud

  and my little sister and i will take hands

  and looking up at our beautiful tree

  we’ll dance and sing

  “Noel Noel”

  16

  Humanity i love you

  because you would rather black the boots of

  success than enquire whose soul dangles from his

  watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

  parties and because you

  unflinchingly applaud all

  songs containing the words country home and

  mother when sung at the old howard

  Humanity i love you because

  when you’re hard up you pawn your

  intelligence to buy a drink and when

  you’re flush pride keeps

  you from the pawn shop and

  because you are continually committing

  nuisances but more

  especially in your own house

  Humanity i love you because you

  are perpetually putting the secret of

  life in your pants and forgetting

  it’s there and sitting down

  on it

  and because you are

  forever making poems in the lap

  of death Humanity

  i hate you

  17

  POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

  take it from me kiddo

  believe me

  my country, ’tis of

  you, land of the Cluett

  Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint

  Girl With The Wrigley Eyes (of you

  land of the Arrow Ide

  and Earl &

  Wilson

  Collars) of you i

  sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,

  land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve—

  from every B. V. D.

  let freedom ring

  amen. i do however protest, anent the un

  -spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which

  greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per

  that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

  suggest that certain ideas gestures

  rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades

  having been used and reused

  to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are

  Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

  if we are to believe these gently O sweetly

  melancholy trillers amid the thrillers

  these crepuscular violinists among my and your

  skyscrapers– Helen & Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely,

  The Snail’s On The Thorn enter Morn and God’s

  In His andsoforth

  do you get me?) according

  to such supposedly indigenous

  throstles Art is O World O Life

  a formula: example, Turn Your Shirttails Into

  Drawers and If It Isn’t An Eastman It Isn’t A

  Kodak therefore my friends let

  us now sing each and all fortissimo A-

  mer

  i

  ca, I

  love,

  You. And there’re a

  hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like

  all of you successfully if

 
delicately gelded (or spaded)

  gentlemen (and ladies)– pretty

  littleliverpill-

  hearted-NujoIneeding-There’s-A-Reason

  americans (who tensetendoned and with

  upward vacant eyes, painfully

  perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the

  sternly allotted sandpile

  –how silently

  emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?

  ono.

  comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush

  18

  nobody loses all the time

  i had an uncle named

  Sol who was a born failure and

  nearly everybody said he should have gone

  into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could

  sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which

  may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

  Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable

  of all to use a highfalootin phrase

  luxuries that is or to

  wit farming and be

  it needlessly

  added

  my Uncle Sol’s farm

  failed because the chickens

  ate the vegetables so

  my Uncle Sol had a

  chicken farm till the

  skunks ate the chickens when

  my Uncle Sol

  had a skunk farm but

  the skunks caught cold and

  died and so

  my Uncle Sol imitated the

  skunks in a subtle manner

  or by drowning himself in the watertank

  but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor

  Victrola and records while he lived presented to

  him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a

  scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with

  tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and

  i remember we all cried like the Missouri

  when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because

  somebody pressed a button

  (and down went

  my Uncle

  Sol

  and started a worm farm)

  19

  mr youse needn’t be so spry

  concernin questions arty

  each has his tastes but as for i

  i likes a certain party

  gimme the he-man’s solid bliss

  for youse ideas i’ll match youse

  a pretty girl who naked is

  is worth a million statues

  20

  she being Brand

  -new;and you

  know consequently a

  little stiff i was

  careful of her and(having

  thoroughly oiled the universal

  joint tested my gas felt of

  her radiator made sure her springs were O.

  K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

  up,slipped the

  clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she

  kicked what

  the hell)next

  minute i was back in neutral tried and

  again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

  lev-er Right-

  oh and her gears being in

  A 1 shape passed

  from low through

  second-in-to-high like

  greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

  avenue i touched the accelerator and give

  her the juice,good

  (it

  was the first ride and believe i we was

  happy to see how nice she acted right up to

  the last minute coming back down by the Public

  Gardens i slammed on

  the

  internalexpanding

  &

  externalcontracting

  brakes Bothatonce and

  brought allofher tremB

  -ling

  to a:dead.

  stand-

  ;Still)

  21

  MEMORABILIA

  stop look &

  listen Venezia: incline thine

  ear you glassworks

  of Murano;

  pause

  elevator nel

  mezzo del cammin’ that means half-

  way up the Campanile, believe

  thou me cocodrillo–

  mine eyes have seen

  the glory of

  the coming of

  the Americans particularly the

  brand of marriageable nymph which is

  armed with large legs rancid

  voices Baedekers Mothers and kodaks

  —by night upon the Riva Schiavoni or in

  the felicitous vicinity of the de l’Europe

  Grand and Royal

  Danielli their numbers

  are like unto the stars of Heaven. . . .

  i do signore

  affirm that all gondola signore

  day below me gondola signore gondola

  and above me pass loudly and gondola

  rapidly denizens of Omaha Altoona or what

  not enthusiastic cohorts from Duluth God only,

  gondola knows Cincingondolanati i gondola don’t

  –the substantial dollarbringing virgins

  “from the Loggia where

  are we angels by O yes

  beautiful we now pass through the look

  girls in the style of that’s the

  foliage what is it didn’t Ruskin

  says about you got the haven’t Marjorie

  isn’t this wellcurb simply darling”

  –O Education:O

  thos cook & son

  (O to be a metope

  now that triglyph’s here)

  22

  a man who had fallen among thieves

  lay by the roadside on his back

  dressed in fifteenthrate ideas

  wearing a round jeer for a hat

  fate per a somewhat more than less

  emancipated evening

  had in return for consciousness

  endowed him with a changeless grin

  whereon a dozen staunch and leal

  citizens did graze at pause

  then fired by hypercivic zeal

  sought newer pastures or because

  swaddled with a frozen brook

  of pinkest vomit out of eyes

  which noticed nobody he looked

  as if he did not care to rise

  one hand did nothing on the vest

  its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt

  while the mute trouserfly confessed

  a button solemnly inert.

  Brushing from whom the stiffened puke

  i put him all into my arms

  and staggered banged with terror through

  a million billion trillion stars

  23

  voices to voices, lip to lip

  i swear (to noone everyone) constitutes

  undying; or whatever this and that petal confutes . . .

  to exist being a peculiar form of sleep

  what’s beyond logic happens beneath will;

  nor can these moments be translated: i say

  that even after April

  by God there is no excuse for May

  —bring forth your flowers and machinery: sculpture and prose

  flowers guess and miss

  machinery is the more accurate, yes

  it delivers the goods, Heaven knows

  (yet are we mindful, though not as yet awake,

  of ourselves which shout and cling, being

  for a little while and which easily break

  in spite of the best overseeing)

  i mean that the blond absence of any program

  except last and always and first to live

  makes unimportant what i and you believe;

  not for philosophy does this rose give a damn . . .

  bring on your fireworks,
which are a mixed

  splendor of piston and of pistil; very well

  provided an instant may be fixed

  so that it will not rub, like any other pastel.

  (While you and i have lips and voices which

  are for kissing and to sing with

  who cares if some oneeyed son of a bitch

  invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

  each dream nascitur, is not made . . . )

  why then to Hell with that: the other; this,

  since the thing perhaps is

  to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

  24

  “next to of course god america i

  love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh

  say can you see by the dawn’s early my

  country ’tis of centuries come and go

  and are no more what of it we should worry

  in every language even deafanddumb

  thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry

  by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

  why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-

  iful than these heroic happy dead

  who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

  they did not stop to think they died instead