There is a natty kind of mind
Culls its oughts,Trims its views,Prunes its trues,And never suspects it is a rind.
Culls its oughts,Trims its views,Prunes its trues,And never suspects it is a rind.
Stretch seaStretch away sea and landWe are following theeThy lead is dangerousAnd gloriusStretch thyself and usAnd make us liveTo mount the ladder of horizonsUntil we step upon the radiant plateau.
In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,And start their silent swinging, one by one.Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,His belly close to ground. I see the blade,Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
Not all wood takes to fire from a match,Nor coal from wood before it’s burned to charcoal.The wood and coal in question caught a flameAnd flared up beautifully, touching the airThat takes a flame from anything.Somehow the fire was furnaced,And then the time was ripe for some to say,“Right banking of the furnace saves the…
Eyes-fagots,Lips-old scars, or the first red blisters,Breath-the last sweet scent of cane,And her slim body, white as the ashof black flesh after flame.
Rumbling in the wind,Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .Full-lipped flowersBitten by the sunBleeding rainDripping rain like golden honey—And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
A saint and master of the being-world.Conscience cannot exist in the first:The second cannot exist without conscience.Therefore he, who has enough conscienceTo be disturbed but not enough to beCompelled, can neither reject the oneNor follow the other…
No flicker of a slender flame in space,In crucibles, fragility crystalline.There is no fragrance of the jessamineAbout you, no pathos of some old placeAt dusk, that crumbles like moth-eater laceBeneath the touch. Nor has there ever been.Your love is like the folk-song’s flaming riseIn cane-lipped southern people, like their soulWhich burst its bondage in a…
To those fixed on black,It is the same,And red is red,Yellow, yellow-Surely there are such sightsIn the many colored world,Or in the mind.The strange thing is thatThese people never see themselvesOr you, or me.Are they not in their minds?Are we not in the world?This is a curious blindnessFor those that are color blind.What queer beliefsThat…
Eyes–fagots,Lips–old scars, or the first red blisters,Breath–the last sweet scent of cane,And her slim body, white as the ashof black flesh after flame.