As the wind depositsIn slithered and too ample pockets.For we can still love the world, who findA famished kitten on the step, and knowRecesses for it from the fury of the street,Or warm torn elbow coverts.We will sidestep, and to the final smirkDally the doom of that inevitable thumbThat slowly chafes its puckered index toward…
That blends March with August Antarctic skies:These are but cows that see no other thingThan grass and snow, and their own inner beingThrough the rich halo that they do not troubleEven to cast upon the seasons fleetingThough they should thin and die on last year’s stubble.And they are awkward, ponderous and uncoy . . .While…
Taut miles of shuttling moonlight syncopateThe whispered rush, telepathy of wires.Up the index of night, granite and steel—Transparent meshes—fleckless the gleaming staves—Sibylline voices flicker, waveringly streamAs though a god were issue of the strings. . . .And through that cordage, threading with its callOne arc synoptic of all tides below—Their labyrinthine mouths of historyPouring reply…
O grey and gold amenity, —Silence and gentle gloom!Wide from the world, a stolen hourWe claim, and none may knowHow love blooms like a tardy flowerHere in the day’s after-glow.And even should the world break inWith jealous threat and guile,The world, at last, must bow and winOur pity and a smile.
Retrieves from sea plains where the skyResigns a breast that every wave enthrones;While ribboned water lanes I windAre laved and scattered with no strokeWide from your side, whereto this hourThe sea lifts, also, reliquary hands.And so, admitted through black swollen gatesThat must arrest all distance otherwise,Past whirling pillars and lithe pediments,Light wrestling there incessantly with…
Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand.They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks,And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weedGaily digging and scattering.And in answer to their treble interjectionsThe sun beats lightning on the waves,The waves fold thunder on the sand;And could they hear me I would tell them:O brilliant kids, frisk with…
I am not ready for repentance;Nor to match regrets. For the mothBends no more than the stillImploring flame. And tremorousIn the white falling flakesKisses are,–The only worth all granting.It is to be learned–This cleaving and this burning,But only by the one whoSpends out himself again.Twice and twice(Again the smoking souvenir,Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again.Until the…
His eyes pressed through green glass—green glasses, or bar lights made themso—shine—GREEN—eyes—stepped out—forgot to look at youor left you several blocks away—in the nickel-in-the-slot piano jogged“Stamboul Nights”—weaving somebody’s nickel—sang—O Stamboul Rose—dreams weave the rose!Murmurs of Leviathan he spoke,and rum was Plato in our heads . . .“It’s S.S. Ala—Antwerp—now remember kidto put me out at…
lavish this on you-the dense mine of the orchid, split in two.And the fingernails that cinch suchenvirons?And what about the staunch neighbor tabulations,with all their zest for doom?I’m wearing badgesthat cancel all your kindness. ForthrightI watch the silver Zeppelindestroy the sky. Tostir your confidence?To rouse what sanctions-?The silver strophe… the cantobright with myth… Suchdistances leap…
And with the day, distance again expandsVoiceless between us, as an uncoiled shell.Yet, love endures, though starving and alone.A dove’s wings clung about my heart each nightWith surging gentleness, and the blue stoneSet in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright.
