University of California Berkeley

SOUR GRAPES

SOUR GRAPESA Book of Poems

Car/os

BOSTON

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY

1921

Copyright, 1921, by

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY

The Four Seas Press

Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

To

ALFRED KREYMBORG

Certain of the poems in this book have appeared in the

magazines : Poetry, a Magazine of Verse, The Egoist,

The Little Review, The Dial, Others, and Contact.

CONTENTSPage

THE LATE SINGER . ... . : .;t , *. u

MARCH '.. . . i . . , 12BERKET AND THE STARS . . .. . 17A CELEBRATION . . . .

:,. . 18

APRIL . . . . . . > 21

A GOODNIGHT . .. . . . 22OVERTURE TO A DANCE OF LOCOMOTIVES < 24ROMANCE MODERNE . . V

CONTENTSPage

THE SOUGHING WIND . . . . 48SPRING * . . . . . ,49PLAY . . . . . . . .50LINES . . . . . . . 51THE POOR ....... 52COMPLETE DESTRUCTION 53MEMORY OF APRIL ..... 54EPITAPH ....... 55DAISY ....... 56PRIMROSE . . . . . , , 57

QUEEN-ANN'S-LACE . . . . 58GREAT MULLEN ...... 59WAITING ... . . . . . .60THE HUNTER . . . . . . 61ARRIVAL ....... 62To A FRIEND CONCERNING SEVERAL LADIES . 63YOUTH AND BEAUTY .... . 65THE THINKER ...../ 66THE DISPUTANTS . . . . .67THE TULIP BED ... 68THE BIRDS . . . . . . 69THE NIGHTINGALES . . . . . 70SPOUTS . . . . . ... 71BLUEFLAGS . . . . . . 72THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME . . 73*LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM . ... 74PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR . . . . 75THE LONELY STREET . . . . . 77THE GREAT FIGURE . . . . . 78

SOUR GRAPES

THE LATE SINGER

Here it is spring againand I still a young man !1 am late at my singing.The sparrow with the black rain on his breasthas been at his cadenzas for two weeks past :What is it that is dragging at my heart ?The grass by the back dooris stiff with sap.The old maples are openingtheir branches of brown and yellow moth-flowers.A moon hangs in the bluein the early afternoons over the marshes.

I am late at my singing.

MARCH

Winter is long in this climateand spring a matter of a few daysonly, a flower or two pickedfrom mud or from among wet leavesor at best against treacherousbitterness of wind, and sky shiningteasingly, then closing in black

and sudden, with fierce jaws.

II

March,you remind me of

the pyramids, our pyramidsstript of the polished stone

that used to guard them !

March,you are like Fra Angelicoat Fiesole, painting on plaster!

March,you are like a band of

young poets that have not learnedthe blessedness of warmth(or have forgotten it).

At any rateI am moved to write poetryfor the warmth there is in itand for the lonelinessa poem that shall have you

in it March.

[12]

Ill

See!

Ashur-ban-i-pal,the archer king, on horse-back,in blue and yellow enamel !with drawn bow facing lionsstanding on their hind legs,fangs bared! his shafts

bristling in their necks !

Sacred bulls dragonsin embossed brickwork

marching in four tiers

along the sacred way toNebuchadnezzar's throne hall !

They shine in the sun,they that have been marchingmarching under the dust often thousand dirt years.

Nowthey are coming into bloom again!See them !

marching still, bared bythe storms from my calendar

winds that blow back the sand!winds that enfilade dirt!winds that by strange crafthave whipt up a black armythat by pick and shovelbare a procession to

the god, Marduk!

Natives cursing and diggingfor pay unearth dragons with

[13]

upright tails and sacred bulls

alternatelyin four tiers

lining the way to an old altar!Natives digging at old walls

digging me warmth digging mesweet loneliness

high enamelled walls.

IV

My second springpassed in a monasterywith plaster walls in Fiesoleon the hill above Florence.

My second spring painteda virgin in a blue aureole

sitting on a three-legged stool,arms crossedshe is intently serious,

and still

watching an angelwith coloured wingshalf kneeling before herand smiling the angel's eyesholding the eyes of Maryas a snake's holds a bird's.On the ground there are flowers,trees are in leaf.

VBut ! now for the battle !Now for murder now for the real thing!My third springtime is approaching!

[14]

Winds!

lean, serious as a virgin,

seeking, seeking the flowers of March.

Seekingflowers nowhere to be found,they twine among the bare branchesin insatiable eagerness

they whirl up the snow

seeking under it

they the winds snakelikeroar among yellow reeds

seeking flowers flowers.

I spring among themseeking one flowerin which to warm myself !

I deride with all the ridiculeof miserymy own starved misery.

Counter-cutting windsstrike against me

refreshing their fury !

Come, good, cold fellows!Have we no flowers?

Defy then with even more

desperation than ever beinglean and frozen!

But though you are lean and frozenthink of the blue bulls of Babylon.

Fling yourselves upontheir empty roses

cut savagely!

Butthink of the painted monastery

at Fiesole.

[16]

BERKET AND THE STARS

A day on the boulevards chosen out of ten years ofstudent poverty ! One best day out of ten good ones.Berket in high spirits "Ha, oranges ! Let's have one !"And he made to snatch an orange from the vender's

cart.

Now so clever was the deception, so nicely timedto the full sweep of certain wave summits,that the rumor of the thing has come down throughthree generations which is relatively forever!

A CELEBRATION

A middle-northern March, now as alwaysgusts from the south broken against cold windsbut from under, as if a slow hand lifted a tide,it moves not into April into a second March,the old skin of wind-clear scales dropping

upon the mould: this is the shadow projects the tree

upward causing the sun to shine in his sphere.

So we will put on our pink felt hat new last year!newer this by virtue of brown eyes turning back

the seasons and let us walk to the orchid-house,see the flowers will take the prize to-morrowat the Palace.

Stop here, these are our oleanders.When they are in bloom

You would waste wordsIt is clearer to me than if the pinkwere on the branch. It would be a searching ina coloured cloud to reveal that which now, huskless,shows the very reason for their being.

And these the orange-trees, in blossom no needto tell with this weight of perfume in the air.If it were not so dark in this shed one could better

see the white.

It is that very perfumehas drawn the darkness down among the leaves.Do I speak clearly enough?It is this darkness reveals that which darkness alone

loosens and sets spinning on waxen wingsnot the touch of a finger-tip, not the motion

of a sigh. A too heavy sweetness provesits own caretaker.

[18]

And here are the orchids !Never having seen

such gaiety I will read these flowers for you :This is an odd January, died in Villon's time.

Snow, this is and this the stain of a violet

grew in that place the spring that foresaw its owndoom.

And this, a certain July from Iceland:a young woman of that placebreathed it toward the south. It took root there.The colour ran true but the plant is small.

This falling spray of snowflakes is

a handful of dead Februarysprayed into flower by Rafael Arevalo Martinezof Guatemala.

Here's that old friend whowent by my side so many years : this full, fragilehead of veined lavender. Oh that Aprilthat we first went with our stiff lustsleaving the city behind, out to the green hill

May, they said she was. A hand for all of us :this branch of blue butterflies tied to this stem.

June is a yellow cup I'll not name; Augustthe over-heavy one. And here arerusset and shiny, all but March. And March?Ah, March

Flowers are a tiresome pastime.One has a wish to shake them from their potsroot and stem, for the sun to gnaw.

Walk out again into the cold and saunter hometo the fire. This day has blossomed long enough.I have wiped out the red night and lit a blazeinstead which will at least warm our handsand stir up the talk.

I think we have kept fair time.Time is a green orchid.

[20]

APRIL

If you had come away with meinto another state

we had been quiet together.But there the sun coming upout of the nothing beyond the lake wastoo low in the sky,there was too great a pushingagainst him,too much of sumac buds, pinkin the headwith the clear gum upon them,too many opening hearts oflilac leaves,

too many, too many swollenlimp poplar tassels on thebare branches !It was too strong in the air.I had no rest agaist that

springtime !

The pounding of the hoofs on theraw sods

stayed with me half through the night.I awoke smiling but tired.

[21]

A GOODNIGHT

Go to sleep though of course you will notto tideless waves thundering slantwise againststrong embankments, rattle and swish of spraydashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind,scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steadycar rails ! Sleep, sleep ! Gulls' cries in a wind-gustbroken by the wind ; calculating wings set abovethe field of waves breaking.Go to sleep to the lunge between foam-crests,refuse churned in the recoil. Food ! Food !Offal ! Offal ! that holds them in the air, wave-whitefor the one purpose, feather upon feather, the wildchill in their eyes, the hoarseness in their voices

sleep, sleep . . .

Gentlefooted crowds are treading out your lullaby.Their arms nudge, they brush shoulders,hitch this way then that, mass and surge at the cross-

ings-lullaby, lullaby ! The wild-fowl police whistles,the enraged roar of the trafic, machine shrieks :it is all to put you to sleep,to soften your limbs in relaxed postures,and that your head slip sidewise, and your hair loosenand fall over your eyes and over your mouth,brushing your lips wistfully that you may dream,sleep and dream

A black fungus springs out about lonely church doorssleep, sleep. The Night, coming down uponthe wet boulevard, would start you awake with hismessage, to have in at your window. Pay noheed to him. He storms at your sill withcooings, with gesticulations, curses!

[22]

*

You will not let him in. He would keep you fromsleeping.

He would have you sit under your desk lampbrooding, pondering; he would have youslide out the drawer, take up the ornamented daggerand handle it. It is late, it is nineteen-nineteen

go to sleep, his cries are a lullaby;his jabbering is a sleep-well-my-baby ; he is

a crackbrained messenger.

The maid waking you in the morningwhen you are up and dressing,the rustle of your clothes as you raise themit is the same tune.At table the cold, greenish, split grapefruit, its juiceon the tongue, the clink of the spoon in

your coffee, the toast odors say it over and over.

The open street-door lets in the breath ofthe morning wind from over the lake.The bus coming to a halt grinds from its sullen

brakes

lullaby, lullaby. The crackle of a newspaper,the movement of the troubled coat beside yousleep, sleep, sleep, sleep . . .

It is the sting of snow, the burning liquor ofthe moonlight, the rush of rain in the gutters packedwith dead leaves : go to sleep, go to sleep.And the night passes and never passes

[23]

OVERTURE TO A DANCE OF LOCOMOTIVES

Men with picked voices chant the namesof cities in a huge gallery: promisesthat pull through descending stairwaysto a deep rumbling.

The rubbing feetof those coming to be carried quicken a

grey pavement into soft light that rocksto and fro, under the domed ceiling,across and across from paleearthcoloured walls of bare limestone.

Covertly the hands of a great clock

go round and round ! Were they tomove quickly and at once the wholesecret would be out and the shufflingof all ants be done forever.

A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowingout at a high window, moves by the clock:disaccordant hands straining out froma center: inevitable postures infinitelyrepeated

II

Two twofour twoeight !Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.This way ma'm !

important not to takethe wrong train!

Lights from the concreteceiling hang crooked but

[24]

Poised horizontal

on glittering parallels the dingy cylinderspacked with a warm glow inviting entrypull against the hour. But brakes canhold a fixed posture till

The whistle !

Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two !

Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweatingin a small kitchen. Taillights

In time: twofour!In time: twoeight!

rivers are tunneled: trestles

cross oozy swampland: wheels repeatingthe same gesture remain relativelystationary : rails forever parallelreturn on themselves infinitely.

The dance is sure.

[25]

ROMANCE MODERNE

Tracks of rain and light linger inthe spongy greens of a nature whose

flickering mountain bulging nearer,ebbing back into the sun

hollowing itself away to hold a lake,or brown stream rising and fallingat the roadside, turning about,

churning itself white, drawinggreen in over it, plunging glassy funnelsfall

And the other worldthe windshield a blunt barrier :Talk to me. Sh ! they would hear us.

the backs of their heads facing usThe stream continues its motion ofa, hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish reappear vanish :detached dance of gnomes as a talk

dodging remarks, glows and fades.The unseen power of words

And now that a few of the movesare clear the first desire is

to fling oneself out at the side into

the other dance, to other music.

Peer Gynt. Rip Van Winkle. Diana.

If I were young I would try a new alignment-alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye !Childhood companions linked two and twocriss-cross : four, three, two, one.Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.Feel about in warm self-flesh.Since childhood, since childhood!

[26]

Childhood is a toad in the garden, a

happy toad. All toads are happyand belong in gardens. A toad to Diana !

Lean forward. Punch the steersmanbehind the ear. Twirl the wheel !

Over the edge ! Screams ! Crash !The end. I sit above my heada little removed ora thin wash of rain on the roadway

I am never afraid when he is driving,interposes new direction,rides us sideswise, unforseen

into the ditch ! All threads cut !

Death! Black. The end. The very end

I would sit separate weighing asmall red handful: the dirt of these parts,

sliding mists sheeting the alders

against the touch of fingers creepingto mine. All stuff of the blind emotions.But stirred, the eye seizesfor the first time The eye awake !anything, a dirt bank with green starsof scrawny weed flattened upon it undera weight of air For the first time !or a yawning depth: Big!Swim around in it, through itall directions and findvitreous seawater stuffGod how I love you ! or, as I say,a plung into the ditch. The end. I sitexamining my red handful. Balancing

this in and out agh.

Love you ? It'sa fire in the blood, willy-nilly !

[27]

It's the sun coming up in the morning.Ha, but it's the grey moon too, already upin the morning. You are slow.Men are not friends where it concernsa woman? Fighters. Playfellows.White round thighs ! Youth ! Sighs !It's the fillip of novelty. It's

Mountains. Elephants humping alongagainst the sky indifferent to

light withdrawing its tattered shreds,worn out with embraces. It'sthe fillip of novelty. It's a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannelor pongee. You'd look so well !I married you because I liked your nose.I wanted you ! I wanted youin spite of all they'd say

Rain and light, mountain and rain,rain and river. Will you love me always?A car overturned and two crushed bodies

under it. Always ! Always !And the white moon already up.White. Clean. All the colors.A good head, backed by the eye awake !backed by the emotions blindRiver and mountain, light and rain or

rain, rock, light, trees divided:

rain-light counter rocks-trees or

trees counter rain-light-rocks or

Myriads of counter processionscrossing and recrossing, regainingthe advantage, buying here, selling thereYou are sold cheap everywhere in town !

[28]

lingering, touching fingers, withdrawinggathering forces into blares, hummocks,peaks and rivers river meeting rock

I wish that you were lying there deadand I sitting here beside you.It's the grey moon over and over.It's the clay of these parts.

[29]

THE DESOLATE FIELD

Vast and grey, the skyis a simulacrumto all but him whose daysare vast and grey, andIn the tall, dried grassesa goat stirs

with nozzle searching the ground.my head is in the air

but who am I . . ?And amazed my heart leapsat the thought of lovevast and greyyearning silently over me.

[30]

WILLOW POEM

It is a willow when summer is over,a willow by the riverfrom which no leaf has fallen norbitten by the sunturned orange or crimson.The leaves cling and grow paler,swing and grow palerover the swirling waters of the riveras if loath to let go,

they are so cool, so drunk withthe swirl of the wind and of the river-oblivious to winter,the last to let go and fallinto the water and on the ground.

[31]

APPROACH OF WINTER

The half stripped treesstruck by a wind together,bending all,the leaves flutter drilyand refuse to let goor driven like hail

stream bitterly out to one sideand fallwhere the salvias, hard carmine,-like no leaf that ever was

edge the bare garden.

JANUARY

Again I reply to the triple winds

running chromatic fifths of derisionoutside my window :

Play louder.You will not succeed. I ambound more to my sentencesthe more you batter at meto follow you.

And the wind,as before,, fingers perfectlyits derisive music.

[33]

BLIZZARD

Snow:

years of anger followinghours that float idly downthe blizzard

drifts its weightdeeper and deeper for three daysor sixty years, eh? Thenthe sun ! a clutter of

yellow and blue flakes

Hairy looking trees stand outin long alleysover a wild solitude.The man turns and therehis solitary track stretched out

upon the world.

[34]

TO WAKEN AN OLD LADY

Old age isa flight of small

cheeping birds

skimmingbare treesabove a snow glaze.Gaining and failingthey are buffetted

by a dark windBut what?On harsh weedstalksthe flock has rested,the snowis covered with brokenseedhusksand the wind temperedby a shrill

piping of plenty.

[35]

WINTER TREES

All the complicated details

of the attiring andthe disattiring are completed!A liquid moonmoves gently amongthe long branches.

Thus having prepared their -buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

[36]

COMPLAINT

They call me and I goIt is a frozen road

past midnight, a dust

of snow caughtin the rigid wheeltracks.

The door opens.I smile, enter andshake off the cold.Here is a great womanon her side in the bed.She is sick,perhaps vomiting,perhaps laboringto give birth to

a tenth child. Joy! Joy!Night is a roomdarkened for lovers,through the jalousies the sunhas sent one gold needle !I pick the hair from her eyesand watch her miserywith compassion.

[37]

THE COLD NIGHT

It is cold. The white moonis up among her scattered starslike the bare thighs of

the Police Seargent's wife amongher five children . . .

No answer. Pale shadows lie uponthe frosted grass. One answer:It is midnight, it is still

and it is cold . . . !White thighs of the sky ! anew answer out of the depths ofmy male belly: In April . . .In April I shall see again In April !the round and perfect thighsof the Police Sergent's wife

perfect still after many babies.Oya!

[38]

SPRING STORM

The sky has given overits bitterness.

Out of the dark changeall day longrain falls and fallsas if it would never end.Still the snow keepsits hold on the ground.But water, waterfrom a thousand runnels!It collects swiftly,

dappled with black

cuts a way for itselfthrough green ice in the gutters.Drop after drop it fallsfrom the withered grass-stemsof the overhanging embankment.

[39]

THE DELICACIES

The hostess, in pink satin and blond hair dressed

high shone beautifully in her white slippers againstthe great silent bald head of her little-eyed husband !

Raising a glass of yellow Rhine wine in the narrow

space just beyond the light-varnished woodwork andthe decorative column between dining-room and hall,she smiled the smile of water tumbling from one ledgeto another.

We began with a herring salad: delicately flavouredsaltiness in scallops of lettuce-leaves.

The little owl-eyed and thick-set lady with massesof grey hair has smooth pink cheeks without a wrinkle.She cannot be the daughter of the little red-facedfellow dancing about inviting lion-headed Wolff the

druggist to play the piano ! But she is. Wolff is aterrinc smoker: if the telephone goes off at night sohis curled-haired wife whispers he rises from bed butcannot answer till he has lighted a cigarette.

Sherry wine in little conical glasses, dull brownish

yellow, and tomatoes stuffed with finely cut chickenand mayonnaise!

The tall Irishman in a Prince Albert and the usualstriped trousers is going to sing for us. (The pianois in a little alcove with dark curtains.) The hostess'ssister ten years younger than she in black net andvelvet, has hair like some filmy haystack, cloudy aboutthe eyes. She will play for her husband.

[40]

My wife is young, yes she is young and pretty whenshe cares to be when she is interested in a discussion :it is the little dancing mayor's wife telling her of the

Day nursery in East Rutherford, 'cross the track,divided from us by the railroad and disputes as to

precedence. It is in this town the saloon flourishes,the saloon of my friend on the right whose wife hastwice offended with chance words. Her English isatrocious ! It is in this town that the saloon is situated,close to the railroad track, close as may be, this side

being dry, dry, dry: two people listening on oppositesides of a wall! The Day Nursery had sixty-fivebabies the week before last, so my wife's eyes shineand her cheeks are pink and I cannot see a blemish.

Ice-cream in the shape of flowers and domestic

objects: a pipe for me since I do not smoke, a dollfor you.

The figure of some great bulk of a woman dis-appearing into the kitchen with a quick look over the

shoulder. My friend on the left who has spent thewhole day in a car the like of which some old fellowwould give to an actress: flower-holders, mirrors,curtains, plush seats my friend on the left who ischairman of the Streets committee of the town counciland who has spent the whole day studying auto-

mobile fire-engines in neighbouring towns in view of

purchase, my friend, at the Elks last week at thebreaking-up hymn, signalled for them to let Bill afamiliar friend of the saloon-keepersing out all aloneto the organ and he did sing !

1

Salz-rolls, exquisite! and Rhine wine ad libitum.A masterly caviare sandwich.

[41]

The children flitting about above stairs. Thecouncilman has just bought a National eight- somecar!

For heaven's sake I mustn't forget the halves of

green peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wholewalnuts !

[42]

THURSDAY

I have had my dream like othersand it has come to nothing, so thatI remain now carelesslywith feet planted on the groundand look up at the skyfeeling my clothes about me,the weight of my body in my shoes,the rim of my hat, air passing in and outat my nose and decide to dream no more.

[43]

THE DARK DAY

A three-day-long rain from the eastan interminable talking, talkingof no consequence patter, patter, patter.Hand in hand little windsblow the thin streams aslant.Warm. Distance cut off. Seclusion.A few passers-by, drawn in upon themselves,hurry from one place to another.Winds of the white poppy ! there is no escape !-An interminable talking, talking,talking ... it has happened before.Backward, backward, backward.

[44]

TIME THE HANGMAN

Poor old Abner, old white-haired nigger!I remember when you were so strongyou hung yourself by a rope round the neckin Doc Hollister's barn to prove you could beatthe faker in the circus and it didn't kill you.Now your face is in your hands, and your elbowsare on your knees, and you are silent and broken.

[45]

TO A FRIEND

Well, Lizzie Anderson! seventeen men andthe baby hard to find a father for !

What will the good Father in Heaven sayto the local judge if he do not solve this problem?A little two pointed smile and pouff!the law is changed into a mouthful of phrases.

[46]

THE GENTLE MAN

I feel the caress of my own fingerson my own neck as I place my collarand think pityinglyof the kind women I have known.

[47]

THE SOUGHING WIND

Some leaves hang late, some fallbefore the first frost so goesthe tale of winter branches and old bones.

[48]

SPRING

O my grey hairs !You are truly white as plum blossoms.

[49]

PLAY

Subtle, clever brain, wiser than I am,

by what devious means do you contriveto remain idle? Teach me, O master.

[50]

LINES

Leaves are greygreen,the glass broken, bright green.

[51]

THE POOR

By constantly tormenting themwith reminders of the lice intheir children's hair, the

School Physician first

brought their hatred down on him,But by this familiaritythey grew used to him, and so,at last,

took hhh for their friend and adviser.

[52]

COMPLETE DESTRUCTION

It was an icy day.We buried the cat,then took her boxand set fire to itin the back yard.Those fleas that escapedearth and firedied by the cold.

[53]

MEMORY OF APRIL

You say love is this, love is that :Poplar tassels, willow tendrilsthe wind and the rain comb,tinkle and drip, tinkle and dripbranches drifting apart. Hagh !Love has not even visited this country.

[54]

EPITAPH

An old willow with hollow branchesslowly swayed his few high bright tendrilsand sang:

Love is a young green willow

shimmering at the bare wood's edge.

[ss]

DAISY

The dayseye hugging the earthin August, ha ! Spring is

gone down in purple,weeds stand high in the corn,the rainbeaten furrowis clotted with sorreland crabgrass, thebranch is black underthe heavy mass of the leavesThe sun is upon aslender green stemribbed lengthwise.He lies on his backit is a woman also-he regards his former

majesty andround the yellow center,split and creviced and done intominute flowerheads, he sends outhis twenty rays a littleand the wind is among themto grow cool there !

One turns the thing overin his hand and looksat it from the rear: brownedged,green and pointed scalesarmor his yellow.But turn and turn,the crisp petals remain

brief, translucent, greenfastened,

barely touching at the edges :blades of limpid seashell.

[56]

PRIMROSE

Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!It is not a color.

It is summer!It is the wind on a willow,the lap of waves, the shadowunder a bush, a bird, a bluebird,three herons, a dead hawk

rotting on a poleClear yellow !

It is a piece of blue paperin the grass or a threecluster of

green walnuts swaying, children

playing croquet or one boyfishing, a manswinging his pink fists

as he walksIt is ladysthumb, forgetmenotsin the ditch, moss underthe flange of the carrail, the

wavy lines in split rock, a

great oaktree

It is a disinclination to befive red petals or a rose, it is

a cluster of birdsbreast flowers

on a red stem six feet high,four open yellow petalsabove sepals curledbackward into reverse spikesTufts of purple grass spot the

green meadow and clouds the sky.

[57]

QUEEN-ANN'S-LACE

Her body is not so white as

anemony petals nor so smooth norso remote a thing. It is a fieldof the wild carrot takingthe field by force ; the grassdoes not raise above it.Here is no question of whiteness,white as can be, with a purple moleat the center of each flower.Each flower is a hand's spanof her whiteness. Whereverhis hand has lain there isa tiny purple blemish. Each partis a blossom under his touchto which the fibres of her beingstem one by one, each to its end,until the whole field is awhite desire, empty, a single stem,a cluster, flower by flower,a pious wish to whiteness gone overor nothing.

[58]

GREAT MULLEN

One leaves his leaves at home

being a mullen and sends up a lighthouseto peer from : I will have my way,yellow A mast with a lantern, tenfifty, a hundred, smaller and smalleras they grow more Liar, liar, liar !You come from her! I can smell djer-kisson your clothes. Ha, ha ! you come to me,you I am a point of dew on a grass-stem.Why are you sending heat down on mefrom your lantern? You are cowdung, adead stick with the bark off. She is

squirting on us both. She has had herhand on you ! Well ? She has defiledME. Your leaves are dull, thickand hairy. Every hair on my body willhold you off from me. You are adungcake, birdlime on a fencerail.I love you, straight, yellow

finger of God pointing to her !Liar, broken weed, duncake, you haveI am a cricket waving his antenaeand you are high, grey and straight. Ha!

[59]

WAITING

When I am alone I am happy.The air is cool. The sky isflecked and splashed and woundwith color. The crimson phalloiof the sassafrass leaves

hang crowded before mein shoals on the heavy branches.When I reach my doorstepI am greeted bythe happy shrieks of my childrenand my heart sinks.I am crushed.

Are not my children as dear to meas falling leaves ormust one become stupidto grow older?It seems much as if Sorrowhad tripped up my heels.Let us see, let us see !

What did I plan to say to herwhen it should happen to meas it has happened now ?

[60]

THE HUNTER

In the flashes and black shadowsof Julythe days, locked in each other's arms,seem stillso that squirrels and colored birds

go about at ease overthe branches and through the air.

Where will a shoulder split ora forehead open and victory be?

Nowhere.Both sides grow older.

And you may be surenot one leaf will lift itselffrom the groundand become fast to a twig again.

[61]

ARRIVAL

And yet one arrives somehow,finds himself loosening the hooks ofher dressin a strange bedroomfeels the autumn

dropping its silk and linen leavesabout her ankles.The tawdry veined body emergestwisted upon itselflike a winter wind . . !

[62]

TO A FRIENDCONCERNING SEVERAL LADIES

You loiow there is not muchthat I desire, a few crysanthemumshalf lying on the grass, yellowand brown and white, thetalk of a few people, the trees,an expanse of dried leaves perhapswith ditches among them.But there comesbetween me and these thingsa letter

or even a look well placed,

you understand,so that I am confused, twistedfour ways and left flat,unable to lift the food to

my own mouth:Here is what they say: Come!and come ! and come ! And ifI do not go I remain stale to

myself and if I goI have watched

the city from a distance at nightand wondered why I wrote no poem.Come ! yes,the city is ablaze for youand you stand and look at it

And they are right. There isno good in the world except out ofa woman and certain women alonefor certain things. But what ifI arrive like a turtle

with my house on my back ora fish ogling from under water?

[63]

It will not do. I must be

steaming with love, coloredlike a flamingo. For what?To have legs and a silly headand to smell, pah ! like a flamingothat soils its own feathers behind.Must I go home filledwith a bad poem?And they say:Who can answer these thingstill he has tried? Your eyesare half closed, you are a child,oh, a sweet one, ready to playbut I will make a man of you andwith love on his shoulder !

And in the marshesthe crickets runon the sunny dike's top andmake burrows there, the waterreflects the reeds and the reedsmove on their stalks and rattle drily.

[64]

YOUTH AND BEAUTY

I bought a dishmophaving no daughterfor they had twistedfine ribbons of shining copperabout white twineand made a towsled headof it, fastened it

upon a turned ash stickslender at the neck

straight, tall

when tied uprighton the brass wallbracketto be a light for meand naked,as a girl should seemto her father.

[65]

THE THINKER

My wife's new pink slippershave gay pom-poms.There is not a spot or a sitainon their satin toes or their sides.All night they lie togetherunder her bed's edge.Shivering I catch sight of themand smile, in the morning.Later I watch them

descending the stair,

hurrying through the doorsand round the table,moving stifflywith a shake of their gay pom-poms !And I talk to themin my secret mindout of pure happiness.

[66]

THE DISPUTANTS

Upon the table in their bowlin violent disarrayof yellow sprays, green spikesof leaves, red pointed petalsand curled heads of blueand white among the litterof the forks and crumbs and platesthe flowers remain composed.Cooly their colloquy continuesabove the coffee and loud talk

grown frail as vaudeville.

[67]

THE TULIP BED

The May sun whomall things imitate

that glues small leaves to

the wooden treesshone from the skythrough bluegauze clouds

upon the ground.Under the leafy treeswhere the suburban streets

lay crossed,with houses on each corner,tangled shadows had begunto jointhe roadway and the lawns.With excellent precisionthe tulip bedinside the iron fence

upreared its gaudyyellow, white and red,rimmed round with grass,reposedly.

[68]

THE BIRDS

The world begins again !Not wholly insufflatedthe blackbirds in the rain

upon the dead topbranchesof the living tree,stuck fast to the low clouds,notate the dawn.Their shrill cries sound

announcing appetiteand drop among the bending rosesand the dripping grass.

[69]

THE NIGHTINGALES

My shoes as I leanunlacing themstand out uponflat worsted flowersunder my feet.Nimbly the shadowsof my fingers playunlacingover shoes and flowers.

[70]

SPOUTS

In this world ofas fine a pair of breastsas ever I sawthe fountain in

Madison Squarespouts up of watera white tree

that dies and livesas the rocking waterin the basin

turns from the stonerimback upon the jetand rising there

reflectively drops down again.

[71]

BLUEFLAGS

I stopped the carto let the children downwhere the streets endin the sunat the marsh edgeand the reeds beginand there are small houses

facing the reeds

and the blue mistin the distance

with grapevine trelliseswith grape clusterssmall as strawberries

on the vinesand ditches

running springwaterthat continue the gutterswith willows over them.The reeds beginlike water at a shoretheir pointed petals wavingdark green and light.But blueflags are blossomingin the reeds

which the children pluckchattering in the reeds

high over their headswhich they partwith bare arms to appearwith fists of flowerstill in the air

there comes the smellof calamusfrom wet, gummy stalks.

[72]

THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME

Sorrow is my own yardwhere the new grassflames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.Thirtyfive yearsI lived with my husband.The plumtree is white todaywith masses of flowers.Masses of flowersload the cherry branchesand color some bushes

yellow and some redbut the grief in my heartis stronger than theyfor though they were my joyformerly, today I notice themand turn away forgetting.Today my son told methat in the meadows,at the edge of the heavy woodsin the distance, he sawtrees of white flowers.I feel that I would liketo go thereand fall into those flowersand sink into the marsh near them.

[73]

LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM

Light hearted William twirledhis November moustachesand, half dressed, looked

from the bedroom windowupon the spring weather.

Heigh-ya ! sighed he gailyleaning out to see

up and down the streetwhere a heavy sunlightlay beyond some blue shadows.

Into the room he drewhis head again and laughedto himself quietly

twirling his green moustaches.

[74]

PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR

The birches are mad with green pointsthe wood's edge is burning with their green,

burning, seething No, no, no.The birches are opening their leaves one

by one. Their delicate leaves unfold coldand separate, one by one. Slender tassels

hang swaying from the delicate branch tipsOh, I cannot say it. There is no word.Black is split at once into flowers. In

every bog and ditch, flares ofsmall fire, white flowers! Agh,the birches are mad, mad with their green.The world is gone, torn into shredswith this blessing. What have I left undonethat I should have undertaken

O my brother, you redfaced, living manignorant, stupid whose feet are uponthis same dirt that I touch and eat.We are alone in this terror, alone,face to face on this road, you and I,wrapped by this flame!Let the polished plows stay idle,their gloss already on the black soil.But that face of yours !Answer me. I will clutch you. Iwill hug you, grip you. I will poke my faceinto your face and force you to see me.Take me in your arms, tell me the commonestthing that is in your mind to say,say anything. I will understand you !It is the madness of the birch leaves openingcold, one by one.

[75]

My rooms will receive me. But my roomsare no longer sweet spaces where comfortis ready to wait on me with its crumbs.A darkness has brushed them. The massof yellow tulips in the bowl is shrunken.

Every familiar object is changed and dwarfed.I am shaken, broken against a mightthat splits comfort, blows apartmy careful partitions, crushes my houseand leaves me with shrinking heartand startled, empty eyes peering outinto a cold world.

In the spring I would drink! In the springI would be drunk and lie forgetting all things.Your face ! Give me your face, Yang Kue Fei !your hands, your lips to drink !Give me your wrists to drinkI drag you, I am drowned in you, youoverwhelm me ! Drink !Save me ! The shad bush is in the edgeof the clearing. The yards in a furyof lilac blossoms are driving me mad with terror.Drink and lie forgetting the world.

And coldly the birch leaves are opening one by one.Coldly I observe them and wait for the end.And it ends.

[76]

THE LONELY STREET

School is over. It is too hot

to walk at ease. At easein light frocks they walk the streetsto while the time away.They have grown tall. They hold

pink flames in their right hands.

In white from head to foot,with sidelong, idle lookin yellow, floating stuff,black sash and stockingstouching their avid mouthswith pink sugar on a sticklike a carnation each holds in her hand-

they mount the lonely street.

[77]

THE GREAT FIGURE

Among the rainand lightsI saw the figure 5in goldon a redfiretruck

movingwith weight and urgencytense

unheededto gong clangssiren howlsand wheels rumblingthrough the dark city.

[78]

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