O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
one from our trees, one far away.
****** the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if the were all,
Whose elaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the all.

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets.  In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little **** in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

                                        December 1965

Yes, Atthis, you may be sure

Even in Sardis
Anactoria will think often of us

of the life we shared here, when you seemed
the Goddess incarnate
to her and your singing pleased her best

Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her;
her light spreads equally
on the salt sea and fields thick with bloom

Delicious dew pours down to freshen
roses, delicate thyme
and blossoming sweet clover; she wanders

aimlessly, thinking of gentle
Atthis, her heart hanging
heavy with longing in her little breast

She shouts aloud, Come! we know it;
thousand-eared night repeats that cry
across the sea shining between us

I imagine you a bloodcurdling scene,
with your
avant-garde of conscious stream
slaying syntax
smearing words
like the battered wife
whose entity shadows identity.
and your rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
revolves a continuous, endless carousal
repeating controversies
without just end,
just being
oh, You voodoo Queen of rare success
how does this convince the modernist?

you can’t gnaw from the outside in,
when the world is quaint
and you’re freezing in sin
and darkness falls
from the east suffocating the west
and the end calls
from the deepest wilderness
like a lonely wolf
the debris of truest paradoxes
the kiss of undeath
i follow my mind on the steepest paths
through otherworldly traps and boxes
and we sink into the comfort of our thoughts
because the world as we know truly is not
let your voice rise up
let it echo the blackness
let it scream of
silence

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the ******,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

I dwell alone,--I dwell alone, alone,
Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
  Gilded with flashing boats
    That bring no friend to me:
O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,
    O love-pangs, let me be.

Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone
    And spices bear to sea:
Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes,
    Love-promising, entreating,--
    Ah! sweet, but fleeting,--
  Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.
  Hush! the wind flags and fails,--
Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand,--
  Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;
Their songs wake singing echoes in my land,--
  They cannot hear me moan.

  One latest, solitary swallow flies
    Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest tost,
    Poor bird, shall it be lost?
  Dropped down into this uncongenial sea,
        With no kind eyes
        To watch it while it dies,
      Unguessed, uncared for, free:
        Set free at last,
        The short pang past,
In sleep, in death, in dreamless sleep locked fast.

Mine avenue is all a growth of oaks,
      Some rent by thunder-strokes,
Some rustling leaves and acorns in the breeze:
      Fair fall my fertile trees,
That rear their goodly heads, and live at ease.

A spider's web blocks all mine avenue;
  He catches down and foolish painted flies,
      That spider wary and wise.
Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew
  Betwixt boughs green with sap,
  So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap:
      I will not mar the web,
Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb.

It shakes,--my trees shake; for a wind is roused
      In cavern where it housed:
      Each white and quivering sail,
      Of boats among the water leaves
Hollows and strains in the full-throated gale:
      Each maiden sings again,--
Each languid maiden, whom the calm
Had lulled to sleep with rest and spice and balm,
      Miles down my river to the sea
        They float and wane,
      Long miles away from me.
      Perhaps they say: "She grieves,
        Uplifted, like a beacon, on her tower."
        Perhaps they say: "One hour
More, and we dance among the golden sheaves."
        Perhaps they say: "One hour
          More, and we stand,
          Face to face, hand in hand;
Make haste, O slack gale, to the looked-for land!"

        My trees are not in flower,
        I have no bower,
        And gusty creaks my tower,
And lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand.

There is a motionless tree
there is another that moves forward
                a river of trees
pounds at my chest
                The green swell
of good fortune

You are dressed in red
                you are
the seal of the burning year
carnal firebrand
                star of fruit
I eat the sun in you

                The hour rests
on a chasm of clarities

The birds are a handful of shadows
their beaks build the night
their wings sustain the day

Rooted at the light's peak
between stability and vertigo
                you are
        the diaphanous balance.