Roaming the lonely garden, he and I
Pursue each other to the fountain's brim,
And there grow quiet — woman and butterfly —
The frail clouds beckon me, the flowers tempt him.
My thoughts are rose-like, beautiful and bright,
Folded precise as petals are, and wings
Uplift my dreaming suddenly in flight,
And fill my soul with jagged colorings.
The waters tangle like a woman's hair
Above the dim reflection of a face —
He thinks those are his own lips laughing there,
His own breasts curving under silk and lace.
How shall we know our real selves, he and I,
Which is the woman, which the butterfly?
Sandy Star and Willie Gee,
Count 'em two, you make 'em three:
Pluck the man and boy apart
And you'll see into my heart.
I am what is around me.
Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.
These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.
These are merely instances.
They have moulded my face with a tear and a sneer.
They have sandalled me with caprice,
And the heart they have given me
Is a bag of red tissue-paper.
Their loves are ragged and fat
And seek the consolation
Of a tinkling effigy!
But even an effigy may wink
An eye at its slinking masters!
I can laugh at their frantic, tattered arms
Spinning me into impish posturings,
And jeer at the faces behind me!
After my play I go to sleep,
But they must sit, heavily looking at each other.
If you would know me,
Do not regard this display;
Mingle with my speech.
Hateful it seems now, yet was I not happy?
Starved of the things I loved, I did not know
I loved them, and was happy lacking them.
If bitterness comes now (and that is hell)
It is when I forget that I was happy,
Accusing Fate, that sits and nods and laughs,
Because I was not born a bird or tree.
Let accusation sleep, lest God's own finger
Point angry from the cloud in which He hides.
Who may regret what was, since it has made
Himself himself? All that I was I am,
And the old childish joy now lives in me
At sight of a green field or a green tree.
Not wholly this or that,
But wrought
Of alien bloods am I,
A product of the interplay
Of traveled hearts.
Estranged, yet not estranged, I stand
All comprehending;
From my estate
I view earth's frail dilemma;
Scion of fused strength am I,
All understanding,
Nor this nor that
Contains me.
Not “a youth with hoary head and haggard eye”,
But an old man with a smooth skin
And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived,
And for years a soul that was stiff and bent,
In a world which saw me just as a jest,
To be hailed familiarly when it chose,
And loaded up as a man when it chose,
Being neither man nor boy.
In truth it was soul as well as body
Which never matured, and I say to you
That the much-sought prize of eternal youth
Is just arrested growth.
I am myself at last; now I achieve
My very self. I, with the wonder mellow,
Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear
And single me, perfected from my fellow.
Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving
Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought
Itself more sheer and naked out of the green
In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.
Ambiguous of race they stand,
By one disowned, scorned of another,
Not knowing where to stretch a hand,
And cry, “My sister” or “My brother.”
My shirt is a token and symbol,
more than a cover for sun and rain,
my shirt is a signal,
and a teller of souls.
I can take off my shirt and tear it,
and so make a ripping razzly noise,
and the people will say,
" Look at him tear his shirt."
I can keep my shirt on.
I can stick around and sing like a little bird
and look 'em all in the eye and never be fazed.
I can keep my shirt on.
Musings of a Police Reporter in the Identification
Bureau
You have loved forty women, but you have only one
thumb.
You have led a hundred secret lives, but you mark only
one thumb.
You go round the world and fight in a thousand wars and
win all the world's honors, but when you come back
home the print of the one thumb your mother gave
you is the same print of thumb you had in the old
home when your mother kissed you and said
good-by.
Out of the whirling womb of time come millions of men
and their feet crowd the earth and they cut one anothers'
throats for room to stand and among them all
are not two thumbs alike.