I have visited men's rooms
in several bars
with the rows
of urinals like old men
and the six-sided odor
of disinfectant.
I have felt the sadness
of the small white tiles,
of the repeated shapes
and the unavoidable whiteness.
I have understood
that some afternoon
when it rains and the streets
blacken with umbrellas,
a white army
from all of the men's rooms
There’s no South or West or
East San Juan, only
North San Juan, alone with its
name, cut in half
by a highway. Once miners
loved it, then Hippies, now
no one special. It’s a place
boozers who like to stop
at every place stop. Its
graveyard is enormous,
with regal vestiges—tall
tombstones, wealthy oaks. In
summer-swelter, flies stick
to diesel oil. Sloppy
screened-doors flop
in breezes. Sadness
Under the night of full breath,
Fired by the wine the golden goblet-moon spilt,
The insects are mad in their tremour of hearts :
There are a thousand voices of joy and dance,
But only one song of sadness and ghost.
O passionate song of ones, I believe, returned to the ground,
Now awakening to the sad songs they still left unsung !
The spirit of a song is never content till it is fully sung :
O the passionate songs of night and wounded heart,
Are they not the cry of my soul of fever and dream ?
To gaze upon the moon
Is to be sad in a thousand ways,
Though all the autumns
Are not meant to be my own self's alone.
That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.
That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.
The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.
Why do you peer at me, old man,
With eyes half shut,
From underneath the purple lanterns of your wisteria vine?
Your face is but a mask,
Showing neither joy nor sorrow;
But I know you bend your head to listen
When the wild geese go honking towards the south,
And your eyes grow wide with sadness,
When the last petal falls from the wisteria flower.
You, too, love beauty,
Or else why twine the purple wisteria about your door-posts,
Or pin a yellow gem upon your lilac gown?
Like tears shed over a dream,
Like sighs that stream
In an unseen nameless way
Into the heart of our lay.
It seemed hour on hours,
Years like fading flowers
Scattered their petals and bloom
In a half-lit forest of gloom.
The softness of its sounds,
Like the coursing of a million hounds
Of dream over the glade of sleep
Where tortured silences creep.
Exquisite, pain-laden, peaceful,
This night most beautiful,
What love forsaken by loving
Sets his heart a'singing?
The thin gold of the sun lies slanting on the hill;
In the sorrowful greys and muffled violets of the old orchard
A group of girls are quietly gathering apples.
Through the mingled gloom and green they scarcely speak at all,
And their broken voices rise and fall unutterably sad.
There are no birds,
And the goldenrod is gone.
And a child calls out, far away, across the autumn twilight;
And the sad grey of the dusk grows slowly deeper,
And all the world seems old!
Michael walks in autumn leaves
Rustling leaves and fading grasses,
And his little music-box
Tinkles faintly as he passes.
It's a gay and jaunty tune
If the hands that play were clever:
Michael plays it like a dirge,
Moaning on and on forever.
While his happy eyes grow big,
Big and innocent and soulful.
Wistful, halting little notes
Rise, unutterably doleful,
Telling of all childish griefs —
Baffled babies sob forsaken,
Birds fly off and bubbles burst,
Kittens sleep and will not waken.