The Dragon
The Dragon's teeth are sown
in all the places we have known* * *
and never tournament will part
the teeth from any dragon's heart.
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Louise Louis, heart, in English Clear filters
The Dervish Dance
Eat the fire, serpent, glass,
when you are hunger-heady.
Nothing happens to your heart
till your heart is ready.
Ecstasy is but a name,
in it lies a presence
like a little candle lit
or a small obeisance.
Eat the serpent, fire, glass
when your heart is heady.
Harm or blessing come to pass
if the heart is ready!
Fortress
Sometimes you fail for something
you have known.
Some little island in your heart,
Some land you've sown.
(Acres bright with thought
weeded of ghosts.)
Sometimes you fail,
succeding most.
"Run back, run back, run back,"
you never do.
Direction has no shape
it leaves no clue —
a ledge, perhaps, in crags
plumed by the sea?
The cradle of the wind?
The night's star-wizadry?
Tangent
The heart is empty.
It has gone downstairs
to the street ....
It walks sullenly
by itself
and will not
give up its monologue.
It wants direction
but reads no map.
Run after it
before you are sorry!
Devotion
My heart cries out
from every window, and from every sill
it peers and leans;
my heart will not be still.
Dumb beast with grieving for its kind,
I cannot make it understand —
It has no mind.
Earth's brown cupboard holds its only love;
sterile and innocent death puts its vow
of silence and of celibate surcease . . .
My heart keeps running errands useless now.
I have no peace.
Tell me, beloved, where you lie
within the fretless household, like a queen,
how can my heart know that you are dead —
what does that mean?
The Friend
Sometimes I think we cannot die
from wounds of mortal giving
as long as there's a friend to guard
the heart that bleeds from living.
Though like Achilles, it may seem
we wear an outer armor,
always there is one spot untouched
by the renewing water.
And here, alone, the shafts could fly
but for the friend to say:
"Upon this spot I press MY heart!"
And death must walk away.
Shared
When swift your grief
then tight my arms
cling round the threadbare pattern — yours.
And once again I
seem to feel
the ancient black inquisitors!
Make fast the knot
that ties your heart
and does not let it burst — I know.
The arrow lodges
where the heart
throbs with the blood that cannot flow.
Nor look to me
who have no words
but clasp the pattern that you keep
For I am binding
Ah, Pity!
Ah! Pity, lying curled as wayfarers
lost, in some unguarded corner;
ah! Pity, lying in the heart,
shunted and limping as a mongrel dog
once someone's shadow of devotion.
Bring wine for Pity and crusts
from bread baked in the richest ovens!
Light candles for Pity,
perhaps she will be tempted to believe
in something more than her abandonment.
Strong men throw coins to her
and she has seen their garlands
laid against the stones
where they had said she died.
Rituals are read to her, tabernacles built
by those who say that they remember.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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