Nine Poems

What's Your Name For Me?

What kind of name do you give to me,
little river beneath the earth.

When I close my eyes
I can draw the outline of you
little river beneath the earth.

I transfer your shape onto my paper :
I am your head I am your heart.
In twenty fingers I have my being.

Perhaps that's why words
have ceased to leap to and fro between us
when we're alone
perhaps I'm embracing myself
when I'm embracing you

perhaps I've split myself in two :
no, little river beneath the earth,
this is not love any longer
but complete dissolution.

(c. 1948)

Through The Bars Of My Heart

the world seems strangely at odds

up and down this way and that
but the gates are padlocked

ever smaller my circles
ever fainter-hearted my failed escapes

sometimes people stop

throw in a couple of quiet words
throw a look in

more infrequently you come by

you've turned the key in my door
have locked away what can be locked up

sometimes you throw in a rose
like a little scrap of raw meat

while passing by.

(c. 1950–55)

The calling

my life :
a peep-show with little landscapes
unhurried people
animals passing
well-known recurrent sceneries

suddenly called out by my name
I'm no longer standing in the windless panorama
with its gaudy glimmering pictures

but fling myself like a horribly burning wheel
down a steep slope
shorn of all the taboos and dreams of yesterday
heading for an outlandish moving target :

without any choice
but with an impatient heart

(1962 at the latest)

a rain-tear of Andy Warhol's

first, I've brought it all in got everything here
second, to do the thing justice
third, I've bought the latest record by George Harrison
fourth, I've listened to Brahms's fourth live
fifth, I follow the conversations of passers-by in the street with my ears
sixth, I talk to the concierge about the weather
seventh, I collect notes from coat-pockets, book-pages and the starts of dreams
eighth, I learn from an old friend that it is still like that
ninth, I cut a found-poem entitled ARTIFICIAL RAIN from the paper
tenth, I don't find it good enough on the following morning
eleventh, I look out of the window and see that the sky's dark-gray
twelfth, I glance out of the window again to see if it's finally raining
thirteenth, it's not raining however much I wish it was
fourteenth, I catch sight of a huge dark-gray rain-tear of Andy
Warhol's daubed on my horizon

(1972)

A stranger a moor's head

squatting in the avenue trees so it seemed from my angle
from the high window
squatting in the avenue trees, they had lost their leaves
not in some particular avenue tree so it seemed against the winter that's approaching
against the lead-gray sky so it seemed ascended to heaven
on the overhead cable in the road so it seemed
squatting in the avenue trees so it seemed, they had lost their leaves
yesterday with a pluvious sky something balks in me
with the winter that's approaching something balks in me
I see Octavia walking drugged with sleep through the garden
I see the lake glinting dark-blue between the trunks of the trees
I hear Octavia calling out you should have woken me woken me sooner
I see the rose-bush standing packed in straw on the terrace
against the winter that's approaching so it seems
with a pluvious sky saw the crematorium I drove past
tower with crenellations jutting up from the plain with allotment gardens
clouds of black smoke from the bowels of it something balks in me so it seems
with the winter that's approaching so it seems, ascended to...