I saw you, I heard you.
Today on a screen my future appeared all black, white, and grey.
Nothing at first but bubbles of contrast
swells of innards and technology.
But then I saw you.
Your bones a beautiful highlight,
Our blood; flutters of movement -
Head bowed the two of us saw through your mind.
And then I heard you.
Pounding spikes, white rhythm on black.
Tiny pump like a machine blinking -
My own heart beating faster.
Alive and real, your beat fills the room and echoes through blank pages and clean slates, into empty homes or ones not yet built, cries out in the night with warm comfort and soothing heat.
Now your likeness sits in my pocket
Until the day we meet.

All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.

1031

Fate slew Him, but He did not drop—
She felled—He did not fall—
Impaled Him on Her fiercest stakes—
He neutralized them all—

She stung Him—sapped His firm Advance—
But when Her Worst was done
And He—unmoved regarded Her—
Acknowledged Him a Man.

Out of the night that covers me,
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
  For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
  I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
  My head is ******, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
  Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
  How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

[Given to Frank Bidart]


You won't become a gourmet* cook
By studying our Fannie's book--
Her thoughts on Food & Keeping House
Are scarcely those of Lévi-Strauss.
Nevertheless, you'll find, Frank dear,
The basic elements* are here.
And if a problem should arise:
The Soufflé fall before your eyes,
Or strange things happen to the Rice
--You know I love to give advice.

                Elizabeth
                Christmas, 1971
          

Forbidden word
* Forbidden phrase


P.S. Fannie should not be underrated;
She has become sophisticated.
She's picked up many gourmet tricks
Since the edition of '96.

If I start to write a poem, will I finish it this time
Or will I give up midway through, because there aren't enough rhymes
In this old dreadful, awful language born of brutal feudal swine
Wearing wigs and pantaloons, and saying words like 'thee' and 'thine'?

If I have a hazy thought, will I succeed in making clear,
That murky bit of intuition felt, or will it disappear,
The minute I put ink to paper and begin to toy around
With all the scattered bits of insight that implicitly abound?

If I find myself inspired all the sudden by a muse,
Will she hastily retire before I can spread the news
Of all her wondrous gifts to me, that I so luckily did capture
In a transcendental state of exaltation, joy, and rapture?

If I have a vivid vision, flowing freer than the stream
Of a river, clear as crystal, and as dazzling as a dream
Will my will be of such power that I'll succeed to convey
It, or just fall flat in defeat and then retreat into dismay?

If I see sumptuous fruits that hang atop the mighty tree
That's down the road of human intellect and creativity
Will my reach extend sufficiently to gather them and bring
Them back into...into... oh, **** it! I can't think of anything.

                                                (╯°□°）­╯︵ ┻━┻

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).