Classic Poem

Manhattan, 1975

If you have a hymen,
it will not be for long,
for the first day
of summer is here,
you can smell it:
the sensual earth,
as in a field
when suddenly here and there
small white buds
of an obscure genus spring up

and up bounds Puck,
my spirit,
uncontained,
the tiniest nerve-endings trembling,
yet stays
within its chest-walls
(a paradox)
and sends out a valentine
of air
showing an arrow
transfixing a heart,
and under it,
Ne Plus Ultra,
signed Dodo.
P.S. Nuts to reason.

Who's that in the light
cotton dress,
leaning out of her window,
smiling
as if she had heard
the earth
in one silly
piercing note of bliss
somewhere
in the high frequency
range
of a dog whistle
packed
behind her ears,
her echo
chamber,
and felt imperishable?

Playful she looked
and waited
for her unknown
lover
to lead him
through the eye
of a needle,
her senses
already gored
by him
(O be secret,
and protect us
in the voice
of Ruth:
" Whither thou goest,
I will go " )

All this in a smile.

Whichever, it comes not
down to earth.

Yay, sumer is i-cumin in,
lhude sing city. . . . .
milling around
in short sleeves,
collars open,
like in the old days, . . . .
he too who had reflected,
his father recently dead,
" He is safe with Noah now " . . . .
so close
they passed into the body's
private field:
close, mortal musk. . . .
tiny pore moistures,
sexual, befuddling. . . .
a whiff of dead breaths
intermittently crossing
(I could imagine lion cubs at play
bumping awkwardly against each other). . . .
in a trance,
hardly aware of their own
breathing,
smiling,
I among them
(impossible to keep Whitman out of this).

Great anonymous city,
old Testament in space,
I pass into you,
progenitor,
simple again,
knowing no one.

Where now are the objectives?
gone
with the dandelion seeds.
And irrelevance,
where was its sting?

O my radical past,
I am not embarrassed,
but is this all that remains?

A woman's voice:
" What language does he speak? "

At the old Armory wall
on 14th Street
a circle of open space
on the sidewalk,
in the center
a hand locker
(Salvation Army),
gun metal,
standing on end;
perched on top a parrot
(for a quick get-away?)
munching seeds;
under his claws:
GUS in white letters.

Was it my imagination?
his bluish-gray feathers
looked faded,
the way a dog's hair
around the eyes and muzzle
fades with age
. . . . knocked around in the big city. . . .
but the bearing and the fierce
eyes
could give lessons
in individuality:
so self-possessed
and indifferent
they were
that they held me
and looked wise
in the light
but from the sinister side,
cynical
(Inwrit)
and (wild thought)
as unprincipled as his partner,
hominid Americanus,
high cheek bones,
eyes set, sharp
. . . .were there eye-lashes?
pigment thinned out:
The Hustler,
cast in sandstone,
lips straight,
a graven line,
countenance anonymous.

That hard look!
From outside the pale
Calls the shots.
What is its business with me?
Trial by meat.

Under the hooded eye-lids
the coldness gripped me
with its fast buck,
a counter-voice there:
" Don't get any wrong ideas,
Buster!
This is only a side-line for me, "
and the voice spoke
to the rube's ear,
caustic, dry:
" Want the parrot
to tell your fortune? "
Then the woman:
" What language
does he speak in? "
" Sanscrit, "
shot back,
straight face,
not batting
an eye,
the look unrelenting,
" French, Italian, Pig Latin,
any language you like, lady. "
A crowd had gathered,
laughing.

Lady, why were you not warned?
As the distinguished
senator from North Carolina
once said of the distinguished
senator from South Carolina,
" I dealt with the man
at some length
and I wouldn't trust him
if the twelve Apostles
stood in front of me
and swore to his character. "

conceding at the same time
that in summer
insouciance is King
of the May
and hoodwink has been pardoned.

Lady, be comforted!English