Poetry Index

Poetry Index

[Across dawn-red clouds] .............................. (5) 2nd decade 1942

Adon Olam ............................................. (9) 2nd decade 1945

Alone at Night ....................................... (12) 2nd decade 1947

Anti-Privacy ......................................... (27) 3rd decade 1951

Aviate or Deviate .................................... (34) 3rd decade 1958

Becoming Flesh ....................................... (33) 3rd decade 1958

[Between two poles hung,] ............................ (13) 2nd decade 1947

Beyond Cosmogony ...................................... (8) 2nd decade 1945

Bonjour Jeunesse ..................................... (42) 3rd decade 1958

Come, Ride with Me ................................... (21) 2nd decade 1949

Conversation ......................................... (46) 4th decade 1959

A Dialog on Gamete Politics .......................... (39) 3rd decade 1958

Dialogue ............................................. (48) 4th decade 1961

Dion ................................................. (18) 2nd decade 1949

Earliest Memory ...................................... (36) 3rd decade 1958

Early Waking ......................................... (32) 3rd decade 1958

Evening Snow -- Naked Branches -- Gray Sky ........... (15) 2nd decade 1948

For EBS .............................................. (22) 2nd decade 1949

Four Hours Till Dawn .................................. (4) 2nd decade 1942

[Halfway up the hill,] ............................... (57) 4th decade 1965

Hello - Goodbye ....................................... (6) 2nd decade 1944

Hunt ................................................. (29) 3rd decade 1952

If Sweet Love Be Poetry .............................. (11) 2nd decade 1947

I Laugh with Joy ...................................... (1) 1st decade 1939

[In life's dark movie theater] ........................ (3) 2nd decade 1941

Intellectuals ........................................ (25) 3rd decade 1950

[In the misty park] ................................... (7) 2nd decade 1944

Introduction to Greek ................................ (20) 2nd decade 1949

I Remember Our Song .................................. (53) 4th decade 1963

The Locked Door ...................................... (55) 4th decade 1965

Lying Love ........................................... (50) 4th decade 1962

Many in One .......................................... (40) 3rd decade 1958

Masochistic Conversation ............................. (19) 2nd decade 1949

My Dark Lady ......................................... (31) 3rd decade 1954

Nocturnal Landscape, Mostly Sky ...................... (16) 2nd decade 1948

On the Dazzling Plain ................................ (28) 3rd decade 1951

One Evening in the Past .............................. (44) 3rd decade 1958

Parade Drill ......................................... (17) 2nd decade 1948

The Passionate Liar to His Love ...................... (41) 3rd decade 1958

Prayer ............................................... (26) 3rd decade 1951

Prolegomenon to a World Government Constitution ....... (2) 2nd decade 1940

[Psycho-neurotic, -somatic, -psychotic,] ............. (10) 2nd decade 1946

Roller-Coaster Ride .................................. (54) 4th decade 1964

Self-Created ......................................... (30) 3rd decade 1953

Sketch for a Portrait of Ellen ....................... (23) 3rd decade 1950

Son on Water ......................................... (43) 3rd decade 1958

To Gloria R. Gerjuoy ................................. (24) 3rd decade 1950

To My Unknown Wife ................................... (49) 4th decade 1962

To My Wife on the Occasion of My Addressing

a Therapy Group for Unwed Fathers .................... (47) 4th decade 1960

Two Meditations on Hiroshima ......................... (38) 3rd decade 1958

Two Voices ........................................... (14) 2nd decade 1947

Under Cover .......................................... (35) 3rd decade 1958

Variation on a Theme by Shakespeare .................. (56) 4th decade 1965

[When does a man like me weep? When I came] .......... (51) 4th decade 1963

When I Am the Glorious Leader, What Will I Do with You?(45) 4th decade 1959

[You can do all sorts of taboo things if you . . . .]. (37) 3rd decade 1958

Poetry Index by H. G. Gerjuoy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Poetry - 3rd Decade

26. 1950

Sketch for a Portrait of Ellen

Emerging liquid from subliming sleep,

light as her mind, quick as sharp daybreak scent,

lost soft dreams heart-crystal throbbing pent

expand now subtly metaphored art deep.

Now from these frozen lines one pattered leap

reaches the hidden vein of warm content;

the glowing curve where ecstasies are blent

transforms the flowered memories two keep:

Fantastic whirls of patterned meaningness,

charming electrons, exquisite atomies,

abstractions beautiful as what we see.

Unfeeling vibrant molecules caress,

merge like our thoughts that melt and steam and freeze;

emergent life lights each necessity.

27. 1950

To Gloria R. Gerjuoy

generous love emerges in the flowered night

like women tumbling down a crystal stair

out of sky into ocean trailing long golden hair

reaching the warm-soft bottom out of sight

in the cool twilight glowing faintly white

among the fronds and starfish flesh too fair

reaches the sea-changed heart caught unaware

glorious yet secret in its quiet light

each moment means far more than any now

remembered selves from other nights discover

joys shimmering in presents past past dreams

unfolding now we tell each other how

out of the surface glitter to uncover

you and the ocean in its secret streams

28. 1950

Intellectuals

We each are words apart, yet one selfsame decision

joins us, word and thing surpassing, in mind's

intense syntactical embrace, which finds

in times, with brute or delicate elision

of naughts of metaphorical derision

we both evolve infinities of kinds;

each blends exclusive ecstasies and binds

two abstracts sans sin's tactual division.

Having the words, how graciously we swim

among the fronds beneath the mind's top face.

Having the words, how foolish and how dim

are our crude rumblings in that other place.

Having the words, how cool and soft and slim

here in the dusk each negative embrace.

29. 1951

Prayer

Give me strength, oh unknown God,

not to need Thy illusory aid.

Let me lean not on myself nor others

but lean not at all.

Standing erect in this dry season,

may I be the tree whose higher flame

catches the eye of the distant guardian.

30. 1951

Anti-Privacy*

I think lovers should shine,

Radiate special light,

From their foreheads perhaps,

So that late at night we could walk down a foggy street

And see in windows a pale flicker

Like lightning in a distant thunderhead just before dawn.

Like a child's nightmare-dispelling bed-lamp,

Love glows, shimmers, burns low all about us.

__________

*Published in The Best Poems and Poets of 2002, Owings Mills, MD; 

  International Library of Poetry

31. 1951

Since I forget so easily, I am continually surprised

when pleasing you is so easy and being with you so free from pain,

for, among the things I want, I want you so blindingly strongly

that it is hard to see that I may win you easily

without the fiercest tension and most despairing strain.

Often I think my words offered you should be just a few realized

drops of strongest concentration, painfully distilled

from hour of work when patiently and thoughtfully

I strained to touch the meaning of loving you for me,

as if such words could justify the peaks when I was thrilled

out of the humid air about us to an emptiness so agonized

the stars stabbed me, spears of icy light disdaining compromise

sharing the sky with a sun so fiercely, cruelly vain

that only my bones cast shadows down a wild and dazzling plain

where I felt no fear, only the caress of your infinitely distant eyes.

32. 1952

Hunt

Jenny missed me when she spat:

She only hit the chair I sat in.

You, who call me slow and fat,

Conceive how fast I had to flatten.

Say my width is as my height,

Say that she'd have never kissed me;

But add, my leap was swift, was light:

                Jenny missed me.

33. 1953

Self-Created

Now, living, I remember being dead.

My simple purpose then was to be born.

But life is complexity: I am worn

By dark desires and a darker dread.

When I was sixteen I would lie in bed

And dream of raping fortune, of her torn

And bleeding loins. I poured my scorn

On aimless loveliness of heart or head.

Now I am twenty-four. I have a wife,

A job, perhaps a future, also skill

At dancing and joking, and in charming friends

But also know this is an empty life.

Pretending joy is costly: it can kill.

Drained of meaning, life itself soon ends.

34. 1954

My Dark Lady

How exquisitely dark my lady is

Her face is all tan as corn

Her dark hair falls like wind and storm

About her cheeks so golden warm

How delicately moist and sweet her lips

Against my lips and tongue

As I touch them her eyes are wide

And deep and free I fall inside

So softly brown her eyes unhurt

My wounds and tell me "Strong

Strong you are and young and wild

And I am your child your loving mild"


35. 1958

Early Waking

It was 5 a.m. in the dangerous spring.
The roads were flooded.
It was still raining and heard a bird
Fluttering against the window.
Its head was bloody,
But the persistent wings kept beating out of the fog.
Stubbornly bashing itself,
Its pain-racked eyes were glassy black,
Like fish eyes, like button eyes on teddy-bears.
Its beak was yellow.
Its mouth was blood red and oozy.
Its feathers were black -- it was a blackbird,
A red-winged blackbird.
It kept up a steady screaming whistling,
Windy, rasping, and shrill, mostly wind without pitch,
Like a flute blown by a beginner.
The fog was alive to my sleepy eyes,
Swirling with bodies: winged women,
Skulls grinning and nodding.
Little dancing lights and snake shadows curled around the bird.

As the light cleared it grew weaker.
I grew dizzy.
Perhaps I fainted.
When I opened my eyes,
My chin hurt.
I had bit my tongue. It was bleeding and it burned.
Sunlight was pouring through fluttering tree leaves
Like water filtered by my bathroom shower head.
My arms, the windowsill, the dark floor where I lay
Were mottled and speckled by wavy light.

The bird was gone.


36. 1958

Becoming Flesh*

Before I was conceived, the stuffy air about my parents' bed
was full of echoes.
As, beyond time's curve, galaxies erupted, I felt their inmost atoms shudder.
As silver snowfishbirds molted far beyond Andromeda,
I watched each metal feather's languid drift.

I was each atom of driven snow finding its place
in the sweet tip of a snowflake's horn, balancing the symmetry,
filling the yearning hole, the gap, the crack, the torn edge of the snowflake tip,
telling myself, "This is the place! Now the design is perfect!
"It was waiting for me. Now it is beautiful, with me in it.
"I feel the far side of my snowflake matching me, repeating my loveliness.
"Brother, over on the other side, I'm here also completing you!"

And I was each snowflake, riding the wind, saying to myself,
"I whirl my world, whirl
"round and unwound, winding unwounded windy wonder."

I heard your voices all at once and knew you all --
carnal knowledge -- deep in all of you in me.

Knowing all, I grew my eyes and ears and skin to shut you out.

---

*Published in The Best Poems and Poets of 2002, Owings Mills, MD:
  International Library of Poetry

37. 1958

Aviate or Deviate

Two gams or knot here comes Alexander
Not piece a phallic cymbal clashes

The cold wind rushes past our cheeks throats
Surges uplifting against us as we dip soar

Lizard dragon fire one and tu Brute
Beware the idols of the king

How clear the minted air as now below
The landing lights are gold and kind


38. 1958

Under Cover

(from "Experiment with Love")

We meet in silence. No honest word dare be said:
Behind the walls, keen microphones may listen.
In the dark, our animal warmths glow infrared:
Cameras may watch our bodies' movements glisten.

Some who learned of what we plan or do
Would shudder or vomit. So. year by lonely year
We mask our acts. We free, intimate few
Meet in dread of others' loathing and fear.

We'd be flayed, tortured for our war to end repression,
Break open the jails, expose the hidden shame,
Set each prisoner free to share possession.
We plot, but dare not give our dream a name.

Come together, with voiceless tongues we speak,
With probing fingers sign for what we seek.


39. 1957

Earliest Memory

Under the largest root of the nearest tree
I turned up a stone. White. The worm was white.
He squirmed soft and sticky. I felt sick.
If I touched him I might crush him.
A small cut on my palm throbbed and burned.
There was soft dirt on my hands.
The earth was moist.
I felt soft and sticky. He felt sick.
He was big -- looming blurred over me, a shadow in the sudden brightness.
I rubbed deeper into soft Mother.
Sticky. Mother was warmer below.
Soon I had oozed back down inside her streaming darkness.
Reddish shadows tumbled and swelled in it.
Somewhere near in Mother I smelled a spot that lived.
The spot -- the germ -- smelled warm white vastness nearby.
Good food, but alive,
Seething with dangerously clever chemistry.
We bathed hungrily in thin milk seep from Mother.

*  *  *  *

Somewhere, deep or high, Mother spread her vast calm thought.
Slowly, through a space of eons
She drew us apart.


40. 1958

(from "Experiment with Love")

You can do all sorts of taboo things if you know how.
For instance, did you know you can piss all over a perfect stranger, and he'll
    tell you it's O.K.?
Simple: just go into a public john with a pal.
Keep up a serious intellectual discussion while standing one urinal apart.
While the patsy is at the urinal between the two of you,
turn toward him as you talk, still squirting.

I've done it twenty times and not gotten punched once.
Just apologize like made and pull out a roll of bills.
They never take the money if you're careful to pick them right.
Incidentally, always insist on giving them a name and address,
and tell them to send you the cleaning bill.
It's a nice touch to offer to drive the creep home.
You meet more sweet people that way.

The best place to pull this is in a good bar in a college town.
The worst place is an airport.
Salesmen are hard as nails about being pissed one; they know about conning.

Bonus tip: Always carry phony ID.
You never know when you'll want to tell someone you're a chiropractor from
    Shaker Heights.


41. 1958

Two Meditations on Hiroshima

(from "Experiment with Love")

I

The cloud that boiled up over Hiroshima
had many atoms in it
moments earlier part of living flesh.
So many died so suddenly.
What were they doing those last moments?

Did an orgasm snap off, incomplete?

Did an infant's head pop out of a vagina and blink at brilliance
so much brighter than expected?
Did she draw in a first breath of fire and dissolution,
gasp at the sudden pain?

Just as he died of old age,
instead of slow loosening crumbling,
did he flare suddenly into naked atoms
swirling out to join eternity's St. Vitus' dance?

"I don't want to die!" her will shrieks
as the heat bulges the windows in.
She presses her hip against the counter,
clutching the knife that a moment ago was cutting carrot.
That morning, as usual, she was proud of how she did her hair.
Though forty-seven, she sees herself still (always) seventeen,
still deciding which one to marry (spread for).
The good hair shape is part of the pattern she now tries to hold frozen,
fighting the corrosives of time and heat.

Love her, you selfish, self-absorbed pig!
Add your will to hers,
fight the fierce brilliance.
Love the blue stone and the white stone in the garden where she walked.
Now they crack in the heat.

-- The great roar -- the great scream --
if we all willed enough, could we undo the horror, the shame?
Does it stay real because we do not care enough?

II


When one of us dies, a gush of emptiness sprays out
to vibrate shudderingly through each of us.

When a city dies, the great black wave of emptiness roars outward
across the curve of time and space,
surging forever.
The riptides and whitecaps of Hiroshima's agony
still foam hissing through our dreams.

So we live, floating on a sea of suffering;
we are bubbles of awareness, momentary scum, frail films
stretched across the seething chaos,
the swirling, frothing stew
of birth pangs, cramps, death shrieks, orgasms.


42. 1958

A Dialog on Gamete Politics

(from "Experiment with Love")

I:

Before you were conceived,

the sperm cell that carried half your inheritance

lashed itself in frantic spasms toward your egg:

Bursts of desperate, agonized activity,

then slow, impatient recovery.

Your egg waited

snug and smug and warm

in her infrared-glimmering humid, pulsing tube.

When the one she preferred approached,

out came her sucking

eager grasp to grab and swallow.

Your inheritance was settled –

the universe's will was probated –

when millions and millions lost the race,

when she chose one winner,

made one sperm Father Abraham.

Races and nations she rejected,

never conceived, did not even get the grace of death.

What wisdom could that ovum have had?

Geniuses died, supermen died,

regardless how exquisite the tight poetry of their DNA.

Like sweet Jesus, they died that you might live.

You think you fear death, crave life?

Unlike you, with your limp hankering, half in love with death,

sperm, flogged by evolution, are ravenous for life.

No instinct commands them, Step aside for the next generation!

Hear the rain-on-the-roof unending din of despairing sobs

as moment by moment round the world billions find the ovum closed, fulfilled,

made by a quicker rival –

sperm lost in eggless wombs, butting hopelessly against diaphragms,

fainting in condoms, anuses, hands, toilet bowls.

What can we do about this?

Campaigner for Right to Life, will you join a Society for the Prevention of
   Cruelty to Sperm?

Slogan: Every sperm deserves a loving ovum?

Liberal lover of Mr. Rogers, TeleTubbies, you who think television is too
   violent,

will you teach sperm to lovingly help each other?

Socialism is reaction formation to our survivor guilt; capitalism denial.

II:

Regardless whether our egg and sperm cells are
frantic or agonized, impatient or smug, voracious or despairing, we ar
   are.
Regardless whether our morality applies to them, it applies to us.
Decisions in the lower court of single cells are no precedents for us.
That our lives began with ruthless competition did not print our
   photos on a ruthlessness license.
Regardless whether killing sperm cells is murder, regardless how
   lovelessly sperm compete,
we all have more than a right to life: we have a right to love.

43. 1958

Many in One

eye weigh my rime
hours tick and we brake
our penance we knead
we wring and we are wrapped

do not freeze adapt
summon the roomy peak
oh qui of my missed ache
to tale our paired role

we'll sleigh on ice now whole
to you i'll only tether
by rumors of berth i seek
to end your island cruise

mountain ram to ewes
to please d'you not cede
you are my rein my weather
so gamble on my climb

44. 1958

The Passionate Liar to His Love

I swear to you I love you truly,

And you, of course, believe me duly.

But if I'd swear the earth were flat

You would surely laugh at that.

I swear that I'll love you forever.

Do you doubt it? No, not ever.

I swear I'll love you till I die.

do you doubt me? Try, please try!

45. 1958

Bonjour Jeunesse*

Comme exquises

Les jeunes bêtises

Dansent sur

Les doigts de Pan.

Quelle extase!

Sous ivrants rais

D'un plein soleil

Ils ont bu

Le salé vin

Des damnés.

Hubris et rire

Et bon désir

Sont perdus

Sur le chemin.

___________
*Published in The Red Fox Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1993, p. 26.

46. 1958

Son on Water

Good morning, Mr. Miracle:
Touch the sun's halo and
suck your finger tingly on the edge of goldenest
quick sharp burning, or deep burgundy slow throbbed ache.

Coming vaulting into the sky day,
dawn's wave peaks breathless, overhanging back-arched muscles.
Apollo! Thrust of saber, sword of gold;
curved blade meets straight blade,
clangs, then dark whirlwinds when the blades
stop the hearts, which tighten round them hungry, sea soft, cuttlefish
leather and muscle and hate, and crumbly flesh-buried shell.

Down.

Brain coral, hard, jagged, shreds away skin,
small convict fish at home in your thoughts.
You, melted, uncoiled viscousness,
ripple upward past memories
to blue waves, white splashing:
Good morning, Mr. Miracle.


47. 1958

One Evening in the Past

One evening in the past, when begonias were withering,

I heard the tinkle of ice cubes in a glass,

A thin sound. It set me shivering.

The ground was moist.

I floated, half merged with the breasty ground.

My feet wore rubber soles

that sank and yielded with my steps.

The air was moist, the temperature about sixty.

I had a hand to hold onto,

my father’s. His hat and darkness covered him.

His coat was tweedy and huge: gray with black threads.

His hand was rougher and harder than his coat.

I loved him.

He was going to drink whiskey and play cards on the porch.

I would watch legs under the table, pretend the chairs were caves.

The floor was dirty: dead cigarettes, dark fluffy dirt.

My father loved me. I felt his love gush warmly over me,

a long, slow, reddish shower.

I crouched in the hollow under the spurt of his love.

The ice cube sound made me shiver.

My neck tingled, then my back.

My father laughed.

Poetry - 2nd decade

3. 1940

Prolegomenon to a World Government Constitution

We are not certain why we live,
or why we are conscious.

Does anyone care that we are here?

We are not sure.

Were we made?

Did we just happen?

We guess, we wonder,

we wish we knew.

Some among us think they know,

but no one answer pleases all.

Can the past be changed?

We do not know.

Can we choose our destiny?

Perhaps.

Most think these questions are important.

Most wish we could answer them with confidence.

We have one hope:

Perhaps we are just part-way human;

perhaps our children's children's children

will be truly human,

truly wise enough.

We must not kill that hope.

We must not kill each other.

Do we, so limited, deserve to live?

We sometimes wonder.

But, if we are the womb

that shall bring forth true humans,

we do deserve to live.

To bring to life

beings wiser than we

is a noble goal that makes us noble.

This is government's role:

To help us tame our children and ourselves,

to help us share our wealth

to help each other live

to dedicate ourselves to science

about how to improve our minds,

civilize ourselves,

become fully human.

4. 1941

In life's dark movie theater,

I am a crumbling skeleton

Rattling down a dusty aisle.

The vastness of God's dream oppresses me.

I wish He could awake.

5. 1942

Four Hours Till Dawn

Yes, Fear, I know you well -- too well.

Too many nights you have monkey-danced, gibbering, on my chest,

Crushing my breath,

Squeezing my heart.

In the dark, alone, I have fought you,

Confused, exhausted.

When will I reach out and crush you to an abstraction?

6. 1942

Across dawn-red clouds

civilization's dark tears:

distant planes drifting.

7. 1943

Triolet

Beauty is Beauty, transcending all in life;

To create it, I was granted breath.

Betraying her for beauty, I will tell my wife:

"Beauty is Beauty, transcending all in life."

When, into my heart, they thrust the knife,

I'll sing my final words to Death:

"Beauty is Beauty, transcending all in life;

"To create it, I was granted breath."

8. 1943

Love me cruelly if you will,
For love is not a gentle passion.
Cause me pain; I crave that thrill:
Love me cruelly. If you will
Torture me with artful skill,
I will welcome your harsh ration.
Love me cruelly, if you will,
For love is not a gentle passion.


9. 1944

Hello -- Goodbye

Hello, me. You write this poem

by the new lamp's light at half past four

in the morning, March 1944.

You see years ahead going soft and wasted

like ice cream a baby dropped

untasted.

You measure your freedom and feel,

so soon,

trapped.

You guess it is worse for me.

Your skin is smooth; your blood is hot.

I've aged fast for my age: mine is not.

I haven't done as well as you hoped.

As you feared, I was caught, or bought.

You guess that I need comfort from you.

Gently, you (who can guess so much)

send me a smile and a consoling touch.

"I forgive you," you say to me.

You say to your future you's:

"Have no fear.

"I am I. I am real.

"I will always be here."

Too late now to become the man

that in March, before dawn, you hope you can,

I love you hopelessly, like a father,

a love I can never show you.

And you love me patiently, like a father.

Guessing, accepting our poem's end,

you promise you'll always be my friend.

Knowing my birth is killing you,

you pledge your love is changeless, true.

10. 1944

In the misty park

the luscious satin sound of

lovers in the dark.

11. 1945

Beyond Cosmogony

Our flowers felt like melting snow.

Plunged in a crystal funnel, time

and bubbling blackness tumbling crushed converge

to swirl more turgid past their lengthening contract.

The wetness where our flowers have dissolved

is like our tears before yours blend with mine.

Obvolute in our extended womb

we pass beyond despair constricted self

to doubt the dubious sure of doom.

Now, stars and still and galaxies

are cool and clear in outer space.

12. 1945

Eternal God, You overflow all human mind

defined infinities. Your timeless words began

Your universe of nested spheres with sparks entwined,

in which we evanescent ones do what we can.

With faithful love for our return You yearn and wait

as, all about us, Your live glory burns in all.
But we have turned away to breed our sterile hate

as numbly toward "reality" we fall.

You know, not I, how long as I, I'll live or will,

for only now and here are what my senses show

And trap me in their momentary pain or thrill.

How I am part of Your vast plan, You know.

Now is now; I choose life; choice is just here.

Soon brings death; use each breath; both trust and fear.

________________

*Earlier versions were published in the newsletter of the Chabad House of Greater Hartford, 1985, in the newsletter of Kehilat Chaverim, Hartford, Connecticut, 2001, and in Prayers & Meditations for Friday Evening, edited by H. G. Gerjuoy

13. 1946

Psycho-neurotic, -somatic, -psychotic,

Insulin, exsulin, antibiotic.

A dren in thy roid is a drain on thyroxin;

Nixotitna backwards spells antitoxin.

Lobotomy, lobotomy:

The doctors, when they got to me,

Sure took out a lot of me!

14. 1947

If Sweet Love Be Poetry

Pallid dream-shapes crumble into night,

As I, trembling, struggle up from deep

Aloneness, coughing, trying not to weep.

With sweating buttocks, throbbing jaws clenched tight,
I wake to shabby sheets' soggy blight

In humid darkness, to a formless heap

Of twisted blankets, hardened pillows, cheap

And sagging bed. So, can I feel delight?

So wakened, can I share romance? Tears

Would be too sincere, laughter merely pose.

The fingers fumbling toward my breasts rouse fears

And nausea, tense foreboding of cold throes.

Like these words that die in your dull ears,

My poetry expires in your bed of prose.

15. 1947

Alone at Night

Each moment is endless. This small room

stays.

I stay.

The slithering pendulum sways

uncertainly, limply, unevenly.

It strays

and stays. When I look away, it plays

dead. When I look, it sullenly stirs.

No cold tomb,

this room is hot and damp –

a dull, harsh, gray foolishness. My doom

is to decay in this gloom.

My voice should crack, "Is the cat fed?"

as I patch a patch in a patch in my dress.

I wonder, some nights, Is my blood still red?

There is nothing to be said, and less and less

do I care or know if I am starved or fed.

I have lost the power to change.

I go to the door. It is locked.

I look again. It is locked.

The closet is shut? It is locked.

Will the door yield? It is locked.

Gripping the knob hurts my fingers,

suddenly white (the metal is cold).

Did I turn off the gas? It is off.

Gripping the handle my fingers

are suddenly stiff (the metal is cold).

Will I stifle tonight? Does it matter?

The window is shut? It is locked.

Shall I let up the shade? There'll be light:

I'll have to look out. Leave it down.

Instead of stars and the ground:

I may see a face at the pane,

crushed soft, without bones, at the pane.

Did I turn off the gas? It is off. . . .

16. 1947

Between two poles hung,*

cut by sagging frozen wires,

rotting bloated moon.

*Published online in Blue Note, February 2001.

17. 1947

Two Voices*

"Across the borderline of pain

There lies a vale of sultry pleasure.
Here is my glove; the time is dawn;
And we shall take each other's measure."

"I fear no battle should I come:
As equals we could never duel.
And should yield, one could not win
Unless we be both friends and cruel."

"As symmetry may arc through time,

One can yet rise with one descending.

Although not one nor even like,

We'll find that we may join by blending."

------------------

*Published 1947 in Compass Intercollegiate Review. © 1947 by Alvin Toffler & Herbert Gerjuoy.

18. 1948

Evening Snow -- Naked Branches -- Gray Sky

Evening snow, naked branches, gray sky.

Dark net

itchy as spider legs; black; too many lines

to see apart each separate tree

that seeming to pray to, drink, breathe,

loves perhaps the sky.

Snowflakes touch me again and again,

soft, wet, cold like frightened little lips

that chill me slowly deeper in.

The clouds beyond the dark branches seem

somehow by contrast faintly pink --

branches grown perhaps, perhaps congealed;

bars of my cage, perfect, barren, hopeless,

almost more symbols than themselves.

Meaning flickers

not quite igniting in the frozen wood.

Could I burn up past it all if I would?

past this gray air, in empty blackness

impale myself upon the frozen stars?

19. 1948

Nocturnal Landscape, Mostly Sky

Remembering the subtle dawn-hinting 2 a.m. moon

(dark-silver sky; lost stars; drowned flickering of the night),

we abandoned adolescence (question mark) selected moonlight

strong enough to cast a shadow (mourning after noon).

Morning after noon -- imitation -- opposites; too soon

black and white, ambivalent, touch and sight,

sexual (the buildup), left (stayed) and right ( );

all sharp shadows hard (by contrast) (moon pale -- sun bright).

We don't flicker any more (I say this nervously):

pale, dull glow, hard patterns, stubborn lines;

slow sweep of hours. In time we will be clean

whirled past the horizon and dizzily tumble free

down the long sunlit vastness wherein all designs

in space flare shadows to eternity unseen.

20. 1948

Parade Drill

The drummer comes with a stomp and roar

And curled mustache and little more.

Pulse double time; you must be strong

And keep in step. He's right; you're wrong.

His scarlet stripe is bright and clean.

Pain is fun and sex obscene.

There's nothing more to this or you

Than serried ranks of Tittipu.

Salutes are meant to rape the fair.

Flags and trumpets love hot air.

21. 1949

Dion

When I touched the soft pillowed mildew on Milady's cheek,

I sighed. I breathed. I blew a cobweb downward toward the dusty floor,

And then like talc-stone rubbing Milady began to speak:

"Oceans afloat with wormwood I saw in my dream;

"I saw Revelation, and St. John at my door

"Gushed purple milk hot into me in a stream,

"While at his feet fawned a panther, and I came to his command.

"Then I woke, and saw you, my old bore,

"Limp, stupid, decaying, with seaweed clutched in your hand."

22. 1949

Masochistic Conversation*

. . . when Two are in Love, the cleansing Fire of their Passion burns away all that is superficial and sham in them, so that they show their true Selves to each other in all the pure Beauty flowing from the naked Soul.

‑‑ old foolish saying

HE:        This is a terrible world,
SHE:      so awful,

HE:        so evil,

SHE:      so awful,

HE:        so evil;

SHE:      this is a terrible world.

HE:        This is a terrible world,

SHE:      so awful,

HE:        so evil,

SHE:      so monstrous,

HE:        so evil;

SHE:      this is a terrible world.

HE:        Touch me, and I shudder, you know.

SHE:      Touch me, and I shudder.

HE:        Please let me go! Set me free!

              You aren't as cruel as I think;

              you don't want me this way.

SHE:     This is a terrible world.

HE:       What would I do without you?

SHE:     You might write a poem.

HE:       How could I? I can't make love.

SHE:     Poets don't have to make love;

              they just have to write the right words.

HE:       Write?

SHE:               Right:

HE:                            Write

SHE:                                    the right words.

HE:       You aren't so cruel. You know

              you aren't:

              You just want to be cruel,

              pretend to be cruel.

SHE:     I want what you want me to want.

HE:       I just want what you want;

             touch me, and I shudder.

SHE:    Please let me go! Set me free!

HE:      How can I? I don't know how.

            Would you show me how? . . . No – not this!

            You've shown me the rest; show me that.

SHE:    I can't.

HE:      Yes you can!

SHE:    I – don't – know – how.

HE:      Teach me!

             Is it like this?

SHE:    Oh!

BOTH: How can I get free?

HE:       Love is possession, not peace.

SHE:     Don't use that terrible word.

HE:       Which one? They're all pretty bad.

SHE:     [Pause] Love.

HE:       [Pause] It isn't so bad: it's a lie.

             No, it's not: they're none of them lies.

             I'm lying: they're only words.

SHE:    Why do you hurt yourself so?

HE:       Don't you? Don't you hurt yourself too?

SHE:     I wish you wouldn't ask me things twice.

HE:       It's hard to be kind for a change

SHE:     (to me)

HE:       when I really don't want to be kind.

             Who would care if I weren't unkind?

              If I always were kind, who would care?

              You would take me for granted.

              Would you take me for granted?

              Yes, you'd take me for granted.

SHE:      I would not.

               I know what you mean.

HE:        No, you don't.

SHE:      I know what you mean:

              You're not kind.

              If you were, then we'd all be kind.

HE:        I didn't mean it that way.

SHE:     If you were, then I'd be kind too.

HE:       If I were, then it just wouldn't matter.

SHE:    We'd all be kind then.

HE:      No one would know any better.

BOTH: [Song]:

             Oh, to the sweet lollipoolizzer trees,

             Where the flowers are bright, bright pink,

             And I'll kiss your toelets,

             And for both our soul lets,

             There'll be soft, quibbly wine to drink.

             We'll loll in the labial shade

             (with a breeze in the trees, if you please);

             oh, semper prenatal,

             where love isn't fatal,

             and to sin is to pee where you please.

HE:      What can I do to be free?

SHE:    Go away.

HE:       Please!

SHE:    Go away! You're a fool. Go away!

HE:      Wouldn't you like to be free?

SHE:    It sounds nice, as a whim.

HE:      Is that all?

SHE:   What would I do without you?

HE:      You might decide what you want.

SHE:    You know I'd decide it was you.

HE:       It'd be different that way:

             Then we would know where we stand.

SHE:    Now we know where we lie.

HE:      This is the first time you've joked.

SHE:    Do you want to know how to be free?

             Just say to yourself, "I am free."

             Then fuck me and do what you like;

             just hold me and do what you like,

             but never be gentle with me.

             I trapped you by loving your flesh;

             I caught you by turning away;

             I held you by making you –

HE:                                                    Stop! –

SHE:    by giving you pain. Pain!

             I made you give something up;

             I hurt you; I made you hurt me.

             You gave yourself every day.

             You gave your self away.

HE:       I liked it that way:

             I like pain;

             I enjoy sacrifice;

             I enjoy being patient and brave.

             I was noble: I suffered in peace;

             I waited. Yes, I did it myself.

SHE:    That's right! That was how you were caught.

             I let you be noble and good;

             I let you be noble and good;

             I tricked you; I let you be kind.

             I pretended. You thought that I cared.

HE:       I thought you were afraid.

SHE:    Why should I be?

             I let you do what you liked:

             You like to be patient with me.

             And now I'm setting you free.

              

HE:       You don't have to any more.

SHE:     Don't be so romantic:

              You know it all now, so go.

HE:        Now I know that I love you.  At last!

SHE:      You're a fool.

HE:        Why?

SHE:      Do you think I can't tell when you're lying?

HE:         I'll tell you the whole truth:

Suddenly I feel a deep and sincere tenderness toward you that is intense because it is sincere and grows out of what we feel toward each other and all that we've shared.

SHE:      Go to hell!  Damn it, let me go on!

HE:        No!

SHE:      Well, go to hell, then!

               You even broke the rhythm!

HE:         Let me kiss you.

SHE:      Must you ask for that, too?

HE:         I'll try not to ask.

SHE:       Let me be!  Let me go!

HE:         Please set me free!
SHE:       Please set me free!

BOTH:    Liar! 

                         Liar!

                                  Liar!

                                           Liar!

                                                    Liar!

                                                              Liar!

23. 1949

Introduction to Greek

(Homage to Rimbaud)

Lambda is the tongueless belle,                       Capital delta is the trinity

lithe and wicked and what-the-hell.                 on a dollar and other asininity.

Gamma is the loving goblet                             Capital beta is bubble twins,

open for every cad and sloblet.                        the sign where alto voice begins.

Beta is the twisted heart,                                  Capital gamma is an inverted L,

the buttock, or the apple tart.                           the gibbet, a street lamp without a bell.

Delta is the hangman's noose,                          Capital lambda is around the bend,

the Hebrew lambda and – What's the use?!     a well-intentioned journey's end.

24. 1949

Come, Ride with Me

My car will gratify you beyond your dreams.

Get in! Yield to the cushions' shameless embrace.

Hear the purr of the motor. Feel the wind on your face.

Sense the pulse of my pumping pistons as the wind streams
around the dashing nose, over the hood, and steams
the windshield with its passion against that upthrust space
where inner and outer world almost join, where a place
transparent, shatterproof, defrosted, wiped clean, gleams
crystalline and plastic, firm but able to bend
and wrap itself about our organic softness tightly bound
to the seat backs. We'll be driven, rushed
by my vehicle toward our ride's sure end,
when, with a rising shriek of climactic sound,
steel cracks, tires burst, and our flesh is crushed.


25. 1949

For EBS

There is a river flowing between us, and the river's name is time.

For a while

when the river was a brook

we stretched our hands across the water

and I like to think we touched.

But now we have gone downstream

and the river is rising.

By the waters of the river we wandered in the  reeds

brushing mare's tails across our thighs.

You said that May weather brought feathers to flowers and clouds,

and we felt their slow shuddery texture in our soft-touching minds

as the whispering ripples gliding and kissing the breeze

sent our minds slowly bending together like submarine fronds.

Touch our dream gently: it was time's best gift,

film quick to break, leaving shuddering silence.

Save the kindest caresses for yesterday's love, for we drift

past the mouth of the river to sea -- to the sea's long stillness

where our childish designs turn to foam, and our talents

are mocked by vastness and long meaningless coolness.

I prefer to remember our peacefully rippling young river

to the surging of breakers or wild young waves.

Good night. It is cold on the ocean: the storms do not warm,

though the memories burn when they bring back our shuddering thighs

singing "NOW" in their language denying this lingering never.