Poems

1. Este es el pricipio de las antiquas historias de este lugar llamdo Queché.

2. Aquí escribiremos y comenzaremos las antiquas historias, el principio y el origen de todo lo que se hizo en la cuidad del Quiché, por las tribus de la nación quiché.

3. Y aquí traeremos la manifestación, la publicación y la narración do lo que estaba oculto, la revelación por Tzacol, Bitol Alom, Qaholom, que se llaman Hunabpú-Vuch, Hunahpú, Zaqui-Nimd-Tzilís, Tepeu, Gucumatz, u Qux Cho, u Qux Paló, Ab Rasd Lac, Ab Raaxd Tzel, así llamados. Y [al mismo tempo] la declaración, la narración conjuntas de la Abuela y el Abuelo, cuyos nombres son Ispiyacoc e Ixmucané, amparadores y protectores, do veces abuela, dos veces abuelo, así llamados en las historias quichés, como todos eellos las contaban y, además, todo lo qui hicieron en la claridad de la existencia, en la claridad de la historia.

4. Esto lo escribiremos ya dentoo de la ley de Dios, en el Cristianismo, lo sacaremos a luz porque ya no se ve el Popo Vuh, así llamado, donde se veia claramente la venida del otro lado del mar y la narración de nuestra obscuridad, y se veia claramente la vida.

5. Existía el libro original, escrito antiguamente, pero su vista está oculta al investigador y al pensador.

6. Grande era la descripción y el relato de cómo se acabó de formar todo el cielo y la tierra, cómo fué señalado y el cielo fué medido y se trajo la cuerda de medir y fué extendida en el cielo y en la tierra, en los cuatro angulos, en los cuarto rincones, como fué dicho por el Creador y el Formador, la madre y el padre de la vida, de todo lo creado, el que da la respiración y el pensamiento, la que da a luz a los hijos, el que vela por la felicidad de los pueblos, la felicidad del linaje humano, el sabio, el que medita en todo lo que existe en el cielo, en la tierra, en los lagos y en el mar.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Never will we know his fabulous head
where the eyes' apples slowly ripened. Yet
his torso glows: a candelabrum set
before his gaze which is pushed back and hid,

restrained and shining. Else the curving breast
could not thus blind you, nor through the soft turn
of the loins could this smile easily have passed
into the bright groins where the genitals burned.

Else stood this stone a fragment and defaced,
with lucent body from the shoulders falling,
too short, not gleaming like a lion's fell;

nor would this star have shaken the shackles off,
bursting with light, until there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Sonnet

Through my life there trembles, without complaint
or sighs, a deep, dark pain.
My dreams of pure snowblossoms
consecrate the stillest day.

But oft my path encounters
the great question. I become small
and cold, like a lake
whose waters I dare not measure.

Then a sorrow overcomes me, a sorrow
like the dullest gray of summer nights
through which but one star shines.

My hands reach out for love
and I would gladly pray out loud
words my fevered tongue can't find.

selection from Autumn Journal Part IX

The Glory that was Greece: put it in a syllabus, grade it
Page by page
To train the mind or even to point a moral
For the present age:
Models of logic and lucidity, dignity, sanity,
The golden mean between opposing ills
Though there were exceptions of course but
only exceptions
The bloody Bacchanals on the Thracian hills.
So the humanist in his room with Jacobean panels
Chewing his pipe and looking on a lazy quad
Chops the Ancient World to turn a sermon
To the greater glory of God.
But I can do nothing so useful or so simple;
These dead are dead
And when I should remember the paragons of Hellas
I think instead
Of the crooks, the adventurers, the opportunists,
The careless athletes and the fancy boys,
The hair-splitters, the pedants, the hard-boiled sceptics
And the Agora and the noise
Of the demagogues and the quacks; and the women pouring
Libations over graves
And the trimmers at Delphi and the dummies at Sparta and lastly
I think of the slaves.
And how one can imagine oneself among them
I do not know;
It was all so unimaginably different
And all so long ago.

Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
`Those breasts are flat and fallen now
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'

`Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

`A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'

Return

This Earth the king said
Looking at the ground;
This England. But we drive
A Sunday paradise
Of parkway, trees flow into trees and the grass
Like water by the very asphalt crown
And summit of things
In the flow of traffic
The family cars, in the dim
Sound of the living
The noise of increase to which we owe
What we possess. We cannot reconcile ourselves.
No one is reconciled, tho we spring
From the ground together—

And we saw the seed,
The minuscule Sequoia seed
In the museum by the tremendous slab
Of the tree. And imagined the seed
In soil and the growth quickened
So that we saw the seed reach out, forcing
Earth thru itself into bark, wood, the green
Needles of a redwood until the tree
Stood in the room without soil—
How much of the earth's
Crust has lived
The seed’s violence!
The shock is metaphysical.

For the wood weathers. Drift wood
And the foot print in the forest grow older.
This is not our time, not what we mean, it is a time
Passing, the curl at the cutwater,
The enormous prow
Outside in the weather. In that breeze,
The sense of that passage,
Is desertion,
Betrayal, that we are not innocent
Of loneliness as Pierrot, Pierrette chattering
Unaware tho we imagine nothing
Beyond the streets of the living—
A sap in the limbs. Mary,
Mary, we turn to the children
As they will turn to the children
Wanting so much to have created happiness
As if a stem to the leaves—

—we had camped in scrub,
A scrub of the past, the fringes of towns
Neither towns nor forest, nothing ours. And Linda five,
Maybe six when the mare grazing
In the meadow came to her.
‘Horse,’ she said, whispering
By the roadside
With the cars passing. Little girl welcomed,
Learning welcome. The rest is—

Whatever—whatever—remote
Mechanics, endurance,
The piers of the city
In the sea. Here are whole buildings
Razed, whole blocks
Of a city gone
Among old streets
And the old boroughs, ourselves
Among these streets where Petra beat
A washpan out her window gathering
A crowd like a rescue. Relief,
As they said it, The Relief. Petra
Decisive suddenly among her children
In those crumbling bedrooms, Petra,
Petra—. And how imagine it? or imagine
Coughlin in the streets,
Pelley and the Silver Shirts? The medieval sense seems innocent, the very
Ceremony of innocence that was drowned.
It was not. But how imagine it
Of streets boarded and vacant where no time will hatch
Now chairs and walls,
Floors, roofs, the joists and beams,
The woodwork, window sills
In sun in a great weight of brick.

You should not seek--knowing is sin--what end for me or you
the gods have set, Leuconoe, nor study Babylonian
astrology. It's better just to endure whatever happens,
if Jove allots even more winters or this final one,
which even now on the opposing cliffs wears out the sea
of Tuscany. Be wise, filter the wine. Prune back long hope
to fit life's narrow span. While we are speaking, jealous time
has fled. Harvest the day. Don't count at all upon tomorrow.

Mercury, Atlas's smooth-spoken grandson,
who wisely shaped new humans' brutish ways
through language and the institution of
    beautiful wrestling,

of you I'll sing, the messenger of mighty
Jove and the gods, the curving lyre's inventor,
who cleverly with playful theft can hide
    that which has pleased you.

Once, when Apollo frightened you, a child,
with threatening voice if you did not return
the cattle filched through trickery, he laughed,
    robbed of his quiver.

With you as a leader, wealthy Priam left
Ilium, hidden from the pompous sons
of Atreus, Thessalian fires, and camps
    hostile to Trojans.

You settle pious souls within the joyous
realms, and you keep the weightless horde confined
with your gold staff. You gratify the gods
    upper and lower.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Inn seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. He who desires but acts not, breeds, pestilence. The cut worm forgive the plow. Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. Eternity is in love with the productions of time. The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure. All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap. Bring out a number weight & measure in a year of dearth. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. A dead body, revenges not injuries. The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. Folly is the cloke of knavery. Shame is Prides cloke. - Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps. The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. The fox condemns the trap, not himself. Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth. Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep. The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod. What is now proved was once, only imagin’d. The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant , watch the fruits. The cistern contains; the fountain overflows. One thought fills immensity. Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you. Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow. - The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. He who has suffer’d you to impose on him knows you. As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers. The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. Expect poison from the standing water. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title! The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. The weak in courage is strong in cunning. the apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey. The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. If others had not been foolish, we should be so. The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil’d. When thou seest an Eagle, though seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head! As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. To create a little flower is the labour of ages. Damn, braces: Bless relaxes. The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest. Prayers plow not! Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not! - The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion. As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible. The crow wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white. Exuberance is Beauty. If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are road of Genius. Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. Where man is not nature is barren. Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d. Enough! or Too much!

Partially because of the visuals and aesthetic of the language. But partially because in a way the show follows the theme too. Blake regarded human imagination as the essential divine quality by which God manifested himself in Man. And that is what MDR do.

This is just a quick thought but I wanted to put it out there.

My sight, which was my power ...

My sight, which was my power, now blurs
Two invisible diamond spears;
My hearing subsides, full of ancient thunder
And the breathing of the house of my father.
The knots of tough muscles slacken
Like grey oxen, lax in the ploughed field;
The wings behind my shoulders yield
No light when evening darkens.

I am a candle. I burned at the feast.
Gather my wax when morning arrives
So that this page will prompt you
How to be proud, and how to weep,
How to give away the last third
Of happiness, and to die with ease—
And beneath a temporary roof
To burn posthumously, like a word.

The Underground

(To the anti-Fascists of the Occupied Countries of Europe and Asia.)

Still you bring us with our hands bound,
Our teeth knocked out, our heads broken,
Still you bring us shouting curses,
Or crying, or silent as tomorrow,
Still you bring us to the guillotine,
The shooting wall, the headsman's block,
Or the mass grave in the long trench.

But you can't kill all of us!
You can't silence all of us!
You can't stop all of us!
From Norway to Slovakia, Manchuria to Greece,
We are like those rivers
That fill with the melted snow in spring
And flood the land in all directions.

Our spring will come.

The pent up snows of all the brutal years
Are melting beneath the rising sun of freedom.
The rivers of the world
Will be flooded with strength
And you will be washed away --
You murderers of the people --
You Nazis, fascists, headsmen,
Appeasers, liars, Quislings,
You will be washed away,
And the land will be fresh and clean again,
Denuded of the past --
For time will give us
Our spring
At last.

The Badger

When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears - they let the strongest loose.
The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where'er they go;
When badgers fight, then everyone's a foe.
The dogs are clapped and urged to join the fray'
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through - the drunkard swears and reels

The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.

I Love You Sweatheart

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the world.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

Love Comes Quietly

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

A Song

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish you sat on the sofa
and I sat near.
The handkerchief could be yours,
the tear could be mine, chin-bound.
Though it could be, of course,
the other way around.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish we were in my car
and you'd shift the gear.
We'd find ourselves elsewhere,
on an unknown shore.
Or else we'd repair
to where we've been before.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy
when stars appear,
when the moon skims the water
that sighs and shifts in its slumber.
I wish it were still a quarter
to dial your number.

I wish you were here, dear,
in this hemisphere,
as I sit on the porch
sipping a beer.
It's evening, the sun is setting;
boys shout and gulls are crying.
What's the point of forgetting
if it's followed by dying?

Dream Song 146

These lovely motions of the air, the breeze,
tell me I'm not in hell, though round me the dead
lie in their limp postures
dramatizing the dreadful word instead
for lively Henry, fit for debaucheries
and bird-of-paradise vestures

For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands

Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,
Threw it down, became a lamb.
Swift spat upon the species, but
Took two women to his heart.
Samson who was strong as death
Paid his strength to kiss a slut.
Othello that stiff warrior
Was broken by a woman's heart.
Troy burned for a sea-tax, also for
Possession of a charming whore.
What do all examples show?
What must the finished murderer know?

You cannot sit on bayonets,
Nor can you eat among the dead.
When all are killed, you are alone,
A vacuum comes where hate has fed.
Murder's fruit is silent stone,
The gun increases poverty.
With what do these examples shine?
The soldier turned to girls and wine.
Love is the tact of every good,
The only warmth, the only peace.

"What have I said?" asked Socrates.
"Affirmed extremes, cried yes and no,
Taken all parts, denied myself,
Praised the caress, extolled the blow,
Soldier and lover quite deranged
Until their motions are exchanged.
-What do all examples show?
What can any actor know?
The contradiction in every act,
The infinite task of the human heart."

In the Slight Ripple, the Fishes Dart

In the slight ripple, the fishes dart
Like fingers, centrifugal, like wishes
Wanton. And pleasures rise
        as the eyes fall.
Through the lucid water. The small pebble,
The clear clay bottom, the white shell
Are apparent, though superficial.
Who would ask more of the August afternoon ?
Who would dig mines and follow shadows ?
“I would,” answers bored Heart, “Longer, rise,”
(Underlip trembling, face white with stony anger)
“The old error, the thought of sitting still.
“The senses drinking, by the summer river, “On the tended lawn, below the traffic,
“As if time would pause,
        and afternoon stay.
“No, night comes soon,
“With its cold mountains, with desolation,
       unless Love build its city

There's a certain Slant of light, #320

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Jacob and Esau

One day I repented my resentment because I realised I’d forgotten
to repeat it. For a while—no, for a long while—it was like a prayer,
rising to the skies, morning after morning, like a siren that wouldn’t quiet.

And then I remembered other things: the way I walk lighter these days;
the way you never knew my story of divorce; the way I am tired of being
forced among the new; and the way I miss having someone to speak to about
things I don’t need to explain; the way we shared a name.

So I decided.

I took a flight and hung around the areas where we used to meet.
I loitered with intent. I was hungry with hope but couldn’t eat alone.
I missed the home your body was, even though we’re grown now,
I missed your smell, your wrestle, your snoring breath.

And when I saw you, I saw you’d changed too.
So much behind us we didn’t need to name.

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

A Boat

O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
 crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.