Collected Poems

TWO POEMS ABOUT PRESIDENT HARDING

4Many American women mount long stairs In the shafts of houses, Fall asleep, and emerge suddenly into tottering palaces. IN OHIO White mares lashed to the sulky carriages Trot softly Around the dismantled fairgrounds Near Buckeye Lake. The sandstone blocks of a wellspring Cool dark green moss. The sun floats down, a small golden lemon dissolves In the water. I dream, as I lean over the edge, of a crawdad's mouth. The cellars of haunted houses are like ancient cities, Fallen behind a big heap of apples. A widow on a front porch puckers her lips And whispers. TWO POEMS ABOUT PRESIDENT HARDING ONE: His Death In Marion, the honey locust trees are falling. Everybody in town remembers the white hair, The campaign of a lost summer, the front porch Open to the public, and the vaguely stunned smile Of a lucky man. "Neighbor, I want to be helpful," he said once. Later, "You think I'm honest, don't you?" Weeping drunk. THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK lip I am drunk this evening in 1961, In a jag for my countryman, Who died of crab meat on the way back from Alaska. Everyone knows that joke. How many honey locusts have fallen, Pitched rootlong into the open graves of strip mines, Since the First World War ended And Wilson the gaunt deacon jogged sullenly Into silence? Tonight, The cancerous ghosts of old con men Shed their leaves. For a proud man, Lost between the turnpike near Cleveland And the chiropractors' signs looming among dead mulberry trees, There is no place left to go But home. "Warren lacks mentality," one of his friends said. Yet he •was beautiful, he was the snowfall Turned to white stallions standing still Under dark elm trees. He died in public. He claimed the secret right To be ashamed. Two: His Tomb in Ohio "... he died of a busted gut." — MENCKEN, on BRYAN. A hundred slag piles north of us, At the mercy of the moon and rain, He lies in his ridiculous Tomb, our fellow citizen. No, I have never seen that place, 120 Where many shadows of faceless thieves Chuckle and stumble and embrace On beer cans, stogie butts, and graves. One holiday, one rainy week After the country fell apart, Hoover and Coolidge came to speak And snivel about his broken heart. His grave, a huge absurdity, Embarrassed cops and visitors. Hoover and Coolidge crept away By night, and women closed their doors. Now junkmen call their children in Before they catch their death of cold; Young lovers let the moon begin Its quick spring; and the day grows old; The mean one-legger who rakes up leaves Has chased the loafers out of the park; Minnegan Leonard half-believes In God, and the poolroom goes dark; America goes on, goes on Laughing, and Harding was a fool. Even his big pretentious stone Lays him bare to ridicule. I know it. But don't look at me. By God, I didn't start this mess. Whatever moon and rain may be, The hearts of men are merciless. EISENHOWER'S VISIT TO FRANCO, 1959 "... we die of cold, and not of darkness." — UNAMUNO The American hero must triumph over The forces of darkness. He has flown through the very light of heaven THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK 121 ...