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goodbye, goodbye.
     
    Now the washed sheets fly in the sun,
    The pillow cases are sweetening.
     
    It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
    The long coffin of soap-colored oak,
     
    The curious bearers and the raw date
    Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.
     
(5)
     
    The grey sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
    Run fold upon fold far off, concealing their hollows,
     
    The hollows in which rock the thoughts of the wife——
    Blunt, practical boats
     
    Full of dresses and hats and china and married daughters.
    In the parlor of the stone house
     
    One curtain is flickering from the open window,
    Flickering and pouring, a pitiful candle.
     
    This is the tongue of the dead man: remember, remember.
    How far he is now, his actions
     

    Around him like livingroom furniture, like a décor.
    As the pallors gather——
     
    The pallors of hands and neighborly faces,
    The elate pallors of flying iris.
     
    They are flying off into nothing: remember us.
    The empty benches of memory look over stones,
     
    Marble façades with blue veins, and jelly-glassfuls of daffodils.
    It is so beautiful up here: it is a stopping place.
     
(6)
     
    The unnatural fatness of these lime leaves!——
    Pollarded green balls, the trees march to church.
     
    The voice of the priest, in thin air,
    Meets the corpse at the gate,
     
    Addressing it, while the hills roll the notes of the dead bell;
    A glitter of wheat and crude earth.
     
    What is the name of that color?——
    Old blood of caked walls the sun heals,
     
    Old blood of limb stumps, burnt hearts.
    The widow with her black pocketbook and three daughters,
     
    Necessary among the flowers,
    Enfolds her face like fine linen,
     
    Not to be spread again.
    While a sky, wormy with put-by smiles,
     

    Passes cloud after cloud.
    And the bride flowers expend a freshness,
     
    And the soul is a bride
    In a still place, and the groom is red and forgetful, he is featureless.
     
(7)
     
    Behind the glass of this car
    The world purrs, shut-off and gentle.
     
    And I am dark-suited and still, a member of the party,
    Gliding up in low gear behind the cart.
     
    And the priest is a vessel,
    A tarred fabric, sorry and dull,
     
    Following the coffin on its flowery cart like a beautiful woman,
    A crest of breasts, eyelids and lips
     
    Storming the hilltop.
    Then, from the barred yard, the children
     
    Smell the melt of shoe-blacking,
    Their faces turning, wordless and slow,
     
    Their eyes opening
    On a wonderful thing——
     
    Six round black hats in the grass and a lozenge of wood,
    And a naked mouth, red and awkward.
     
    For a minute the sky pours into the hole like plasma.
    There is no hope, it is given up.
     

Gulliver
     
     
    Over your body the clouds go
    High, high and icily
    And a little flat, as if they
     
    Floated on a glass that was invisible.
    Unlike swans,
    Having no reflections;
     
    Unlike you,
    With no strings attached.
    All cool, all blue. Unlike you
     
    You, there on your back,
    Eyes to the sky.
    The spider-men have caught you,
     
    Winding and twining their petty fetters,
    Their bribes
    So many silks.
     
    How they hate you.
    They converse in the valley of your fingers, they are inchworms.
    They would have you sleep in their cabinets,
     
    This toe and that toe, a relic.
    Step off!
    Step off seven leagues, like those distances
     
    That revolve in Crivelli, untouchable.
    Let this eye be an eagle,
    The shadow of his lip, an abyss.
     

Getting There
     
     
    How far is it?
    How far is it now?
    The gigantic gorilla interior
    Of the wheels move, they appal me
    The terrible brains
    Of Krupp, black muzzles
    Revolving, the sound
    Punching out Absence! like cannon.
    It is Russia I have to get across, it is some war or other.
    I am dragging my body
    Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.
    Now is the time for bribery.
    What do wheels eat, these wheels
    Fixed to their arcs like gods,
    The silver leash of the will
    Inexorable. And their pride!
    All the gods know is