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hears.
    Then two fists appear on the window sill.
    He leans closer to hear the small
    whisperings, the broken story, the excuses.
This Room
    This room for instance:
    is that an empty coach
    that waits below?
        Promises, promises,
        tell them nothing
        for my sake.
    I remember parasols,
    an esplanade beside the sea,
    yet these flowers…
        Must I ever remain behind —
        listening, smoking,
        scribbling down the next far thing?
    I light a cigarette
    and adjust the window shade.
    There is a noise in the street
    growing fainter, fainter.
Rhodes
    •
    I don’t know the names of flowers
    or one tree from another,
    nevertheless I sit in the square
    under a cloud of Papisostros smoke
    and sip Hellas beer.
    Somewhere nearby there is a Colossus
    waiting for another artist,
    another earthquake.
    But I’m not ambitious.
    I’d like to stay, it’s true,
    though I’d want to hang out
    with the civic deer that surround
    the Hospitaler castle on the hill.
    They are beautiful deer
    and their lean haunches flicker
    under an assault of white butterflies.
    •
    High on the battlement a tall, stiff
    figure of a man keeps watch on Turkey.
    A warm rain begins to fall.
    A peacock shakes drops of water
    from its tail and heads for cover.
    In the Moslem graveyard a cat sleeps
    in a niche between two stones.
    Just time for a look
    into the casino, except
    I’m not dressed.
    •
    Back on board, ready for bed,
    I lie down and remember
    I’ve been to Rhodes.
    But there’s something else —
    I hear again the voice
    of the croupier calling
    thirty-two, thirty-two
    as my body flies over water,
    as my soul, poised like a cat, hovers —
    then leaps into sleep.
Spring, 480 BC
    Enraged by what he called
        the impertinence of the Hellespont
                             in blowing up a storm
                   which brought to a halt
                             his army of 2 million,
                                            Herodotus relates
                             that Xerxes ordered 300
                                            lashes be given
             that unruly body of water besides
        throwing in a pair of fetters, followed
                   by a branding with hot irons.
    You can imagine
        how this news was received
                             at Athens; I mean
        that the Persians were on the march.

IV
Near Klamath
    We stand around the burning oil drum
    and we warm ourselves, our hands
    and faces, in its pure lapping heat.
    We raise steaming cups of coffee
    to our lips and we drink it
    with both hands. But we are salmon
    fishermen. And now we stamp our feet
    on the snow and rocks and move upstream,
    slowly, full of love, toward the still pools.
Autumn
    This yardful of the landlord’s used cars
    does not intrude. The landlord
    himself, does not intrude. He hunches
    all day over a swage,
    or else is enveloped in the blue flame
    of the arc-welding device.
                   He takes note of me though,
    often stopping work to grin
    and nod at me through the window. He even
    apologizes for parking his logging gear
    in my living room.
                   But we remain friends.
    Slowly the days thin, and we
    move together towards spring,
    towards high water, the jack-salmon,
    the sea-run cutthroat.
Winter Insomnia
    The mind can’t sleep, can only lie awake and
    gorge, listening to the snow gather as
    for some final assault.
    It wishes Chekhov were here to minister
    something—three drops of valerian, a glass
    of rose water—anything, it wouldn’t matter.
    The mind would like to get out of here
    onto the snow. It would like to run
    with a pack of shaggy animals, all teeth,
    under the moon, across the snow, leaving
    no prints or spoor, nothing behind.
    The