young, zebuesque are my

  passengers fellow.

  Little Poems

  OVERCOME, Kim flees in bitter frustration to her TV studio dressing room where she angrily flings a vase of flowers to the floor and sobs in abandon to a rose she destroys: “I’m tearing this flower apart like I’m destroying my life.” As she often does, she later turned the episode into a little poem.

  —photograph caption in Life

  I woke up tousled, one strap falling

      Off the shoulder, casually.

  In came ten Time-Life lensmen, calling,

      “Novak, hold that deshabille!”

  I went to breakfast, asked for java,

      Prunes, and toast. “Too dark,” they said.

  “The film we use is slow, so have a

      Spread of peaches, tea, and bread.”

  I wrote a memo, “To my agent—”

      “Write instead,” they said, “ ’Dear Mum.’ ”

  In conference, when I made a cogent

      Point, they cried, “No, no! Act dumb.”

  I told a rose, “I tear you as I

      Tear my life,” and heard them say,

  “Afraid that ‘as’ of yours is quasi-

      Classy. We like ‘like.’ O.K.?”

  I dined with friends. The Time-Life crewmen

      Interrupted: “Bare your knees,

  Project your bosom, and, for human

      Interest, look ill-at-ease.”

  I, weary, fled to bed. They hounded

      Me with meters, tripods, eyes

  That winked and winked—I was surrounded!

      The caption read, “ALONE, Kim cries.”

  Popular Revivals 1956

  The thylacine, long thought to be extinct,

  Is not. The ancient doglike creature, linked

  To kangaroos and platypi, still pounces

  On his Tasmanian prey, the Times announces.

  The tarpan (stumpy, prehistoric horse)

  Has been rebred—in Germany, of course.

  Herr Heinz Heck, by striking genetic chords,

  Has out of plowmares beat his tiny wards.

  The California fur seal, a refined

  And gullible amphibian consigned

  By profit-seeking sealers to perdition,

  Barked at the recent Gilmore expedition.

  The bison, butchered on our Western prairie,

  Took refuge in our coinage. Now, contrary

  To what was feared, the herds are out of danger

  And in the films, co-starred with Stewart Granger.

  Tune, in American Type

  Set and printed in Great Britain by Tonbridge Printers, Ltd., Peach Hall Works, Tonbridge, in Times nine on ten point, on paper made by John Dickenson at Croxley, and bound by James Burn at Esher.

  —colophon in a book published by Michael Joseph (London)

  Ah, to be set and printed in

  Great Britain now that Tonbridge Prin-

  ters, Limited, employ old John

  Dickenson, at Croxley. On

  his pages is Times nine-on-ten-

  point type impressed, and, lastly, when

  at Peach Hall Works the job is done,

  James Burn at Esher’s job’s begun.

                 Hey nonny nonny nonny,

                 Hey nonny nonny nay!

  Tonbridge! Croxley! Esher! Ah,

  is there, in America,

  a tome contrived in such sweet towns?

  No. English, English are the downs

  where Jim Burn, honest craftsman, winds

  beneath his load of reams; he binds

  the sheets that once John Dickenson

  squeezed flat from British pulp. Hey non‐

                 ny nonny, etc.

  Due Respect

  They [members of teen-age gangs] are respectful of their parents and particularly of their mothers—known as “moo” in their jargon.

  —The New York Times Magazine

  Come moo, dear moo, let’s you and me

  Sit down awhile and talk togee;

  My broo’s at school, and faa’s away

  A-gaaing rosebuds while he may.

  Of whence we come and whii we go

  Most moos nee know nor care to know,

  But you are not like any oo:

  You’re always getting in a poo

  Or working up a dreadful laa

  Over nothing—nothing. Bah!

  Relax. You love me, I love you,

  And that’s the way it shapes up, moo.

  A Rack of Paperbacks

  Gateway, Grove,

      and Dover say,

  “Unamuno

      any day.”

  Beacon Press

      and Torchlight chorus,

  “Kierkegaard

      does nicely for us.”

  “Willey, Waley,”

      Anchor bleats,

  “Auden, Barzun,

      Kazin, Keats.”

  “Tovey, Glover,

      Cohen, Fry”

  is Meridi-

      an’s reply.

  “Bentley’s best,”

      brags Dramabooks.

  Harvest brings in

      Cleanth Brooks.

  All, including

      Sentinel,

  Jaico, Maco,

      Arco, Dell,

  Noonday, Vintage,

      Living Age,

  Mentor, Wisdom—

      page on page

  of classics much

      too little known

  when books were big

      and bindings sewn—

  agree: “Lord Raglan,

      Margaret Mead,

  Moses Hadas,

      Herbert Read,

  the Panchatantra,

      Hamsun’s Pan,

  Tillich, Ilg,

      Kahlil Gibran,

  and Henry James

      sell better if

  their spines are not

      austerely stiff.”

  Even Egrets Err

  Egregious was the egret’s error, very.

      Egressing from a swamp, the bird eschewed

  No egriot (a sour kind of cherry)*

      It saw, and reaped extremest egritude.†

  * * *

  *Obs.

  †Rare form of obs. Aegritude, meaning sickness.

  Glasses

  I wear them. They help me. But I

  Don’t care for them. Two birds, steel hinges

  Haunt each an edge of the small sky

  My green eyes make. Rim-horn impinges

  Upon my vision’s furry fringes;

  Faint dust collects upon the dry,

  Unblinking shield behind which cringes

  My naked, deprecated eye.

  My gaze feels aimed. It is as if

  Two manufactured beams have been

  Lodged in my sockets—hollow, stiff,

  And gray, like mailing tubes—and when

  I pivot, vases topple down

  From tabletops, and women frown.

  The Sensualist

  Each Disc contains not more than ½ minim of Chloroform together with Capsicum, Peppermint, Anise, Cubeb, Licorice, and Linseed.

  —from a box of Parke-Davis throat discs

  Come, Capsicum, cast off thy membranous pods;

  Thy Guinea girlhood’s blossoms have been dried.

  Come, Peppermint, belovèd of the gods

  (That is, of Hades; Ceres, in her pride,

  So Strabo says, transmogrified

  Delicious Mintha, making her a plant).

 
Come, Anise, sweet stomachic stimulant,

  Most umbelliferous of condiments,

  Depart thy native haunt, the hot Levant.

  Swart Licorice, or Liquorice, come hence,

  And Linseed, too, of these ingredients

  Most colorless, most odorless, most nil.

  And Javan Cubeb, come—thy smokable

  Gray pericarps and pungent seeds shall be

  Our feast’s incense. Come, Chloroform, née Phyll,

  In demiminims dance unto the spree.

  Compounded spices, come: dissolve in me.

  In Memoriam

  In the novel he marries Victoria but in the movie he dies.

  —caption in Life

  Fate lifts us up so she can hurl

      Us down from heights of pride,

  Viz.: in the book he got the girl

      But in the movie, died.

  The author, seeing he was brave

      And good, rewarded him,

  Then, greedy, sold him as a slave

      To mean old M-G-M.

  He perished on the screen, but thrives

      In print, where serifs keep

  Watch o’er the happier of his lives:

      Say, Does he wake, or sleep?

  Planting a Mailbox

  Prepare the ground when maple buds have burst

      And when the daytime moon is sliced so thin

  His fibers drink blue sky with litmus thirst.

      This moment come, begin.

  The site should be within an easy walk,

      Beside a road, in stony earth. Your strength

  Dictates how deep you delve. The seedling’s stalk

      Should show three feet of length.

  Don’t harrow, weed, or water; just apply

      A little gravel. Sun and motor fumes

  Perform the miracle: in late July,

      A branch post office blooms.

  ZULUS LIVE IN LAND WITHOUT A SQUARE

  A Zulu lives in a round world. If he does not leave his reserve, he can live his whole life through and never see a straight line.

  —headline and text from The New York Times

  In Zululand the huts are round,

  The windows oval, and the rooves

  Thatched parabolically. The ground

  Is tilled in curvilinear grooves.

  When Zulus cannot smile, they frown,

  To keep an arc before the eye.

  Describing distances to town,

  They say, “As flies the butterfly.”

  Anfractuosity is king.

  Melodic line itself is banned,

  Though all are hip enough to sing—

  There are no squares in Zululand.

  Caligula’s Dream

  Insomnia was his worst torment. Three hours a night of fitful sleep was all that he ever got, and even then terrifying visions would haunt him—once, for instance, he dreamed that he had a conversation with the Mediterranean Sea.

  —Suetonius

  Of gold the bread on which he banqueted,

  Where pimps in silk and pearls dissolved in wine

  Were standard fare. The monster’s marble head

  Had many antic veins, being divine.

  At war, he massed his men upon the beach

  And bawled the coward’s order, “Gather shells!”

  And stooped, in need of prisoners, to teach

  The German tongue to prostituted Gauls.

  Bald young, broad-browed, and, for his era, tall,

  In peace he proved incestuous and queer,

  And spent long hours in the Capitol

  Exchanging compliments with Jupiter;

  He stalled his horse in ivory, and displayed

  His wife undressed to friends, and liked to view

  Eviscerations and the dance, and made

  Poor whores supply imperial revenue.

  · · ·

  Perhaps—to plead—the boy had heard how, when

  They took his noble father from the pyre

  And found a section unconsumed, the men

  Suspicioned: “Poisoned hearts resist the fire.”

  It was as water that his vision came,

  At any rate—more murderous than he,

  More wanton, uglier, of wider fame,

  Unsleeping also, multi-sexed, the Sea.

  It told him, “Little Boots, you cannot sin

  Enough; you speak a language, though you rave.

  The actual things at home beneath my skin

  Out-horrify the vilest hopes you have.

  Ten-tentacled invertebrates embrace

  And swap through thirsty ani livid seed

  While craggy worms without a brain or face

  Upon their own soft children blindly feed.

  As huge as Persian palaces, blue whales

  Grin fathoms down, and through their teeth are strained

  A million lives a minute; each entails,

  In death, a microscopic bit of pain.

  Atrocity is truly emperor;

  All things that thrive are slaves of cruel Creation.”

  Caligula, his mouth a mass of fur,

  Awoke, and toppled toward assassination.

  Bendix

  This porthole overlooks a sea

      Forever falling from the sky,

  The water inextricably

      Involved with buttons, suds, and dye.

  Like bits of shrapnel, shards of foam

      Fly heavenward; a bedsheet heaves,

  A stocking wrestles with a comb,

      And cotton angels wave their sleeves.

  The boiling purgatorial tide

      Revolves our dreary shorts and slips,

  While Mother coolly bakes beside

      Her little jugged apocalypse.

  The Menagerie at Versailles in 1775

  (Taken Verbatim from a Notebook Kept by Dr. Samuel Johnson)

  Cygnets dark; their black feet;

  on the ground; tame.

  Halcyons, or gulls.

  Stag and hind, small.

  Aviary, very large: the net, wire.

  Black stag of China, small.

  Rhinoceros, the horn broken

  and pared away, which, I suppose,

  will grow; the basis, I think,

  four inches ’cross; the skin

  folds like loose cloth doubled over his body

  and ’cross his hips: a vast animal,

  though young; as big, perhaps,

  as four oxen.

                           The young elephant,

  with his tusks just appearing.

  The brown bear put out his paws.

  All very tame. The lion.

  The tigers I did not well view.

  The camel, or dromedary with two bunches

  called the Huguin, taller than any horse.

  Two camels with one bunch.

  Among the birds was a pelican,

  who being let out, went

  to a fountain, and swam

  about to catch fish. His feet

  well webbed: he dipped his head,

  and turned his long bill sidewise.

  Reel

  whorl (hwûrl; hwôrl), n.… 2. Something that whirls or seems to whirl as a whorl, or wharve…

  —Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary

  Whirl, whorl or wharve! The world

      Whirls within solar rings

  Which once were hotly hurled

      Away by whirling things!

  We whirl, or seem to whirl,

      Or seem to seem to; whorls

  Within more whorls unfurl

      In manners, habits, morals.

  Wind whirls; hair curls; the worm

      Can turn, and wheels can wheel,


  And even stars affirm:

      Whatever whirls is real.

  Kenneths

  Rexroth and Patchen and Fearing—their mothers

  Perhaps could distinguish their sons from the others,

  But I am unable. My inner eye pictures

  A three-bodied sun-lover issuing strictures,

  Berating “Tom” Eliot, translating tanka,

  Imbibing espresso and sneering at Sanka—

  Six arms, thirty fingers, all writing abundantly

  What pops into heads each named Kenneth, redundantly.

  Upon Learning That a Bird Exists Called the Turnstone

  A turnstone turned rover

      And went through ten turnstiles,

  Admiring the clover

      And turnsole and fern styles.

  She took to the turnpike

      And travelled to Dover,

  Where turnips enjoy

      A rapid turnover.

  The Turneresque landscape

      She scanned for a lover;

  She’d heard one good turnstone

      Deserves another.

  In vain did she hover

      And earnestly burn

  With yearning; above her

      The terns cried, “Return!”

  In Extremis

  I saw my toes the other day.

  I hadn’t looked at them for months.

  Indeed, they might have passed away.

  And yet they were my best friends once.