Why do you do this?
Your Army of Nothings
Who lay in the sun
and are all but sweet
who swelter and sweat
in that fresh cut grass
mowed by a man
you can't hope to know.
And you,
you there, with the grin
Who's side are you on anyway?
What made you the prince
of the Army of Nothings;
The leader, the first in command.
You spout and you spit
that ******* and bare
your teeth at me like you're the bomb
dot com
You're such a disgrace.
parading around
with your head up your ***
"So what's new?"
Oh, shut up,
You can't even fill out your pants.
Why should I care for you,
why should I feel?
How will I ever come home?
Where welcoming words
and magical treasure,
and stories that never come true
but are good.
Where futures of light once reigned so supreme
I swore they would never run dry.
I thought you'd missed out,
you know, then and there,
of the life that we talked of in dreams.
No flowers and chocolates,
no diamond rings,
just love.
Made of stuff so much deeper
and denser
and finer
and lovely, and warm, and alive...
But it's over, and done.
and I can't have it back.
So I go on avoiding
the Army of Nothings
as they come marching in
marching in
one two, at the ready
I feel deep in my bones
that breaking and tearing
Help me, archangel!
Save me! You promised!
You said you would always be there
in that carved-out big apple
our home, once upon
when we laughed and were happy and good.
But goodness runs out.
You made that as clear
as a crystal that needs to be smashed.
And I did that, remember?
I left it all broken and you were so proud
So proud I had chosen
the right over wrong.
yet you overlook
all the splinters of glass
all there
all here
all lurking in me.
I don't want to cry
or beg or to fight
But I loved you in ways
that she found unacceptable?

So silly, so stupid,
so big that it keeps you away

Not that I care very much
For your army of nothings
or things that remind me
of memories gone with the wind

**But I do.

WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?
  
Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering "hot-dog" to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night's nothings? am I the spieler? or you?
  
Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?
  
Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?
  
Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
and remember
as a woman remembers?
  
Who gave the night
this head of hair,
this gipsy head
calling: Come-on?
  
Who gave the night anything at all
and asked the night questions
and was laughed at?
  
Who asked the night
for a long soft kiss
and lost the half-way lips?
who picked a red lamp in a mist?
  
Who saw the night
fold its Mona Lisa hands
and sit half-smiling, half-sad,
nothing at all,
and everything,
all the world ?
  
Who saw the night
let down its hair
and shake its bare shoulders
and blow out the candles of the moon,
whispering, snickering,
cutting off the snicker .. and sobbing ..
out of pillow-wet kisses and tears?
  
Is the night woven of anything else
than the secret wishes of women,
the stretched empty arms of women?
the hair of women with stars and roses?
I asked the night these questions.
I heard the night asking me these questions.
  
I saw the night
put these whispered nothings
across the city dust and stones,
across a single yellow sunflower,
one stalk strong as a woman's wrist;
  
And the play of a light rain,
the jig-time folly of a light rain,
the creepers of a drizzle on the sidewalks
for the policemen and the railroad men,
for the home-goers and the homeless,
silver fans and funnels on the asphalt,
the many feet of a fog mist that crept away;
  
I saw the night
put these nothings across
and the night wind came saying: Come-on:
and the curve of sky swept off white clouds
and swept on white stars over Battery to Bronx,
scooped a sea of stars over Albany, Dobbs Ferry, Cape Horn, Constantinople.
  
I saw the night's mouth and lips
strange as a face next to mine on a pillow
and now I know ... as I knew always ...
the night is a lover of mine ...
I know the night is ... everything.
I know the night is ... all the world.
  
I have seen gold lamps in a lagoon
play sleep and murmur
with never an eyelash,
never a glint of an eyelid,
quivering in the water-shadows.
  
A taxi whizzes by, an owl car clutters, passengers yawn reading street signs, a *** on a park bench shifts, another *** keeps his majesty of stone stillness, the forty-foot split rocks of Central Park sleep the sleep of stone whalebacks, the cornices of the Metropolitan Art mutter their own nothings to the men with rolled-up collars on the top of a bus:
Breaths of the sea salt Atlantic, breaths of two rivers, and a heave of hawsers and smokestacks, the swish of multiplied sloops and war dogs, the hesitant hoo-hoo of coal boats: among these I listen to Night calling:
I give you what money can never buy: all other lovers change: all others go away and come back and go away again:
I am the one you slept with last night.
I am the one you sleep with tonight and tomorrow night.
I am the one whose passion kisses
  keep your head wondering
  and your lips aching
  to sing one song
  never sung before
  at night's gipsy head
  calling: Come-on.
These hands that slid to my neck and held me,
these fingers that told a story,
this gipsy head of hair calling: Come-on:
can anyone else come along now
and put across night's nothings again?
  
I have wanted kisses my heart stuttered at asking,
I have pounded at useless doors and called my people fools.
I have staggered alone in a winter dark making mumble songs
to the sting of a blizzard that clutched and swore.
It was the night in my blood:
  open dreaming night,
  night of tireless sheet-steel blue:
The hands of God washing something,
  feet of God walking somewhere.