Philip Levine

They Feed They Lion

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, 
Out of black bean and wet slate bread, 
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, 
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, 
They Lion grow. 

Out of the gray hills 
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, 
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties, 
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps, 
Out of the bones' need to sharpen and the muscles' to stretch, 
They Lion grow. 

Earth is eating trees, fence posts, 
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones, 
"Come home, Come home!" From pig balls, 
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, 
From the furred ear and the full jowl come 
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose 
They Lion grow. 

From the sweet glues of the trotters 
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower 
Of the hams the thorax of caves, 
From "Bow Down" come "Rise Up," 
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels, 
The grained arm that pulls the hands, 
They Lion grow. 

From my five arms and all my hands, 
From all my white sins forgiven, they feed, 
From my car passing under the stars, 
They Lion, from my children inherit, 
From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion, 
From they sack and they belly opened 
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth 
They feed they Lion and he comes.

Philip Levine

Belle Isle, 1949

We stripped in the first warm spring night 

and ran down into the Detroit River 

to baptize ourselves in the brine 

of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles, 

melted snow. I remember going under 

hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl 

I’d never seen before, and the cries 

our breath made caught at the same time 

on the cold, and rising through the layers 

of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere 

that was this world, the girl breaking 

the surface after me and swimming out 

on the starless waters towards the lights 

of Jefferson Ave. and the stacks 

of the old stove factory unwinking. 

Turning at last to see no island at all 

but a perfect calm dark as far 

as there was sight, and then a light 

and another riding low out ahead 

to bring us home, ore boats maybe, or smokers 

walking alone. Back panting 

to the gray coarse beach we didn’t dare 

fall on, the damp piles of clothes, 

and dressing side by side in silence 

to go back where we came from.

Lorine Niedecker

[Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?]

Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?

Fourteen washrags, Ed Van Ess?

Must be going to give em

to the church, I guess.

He drinks, you know. The day we moved

he came into the kitchen stewed,

mixed things up for my sister Grace—

put the spices in the wrong place

Kevin Killian

  

He read all his poems twice, thinking,

                                      

 “they did not hear them the first time.”

They hired a team of gay men who do this 
                                            gardening gig to do it for them

If his body rots in the mouth of maggots
                                                        let’s go to Zuni

Down his throat
                                                        poured a river of beer and rum

In the coercive moonlight of Diamond Heights 
                                                       his red hair, gold

He’d like the symbolism
                                             and of course the spring flowers

He was subtle, always said, “Hello my friend,”
                               as though he knew us better than indeed he did

If the words I wrote, and throw up into the sky, in his direction
                                                    mean what I think they do

Then deep into the black earth a post I dig, that says
                                       retention must be paid

I found out who he really was
                          through the name on the bracelet, pink and white beads

A couple of guys from Ireland 
                                   passing through town and one says, “Die faggots”

If there was no poetry there would be no 
                               toy, face, torment, healing, gladiola, prix fixe, heaven

Kevin Killian

Deep Red

Deep red • the submarine blips on the cold surface
in Antarctica • as Mariner’s ship draws near •
frothy surface on the blue wave •
Life is still • so catch as catch can • still evanescent, still

Red, an oar touches the water’s rim • muscular arm buff as
Meryl Streep’s in The River Wild • in Antarctica •   
frothy surface on the blue wave • life is still • “I don’t have
many T-cells left, but I used to have 8” • “now I have 9”

Under the gristle, vein, under the vein, deep red •
the blood of my pal • deeper and deeper this tiny wave, blue
on the surface • alone on the surface •
if you were one-dimensional what would you see?
a one celled mammal swimming for dear life •
to a shore strewn with protozoa bracken • still life
“now I have 6”

the flotsam and • jetsam of living • high
and deep • this the curve that
will kill you • pal
I’m living in • your disgrace
deep • red hatchet • cells
a doll with hands • scuttles across the face •
of the sea for you
come and get these • memories

Lorine Niedecker

 

In the great snowfall before the bomb

In the great snowfall before the bomb

colored yule tree lights

windows, the only glow for contemplation

along this road 

I worked the print shop

right down among em

the folk from whom all poetry flows

and dreadfully much else. 

I was Blondie

I carried my bundles of hog feeder price lists

down by Larry the Lug,

I’d never get anywhere

because I’d never had suction,

pull, you know, favor, drag,

well-oiled protection. 

I heard their rehashed radio barbs—

more barbarous among hirelings

as higher-ups grow more corrupt.

But what vitality! The women hold jobs—

clean house, cook, raise children, bowl

and go to church. 

What would they say if they knew

I sit for two months on six lines

of poetry?

James Tate

The Painter of the Night

Someone called in a report that she had 

seen a man painting in the dark over by the 

pond. A police car was dispatched to go in- 

vestigate. The two officers with their big 

flashlights walked all around the pond, but 

found nothing suspicious. Hatcher was the 

younger of the two, and he said to Johnson, 

'What do you think he was painting?' Johnson 

looked bemused and said, 'The dark, stupid. 

What else could he have been painting?' Hatcher, 

a little hurt, said, 'Frogs in the Dark, Lily- 

pads in the Dark, Pond in the Dark. Just as 

many things exist in the dark as they do in 

the light.' Johnson paused, exasperated. Then 

Hatcher added, 'I'd like to see them. Hell, 

I might even buy one. Maybe there's more out 

there than we know. We are the police, after- 

all. We need to know.' 

Jean Garrigue

 

Catch What You Can

The thing to do is try for that sweet skin 
One gets by staying deep inside a thing. 
The image that I have is that of fruit— 
The stone within the plum or some such pith 
As keeps the slender sphere both firm and sound. 
Stay with me, mountain flowers I saw 
And battering moth against a wind-dark rock,
Stay with me till you build me all around 
The honey and the clove I thought to taste 
If lingering long enough I lived and got 
Your intangible wild essence in my heart. 
And whether that's by sight or thought 
Or staying deep inside an aerial shed 
Till imagination makes the heart-leaf vine 
Out of damned bald rock, I cannot guess. 
The game is worth the candle if there's flame

Jean Garrigue

  

                    portrait by Larry Rivers

Song

O beautiful, my relic bone, 
Whitening like the foreign moon, 
Whose luster consummates my tomb. 

O beautiful, my fresh rose-grown, 
Rose-rose white from that small bone 
Whose vapor is the breath I own 

And tendrils of my blood curl in. 
Rose-rose white, the flesh I am 
But murderer eye and murdered! 

For all the flesh becomes an eye: 
I am no flesh while yet eye's eaten 
The rose-rose flesh bare to the bone, 

Bare to the bone! But that flesh still 
By heat of dews renews again 

O bless, occurrence of the moon 
When actual flesh of the both is gone, 
My flesh the air the eye takes in, 

That flesh on bone the air the eye takes in, 
Death-wedding the moon shines in

Jean Garrigue

                                        Some Serious Nonsense for the Cats and Wolves

                                                         My cat peed in the coalbin, why?

Well, God himself asks many things
And gives no reason for the sky.
If we get used to life, that is the crime
Though distant evils rise and shine.
My cat peed in the coalbin, why?
The coal will smell of whitefish when it lights
And mildest milk and small long bones
Will snatch a smoke to saunter through the skies
Or God himself will get a fire of rose
To hail the stars that watch our life of lies.
(Damn those pretty snakelike jaws!
I woke to hear her scrabbling in the coals!)
My cat peed in the coalbin, why?
Pray him cat's watered coals are not the worst
He gets from us, committed to our wars.
Pray him some natural good survive
Th' exploding ditch it seems he's left us by ­
This world that throws its darlings to the wolves!
My cat peed in the coalbin, why?
Well, God collect, forgive, and smile upon
Cats mad, abused, somewhat the idiot, who
Wish their sweets to amble through the clouds.
It is their schemeless arrogance perhaps
That keeps what's left in order, one might think,
Our offerings stench by that salubrious stink.

Think of the dead who multiply!
Think of the living now who mortify!

Jean Garrigue

Jazz Bit

 Go lift that pane of moonlight from the floor

And tell Nicotiana to stop 
Screaming with her perfume. 
The Four O’clocks too. They’re drunk with dew. 

I gotta date with a hoot owl, 
I gotta date with a whoo. 
Wait for the bird. By the moon-soaked wall. 
By the insect’s hairy legs. 
Wait for that green funeral 
Of the cricket in a pall 
And for the knell that tolls a moth. 
A vast robin as well 
Of the invisible wound that kills a crow. 
Wait till the master of all vermin, 
Presiding genius of the graves,
Comes with his rats, mice, frogs, toads and bugs. 
“Light, I salute thee with wounded nerves.”

James Joyce

 

from Finnegan's Wake

Tunc. Bymeby, bullocky vampas tappany bobs topside joss pidgin fella Balkelly, archdruid of islish chinchinjoss in the his heptachromatic sevenhued septicoloured roranyellgreenlindigan mantle finish he show along the his mister guest Patholic with alb belongahim the whose throat hum with of sametime all the his cassock groaner fellas of greysfriaryfamily he fast all time what time all him monkafellas with Same Patholic, quoniam, speeching, yeh not speeching noh man liberty is, he drink up words, scilicet, tomorrow till recover will not, all too many much illusiones through photoprismic velamina of hueful panepiphanal world spectacurum of Lord Joss, the of which zoantholitic furniture, from mineral through vegetal to animal, not appear to full up to-gether fallen man than under but one photoreflection of the several iridals gradationes of solar light, that one which that part of it (furnit of heupanepi world) had shown itself (part of fur of huepanwor) unable to absorbere, whereas for numpa one pura —— duxed seer in seventh degree of wisdom of Entis–Onton he savvy inside true inwardness of reality, the Ding hvad in idself id est, all objects (of panepiwor) allside showed themselves in trues coloribus resplendent with sextuple gloria of light actually re-tained, untisintus, inside them (obs of epiwo). Rumnant Patholic, stareotypopticus, no catch all that preachybook, utpiam, tomorrow recover thing even is not, bymeby vampsybobsy tap — panasbullocks topside joss pidginfella Bilkilly–Belkelly say pat — fella, ontesantes, twotime hemhaltshealing, with other words verbigratiagrading from murmurulentous till stridulocelerious in a hunghoranghoangoly tsinglontseng while his comprehen-durient, with diminishing claractinism, augumentationed himself in caloripeia to vision so throughsighty, you anxioust melan-cholic, High Thats Hight Uberking Leary his fiery grassbelong- head all show colour of sorrelwood herbgreen, again, nigger- blonker, of the his essixcoloured holmgrewnworsteds costume the his fellow saffron pettikilt look same hue of boiled spinasses,other thing, voluntary mutismuser, he not compyhandy the his golden twobreasttorc look justsamelike curlicabbis, moreafter, to pace negativisticists, verdant readyrainroof belongahim Exuber High Ober King Leary very dead, what he wish to say, spit of superexuberabundancy plenty laurel leaves, after that com-mander bulopent eyes of Most Highest Ardreetsar King same thing like thyme choppy upon parsley, alongsidethat, if please-sir, nos displace tauttung, sowlofabishospastored, enamel Indian gem in maledictive fingerfondler of High High Siresultan Em-peror all same like one fellow olive lentil, onthelongsidethat, by undesendas, kirikirikiring, violaceous warwon contusiones of facebuts of Highup Big Cockywocky Sublissimime Autocrat, for that with pure hueglut intensely saturated one, tinged uniformly, allaroundside upinandoutdown, very like you seecut chowchow of plentymuch sennacassia Hump cumps Ebblybally! Sukkot?

Punc. Bigseer, refrects the petty padre, whackling it out, a tumble to take, tripeness to call thing and to call if say is good while, you pore shiroskuro blackinwhitepaddynger, by thiswis aposterioprismically apatstrophied and paralogically periparo-lysed, celestial from principalest of Iro’s Irismans ruinboon pot before, (for beingtime monkblinkers timeblinged completamen-tarily murkblankered in their neutrolysis between the possible viriditude of the sager and the probable eruberuption of the saint), as My tappropinquish to Me wipenmeselps gnosegates a handcaughtscheaf of synthetic shammyrag to hims hers, seeming-such four three two agreement cause heart to be might, saving to Balenoarch (he kneeleths), to Great Balenoarch (he kneeleths down) to Greatest Great Balenoarch (he kneeleths down quite-somely), the sound salse sympol in a weedwayedwold of the firethere the sun in his halo cast. Onmen.

That was thing, bygotter, the thing, bogcotton, the very thing, begad! Even to uptoputty Bilkilly–Belkelly-Balkally. Who was for shouting down the shatton on the lamp of Jeeshees. Sweating on to stonker and throw his seven. As he shuck his thumping fore features apt the hoyhop of His Ards.

Thud.

Good safe firelamp! hailed the heliots. Goldselforelump! Halled they. Awed. Where thereon the skyfold high, trampa-trampatramp. Adie. Per ye comdoom doominoom noonstroom. Yeasome priestomes. Fullyhum toowhoom.

 

Anne Sexton

 

The Kiss

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby , you fool ! 

Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see — Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.

Ann Sexton

Music Swims Back To Me

Wait Mister. Which way is home? 

They turned the light out 

and the dark is moving in the corner. 
There are no sign posts in this room, 
four ladies, over eighty, 
in diapers every one of them. 
La la la, Oh music swims back to me 
and I can feel the tune they played 
the night they left me 
in this private institution on a hill. 

Imagine it. A radio playing 
and everyone here was crazy. 
I liked it and danced in a circle. 
Music pours over the sense 
and in a funny way 
music sees more than I. 
I mean it remembers better; 
remembers the first night here. 
It was the strangled cold of November; 
even the stars were strapped in the sky 
and that moon too bright 
forking through the bars to stick me 
with a singing in the head. 
I have forgotten all the rest. 

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m. 
and there are no signs to tell the way, 
just the radio beating to itself 
and the song that remembers 
more than I. Oh, la la la, 
this music swims back to me. 
The night I came I danced a circle 
and was not afraid. 
Mister?

Kenneth Koch

“And, with a shout, collecting coat-hangers 
Dour rebus, conch, hip 
Ham, the autumn day, oh how genuine! 
Literary frog, catch-all boxer, O 
Real! The magistrate, say “group,' bower, undies 
Disk, poop, “Timon of Athens.” When 
The bugle shimmies, how glove towns! 
It's merrimac, bends, and pure gymnasium 
Impy keels! The earth desks, madmen 
Impose a shy (oops) broken tube's child--- 
Land! Why are your bandleaders troops 
Or is? Honk, can the mailed rose 
Gesticulate? Arm the paper arm! 
Bind up the chow in its lintel of sniff. 
Rush the pilgrims, destroy tobacco, pool 
The dirty beautiful jingling pyjamas, at 
Last beside the stove-drum-preventing oyster, 
The “Caesar” of tower dins, the cold's “I'm 
A dear.” O bed, at which I used to sneer at. 
Bringing cloth. O song, “Dusted hoops!” He gave 
A dish of. The bear, that sound of pins. O French 
Ice-cream! balconies of deserted snuff! The hills are 
very underwear, and near “to be” 
An angel is shouting, “Wilder baskets!” 


1st stanza of When the Sun Tries to Go On 

Kenneth Koch

                                Fairfield Porter. Kenneth Koch reading (1966)

To You

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut

That will solve a murder case unsolved for years

Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window

Through which he saw her head, connecting with

Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red

Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;

For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not

Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a

Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails

In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from

The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;

I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields

Always, to be near you, even in my heart

When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you

Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to

The place where I again think of you, a new

Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow

Of a ship which sails

From Hartford to Miami, and I love you

Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun

Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

Anne Sexton

 

                scrapbook Virginia Beach (1948-1949)

With Mercy for the Greedy

For my friend, Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession

Concerning your letter in which you ask   

me to call a priest and in which you ask   

me to wear The Cross that you enclose;   

your own cross,

your dog-bitten cross,

no larger than a thumb,

small and wooden, no thorns, this rose—

I pray to its shadow,

that gray place

where it lies on your letter ... deep, deep.

I detest my sins and I try to believe

in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,   

its solid neck, its brown sleep.

True. There is

a beautiful Jesus.

He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.

How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!

How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!   

But I can’t. Need is not quite belief.

All morning long   

I have worn

your cross, hung with package string around my throat.   

It tapped me lightly as a child’s heart might,

tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.   

Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.

My friend, my friend, I was born   

doing reference work in sin, and born   

confessing it. This is what poems are:   

with mercy

for the greedy,

they are the tongue’s wrangle,

the world's pottage, the rat's star.