mirror

"He gave her class. She gave him sex."
-- Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

He gave her money. She gave him head.
He gave her tips on "aggressive growth" mutual funds. She gave him a red rose
and a little statue of eros.
He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis 1 (26-28).
He gave her a square peg. She gave him a round hole.
He gave her Long Beach on a late Sunday in September. She gave him zinnias
and cosmos in the plenitude of July.

I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with ecstasy of shame.
That tearing pain is gone, enriched
By his life-spasm; but he being gone, the same

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

He shone in the senate, the camp, and the grove,
The mirror of manhood, the darling of love.
He fought for his country, the star of the brave,
And died for it’s weal when to die was to save.

And Wisdom and Valour long over him wept,
And Beauty, for ages, strewed flowers where he slept.

And the bards of the people inwrought with their lays
The light of his glory, the sound of his praise.

But afar in the foreworld have faded their strains,
And now of his being what record remains?

BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
This room was still--too still for peace.

It heard the livid words we said
Of hate and passion, watched us where
I sat, as one beside the dead--
You lay with all your glorious hair
Flung on the crazy bed.

The moment's passion ended brought--
Ah, child, to you what did it bring?
What could it, but one hideous thought

Hurrah for the storm-clouds sweeping!

Hurrah for the driving rain!

The dull earth out of her sleeping

Is wakened to life again.

There are mirrors of crystal shining

Whenever the cloud-wrack breaks,

And grass-clad banks are twining

A wreath for the fairy lakes - - -

Lakes that are links in an endless chain

For the water is out in the swamps again!



Hurrah for the red-gums standing

So high on the range above!

I

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.

Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize

go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important

and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten

It fell upon a summer night
The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;
Behind it, silent vigil keeping,
Sat Margaret, as one in trance—
The dark-eyed daughter of the Manse.
A flood of strange, sweet thoughts was surging
Her passionate heart and brain within.
At last, some secret impulse urging,
She laid aside her garment thin,
And from its snowy folds emerging,

from an officer's diary during the last war

I

The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids.
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands:
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea,

Yesterday's napkins, and an opened letter.
"Your asthma's bad, old man." He doesn't answer,
And turns to the grey windows and the weather.
"Don't worry, Stephan, the lungs will go to cancer."

II

I speak, "the enemy's exhausted, victory