Collecte Works (20 page)

O Tannenbaum

the children sing

round and round

one child sings out:

atomic bomb

Not all

is check-writing

but as the queen, Elizabeth,

beside the barge that night

                        “Longing

to listen…

Muzik is a nobl art”

In the great snowfall before the bomb

colored yule tree lights

windows, the only glow for contemplation

along this road

I worked the print shop

right down among em

the folk from whom all poetry flows

and dreadfully much else.

I was Blondie

I carried my bundles of hog feeder price lists

down by Larry the Lug,

I'd never get anywhere

because I'd never had suction,

pull, you know, favor, drag,

well-oiled protection.

I heard their rehashed radio barbs—

more barbarous among hirelings

as higher-ups grow more corrupt.

But what vitality! The women hold jobs—

clean house, cook, raise children, bowl

and go to church.

What would they say if they knew

I sit for two months on six lines

of poetry?

Not all that's heard is music. We leave

an air that for awhile was good, white cottage,

spruce…What if the sky is gone and they hold

the hill armed with tin cans—they're not bad kids—

you have the world. Remember the little

lovely notes “the little O, the earth.”

This thing is old and singing's new—you

just more full. Come, we'll sit without birds

between city bricks. See! The sun hits.

Tell me a story about the war.

All right, six lines, no child should hear more.

The marshal of France made quite a clatter:

Dear people, I know you're too hungry to flatter

but eat your beef-ounce from a doll's platter,

you'll think it's a roast wrapped in a batter.

Along came the bishop his robe a tatter:

Sleep and it won't matter.

Laval, Pomeret, Pétain

all three came to an end.

Bourdet, Bonnet, Deladier

so did they.

They tried each other

they sold out their brother

the people of France.

Let's practice your dance.

Thure Kumlien

Bigwigs wrote from Boston: Thure,

we must know about the sandhill crane,

is it ever white with you

and how many eggs can you obtain?

For Thure the solitary tattler

opened a door

to learned birds with their latest books

who walked New England's shore.

One day by the old turnpike still crossing

the marsh, down in the ditch

he found a new aster—to it he gave

his name as tho he were rich.

Shut up in woods

he made knives and forks

fumbled English gently:

Now is March gone

and I have much undone

It would be good

to hear the birds

along this shore intently

without song of gun

Your father to me in your eighth summer:

“Any fool can look up a term,

it's the beat and off beat, the leg lifted

or thudded that counts.”

And “Now that I'm involved in two houses

each one a system, I realize

the less one has the richer one is

if one could sit in one spot

and write.

Paul's playing ‘Handle.’

His eyes are clear in this air,

he sees what few others can,

the lawn is mown,

we're here till we go.”

To Paul now old enough to read:

Once a farmer, Crèvecoeur

tried to save his heart

from too much hurt.

Hero of vegetables,

hero of good

he learned to know every plant

in his neighborhood.

He loved Nantucket, grazing land

held in common.

Here one lawyer only found

the means to go on.

Green, prickly humanity—

men are plants whose goodness grows

out of the soil, Mr. Stinkweed

or Mrs. Rose.

…

Read Crèvecoeur and learn fast—

the firefly, two pairs of wings

and a third to read by

disappearing.

What horror to awake at night

and in the dimness see the light.

                Time is white

                mosquitoes bite

I've spent my life on nothing.

The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing,

sitting around with Something's wife.

                Buzz and burn

                is all I learn

I've spent my life on nothing.

I'm pillowed and padded, pale and puffing

lifting household stuffing—

               carpets, dishes

               benches, fishes

I've spent my life in nothing.