There’s the experience
of being the last one left
on a railway platform.
The desired train wails
away toward a city that
was not expecting you.
You feel a mixture of regret
and satisfaction as you retreat
with your ticket and luggage.
A taxicab takes you
back to the apartment.
You don’t unpack.
You're not going anywhere.
There's the experience of not
going anywhere. There’s a
mental exercise of wondering why
Instead of the classical plucking
of an ex-lover’s Guitar;
Instead of the soft attempts to heal
often shattered dreams;
Instead of pleasing phrases
meant only for sharing;
I am left
with the pounding of dripping faucets
and the stale sound of flowers
dying
in your vase.
I've lived so long companionless
In this old house bowed down with years,
I've learned to welcome loneliness,
Converse with dreams and sit with fears.
Often and often in the night
When I have laid some dull book down,
One comes between me and the light
With terrible, unrustling gown.
Wistful as moonlight in the room
Her face sways, luminous with fire
Of eyes unsmothered by the tomb.
Of lips remembering still desire.
And there beside the lute she stands
With mournful little motionings,
And stretches out her pulseless hands
And only thrusts them through the strings.
I too would run like Nicolette
Down aisles of rose and mignonette,
And stain my knees with midnight dew
Passing the ghostly gardens through,
If I should know that loverly
Young Aucassin awaited me!
And I could leave without regret
My warm white bed like Nicolette,
And flee from roof and candle-light
Into the deepest hour of night,
If by the ivy-shadowed wall,
I knew that Aucassin would call.
But I'll not tremble in the wet.
Nor bruise my feet like Nicolette,
Only to dream of his embrace,
Only to think I see his face.
When thin-strewn memory I look through,
I see most clearly poor Miss Loo,
Her tabby cat, her cage of birds,
Her nose, her hair--her muffled words,
And how she'd open her green eyes,
As if in some immense surprise,
Whenever as we sat at tea
She made some small remark to me.
It's always drowsy summer when
From out the past she comes again;
The westering sunshine in a pool
Floats in her parlour still and cool;
While the slim bird its lean wires shakes,
As into piercing song it breaks;
Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar
Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar.
Sad is old Ben Thistlewaite,
Now his day is done,
And all his children
Far away are gone.
He sits beneath his jasmined porch,
His stick between his knees,
His eyes fixed vacant
On his moss-grown trees.
Grass springs in the green path,
His flowers are lean and dry,
His thatch hangs in wisps against
The evening sky.
He has no heart to care now,
Though the winds will blow
Whistling in his casement,
And the rain drip thro'.
The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,
Outside of gates of hammered serafin,
Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.
The yellow rocked across the still façades,
Or else sat spinning on the pinnacles,
While he imagined humming sounds and sleep.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
And each blank window of the building balked
His loneliness and what was in his mind:
If in a shimmering room the babies came,
Drawn close by dreams of fledgling wing,
It was because night nursed them in its fold.
Night nursed not him in whose dark mind
The clambering wings of birds of black revolved,
Making harsh torment of the solitude.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed
To hear at night the clocks' hard tones;
They have no beds to warm their limbs,
But with those limbs must warm cold stones;
Those poor weak men, whose coughs and ailings
Force them to tear at iron railings.
Those helpless men that starve, my pity;
Whose waking day is never done;
Who, save for their own shadows, are
Doomed night and day to walk alone:
They know no bright face but the sun's,
So cold and dark are human ones.
He lives his lonely life, and when he dies
A thousand hearts maybe will utter sighs ;
Because they liked his songs, and now their bird
Sleeps with his head beneath his wing, unheard.
But what kind hand will tend his grave, and bring
Those blossoms there, of which he used to sing ?
Who'll kiss his mound, and wish the time would come
To lie with him inside that silent tomb ?
And who'll forget the dreamer's skill, and shed
A tear because a loving heart is dead ?
Heigh ho for gossip then, and common sighs —
And let his death bring tears to no one's eyes.
Might as well bury her
And bury her deep,
Might as well put her
Where she can sleep.
Might as well lay her
Out in her shiny black;
And for the love of God
Not wish her back.
Maum Sal may miss her
Maum Sal, she only
With no one now to scoff
Sal may be lonely....
Nobody else there is
Who will be caring
How rocky was the road
For her wayfaring;
I SAW her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes
Tho' love had never made them shine.
Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark
Unwarmed forever by love's flame.
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me,--
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.
The moon is a charring ember
Dying into the dark;
Off in the crouching mountains
Coyotes bark.
The stars are heavy in heaven,
Too great for the sky to hold--
What if they fell and shattered
The earth with gold?
No lights are over the mesa,
The wind is hard and wild,
I stand at the darkened window
And cry like a child.