O to look up and see
all sudden New York
no longer blurred in a
gauzy veil
no longer mystified and
blue
but stunning to the
last detail
in easterly steel
this is somebody's fate
not mine you have
to muse as all those
train cars
seem to
roll around inside you
endless the ghost of a
doll-face
cowboy James Dean
on his way to d**h
by oil and bourbon
born to stamp out
lies and build up new ones
in a rich and barren
landscape
this is all
murmur the tumbleweeds
no horse will be
shot in your place
long over
Mephistopheles
always appearing
when you least
expect him out
from the
summer haze
or restless
eyes of a girl in love
can't we be done with them
by now?
all masked in
awful longing
it was memory
woke us up
a boy who died
means so
much that it starts
to fade
out of our sight
haven't come up into
gray this way
in ages
it keeps arriving
harbinger of an early
nightfall
and the force is gleaming
un-recurring
stream of dailiness
we should resist and —
then yield to the
going off again
all sharply dressed
the devil is a
jester
O to think
I'd die today
in rose pearls
with the martyr's
face
emblazoned on
my youthful vision
— all would be
a sham
my love
so screams
the d**hless organ
and we come to
water
hateful glow
on any
stretch
approaching some
imaginary
place
the foot is bound
to fall on
how visible the docked
sailboats
wrapped up in
shadow-play
it plays us too
and vaguely am I
haunted by that
Titian red
but a canine face
cast back
in bliss or reverie
could never conjure
us
— some paleness rising
like a motorboat
to greet us
or announce
the hero
there he
can't exist
where we enfold
him like
a baited bird
in our ideals
the seasons are
confused
I'll have a hat
instead of
the sun!
while the sandstorm
thickens up
in French Japan
behind an
escalating head
and all our
poverty
of spirit and of sight
the music
listless coming
through but there
are voices in it
warblers at their
bright and sad
parade
under a quickly
flattening
sky
so for a second
you are
sure the
world is parallel
in every inch
its luminous
topography
and have to
think again
that it's a
sphere
unequal to the rest
and perfect
be it all a
dream —
I gather up
some of
my likenesses
in time for
the descent