by 4 members
In the Naked Bed, in Plato’s Cave In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave, Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,   Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,   Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,   A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,   Their freights covered, as usual. The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram   Slid slowly forth.                             Hearing the milkman’s chop,   His striving up the stair, the bottle’s chink,   I rose from bed, lit a cigarette, And walked to the window. The stony street   Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,   The street-lamp’s vigil and the horse’s patience.   The winter sky’s pure capital Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes. Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose   Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves’ waterfalls,   Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.   A car coughed, starting. Morning, softly   Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair   From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,   Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.   The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,   Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet   With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,   O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail   Of early morning, the mystery of beginning   Again and again,                          while History is unforgiven. *** *** *** By Circumstances Fed Which divide attention Among the living and the dead, Under the blooms of the blossoming sun, The gaze which is a tower towers Day and night, hour by hour, Critical of all and of one, Dissatisfied with every flower With all that's been done or undone, Converting every feature Into its own and unknown nature; So, once in the drugstore, Amid all the poppy, salve and ointment, I suddenly saw, estranged there, Beyond all disappointment, My own face in the mirror. *** *** *** The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me "the withness of the body" The heavy bear who goes with me, A manifold honey to smear his face, Clumsy and lumbering here and there, The central ton of every place, The hungry beating brutish one In love with candy, anger, and sleep, Crazy factotum, dishevelling all, Climbs the building, kicks the football, Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city. Breathing at my side, that heavy animal, That heavy bear who sleeps with me, Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar, A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp, Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope Trembles and shows the darkness beneath. —The strutting show-off is terrified, Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants, Trembles to think that his quivering meat Must finally wince to nothing at all. That inescapable animal walks with me, Has followed me since the black womb held, Moves where I move, distorting my gesture, A caricature, a swollen shadow, A stupid clown of the spirit's motive, Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness, The secret life of belly and bone, Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown, Stretches to embrace the very dear With whom I would walk without him near, Touches her grossly, although a word Would bare my heart and make me clear, Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed Dragging me with him in his mouthing care, Amid the hundred million of his kind, The scrimmage of appetite everywhere. *** *** *** I Am to My Own Heart Merely a Serf I am to my own heart merely a serf And follow humbly as it glides with autos And come attentive when it is too sick, In the bad cold of sorrow much too weak, To drink some coffee, light a cigarette And think of summer beaches, blue and gay. I climb the sides of buildings just to get Merely a gob of gum, all that is left Of its infatuation of last year. Being the servant of incredible assumption, Being to my own heart merely a serf. I have been sick of its cruel rule, as sick As one is sick of chewing gum all day; Only inside of sleep did all my anger Spend itself, restore me to my role, Comfort me, bring me to the morning Willing and smiling, ready to be of service, To box its shadows, lead its brutish dogs, Knowing its vanity the vanity of waves. But when sleep too is crowded, when sleep too Is full of chores impossible and heavy, The looking for white doors whose numbers are Different and equal, that is, infinite, The carriage of my father on my back, Last summer, 1910, and my own people, The government of love's great polity, The choice of taxes, the production Of clocks, of lights, and horses, the location Of monuments, of hotels and of rhyme, Then, then, in final anger, I wake up! Merely wake up once more, once more to resume The unfed hope, the unfed animal, Being the servant of incredible assumption, Being to my own heart merely a serf. *** *** *** I Am a Book I neither Wrote nor Read I am a book I neither wrote nor read, A comic, tragic play in which new masquerades Astonishing as guns crackle like raids Newly each time, whatever one is prepared To come upon, suddenly dismayed and afraid, As in the dreams which make the fear of sleep The terror of love, the depth one cannot leap. How the false truths of the years of youth have passed! Have passed at full speed like trains which never stopped There where I stood and waited, hardly aware, How little I knew, or which of them was the one To mount and ride to hope or where true hope arrives. I no more wrote than read that book which is The self I am, half-hidden as it is From one and all who see within a kiss The lounging formless blackness of an abyss. How could I think the brief years were enough To prove the reality of endless love? Delmore Schwartz, Selected Poems (1938-1958): Summer Knowledge (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1967)