it is addressed thusly:
A vision.
it reads:
Rigel Kent, that hoof that grinds down
Did in brightness come the boar
To root out and cast down
The stars forevermore?
Did Wormwood come and stain the sea
In absinthe-sickness make folly
With flood carry man and flea
In its destined volley?
Did at last shatter the dome of the sky
With the broad face of the moon
The hunter the whale espy
New in everlasting noon?
Did the sun fuming, rage out like a coal
Whose heat makes live and dead
Who ignore invincible Sol
With bitterness well-fed?
Did heaven and earth end in a breath
Rigel Kent, before a throne of light
Crowded out with life and death
Eternal day, eternal night?
it is addressed thusly:
A vision.
it reads:
In the dust of morning's call
The dream was gone - desire withal
Was it that we were all fain
To see it gone - flame under flame
Reading of things still far away?
I am loath to say I read them too
Unelemental dreams dreaming drew
Day did not withhold them there
Dim of the haze of brightening air
Figments of things far away;
We believed it, we believed withal
That we harkened such a call
That embarking while standing still
Fain with zeal to go and fulfill
Dreams of things yet far away;
Then when things went sideways,
We, but mendicant stowaways
Loath to believe our vessel drove
Into tractless deep and then dove
Withal we were not yet far away
Be chary, be merry, be ruth
But happenstance forgot the truth
The reck our folly no one drew
No image they had for it, too
Eyes all on things far away.
it is addressed thusly:
The second imprecation.
it reads:
Poets of the twentieth century
Save for a precious few
Did you finally have your victory
Well tell me - did you?
Your words will not be misunderstood
They will not be a slogan on a shirt
They will never be run through the dirt
They will not be a saleable good--
That which is forgotten will not
Be abused, was this the battle you fought
To be authentic, and all of your blood
Sweat and tears - time and man forgot?
Go then quickly, as it is said
To the guards of the heavenly fold
Ask, if you can but remember the dead
What the prophets among them told
-- For the voices to at last be still
Which are yet but yours and so
What can never be sung will go
In great haste, obeying their will
Be forgotten, expire and be free
As footprints washed away by the sea
A few will stay, for good or for ill--
Poets of the twentieth century.
it is addressed thusly:
An ode.
it reads:
The shattered sun, over crushed cloud
A bright fist beneath a white shroud
Neither rising nor setting as it may seem
Limpid is the sight, motionless the theme
Do the clouds move or the jilted sun
Are both still, or do both move as one
The lazy pines bask in overcast
As though no day would be their last
The sand less light, the road less gray
The summer less summer on such a day
A time in which it would be believed
That the wheel will turn as received
And stop not -- but for the rain
So it suggests -- but will it come again?
it is addressed thusly:
The first imprecation.
it reads:
O America - God's hand is upraised
Though your judgment fell
Your own wisdom you have praised
"I have done everything well,"
You spoke in the depths of your cups
Judging what was not, what was
In a blister-bright high of a buzz
On a rainbow from which still drops
Blood full of pestilent, detestable things
You wonder with joy what it brings
Until that heart up and stops
The blood - from earth it still sings.
Nothing is hid from the blood
No, every error and misdeed
Every stain of soot and of mud
Positivity is what you need
Or so you say, but what does it say
"Oh, curse that you were born
Curse the sounding battle-horn
Curse the sun and flee the day
Blessed is he who takes the iron rod
And herds you as cattle in the grimy sod
His countenance will be merry and gay
Blessed be the terror in the judgment of God."
a postscript is here written:
6.26
it is addressed thusly:
A vision.
it reads:
Late in time, the frenzied rain
Coming at us under pall of night
Fall, fall in saturnine might
Though the sun has yet to set again
Where have the people gone
Have they too, read the sky's face
In good sense quickly moved on
I do not see them in any place
We are shaken by a lightning-crack
Under threat of flood by rain's attack
To be washed away without a trace
Going, going and not looking back.
That strange and vanilla sky
Brilliant above the sun's decline
Shine, shine, with heaven shine
At last now the clouds are dry
Fading to orange and burning out
As grief like anger must too pass
That evil day, for thunder-shout
Rain-rush and lightning-crash
Beyond is the resolve of twi-light
Clouds come, a regiment of white
An army the change of day cannot rout
Sink, sink sun, and behold the night.
it is addressed thusly:
A thought.
it reads:
Those who remain silent because
They do not know they cannot speak
The gulag came from Lenin's laws
But what had Gramsci for the meek
Who would, regardless of labor cost
Cold steel kept but bright gold tossed
Not rise up, but like water leak
So all his great fortunes are lost;
Silence them, he might have said
But let them think that they are heard
And though their voices are ringing dead
They will not hear o'er their own word
You, of this sort, are actually the weak
Only your seeming strength they seek
So to others your privilege transferred-
You do not know you cannot speak.
