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Its one pool stomach-pool holding the dead one diving up Busting his gut in weeds in scum-gruel glowing with belly-white Unhooked around him all grass in a·bristling sail taking offbackblowing . Here in the dry hood I am watching Alone, in my tribal sweat my people gone my fish rolling Beneath me and I die Waiting will wait out The blank judgment given only In ruination's suck-holing acre wait and make the sound surrounding NO Laugh primally: be Like an open-gut flash an open underwater eye with the thumb pressure to brain the winter-wool head ofme, Spinning my guts with my fish in the old place, Suffering its consequences, dying, Living up to it. Two Poems ofFlight-Sleep 1. CAMDEN TO WN -Army Air Corps, Flight TraUllng, 1943With this you trim it. Do it right and the thing'll fly Itself. Now get up there and get those lazyeights down. A check-ride's coming at you Next.week. I took offin the Stearman like stealing two hundred and twenty horses Ofescape from the Air Corps. The cold turned purple with the open Cockpit, and the water behind me being The East, dimmed out. I put the nose on the white sun And trimmed the ship. The altimeter made me At six thousand feet. We were stable: myself, the plane, The earth everywhere Small in its things with cold But vast beneath. The needles on the panel All locked together, and a banner like World War One Tore at my head, streaming from my helmet in the wind. Two Poems ofFlight-Sleep / 385 I drew it down down under the instruments Down where the rudder pedals made small corrections Better than my feet down where I could ride on faith And trim, the aircraft slighdy cocked But holding the West by a needle. I was in Death's baby machine, that led to the fighters and bombers, But training, here in the lone purple, For something else. I pulled down my helmet-flaps and droned With flight-sleep. Near death My watch stopped. I knew it, for I felt the Cadet Barracks ofCamden die like time, and "There's a war on" Die, and no one could groan from the dark ofthe bottom Bunk to his haggard instructor, I tried I tried to do what you said I tried tried No; never. No one ever lived to prove he thought he saw An aircraft with no pilot showing: I would have to become A legend, curled up out ofsight with all the Western World Coming at me under the floor-mat, minute after minute, cold azures, Small trains and warbound highways, All entering flight-sleep. Nothing mattered but to rest in the winter Sun beginning to go Down early. My hands in my armpits, I lay with my sheep-lined head Next to the small air-moves Ofthe rudder pedals, dreaming ofletting go letting go The cold the war the Cadet Program and my peanut-faced Instructor and his maps. No maps no world no love But this. Nothing can fail when you go below The instruments. Wait till the moon. Then. Then. But no. When the waters ofCamden Town died, then so Did I, for good. I got up bitterly, bitter to be Controlling, re-entering the fast colds Ofmy scarf, and put my hands and feet where the plane was made For them. My goggles blazed with darkness as I turned, And the compass was wrenched from its dream Ofall the West. From luxurious Death in uncaring I swung East, and the deaths and nightmares And training ofmany. The Strength ofFields / 386 II. REUNIONING DIALOGUE -New York, 1972, St. Moritz barDidn )t we double! Sure, when we used to lie out under the wing Double-teaming the Nips near our own hole In the ground opening an eye For the Southern Cross) and we)d see something cut the stars Out into some kind ofshape, the shape ofa new Widow Black Widow and all over the perimeter the ninety millimeters would open Up on Heaven the sirens wouldgo off And we)d know better than not to dive for the palm logs, The foxhole filled with fear-slime, and lie there, Brains beating like wings our new wingsfrom Northrop) The enemy lookingfor the aircraft weslept under. Well, we knew what we wanted, Didn't we? Toget outfrom under our own wings) To let them lift us together lift us out ofthe...

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