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The Sun Bathers
A tramp thawing out
on a doorstep
against an east wall
Nov. 1, 1933:
a young man begrimed
and in an old
army coat
wriggling and scratching
while a fat negress
in a yellow-house window
nearby
leans out and yawns
into the fine weather
This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
An Early Martyr
Rather than permit him
to testify in court
Giving reasons
why he stole from
Exclusive stores
then sent post-cards
To the police
to come and arrest him
——if they could——
They railroaded him
to an asylum for
The criminally insane
without trial
The prophylactic to
madness
Having been denied him
he went close to
The edge out of
frustration and
Doggedness——
Inflexible, finally they
had to release him——
The institution was
"overcrowded"
They let him go
in the custody of
A relative on condition
that he remain
Out of the state——
——
They "cured" him all
right
But the set-up
he fought against
Remains——
and his youthful deed
Signalizing
the romantic period
Of a revolt
he served well
Is still good——
Let him be
a factory whistle
That keeps blaring——
Sense, sense, sense!
so long as there's
A mind to remember
and a voice to
carry it on——
Never give up
keep at it!
Unavoided, terrifying
to such bought
Courts as he thought
to trust to but they
Double-crossed him.
Flowers by the Sea
When over the flowery, sharp pasture's
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form——chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement——or the shape
perhaps——of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem
Proletarian Portrait
A big young bareheaded woman
in an apron
Her hair slicked back standing
on the street
One stockinged foot toeing
the sidewalk
Her shoe in her hand. Looking
intently into it
She pulls out the paper insole
to find the nail
That has been hurting her
The Yachts
contend in a sea which the land partly encloses
shielding them from the too-heavy blows
of an ungoverned ocean which when it chooses
tortures the biggest hulls, the best man knows
to pit against its beatings, and sinks them pitilessly.
Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute
brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
they glide to the wind tossing green water
from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls
ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing,
making fast as they turn, lean far over and having
caught the wind again, side by side, head for the mark.
In a well guarded arena of open water surrounded by
lesser and greater craft which, sycophant, lumbering
and flitting follow them, they appear youthful, rare
as the light of a happy eye, live with the grace
of that in the mind is feckless, free and
naturally to be desired. Now the sea which holds them
is moody, lapping their glossy sides, as if feeling
for some slightest flaw but fails completely.
Today no race. Then the wind comes again. The yachts
move, jockeying for a start, the signal is set and they
are off. Now the waves strike at them but they are too
well made, they slip through, though they take in canvas.
Arms with hands grasping seek to clutch at the prows.
Bodies thrown recklessly in the way are cut aside.
It is a sea of faces about them in agony, in despair
until the horror of the race dawns staggering the mind,
the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies
lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold. Broken,
beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up
they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising
in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.
Catholic Bells
Tho' I'm no Catholic
I listen hard when the bells
in the yellow-brick tower
of their new church
ring down the leaves
ring in the frost upon them
and the death of the flowers
ring out the grackle
toward the south, the sky
darkened by them, ring in
the new baby of Mr. and Mrs,
Krantz which cannot
for the fat of its cheeks
open well its eyes, ring out
the parrot under its hood
jealous of the child
ring in Sunday morning
and old age which adds as it
takes away. Let them ring
only ring! over the oil
painting of a young priest
on the church wall advertising
last week's Novena to St.
Anthony, ring for the lame
young man in black with
gaunt cheeks and wearing a
Derby hat, who is hurrying
to 11 o'clock Mass (the
grapes still hanging to
the vines along the nearby
Concordia Halle like broken
teeth in the head of an
old man) Let them ring
for the eyes and ring for
the hands and ring for
the children of my friend
who no longer hears
them ring but with a smile
and in a low voice speaks
of the decisions of her
daughter and the proposals
and betrayals of her
husband's friends. O bells
ring for the ringing!
the beginning and the end
of the ringing! Ring ring
ring ring ring ring ring!
Catholic bells——
To Be Hungry is to Be Great
The small, yellow grass-onion,
spring's first green, precursor
to Manhattan's pavements, when
plucked as it comes, in bunches,
washed, split and fried in
a pan, though inclined to be
a little slimy, if well cooked
and served hot on rye bread
is to beer a perfect appetizer——
and the best part
of it is they grow everywhere.
St. Francis Einstein of the Daffodils
On the first visit of Professor Einstein
to the United States in the spring of 1921
"Sweet land"
at last!
out of sea——
the Venusremembering wavelets
rippling with laughter——
freedom
for the daffodils!
——in a tearing wind
that shakes
the tufted orchards——
Einstein, tall as a violet
in the lattice-arbor corner
is tall as
a blossomy peartree
O Samos, Samos
dead and buried. Lesbia
a black cat in the freshturned
garden. All dead.
All flesh they sung
is rotten
Sing of it no longer——
Side by side young and old
take the sun together——
maples, green and red
yellowbells
and the vermillion quinceflower
together——
The peartree
with f&156;tid blossoms
sways its high topbranches
with contrary motions
and there are both pinkflowered
and coralflowered peachtrees
in the bare chickenyard
of the old negro
with white hair who hides
poisoned fish-heads
here and there
where stray cats find them——
find them
Spring days
swift and mutable
winds blowing four ways
hot and cold
shaking the flowers——
Now the northeast wind
moving in fogs leaves the grass
cold and dripping. The night
is dark. But in the night
the southeast wind approaches.
The owner of the orchard
lies in bed
with open windows
and throws off his covers
one by one
Paterson: Episode 17
Beat hell out of it
Beautiful Thing
spotless cap
and crossed white straps
over the dark rippled cloth——
Lift the stick
above that easy head
where you sit by the ivied
church, one arm
buttressing you
long fingers spread out
among the clear grass prongs——
and drive it down
Beautiful Thing
that you caressing body kiss
and kiss again
that holy lawn——
And again: obliquely——
legs curled under you as a
deer's leaping——
pose of supreme indifference
sacrament
to a summer's day
Beautiful Thing
in the unearned suburbs
then pause
the arm fallen——
what memories
of what forgotten face
brooding upon that lily stem?
The incredible
nose straight from the brow
the empurpled lips
and dazzled half-sleepy eyes
Beautiful Thing
of some trusting animal
makes a temple
of its place of savage slaughter
revealing
the damaged will incites still
to violence
consummately beautiful thing
and falls about your resting
shoulders——
Gently! Gently!
as in all things an opposite
that awakes
the fury, conceiving
knowledge
by way of despair that has
no place
to lay its glossy head——
Save only——Not alone!
Never, if possible
alone! to escape the accepted
chopping block
and a square hat!——
And as reverie gains and
your joints loosen
the trick's done!
Day is covered and we see you——
but not alone!
drunk and bedragled to release
the strictness of beauty
under a sky full of stars
Beautiful thing
and a slow moon——
The car
had stopped long since
when the others
came and dragged those out
who had you there
indifferent
to whatever the anesthetic
Beautiful Thing
might slum away the bars——
Reek of it!
What does it matter?
could set free
only the one thing——
But you!
——in your white lace dress
"the dying swan"
and hig heeled slippers——tall
as you already were——
till your head
through fruitful exaggeration
was reaching the sky and the
prickles of its ecstasy
Beautiful Thing!
And the guys from Paterson
beat up
the guys from Newark and told
them to stay the hell out
of their territory and then
socked you one
across the nose
Beautiful Thing
for goof luck and emphasis
cracking it
till I must believe that all
desired women have had each
in the end
a busted nose
and live afterward marked up
Beautiful Thing
for memory's sake
to be credible in their deeds
Then back to the party!
and they maled
and femaled you jealously
Beautiful Thing
as if to discover when and
by what miracle
there should escape what?
still to be possessed
out of what part
Beautiful Thing
shoul it look?
or be extinguished——
Three days in the same dress
up and down——
It would take
a Dominie to be patient
Beautiful Thing
with you——
The stroke begins again——
regularly
automatic
contrapuntal to
the flogging
like the beat of famous lines
in the few excellent poems
woven to make you
gracious
and on frequent occasions
foul drunk
Beautiful Thing
pulse of release
to the attentive
and obedient mind.
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