OMMATEUM WITH DOXOLOGY (1955)
To Josephine Miles
So I said I am Ezra
and the wind whipped my throat
gaming for the sounds of my voice
I listened to the wind
5go over my head and up into the night
Turning to the sea I said
I am Ezra
but there were no echoes from the waves
The words were swallowed up
10in the voice of the surf
or leaping over the swells
lost themselves oceanward
Over the bleached and broken fields
I moved my feet and turning from the wind
15that ripped sheets of sand
from the beach and threw them
like seamists across the dunes
swayed as if the wind were taking me away
and said
20I am Ezra
As a word too much repeated
falls out of being
so I Ezra went out into the night
like a drift of sand
25and splashed among the windy oats
that clutch the dunes
of unremembered seas
1951
The Sap Is Gone Out of the Trees
The sap is gone out of the trees
in the land of my birth
and the branches droop
The rye is rusty in the fields
5and the oatgrains are light in the wind
The combine sucks at the fields
and coughs out dry mottled straw
The bags of grain are chaffy and light
The oatfields said Oh
10and Oh said the wheatfields as the dusting
combine passed over
and long after the dust was gone
Oh they said
and looked around at the stubble and straw
15The sap is gone out of the hollow straws
and the marrow out of my bones
They are
brittle and dry
and painful in this land
20The wind whipped at my carcass saying
How shall I
coming from these fields
water the fields of earth
and I said Oh
25and fell down in the dust
1951
In Strasbourg in 1349
in the summer and in the whole year
there went a plague through the earth
Death walked on both sides of the Sea
5tasting Christian and Saracen flesh
and took another turn about the Sea
In a black gown and scarlet cape she went
skipping across the Sea
freeing ships to rear and fly in the wind
10with their cargoes of dead
Vultures whipped amorous wings
in the shadow of death
and death was happy with them and flew swiftly
whirling a lyrical dance on hidden feet
15Dogs ate their masters’ empty hands
and death going wild with joy
hurried about the Sea
and up the rivers to the mountains
The dying said
20Damn us
the Jews have poisoned the wells
and death throwing her head about lifted
the skirts of her gown
and danced wildly
25The rich Jews are burning on loose platforms
in 1349
and death jumps into the fire
setting the flames wild with her dancing
So I left and walked up into the air
30and sat down in a cool draft
my face hot from watching the fire
When morning came
I looked down at the ashes
and rose and walked out of the world
1951
I broke a sheaf of light
from a sunbeam
that was slipping through thunderheads
drawing a last vintage from the hills
5O golden sheaf I said
and throwing it on my shoulder
brought it home to the corner
O very pretty light I said
and went out to my chores
10The cow lowed from the pasture and I answered
yes I am late
already the evening star
The pigs heard me coming and squealed
From the stables a neigh reminded me
15yes I am late having forgot
I have been out to the sunbeam
and broken a sheaf of gold
Returning to my corner
I sat by the fire with the sheaf of light
20that shone through the night
and was hardly gone when morning came
1951
Some months ago I went out early
to pay
my last respects to earth
farewell earth
5ocean farewell
lean eucalyptus with nude gray skin
farewell
Hill rain
pouring from a rockpierced cloud
10hill rain from the wounds of mist
farewell
See the mountainpeaks gather
clouds from the sky
shake new bright flakes from the mist
15farewell
Hedgerows hung with web and dew
that disappear at a touch
like snail eyes
farewell
20To a bird only this
farewell
and he hopped away to peck dew
from a ground web
spider running out of her tunnel to see
25to whom I said
farewell
and she sat still on her heavy webs
I closed up all the natural throats of earth
and cut my ties with every natural heart
30and saying farewell
stepped out into the great open
1951
I went out to the sun
where it burned over a desert willow
and getting under the shade of the willow
I said
5It’s very hot in this country
The sun said nothing so I said
The moon has been talking about you
and he said
Well what is it this time
10She says it’s her own light
He threw his flames out so far
they almost scorched the top of the willow
Well I said of course I don’t know
The sun went on and the willow was glad
15I found an arroyo and dug for water
which I got muddy and then clear
so I drank a lot
and washed the salt from my eyes
and taking off my shirt
20hung it on the willow to dry and said
This land where whirlwinds
walking at noon in tall columns of dust
take stately turns about the desert
is a very dry land
25So I went to sleep under the willow tree
When the moon came up it was cold
and reaching to the willow for my shirt
I said to the moon
You make it a pretty night
30so she smiled
A night-lizard rattled stems behind me
and the moon said
I see over the mountain
the sun is angry
35Not able to see him I called and said
Why are you angry with the moon
since all at last must be lost
to the great vacuity
1951 (1954)
At dawn in 1098
the Turks went out from the gates
of Antioch
and gathered their dead
5from the banks of the river
the cool ones
they gathered in
Bathing in the morning river
I said Oh
10to the reapers
and stepping out gave
my white form to morning
She blushed openly
so twisting I danced
15along the banks of the river
and morning rushed up over the hills
to see my wild form
whirling on the banks of the river
Saying O morning
20I went away to the hills
With cloaks
and ornaments
arrows and coins of gold
the Turks buried their dead
25and sealed the tombs with tears
But the Christians rising from the fields
broke open the cool tombs
and cut off heads
for a tally
30Taking morning in my arms
I said Oh
and descended the eastern hills
and all that day
it was night in Antioch
1951
The whaleboat struck
and we came ashore
to the painted faces
O primitives I said
5and the arrow sang to my throat
Leaving myself on the shore
I went away
and when a heavy wind caught me I said
My body lies south
10given over to vultures and flies
and wrung my hands
so the wind went on
Another day a wind came saying
Bones
15lovely and white
lie on the southern sand
the ocean has washed bright
I said
O bones in the sun
20and went south
The flies were gone
The vultures no longer searched
the ends of my hingeless bones
for a trace of lean or gristle
25Breathing the clean air
I picked up a rib
to draw figures in the sand
till there is no roar in the ocean
no green in the sea
30till the northwind flings no waves
across the open sea
I running in and out with the waves
I singing old Devonshire airs
1951 (1954)
Turning a Moment to Say So Long
Turning a moment to say so long
to the spoken
and seen
I stepped into
5the implicit pausing sometimes
on the way to listen to unsaid things
At a boundary of mind
Oh I said brushing up
against the unseen
10and whirling on my heel
said
I have overheard too much
Peeling off my being I plunged into
the well
15The fingers of the water splashed
to grasp me up
but finding only
a few shafts
of light
20too quick to grasp
became hysterical
jumped up and down
and wept copiously
So I said I’m sorry dear well but
25went on deeper
finding patched innertubes beer cans
and black roothairs along the way
but went on deeper
till darkness snuffed the shafts of light
30against the well’s side
night kissing
the last bubbles from my lips
1951
Turning from the waterhole I said Oh
to the lioness whose wrinkled forehead
showed signs of wonder
O beautiful relaxed animal I said
5The tall grass shivered up and down
and said
What a looseness is in her body how
limp are the wet teats of her belly
The grass sang a song I had never
10heard before to the red sun
so I said cool evening with a wind
in the rushes
The lioness dropped loosely to the ground
and I said O tired lioness
15you love the evening
She came to my chest and we fell into
the waterhole
to which
since the grass had stopped singing and
20was watching the sun sink
I said
water is like love in tranquillity
my soul has wings of light and
never have I seen
25more beauty
than is in this evening
Her paw touched my lips as if
she loved me passionate and loud
so I said
30Loose lioness
and her lips took the words from my throat
her warm tongue flicking the living flutter
of my being
So I fumbled about in the darkness for my wings
35and the grass looked all around at the evening
1951
Dying in a mirthful place
I looked around at the dim lights
the hips and laughing throats
and the motions of the dance
5and the wine the lovely wine
and turning to death said
I thought you knew propriety
Death was embarrassed and stuttered
so I watched the lips
10and hurried away to a hill in Arizona
where in the soil was such a noiseless
mirth and death
that I lay down and placed my head
by a great boulder
15The next morning I was dead
excepting a few peripheral cells
and the buzzards
waiting for a savoring age to come
sat over me in mournful conversations
20that sounded excellent to my eternal ear
1952
When Rahman rides a dead haste in a dusty wind
I wait for him and look for him coming over the desert
blustering through the tough unwaving leaves
and trembling behind a tall saguaro say
5O Rahman
and he says
what what
It’s like this
what what
10so when I saw you coming I thought perhaps
There was the rush of dust and then farther on
a spiral whirlwinding
as if he had stopped too late and drawing up his wings
looked back at the saguaro’s lifted arms
15Unspiralling
he swept on across the desert
leaving me the ocotillo in a bloomless month
1952
With ropes of hemp
I lashed my body to the great oak
saying odes for the fiber of the oakbark
and the oakwood saying supplications
5to the root mesh
deep and reticular in the full earth
through the night saying these
and early into the wild unusual dawn
chanting hysterical though quiet
10watching the ropes ravel
and the body go raw
while eternity
greater than the ravelings of a rope
waited with me patient in my experiment
15Oh I said listening to the raucous
words of the nightclouds
how shadowy is the soul
how fleet with the wildness of wings
Under the grip of my bonds
20I say Oh and melt beyond the ruthless coil
but return again saying odes in the night
where I stand splintered to the oak
gathering the dissentient ghosts of my spirit
into the oakheart
25I in the night standing saying oaksongs
entertaining my soul to me
1952
My dice are crystal inlaid with gold
and possess
spatial symmetry
about their centers and
5mechanical symmetry and
are of uniform density
and all surfaces have equal
coefficients of friction for
my dice are not loaded
10Thy will be done
whether dog or Aphrodite
Cleaning off a place on the ground
I patted it
flat and
15sat back on my legs
rattling the bones
Apparitionally god sat poker-faced
silent on the other side
When the ballooning
20silence burst I cast
and coming to rest
the dice spoke their hard directive
and melting
left gold bits on the soil
Having been interstellar
and in the treble clef
by great expense of
climbing mountains
5lighting crucible fires
in the catacombs
among the hunted
and the trapped in tiers
seeking the distillate
10answering direct
the draft of earthless air
he turned in himself
helplessly as in sleep
and went out into the growth of rains
15and when the rains
taking him
had gone away in spring
no one knew
that he had ever flown
20he was no less
no more known
to stones he left a stone
Coming to Sumer and the tamarisks on the river
I Ezra with unsettling love
rifled the mud and wattle huts
for recent mournings
5with gold leaves
and lapis lazuli beads
in the neat braids loosening from the skull
Looking through the wattles to the sun
I said
10It has rained some here in this place
unless snow falls heavily in the hills
to do this
The floor was smooth with silt
and river weeds hanging gray
15on the bent reeds spoke saying
Everything is even here as you can see
Firing the huts
I abandoned the unprofitable poor
unequal even in the bone
20to disrespect
and casual with certainty
watched an eagle wing as I went
to king and priest
I Assume the World Is Curious About Me
I assume the world is curious about me
the sound
and volume of hell
where brittle grace polished as glass
5glazed in fire glints
and pliant humility
furls coiling into itself
like an ashen abnegation
for sin
10you will want to see it
even without god is a hot consumption
I assume that when I die
going over and under without care
leaves will wilt and lose all windy interest
15some ration of stars will fall
for my memorial
A simple thrust brings vomit
but a reduction
and retained separation has love in it
20and love burns on itself
while hate
is a cold expulsion and devastation
I assume many will crowd around me
to praise my unwillingness to simplify
25then turning
assist in raising me to my outstanding tree
someday unhang my sinews from the nails
let down the gray locust from the pine
I struck a diminished seventh
and sat down
to wait
for the universal word
5Come word
I said
azalea word
gel precipitate
while I
10the primitive spindle
binding the poles of earth and air
give you
with river ease
a superior appreciation
15equalling winged belief
It had almost come
I perishing for deity stood up
drying my feet
when the minor challenge was ignored
20and death came over sieving me
Gilgamesh was very lascivious
and took the virgins as they ripened
from the men that wanted them
To the men Gilgamesh gave wall building
5brick burning and gleaning of straw
for a physical expression
yielding more protection
for the virgins the men wanted
than long hours in jogging beds
10with the walls crumbling before
who knew what predators
seeking wine
virgins
long fields of wheat
15and spearshafts wrapped in gold
Because he sought the mate
of his physical divinity
Gilgamesh
let many usurp the missing one
20and went
singly in his tragic excellence
At his going by
the men in mud and sweat
saw virgins yielding to his eyes
25and turned to work with dreams
no virgin would ever give to them
Climbing the wall
and walking up and down upon it
I said
30Fools fools
but they kneaded slowly
the muscles of their glassy backs
worms working in the sun
When I Set Fire to the Reed Patch
When I set fire to the reed patch
that autumn evening
the wind whipped volleys of shot
from the bursting joints
5and armies bristling defensive interest
rushed up over the fringing hills
and stared into the fire
I laughed my self to death
and they
10legs afire
eyelashes singed
swept in flooding up the lovely
expressions of popping light
and hissing thorns of flame
15Clashing midfire
the armies quite unwound
the intentions of the fire
and snuffed the black reeds smoking out
but like destroyed mountains
20left deposits
that will insure
deep mulch for next year’s shoots
the greenest hope
autumn ever
25left this patch of reeds
The grass miracles have kept me down all autumn
purpose turning on me like an inward division
The grasses heading barbed tufts
airy panicles and purple spikes
5have kept me stalled in the deadends
of branching dreams
It is as though I had started up the trunk
and then dispersed like ant trails
along the branches
10and out on the twigs
and paused dipping with a golden thought
at the points of the leaves
A black stump hidden
in grass and old melon vines
15has reined my hurry
and I have gone up separately
jiggling like a bubble flock
in globes of time
I have not been industrious this autumn
20It has seemed necessary
to accomplish everything with a pause
bending to part the grass
to what round fruit
becoming entangled in clusters
25tying all the future up
in variations on present miracles
I came in a dark woods upon
an ineffaceable difference
and oops embracing it
felt it up and down mindfully
5in the dark
prying open the knees to my ideas
It was slim and hard
with a sharp point
and stood up
10its shaft shot deep as a pile
Who will extract I said desiring
a public value this erect
difference from the ground
and the dryads
15shifting in the limbs
dipped leaves
blotting the angels’ roofeyes out
Taking the neck below the barbs
I eased the wet shaft up into my hands
20Everything retired
The dryads took body in the oakhearts
The angels shuttered their wintry peepholes
and flew off throneward across the fields
and the trees arms-up leaned as in wind away
25and casting the difference
I splintered
the whole environment
and somewhat dazed with grief ran
catching it up hot in my hands
30and hurled it far into the seas
a brother to Excalibur
A Treeful of Cleavage Flared Branching
A treeful of cleavage flared branching
through my flesh and cagey
I sat down mid-desert
and heaping hugged up between my knees
5an altarcone from the sand
and addressed it with water dreams
The wind
chantless of rain in the open place
spun a sifting hum
10in slow circles round my sphere of grief
and the sun
inched countless arms
under the periphery of my disc of sight
eager for the golden thing
15There must be time I said
to dream real these dreams
and the sun
startled by the sound of time
said Oh
20and whirling in his arms
ran off across the sky
Heaping the sand
sharpening the cone of my god I said
I have oracles to seek
25Drop leaf shade
the wet cuticle of the leaf tipped in shade
yielded belief
to the fixed will and there
where the wind like wisdom
30sweeps clean the lust prints of the sun
lie my bones entombed
with the dull mound of my god
in bliss
Behind the I
I is
an I
elated
5leaves
into
separables
Falling too through scopes of
variables
10I
in the
I-beam is some
for the moment accidental mote
Behind the I
15I discloses
flows
winds and seas
of particles
while he conceived outside
20is whole
beyond realities
I
never wants to lose
One composing seminal works sat oblivious
by a brothel
and gave leaflets to the functions of the wind
saying
5Time is a liquid orb
where we swim loose
timeless in a total time
pursuing among the nuclear sediment
the sweet pale flakes of old events
10Stopping I watched the leaflets rock upward
from the windy alley
and brought him a mug of stout
The contemporary he said
turning into the brothel
15is an orb’s shell
of light
within the liquid orb
and fertility came into him like a virtuoso
and mounting pubic realms
20he rode galloping through the night
sweetsap and rain playing marbles
on the wind’s speed of his outstretched shirt
One
weeping beads of ice
25down the cold deserts of his brain
cried from the street O Jezebel
and the seminal one rose wiping saying
In exhaustion’s death are dregs of wanted sleep
In the wind my rescue is
in whorls of it
like winged tufts of dreams
bearing
5through the forms of nothingness
the gyres and hurricane eyes
the seed safety
of multiple origins
I set it my task
10to gather the stones of earth
into one place
the water modeled sand molded stones
from
the water images
15of riverbeds in drought
from the boundaries of the mind
from
sloping farms
and altitudes of ice and
20to mount upon the highest stone
a cardinal
chilled in the attitude of song
But the wind has sown loose dreams
in my eyes
25and telling unknown tongues
drawn me out beyond the land’s end
and rising in long
parabolas of bliss
borne me safety
30from all those ungathered stones
1954
[I should have stayed longer idle]
I should have stayed longer idle
and done reverence
to it
waterfalls
5humbling in silent slide
the precipice of my effrontery
poured libations of arms
like waterwheels
toward the ground but
10knowing the fate of sunset things
I grew desperate and entertained it
with sudden sprints
somersaults
and cartwheels figuring eight
15It would not stay
Ring of cloud I said
high pale ringcloud
ellipsis of evening moment’s miracle
where will I go looking for your return
20and rushing to the rim
I looked down into the deep dissolution
I should have held still
before it
and been mute
25cancelled by an oak’s trunk
and done honors unseen
and taken the beauty sparingly
as one who fears to move and
shatter vision from his eyes
A crippled angel bent in a scythe of grief
mourned in an empty lot
Passing by I stopped
amused that immortality should grieve
5and said
It must be exquisite
Smoke came out of the angel’s ears
the axles
of slow handwheels of grief
10and under the white lids of its eyes
bulged tears of purple light
Watching the agony diffuse in
shapeless loss
I interposed a harp
15The atmosphere possessed it eagerly
and the angel
saying prayers for the things of time
let its fingers drop and burn
the lyric strings provoking wonder
20Grief sounded like an ocean rose
in bright clothes
and the fire
breaking out on the limbs rising
caught up the branching wings
25in a flurry of ascent
Taking a bow I shot transfixing
the angel midair
all miracle hanging fire
on rafters of the sky
Dropping Eyelids Among the Aerial Ash
Dropping eyelids among the aerial ash
I ascending entered the gates of cloud
westward where the sliver moon
keeled in sun was setting
5and sat down on a silver lining to think
my mind splintered with spears of glass
and errors of the cold
Below
the gorged god lay on the leveled city
10and suburban bandaged
and drowsily tolled the reckonless waste
The clouds mushrooming rose
and held about his head
like old incense of damp altars
15Oh I said in the mistral of bleached
and naked thought
blood like a catalyst is evil’s baptismal need
before the white rose and benefactions
rise
20thin curls of hope from cooling lakes of ruin
and chiseled stone wins
from the spout of human sacrifice
powers of mercy
Darkness pushed the sliver moon
25from my silver lining and I arose
the high seed clouds fading
and went back down into the wounds and cries
and held up lanterns for the white nurses
moving quickly in the dark
I came upon a plateau
where mesquite roots
crazed the stone
and rains
5moved glinting dust
down the crevices
Calling off rings
to a council of peaks
I said
10Spare me man’s redundancy
and putting on bright clothes
sat down in the flat orthodoxy
Quivering with courtesy
a snake drew thrust in sines
15and circles from his length
rearing coils of warning white
Succumbing in the still ecstasy
sinuous through white rows of scales
l caved in upon eternity
20saying this use is colorless
A pious person his heart
looted and burnt
sat under a foundation
a windy cloak clutched round his bones
25and said
When the razed temple cooled
I went in
and gathered these
relics of holy urns
30Behold beneath this cloak
and I looked in
at the dark whirls of dust
The peaks coughing bouldered
laughter shook to pieces
35and the snake shed himself in ripples
across a lake of sand
I
Heterodoxy with Ennui
Should I bold in a moment intrude
upon a silence, hold my hands properly,
crossed, in a mock eternity,
would someone use my lips
5for an expiation?
I have heard the silent owl near death
sees wildly with the comprehension of fire;
have drunk from those eyes.
Transplanted my soul to the wind, wound
10my days round the algae of rapid streams,
wedded my bones to the throat of flame,
spirited.
You have heard it said of old time
the streets shall flow blood, but the streets
15swept out with the flood
shall be deposited upon sand.
You have this word for a fulfillment.
An unconstrained fluidity prevails, abides;
whole notes are rocks
20and men thirty-seconds,
all in descending scales,
unvigiled bastardies of noise:
the motion of permanence.
Marble, pottery, signs endure,
25support fluency, scrollwork,
where violins ornament, fingers,
offended with needles of care,
articulate poised domes.
This love for the thin and fleet
30will race through the water-content
of my heavy death.
I die at the vernal equinox
and disorder like a kissing bug
quaffs my bonds: if I ascend,
35I shall be congratulatory,
but if they fawn, desire
a season before immortality.
Detain me among the spiral designs
of an ancient amphora: fulfillment
40comes before me like spiral designs
on an ancient amphora in which detain me,
fixed in rigid speed.
II
Orthodoxy with Achievement
Silent as light in dismal transit
through the void, I, evanescent,
45sibilant among my parts,
fearing the eclipse of a possible glance
and not glancing, shut-eyed,
crouch froglike upon my brain,
hover and keep dark,
50fervor opposed by dread,
activity numbed by its mixed result,
till some awaited drop falls
upon the mound and chaos
perfects the eternity of my silence.
55I cannot count the forms,
thrown upon the wheel, delineated,
that have risen and returned
without accretion; but the spirit
drops falling upon wings
60and preens the day with its call:
none say where in the silence it sleeps.
Though the sound of my voice
is a firmamental flaw, my self, in the rockheart,
in southern oakmoss blown tangled,
65its supple pincers snaring
new forks of life, braiding thin limbs
of the wateroak on gooseberry hills
beside swamps where the raccoon runs
and dips his paw in the run-of-the-swampin
70musky branchwater for darting crawfish
scuttling a mudwake before them; my self,
voluble in the dark side of hills
and placid bays, while the sun grows
increasing atmosphere to the sea,
75correcting the fault of dawn; my self,
the drought of unforested plains,
the trilobite’s voice,
the loquacity of an alien room troubled
by a blowfly, requires my entertainment
80while we learn the vowels of silence.
III
Paradox with Variety
The temple stands in a rainforest
where bones have a quick ending.
Ephemeral as wings in fire
transparent leaves droop in the earth-steam;
85growth and decay swallow the traces
of recent paths.
I went in. On one side sat the god of creation; on the other,
the god of destruction. Hatred held their eyes. Going deeper
to the next chamber, I found the god of destruction and the
90god of creation tangled sensually on the floor; they gnawed
and procreated. In the next chamber was majesty: one god
sat staring at his golden walls.
I hear an organ playing through the morning rain;
it sounds like the memory of quilting women.
95Between the organ and me, California poppies furl
like splotches of conceit
in the light and silent rain.
A robin peeks up from the grass
and rattles a ladybug in his beak.
100Mr. Farnham says
life is fearfully complex.
When I was lustful I drew twenty maidens
from the Well of Sacrifice
and took them to Cozumel.
105The priests of the steep temples
longed to smear my body
with blue ointment.
We’ve all died since
and all has been forgotten.
110Strangers drop pebbles
into the Hole of Water:
it is too still.
Should I mistake khaki blood on foreign snow
for cherry ices, my mind would freeze;
115but Red blood is interesting:
its vessels on the snow
are museums of eternity.
When stone and drought meet in high places,
the hand instructed by thirst
120chips grace into solidity and Hellas,
like a broken grape upon marmoreal locks,
clarifies eternity. Had I come in the season
when sheep nibble windy grasses,
I would have gone out of the earth
125listening for grasses
and the stippling feet of sheep
on sinking rocks.
I like to walk down windowless corridors
and going with the draft
130feel the boost of perpendicularity,
directional and rigid;
concision of the seraphim,
artificial lighting.
Sometimes the price of my content
135consumes its purchase
and martyrs’ cries, echoing my peace,
rise sinuously like smoke
out of my ashen soul.
1952