You make to die.
You are the dead.
You the assassin of yourself
And you the blood
And you the one Foundation Ground on which red spills
You the whipping man who drives
And you the Son who sweats all scarlet up the hills to Calvary!
You the Crowd gathered for the thrill and urge
You both composer and dear dread subject of the dirge
You are the jailor and the jailed,
You the impaler and you the one that your own
Million-fleshed self in dreams by night
Do hold in thrall and now at noon must kill.
Why have you been so blind?
Why have you never seen?
The slave and master in one skin
Is all your history, no more, no less,
Confess! This is what you’ve been!
The crowd upon the cross gives anguished roar;
A moment terrible to hear.
Christ, crouched at the rail, no more can bear
And so shuts up His ears with hands.
The sound of pain He’s long since grown to custom in His wits,
But this! the sound of willful innocence awake
To self-made wounds, these children thrown
To Revelation and to light
Is too much for His sanity and sight.
Man warring on himself an old tale is;
But Man discovering the source of all his sorrow
In himself,
Finding his left hand and his right
Are similar sons, are children fighting
In the porchyards of the void?!
His pulse runs through his flesh,
Beats at the gates of wrist and thigh and rib and throat,
Unruly mobs which never heard the Law.
He answers panic thus:
Now in one vast sad insucked gasp of loss
Man pries, pulls free one hand from cross
While from the other drops the mallet which put in the nail
Giver and taker, this hand or that, his sad appraisal knows
And knowing writhes upon the crucifix in dreadful guilt
That so much time was wasted in this pain.
Ten thousand years ago he might have leapt off down
To not return again!
A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips;
The laughter sets him free.
A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries.
That Fool is me!
And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds.
The nails fall skittering to marble floors.
And Christ, knelt at the rail, sees miracle
As Man steps down in amiable wisdom
To give himself what no one else can give:
His liberty.
And seeing there the Son who was in symbol vast
Their flesh and all,
Hands Him an empty cup and bids Him drink His fill
And Christ, gone drunk on laughter,
Vents a similar roar,
Three billion voices strong,
That flings the bells in belfries high
And slams then opens every sanctuary door;
The bones in vaults in frantic vibrancy of xylophone
Tell tunes of Saints, yes, Saints not marching in but out
At this hilarious shout!
And having given wine to dissolve thrice ancient hairballs
And old sin,
Now Man puts to the lips and tongue of Christ
His last Salvation crumb,
The wafer of his all-accepting smile,
His gusting laugh, the joy and swift enjoyment of his image:
Fool.
It is most hard to chew.
Christ, old student in a new school
Having swallowed laughter, cannot keep it in;
It works itself through skin like slivers
From a golden door
Trapped in the blood, athirst for air,
Christ, who was once employed as single Son of God
Now finds Himself among three billion on a billion
Brother sons, their arms thrown wide to grasp and hold
And walk them everywhere,
Now weaving this, now weaving that in swoons,
Snuffing suns, breathing in light of one long
Rambled aeon endless afternoon….
They reach the door and turn
And look back down the aisle of years to see
The rail, the altar cross, the spikes, the red rain,
The sad sweet ecstasy of death and hope
Abandoned, left and lost in pain;
Once up the side of Calvary, now down Tomorrow’s slope,
Their palms still itching where the scar still heals,
Into the market where so mad the dances
And the reels, Christ the Lord Jesus is soon lost
But found again uptossed now here, now there
In every multi-billioned face! There! See!
Some sad sweet laughing shard of God’s old Son
Caught up in crystal blaze fired out at thee.
Ten thousand times a million sons of sons move
Through one great and towering town
Wearing their wits, which means their laughter,
As their crown. Set free upon the earth
By simple gifts of knowing how mere mirth can cut the bonds
And pull the blood spikes out;
Their conversation shouts of “Fool!”
That word they teach themselves in every school,
And, having taught, do not like Khayyam’s scholars
Go them out by that same door
Where in they went,
But go to rockets through the roofs
To night and stars and space,
A single face turned upward toward all Time,
One flesh, one ecstasy, one peace.
The cross falls into dust, the nails rust on the floor,
The wafers, half bit through, make smiles
On pavements
Where the wind by night comes round
To sit in aisles in booths to listen and confess
I am the dreamer and the doer
I the hearer and the knower
I the giver and the taker
I the sword and wound of sword.
If this be true, then let the sword fall free from hand.
I embrace myself.
I laugh until I weep
And weep until I smile
Then the two of us, murderer and murdered,
Guilty and he who is without guile
Go off to Far Centauri
To leave off losings, and take on winnings,
Erase all mortal ends, give birth to only new beginnings,
In a billion years of morning and a billion years of sleep.
THIS TIME OF KITES
The day burns bright;
The morning, clear,
Has made its way to noon;
And all that seems most special and most dear
Is held encircled by the flaring sun itself.
This weather is for kites
Or earthborne people who
Upon a hill string up their souls
And send them flying in the glare
That brings quick tears to eyes
And warmth to hearts
Which, knowing autumn,
Feel the season change
As birds fly north again
Against the tide of time and time’s unreason.
This weather is for children
Or children-men who, melted by the sun,
Find need for toys;
Who stand like boys bedazzled by a sum,
Who thrive on chalking life on hopscotch walks,
Stand here, leap there, run fast, stand very still,
But this now most of all: Be Much Alive.
So in this time of kites,
Autumnal springs, toys, men dwarved small again
In the hot rain
Of sunlight,
Take this string,
Let go with me, let fly the colored paper
On November’s wind made March,
And ask with me what color we have flown:
Does Love put up such flags?
And if so, are they white?
Or colored like a hearth gone drowsed and sleepy warm
Deep into night?
Does lust fly high or low?
Some one of us must know;
In chorus, paired, or giving answer
Simple and alone,
Each calling out the color of the kite
Which flies so high on this clear day ?
Must name his own.
IF YOU WILL WAIT JUST LONG ENOUGH,
ALL GOES
If you will wait just long enough, all goes;
Young woman, if you wait, I’ll step away.
O God, it may well take a dozen years,
But finally my tears will dry, my passion wander off
To dust itself in ancient dreams,
My straight loins wither to dried plum,
My words go dumb, adroit excuses for rare matinees
Put unused tickets under pillows,
If you wait long enough, dear one, yes, if you wait
My gait and pace will surely slow.
These are the penalties of age:
That sweet rage dies, that shouts tide down to whispers
And that whispers still themselves in flesh,
That the cogs of love-mad beast no longer even try to mesh,
That suddenly long morning sleeps and naps in afternoon
Are much preferred to wrestling and to luncheon gymnast feats,
That nibbled sweets of thigh no longer seem
The center of the day. They simply idiot-maunder off away
Leaving one stunned to wonder and to doubt.
Why shout of jealousy, why envy of another’s size?
What prize was that which lay beneath one’s chest?
Why wrest such sweetmeats, why that young girl’s cries?
Why melt her eyes and yours with happy tears,
Why sighs and cheers and lamentations over endless brawls,
Why squalls and calms, then fiercer storms of must,
Why gusts of meat-machismo, mask-bravado, super-male?
Why flail and torment, doubt: to seed or not to seed?
Why endless need cupped close in need in nest of need?
Sweet Christ, what was it all about?
And was it Aristotle who awoke one morn,
Looked down and gave a shout of glad release
And ran to show the servants so they all might see,
The pendant thing hung cold and not aroused,
So down the chamber aisles he cried:
“I’m free! O God, at last, I’m free!”
Well, what a shame.
Or, also, knowing lust, who can blame him?
Yet, oh, it’s hard to think that one day all the gods
Will truly pack, depart and leave Olympus in the rain,
That falling down erosions will slide flesh
To ruin in the dusk-lit sea,
As even high gods sink and founder in the soul
And vanish out of sight,
So nights fill now with only dreams,
Remembrance of a time when stallions pissed the air
And brought the mares encircled to their thrust,
When lust was every breath you gave or took,
When earthquakes shook your flanks,
And thrived her blooded subterrane with this and this
and this!
Again, again, again!
No more.
Whatwas all that?
Now you, young woman,
Lovely one curled there, cat-feet tucked under;
Your rare June earth sweet-welcoming this wry
November’s snow,
You, now, you!
What, what, oh, God, oh, what—
(Help me remember!) please!
What’s your name…?
FOR A DAUGHTER, TRAVELING
The child goes far in worlds within a world,
The girl goes far in green within a green,
That English land where all her blood was born
And rivers run to sea in summers washed by rain and sun.
My light and flesh look out her eye aware
And live I in another time and splendid place;
My face somewhat looks lost.
And hidden from within her face,
And mingled there, my awe and ingasped worshipping
Do travel far because of her…
I visit there with grace,
I know the crossroads of all time,
I wander where the weather is both cold and warm.
To wake at nights near Blenheim where the storm
Is like old battles and artilleries drowned deep
In leafage from another year;
I gather flowers by serenities of stream
And touch old stones gone green with velveteens of moss,
Soft edge to granite toothings of an ancient dream.
I stay, I go, one flesh is here, the other wanders
