nightingales to nurse us
Oriental Movie
Lady your orange back
is waving at Foujita
we’re all in a canoe
sipping the light drink of the tamarind bark
while the white-eyed paddles
whisper orange
and blue
and the solemn wall says
orange and blue
to your cunning slant-eyed rind
of a rainstorm shining
in the gloom
like the lights
of Hong Kong brewed
on the hill
and tomorrow there’ll be another
thin brush a thinner brush
The Crisis
After the white-collared boats
the smithies will return
then we shall hear
the ding dong.
After the laundries, the lavatories of trains
when velvet returns
we shall see the snails
making their own ding dong
when it rains.
After the rich seas, the closed stations,
the plumed clocks, the long balconies,
a quiet vista of snails.
In the time of great kings
I hid this knife with a friend
to cut off the trail (silver)
which led to my house.
Ding dong
without a shell.
Having to wait until it was over
I stayed on a sofa
when Madame returned
she discovered
a frieze on the wall and she exclaimed
in horror
(it was over)
You have murdered our friend!
Ding dong
from now on.
West Sixty-fourth Street
for Miriam and Mitchell Ittelson
The room isn’t as white as you’d suppose
(accustomed to a cube of ice
or a flake of eiderdown in Pekin
after the palace was closed; the warriors
in thin shirts tried to open the door
they found a message written in clear ink
forgetting to describe the tracks on the Yangtze floes)
There’s a sign of Work and Joy
facing the brave night whose shoulders
are covered with primary colors
under which we succumb with a smile
Permitting the glass blowers to thicken their bottles
while candelabra melt into forests
gathering their heartache
into bouquets of grass
Yet wicker is impermanent as these burning lights
when at daybreak it is said
“the painter has dropped his brush in the canal”
So afterwards we’ll go on to the Villa
I’ll play you its record the next time we go for a walk
in Central Park the hour the statues say “yes.”
The Time of Day
Or when I see a sailor in front of my house on the
sidewalk
He is hurrying, the church bells are ringing:
« Okay! » says the man who takes the money.
Or when two nuns enter the library, one of them is
going to smile
She is not thinking of what is ahead:
« Okay! » says the man who takes the money.
Or the mannequin who opens a closet full of hats
His arm holds his elbow and the hand caresses the
face while he selects:
« Okay! » says the man who takes the money.
Or when someone addresses me who is not a regular
member of the Army
And I answer, good afternoon Major:
« Okay! » says the man who takes the money.
Or when I go into the room and close my door
It is the hour for decisions and I am going to take
a little nap:
« Okay! » says the driver.
Heroic Stages
for Grace Hartigan
I had thought you were disappearing
under the desperate monuments of sand
I discovered you were leaning on grass
which after green is noble.
In the sunlight each morning
is delivered to your table
among the oranges and white bottles
the Quest.
If ever after Valhalla should proclaim
a string of knights (usually seen wandering)
this grey silent space would be orchestrated
for their maneuvers. And way over there
shining by itself in the blue twilight
a misunderstood Chalice.
Grand breaks!
the forest is growing too high
(the waves are longer; there is no sound)
the river has turned from its bed
rocks have no moss they have plumes
the chiaroscuro results in serpents.
Danger!
where only the poets
held to the routes by the tender-eyed peasants
and you painters
who have drawn those deep lines on the globes
are without anger and starvation.
My penitent self sing when you perceive
it is a kindergarten
of giants where grapes are growing.
The wind is southerly.
You face a park. There are wings in this atmosphere,
sovereigns