Mortified spectators on iron bridge.
Flat rat-a-tats.
Lurid whistles hurtled.
Craters defeated paths.
Glass unhinged.
spectatorsFlat
whistles
paths
Glass
Spectators intoxicated.
Flat ums and ahs.
Nightfall whistles, melodious.
Vanishing ragged paths.
Air-nips turned glass.
she said nothing
leaned on the stone bridge the wind
howled in my ear, pause
between the dropping
of the record & the music
dust the wind the streets
already in shadow
we walked someone
playing the piano in a tiled room
oh
said her mother a
mister dante called you
beatrice
wall of remote
heights & bends
of listless fields
turn savagely
to the river
where the trees
snap in the snow
a bird watches
the frozen mice
deer
i am sick
of talking about
vietnam
these bridges:
stringent iron
under which
i love you
what words
can say it
forget it soon
the body disposes
banalities
comfortless as angels
& violent
the reposed granite
swinging for ages
the tone
the river edge stunned
by curtains of blackbirds
my eye my tongue
stop confused
nursing these trees
How do I stop the pain?
Do I take a knife and slit my throat
Do I cut my self-till the pain dulls away?
How about hanging myself on my celling fan
Or shooting all my bullies
Oh wait ive got the answer
I’ll just pop another pill
Drown myself in the bathtub
Do I jump of the nearest bridge?
Or throw myself in front of a speeding car
NO THOSE ARE NOT THE ANSWERS
I’ll get help that’s what I’ll do
I’ll tell some no good therapist
My sorry ass story
How I hate my life
How nobody truly understands me
near the bridge
the few old thistles
collect the snow
Under stars
diamond hard,
I cross this log bridge
where we fed birds
by the lake,
skating my boots
like a young girl,
hoping to find you,
this time, cabined,
building fire
on the open hearth.
Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges,
Into twenty villages,
Or one man
Crossing a single bridge into a village.
This is old song
That will not declare itself ...
Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are
Twenty men crossing a bridge
Into a village.
That will not declare itself
Yet is certain as meaning ...
The boots of the men clump
Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,
When I came home again from far-off places,
How many times I saw my western city
Dream by her river.
Then for an hour the water wore a mantle
Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise
Under the tall and darkened arches bearing
Gray, high-flung bridges.
Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples
Flickered with fire up the slope to westward,
And old warehouses poured their purple shadows
Across the levee.
High over them the black train swept with thunder,
Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it
Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers
Resting in twilight.
The bridge says : Come across, try me ; see how good
I am.
The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn
how to stand up.
The white water says: I go on; around, under, over,
I go on.
A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I am here yet; they
nearly got me last year.
A sliver of moon slides by on a high wind calling: I
know why; I'll see you to-morrow; I'll tell you
everything to-morrow.
Strong rocks hold up the riksdag bridge . . . always
strong river waters shoving their shoulders against
them . . .
In the riksdag to-night three hundred men are talking
to each other about more potatoes and bread for
the Swedish people to eat this winter.
In a boat among calm waters next to the running
waters a fisherman sits in the dark and I, leaning
at a parapet, see him lift a net and let it down
... he waits ... the waters run ... the
riksdag talks ... he lifts the net and lets it
down . . .
Stars lost in the sky ten days of drizzle spread over
the sky saying yes-yes.
Every afternoon at four o'clock fifteen apple women
who have sold their apples in Christiania meet
The flutter of blue pigeon's wings
Under a river bridge
Hunting a clean dry arch,
A corner for a sleep —
This flutters here in a woman's hand.
A singing sleep cry,
A drunken poignant two lines of song,
Somebody looking clean into yesterday
And remembering, or looking clean into
To-morrow, and reading, —
This sings here as a woman's sleep cry sings.
Pigeon friend of mine,
Fly on, sing on.