An orange upon the table
Your dress on the rug
And you in my bed
Sweet present of the present
Freshness of the night
Warmth of my life. 

Watch out for power, 
for its avalanche can bury you, 
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate, 
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends, 
because when you betray them, 
as you will, 
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect, 
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down, 
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for games, the actor's part, 
the speech planned, known, given, 
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy, 
pissing on your own child-bed.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true, 
and every part of you says yes including the toes) , 
it will wrap you up like a mummy, 
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on, 
give your body to it, give your laugh to it, 
give, when the gravelly sand takes you, 
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person, 
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me, 
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said, 
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.
Oh special person, 
possible leaves, 
this typewriter likes you on the way to them, 
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration, 
for you, 
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon. 

Here, at the end of the world,
the flowers bleed
as if they were hearts,
the hearts ooze a darkness
like india ink,
& poets dip their pens in
& they write.

"Here, at the end of the world,"
they write,
not knowing what it means.
"Here, where the sky nurses on black milk,
where the smokestack feed the sky,
where the trees tremble in terror
& people come to resemble them. . . . "

Here, at the end of the world,
the poets are bleeding.
Writing & bleeding
are thought to be the same;
singing & bleeding
are thought to be the same.

Write us a letter!
Send us a parcel of food!
Comfort us with proverbs or candied fruit,
with talk of one God.
Distract us with theories of art
no one can prove.

Here at the end of the world
our heads are empty,
& the wind walks through them
like ghosts
through a haunted house.

The lover in these poems
is me;
the doctor,
Love.
He appears
as husband, lover
analyst & muse,
as father, son
& maybe even God
& surely death.

All this is true.

The man you turn to
in the dark
is many men.

This is an open secret
women share
& yet agree to hide
as if
they might then
hide it from themselves.

I will not hide.

I write in the nude.
I name names.
I am I.
The doctor's name is Love. 

When I am dead and over me bright April 
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, 
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted, 
I shall not care. 

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful 
When rain bends down the bough; 
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted 
Than you are now.

I like that you are not obsessed with me, 
I like that I have no obsession either, 
And not for once in the eternity 
The heavy earth beneath our feet will wither 
I like I can be funny and be free, 
Be careless with words and never bother 
To be betrayed by tide of blush when we 
Brush with our sleeves when passing one another. 

I also like that in my company 
You’re confident enough to hug the other, 
You don’t foretell infernal suffering 
To me for being kissed by other lovers. 
I also like you never call in vain 
The sweet  inflection of my name, my sweetie 
And that we’ll never live to see the day 
When wedding bells hail us with nuptial greetings. 

I thank you from the bottom of my heart 
For loving me so much quite unaware: 

For the sweet peace, I own in the night,

For the scarce meeting in the eve’s fast flow,

For our not-walking under the moonlight,

For our not-standing under the sun’s glow –

That not with me – alas – you lose your mind,

That not with you – alas – I lose my own.

When love has changed to kindliness --
Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press
So tight that Time's an old god's dream
Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff
Seven million years were not enough
To think on after, make it seem
Less than the breath of children playing,
A blasphemy scarce worth the saying,
A sorry jest, "When love has grown
To kindliness -- to kindliness!" . . .
And yet -- the best that either's known
Will change, and wither, and be less,
At last, than comfort, or its own
Remembrance. And when some caress
Tendered in habit (once a flame
All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame
Unworded, in the steady eyes
We'll have, -- that day, what shall we do?
Being so noble, kill the two
Who've reached their second-best? Being wise,
Break cleanly off, and get away.
Follow down other windier skies
New lures, alone? Or shall we stay,
Since this is all we've known, content
In the lean twilight of such day,
And not remember, not lament?
That time when all is over, and
Hand never flinches, brushing hand;
And blood lies quiet, for all you're near;
And it's but spoken words we hear,
Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies
Are stranger and nobler than your eyes;
And flesh is flesh, was flame before;
And infinite hungers leap no more
In the chance swaying of your dress;
And love has changed to kindliness.

It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me. 

My hands clasped under a veil, dim and hazy…
'Why are you so pale and upset?'
That’s because I today made him crazy
With the sour wine of regret.

Can't forget! He got out, astound,
With his mouth distorted by pain...
I, not touching the railing, ran down,
I was running to him till the lane.

Fully choked, I cried, 'That's a joke --
All that was. You get out, I'll die.'
And he smiled very calmly, like stroke:
'It is windy right here -- pass by.' 

Fear no more the heat o' the sun; 
Nor the furious winter's rages, 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney sweepers come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown of the great, 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: 
Care no more to clothe and eat; 
To thee the reed is as the oak: 
The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash, 
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone; 
Fear not slander, censure rash; 
Thou hast finished joy and moan; 
All lovers young, all lovers must 
Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

No exorciser harm thee! 
Nor no witchcraft charm thee! 
Ghost unlaid forbear thee! 
Nothing ill come near thee! 
Quiet consummation have; 
And renowned be thy grave!

               Next time, when you come, come different;

Send your shadow...

Perhaps I won't recognize you.

 And then, when you come, let your eyes light up, 

let your lips turn ice cold 

and let your hands be tied up with invisible darkness.

     Next time, don't tell me you have someone else and that she is ok. 

Please, do not ask me for a lighter.

 And do not hug me.

 Forget to kiss me. 

Get your hand off my shoulder. 

Do not tell me I am an idealist and a bird that constantly falls to the ground. 

Don't say that everything is going to be better and all I should do is to admit to myself "I am worthless. World is hell". 

Night might not turn into a day.

     Do not walk beside me for hours.

 Days tend to be long. 

The body can't sustain the soul.

       Yes, yes, I know... I screwed you up. Now, I am screwed. That Karma thing.

      Next time, before you come, leave... 

Come different. 

Maybe I won't recognize all that I love about you.  

Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? --
But why does it anger my heart to long so
For one man out of the world of men?

Oh I would live in myself only
And build my life lightly and still as a dream --
Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts
And colored like stones in a running stream?

Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,
The stars are ready, the night is here --
Oh why must I lose myself to love you,
My dear? 

Reality is a question 
of realizing how real 
the world is already. 

Time is Eternity, 
ultimate and immovable; 
everyone's an angel. 

It's Heaven's mystery 
of changing perfection : 
absolute Eternity 

changes! Cars are always 
going down the street, 
lamps go off and on. 

It's a great flat plain; 
we can see everything 
on top of a table. 

Clams open on the table, 
lambs are eaten by worms 
on the plain. The motion 

of change is beautiful, 
as well as form called 
in and out of being. 

Next : to distinguish process 
in its particularity with 
an eye to the initiation 

of gratifying new changes 
desired in the real world. 
Here we're overwhelmed 

with such unpleasant detail 
we dream again of Heaven. 
For the world is a mountain 

of shit : if it's going to 
be moved at all, it's got 
to be taken by handfuls. 

Man lives like the unhappy 
whore on River Street who 
in her Eternity gets only 

a couple of bucks and a lot 
of snide remarks in return 
for seeking physical love 

the best way she knows how, 
never really heard of a glad 
job or joyous marriage or 

a difference in the heart : 
or thinks it isn't for her, 
which is her worst misery.

I have changed the numbers on my watch,
And now perhaps something else will change.
Now perhaps
At precisely 2a.m.
You will not get up
And gathering your things together
Go forever.
Perhaps now you will find it is
Far too early to go,
Or far too late,
And stay forever.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; 
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink 
And rise and sink and rise and sink again; 
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, 
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; 
Yet many a man is making friends with death 
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. 
It well may be that in a difficult hour, 
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, 
Or nagged by want past resolution's power, 
I might be driven to sell your love for peace, 
Or trade the memory of this night for food. 
It well may be. I do not think I would. 

...

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d

...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

There will be butterflies,
There will be summer skies
And flowers upthrust,
When all that Caesar bids,
And all the pyramids
Are dust.

There will be gaudy wings
Over the bones of things,
And never grief:
Who says that summer skies,
Who says that butterflies,
Are brief? 

Alone, at last! Not a sound to be heard but the rumbling of some belated and decrepit cabs. For a few hours 
we shall have silence, if not repose. At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and I myself shall be the 
only cause of my sufferings.
At last, then, I am allowed to refresh myself in a bath of darkness! First of all, a double turn of the lock. It 
seems to me that this twist of the key will increase my solitude and fortify the barricades which at this instant 
separate me from the world.
Horrible life! Horrible town! Let us recapitulate the day: seen several men of letters, one of whom asked me 
whether one could go to Russia by a land route (no doubt he took Russia to be an island); disputed generously with 
the editor of a review, who, to each of my objections, replied: 'We represent the cause of decent people,' which 
implies that all the other newspapers are edited by scoundrels; greeted some twenty persons, with fifteen of whom I 
am not acquainted; distributed handshakes in the same proportion, and this without having taken the precaution of 
buying gloves; to kill time, during a shower, went to see an acrobat, who asked me to design for her the costume of a 
Venustra; paid court to the director of a theatre, who, while dismissing me, said to me: 'Perhaps you would do well to 
apply to Z------; he is the clumsiest, the stupidest and the most celebrated of my authors; together with him, perhaps, 
you would get somewhere. Go to see him, and after that we'll see;' boasted (why?) of several vile actions which I 
have never committed, and faint-heartedly denied some other misdeeds which I accomplished with joy, an error of 
bravado, an offence against human respect; refused a friend an easy service, and gave a written recommendation to a 
perfect clown; oh, isn't that enough?
Discontented with everyone and discontented with myself, I would gladly redeem myself and elate myself a 
little in the silence and solitude of night. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung, strengthen me, 
support me, rid me of lies and the corrupting vapours of the world; and you, O Lord God, grant me the grace to 
produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to 
those whom I despise.

It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't much punch in your blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.

Carry on! Carry on!
Things never were looming so black.
But show that you haven't a cowardly streak,
And though you're unlucky you never are weak.
Carry on! Carry on!
Brace up for another attack.
It's looking like hell, but -- you never can tell:
Carry on, old man! Carry on!

There are some who drift out in the deserts of doubt,
And some who in brutishness wallow;
There are others, I know, who in piety go
Because of a Heaven to follow.
But to labour with zest, and to give of your best,
For the sweetness and joy of the giving;
To help folks along with a hand and a song;
Why, there's the real sunshine of living.

Carry on! Carry on!
Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There's big work to do, and that's why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on!
Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry:
Carry on, my soul! Carry on! 

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water 
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. 

...
And many there were hurt by that strong boy,
His name, they said, was Pleasure,
And near him stood, glorious beyond measure
Four Ladies who possess all empery
In earth and air and sea, 
Nothing that lives from their award is free.
Their names will I declare to thee,
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,
And they the regents are
Of the four elements that frame the heart, 
And each diversely exercised her art
By force or circumstance or sleight
To prove her dreadful might
Upon that poor domain.
Desire presented her [false] glass, and then
The spirit dwelling there
Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair
Within that magic mirror,
And dazed by that bright error,
It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger
And death, and penitence, and danger,
Had not then silent Fear
Touched with her palsying spear,
So that as if a frozen torrent
The blood was curdled in its current; 
It dared not speak, even in look or motion,
But chained within itself its proud devotion.
Between Desire and Fear thou wert
A wretched thing, poor heart!
Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast, 
Wild bird for that weak nest.
Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,
And from the very wound of tender thought
Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes
Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies, 
Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.
Then Hope approached, she who can borrow
For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,
And Fear withdrew, as night when day
Descends upon the orient ray, 
And after long and vain endurance
The poor heart woke to her assurance.
—At one birth these four were born
With the world’s forgotten morn,
And from Pleasure still they hold 
All it circles, as of old.
When, as summer lures the swallow,
Pleasure lures the heart to follow--
O weak heart of little wit!
The fair hand that wounded it, 
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx’s lair,
Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,
Ever will be near. 

5. Sometimes I Hold It Half A Sin

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more. 

16. I Envy Not In Any Moods

I envy not in any moods 
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. 

54. Oh, Yet We Trust That Somehow Good

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final end of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
I shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry. 

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; 
And give us not to think so far away 
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here 
All simply in the springing of the year. 

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; 
And make us happy in the happy bees, 
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. 

And make us happy in the darting bird 
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, 
And off a blossom in mid air stands still. 

For this is love and nothing else is love, 
The which it is reserved for God above 
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil. 

'What's in a glass of wine?'
There, set the glass where I can look within.
Now listen to me, friend, while I begin
And tell you what I see-
What I behold with my far-reaching eyes,
And what I know to be
Below the laughing bubbles that arise
Within this glass of wine.
There is a little spirit, night and day,
That cries one word, for ever and alway:
That single word is 'More!'
And whoso drinks a glass of wine, drinks him:
You fill the goblet full unto the brim,
And strive to silence him.


Glass after glass you drain to quench his thirst,
Each glass contains a spirit like the first;
And all their voices cry
Until they shriek and clamor, howl and rave,
And shout 'More!' noisily,
Till welcome death prepares the drunkard's grave,
And stills the imps that rave.


That see I in the wine:
And tears so many that I cannot guess;
And all these drops are labelled with 'Distress.'
I know you cannot see.
And at the bottom are the dregs of shame:
Oh! it is plain to me.
And there are woes too terrible to name:
Now drink your glass of wine. 

And so it ends,
We who were lovers may be friends.
I have some weeks in which to steel
My heart and teach myself to feel
Only a sober tenderness
Where once was passion's loveliness.

I had not thought that there would come
Your touch to make our music dumb,
Your meeting touch upon the string
That still was vibrant, still could sing
When I impatiently might wait
Or parted from you at the gate.

You took me weak and unprepared.
I had not thought that you who shared
My days, my nights, my heart, my life,
Would slash me with a naked knife
And gently tell me not to bleed
But to accept your crazy creed. 

You speak of God, but you have cut 
The one last thread, as you have shut
The one last door that open stood
To show me still the way to God.
If this be God, this pain, this evil,
I'd sooner change and try the Devil. 

Darling, I thought of nothing mean;
I thought of killing straight and clean.
You're safe; that's gone, that wild caprice,
But tell me once before I cease,
Which does your Church esteem the kinder role,
To kill the body or destroy the soul? 

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common 
clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the 
larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,
You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns of seven circles shine,
Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they opened to the Florentine.

And the mighty nations would have crowned me, who am crownless now and without 
name,
And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the threshold of the House of 
Fame.

I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard is as the young,
And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the lyre's strings are ever strung.

Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the poppy-seeded wine,
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped the hand of noble love in 
mine.

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the burnished bosom of the 
dove,
Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love;

Would have read the legend of my passion, known the bitter secret of my heart,
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are fated now to part.

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth,
And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth.

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you -ah! what else had I a boy to do? - 
For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the silent-footed years pursue.

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once the storm of youth is 
past,
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent pilot comes at last.

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the blindworm battens on the 
root,
And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion bears no fruit.

Ah! what else had I to do but love you? God's own mother was less dear to me,
And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an argent lily from the sea.

I have made my choice, have lived my poems, and, though youth is gone in 
wasted days,
I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the poet's crown of bays. 

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.

In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.

You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.

You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.

You failed,
And now she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly drained.

How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would be; 
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be. 

They are alike, prim scholar and perfervid lover:
When comes the season of decay, they both decide
Upon sweet, husky cats to be the household pride;
Cats choose, like them, to sit, and like them, shudder.

Like partisans of carnal dalliance and science,
They search for silence and the shadowings of dread;
Hell well might harness them as horses for the dead,
If it could bend their native proudness in compliance.

In reverie they emulate the noble mood
Of giant sphinxes stretched in depths of solitude
Who seem to slumber in a never-ending dream;

Within their fertile loins a sparkling magic lies;
Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam,
Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’s all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’m not jealous
because we’ve never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ve told
us, but listening to you I wasn’t sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers, 
editors, “ her, print her, she’s mad but she’s
magic. there’s no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’t happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’t help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this. 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday, 
Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road, 
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews,
Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it, 
Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper, 
Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties, 
Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows, 
Without you I'd spend my summers picking morosley over the remains of train crashes, 
Without you white birds would wrench themselves free from my paintings and fly off dripping blood into the night, 
Without you green apples wouldn't taste greener, 
Without you Mothers wouldn't let their children play out after tea, 
Without you every musician in the world would forget how to play the blues, 
Without you Public Houses would be public again, 
Without you the Sunday Times colour suppliment would come out in black-and-white, 
Without you indifferent colonels would shrug their shoulders and press the button, 
Without you they's stop changing the flowers in Piccadilly Gardens, 
Without you Clark Kent would forget how to become Superman, 
Without you Sunshine Breakfast would only consist of Cornflakes, 
Without you there'd be no colour in Magic colouring books, 
Without you Mahler's 8th would only be performed by street musicians in derelict houses, 
Without you they'd forget to put the salt in every packet of crisps, 
Without you it would be an offence punishable by a fine of up to £200 or two months' imprisonment to be found in possession of curry powder, 
Without you riot police are massing in quiet sidestreets, 
Without you all streets would be one-way the other way, 
Without you there'd be no one to kiss goodnight when we quarrel, 
Without you the first martian to land would turn round and go away again, 
Without you they'd forget to change the weather, 
Without you blind men would sell unlucky heather, 
Without you there would be
no landscapes/no stations/no houses
no chipshops/no quiet villages/no seagulls
on beaches/no hopscotch on pavements/no night/no morning/
there'd be no city no country
Without you. 

I pick up the skirt, 
I pick up the sparkling beads 
in black, 
this thing that moved once 
around flesh, 
and I call God a liar, 
I say anything that moved 
like that 
or knew 
my name 
could never die 
in the common verity of dying, 
and I pick 
up her lovely 
dress, 
all her loveliness gone, 
and I speak to all the gods, 
Jewish gods, Christ-gods, 
chips of blinking things, 
idols, pills, bread, 
fathoms, risks, 
knowledgeable surrender, 
rats in the gravy of two gone quite mad 
without a chance, 
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance, 
I lean upon this, 
I lean on all of this 
and I know 
her dress upon my arm 
but 
they will not 
give her back to me. 

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go 
Before this place, and turn away your eyes, 
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies 
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, 
But, for a little, let your step be slow. 
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise 
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies. 
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know: 

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree- 
Though white of bloom as it had been before 
And proudly waitful of fecundity- 
One little loveliness can be no more; 
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head 
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead! 

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!-
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love, whatever it was, an infection.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I am in need of music that would flow

Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,

Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,

With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.

Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,

Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,

A song to fall like water on my head,

And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:

A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool

Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep

To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,

And floats forever in a moon-green pool,

Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep. 

You have to be always drunk.

That's all there is to it--it's the only way.

So as not to feel the horrible burden of time

that breaks your back and bends you to the earth,

you have to be continually drunk.

But on what?

Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish.

But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace

or the green grass of a ditch,

in the mournful solitude of your room,

you wake again, 

drunkenness already diminishing or gone,

ask the wind, the wave, 

the star, the bird, the clock,

everything that is flying,

everything that is groaning,

everything that is rolling,

everything that is singing,

everything that is speaking. . .

ask what time it is and 

wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you

"It is time to be drunk!

So as not to be the martyred slaves of time,

be drunk, be continually drunk!

On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

He poured the coffee
Into the cup
He poured the milk
Into the cup of coffee
He added the sugar
To the coffee and milk
He stirred it
With a teaspoon
He drank the coffee
And put back the cup
Without speaking to me
He lit a cigarette
He blew some rings
With the smoke
He flicked the ashes 
Into the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me
He got up
He put his hat
On his head
He put on 
His raincoat
Because it was raining
He went out 
Into the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me
And I
I took my head
In my hands
And I wept.

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet 
Traveling through casual space 
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns 
To a destination where all signs tell us 
It is possible and imperative that we learn 
A brave and startling truth 

And when we come to it 
To the day of peacemaking 
When we release our fingers 
From fists of hostility 
And allow the pure air to cool our palms 

When we come to it 
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate 
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean 
When battlefields and coliseum 
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters 
Up with the bruised and bloody grass 
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil 

When the rapacious storming of the churches 
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased 
When the pennants are waving gaily 
When the banners of the world tremble 
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze 

When we come to it 
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders 
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce 
When land mines of death have been removed 
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace 
When religious ritual is not perfumed 
By the incense of burning flesh 
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake 
By nightmares of abuse 

When we come to it 
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids 
With their stones set in mysterious perfection 
Nor the Gardens of Babylon 
Hanging as eternal beauty 
In our collective memory 
Not the Grand Canyon 
Kindled into delicious color 
By Western sunsets 

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe 
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji 
Stretching to the Rising Sun 
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, 
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores 
These are not the only wonders of the world 

When we come to it 
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe 
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger 
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace 
We, this people on this mote of matter 
In whose mouths abide cankerous words 
Which challenge our very existence 
Yet out of those same mouths 
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness 
That the heart falters in its labor 
And the body is quieted into awe 

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet 
Whose hands can strike with such abandon 
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living 
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness 
That the haughty neck is happy to bow 
And the proud back is glad to bend 
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction 
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines 

When we come to it 
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body 
Created on this earth, of this earth 
Have the power to fashion for this earth 
A climate where every man and every woman 
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety 
Without crippling fear 

When we come to it 
We must confess that we are the possible 
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world 
That is when, and only when 
We come to it. 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain. 

A magic moment I remember:
I raised my eyes and you were there,
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that's beautiful and rare 
I pray to mute despair and anguish,
To vain the pursuits world esteems,
Long did I hear your soothing accents,
Long did your features haunt my dreams. 
Time passed. A rebel storm-blast scattered
The reveries that once were mine
And I forgot your soothing accents,
Your features gracefully divine. 
In dark days of enforced retirement
I gazed upon grey skies above
With no ideals to inspire me
No one to cry for, live for, love. 
Then came a moment of reinessance,
I looked up - you again are there
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that's beautiful and rare. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?