Paterson - Episode 17

Beat hell out of it
Beautiful Thing
spotless cap
and crossed white straps
over the dark rippled cloth —
Lift the stick
above that easy head
where you sit by the ivied
church, one arm
buttressing you
long fingers spread out
among the clear grass prongs —
and drive it down
Beautiful Thing
that your caressing body kiss
and kiss again
that holy lawn —

And again: obliquely —
legs curled under you as a
deer's leaping —
pose of supreme indifference
sacrament
to a summer's day
Beautiful Thing
in the unearned suburbs
then pause
the arm fallen —
what memories
of what forgotten face
brooding upon that lily stem?

The incredible
nose straight from the brow
the empurpled lips
and dazzled half-sleepy eyes
Beautiful Thing
of some trusting animal
makes a temple
of its place of savage slaughter
revealing
the damaged will incites still
to violence
consummately beautiful thing
and falls about your resting
shoulders —

Gently! Gently!
as in all things an opposite
that awakes
the fury, conceiving
knowledge
by way of despair that has
no place
to lay its glossy head —
Save only — Not alone!
Never, if possible
alone! to escape the accepted
chopping block
and a square hat! —

And as reverie gains and
your joints loosen
the trick's done!
Day is covered and we see you —
but not alone!
drunk and bedraggled to release
the strictness of beauty
under a sky full of stars
Beautiful Thing
and a slow moon —

The car
had stopped long since
when the others
came and dragged those out
who had you there
indifferent
to whatever the anesthetic
Beautiful Thing
might slum away the bars —

Reek of it!
What does it matter?
could set free
only the one thing —
But you!
— in your white lace dress
" the dying swan "
and high heeled slippers — tall
as you already were —
till your head
through fruitful exaggeration
was reaching the sky and the
prickles of its ecstasy
Beautiful Thing!

And the guys from Paterson
beat up
the guys from Newark and told
them to stay the hell out
of their territory and then
socked you one
across the nose
Beautiful Thing
for good luck and emphasis
cracking it
till I must believe that all
desired women have had each
in the end
a busted nose
and live afterward marked up
Beautiful Thing
for memory's sake
to be credible in their deeds

Then back to the party!
and they maled
and femaled you jealously
Beautiful Thing
as if to discover when and
by what miracle
there should escape what?
still to be possessed
out of what part
Beautiful Thing
should it look?
or be extinguished —
Three days in the same dress
up and down —
It would take
a Dominie to be patient
Beautiful Thing
with you —

The stroke begins again —
regularly
automatic
contrapuntal to
the flogging
like the beat of famous lines
in the few excellent poems
woven to make you
gracious
and on frequent occasions
foul drunk
Beautiful Thing
pulse of release
to the attentive
and obedient mind.
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