Houseboat Days: Poems Read Online Free PDF Page A

tough green leaves,
    Pretending not to notice how they bled into
    The sky’s aqua, the wafted-away no-color of regions supposed
    Not to concern us. And so we too
    Came where the others came: nights of physical endurance,
    Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
    Correct, at least by New Brutalism standards, all then
    Grew taciturn by previous agreement. We were spirited
    Away en bateau, under cover of fudge dark.
    It’s not the incomplete importunes, but the spookiness
    Of the finished product. True, to ask less were folly, yet
    If he is the result of himself, how much the better
    For him we ought to be! And how little, finally,
    We take this into account! Is the puckered garance satin
    Of a case that once held a brace of dueling pistols our
    Only acknowledging of that color? I like not this,
    Methinks, yet this disappointing sequel to ourselves
    Has been applauded in London and St. Petersburg. Somewhere
    Ravens pray for us.”
    The storm finished brewing. And thus
    She questioned all who came in at the great gate, but none
    She found who ever heard of Amadis,
    Nor of stern Aureng-Zebe, his first love. Some
    There were to whom this mattered not a jot: since all
    By definition is completeness (so
    In utter darkness they reasoned), why not
    Accept it as it pleases to reveal itself? As when
    Low skyscrapers from lower-hanging clouds reveal
    A turret there, an art-deco escarpment here, and last perhaps
    The pattern that may carry the sense, but
    Stays hidden in the mysteries of pagination.
    Not what we see but how we see it matters; all’s
    Alike, the same, and we greet him who announces
    The change as we would greet the change itself.
    All life is but a figment; conversely, the tiny
    Tome that slips from your hand is not perhaps the
    Missing link in this invisible picnic whose leverage
    Shrouds our sense of it. Therefore bivouac we
    On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by
    Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is
    Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up
    Over the horizon like a boy
    On a fishing expedition. No one really knows
    Or cares whether this is the whole of which parts
    Were vouchsafed—once—but to be ambling on’s
    The tradition more than the safekeeping of it. This mulch for
    Play keeps them interested and busy while the big,
    Vaguer stuff can decide what it wants—what maps, what
    Model cities, how much waste space. Life, our
    Life anyway, is between. We don’t mind
    Or notice any more that the sky is green, a parrot
    One, but have our earnest where it chances on us,
    Disingenuous, intrigued, inviting more,
    Always invoking the echo, a summer’s day.

All Kinds of Caresses
    The code-name losses and compensations
    Float in and around us through the window.
    It helps to know what direction the body comes from.
    It isn’t absolutely clear. In words
    Bitter as a field of mustard we
    Copy certain parts, then decline them.
    These are not only gestures: they imply
    Complex relations with one another. Sometimes one
    Stays on for a while, a trace of lamp black
    In a room full of gray furniture.
    I now know all there is to know
    About my body. I know too the direction
    My feet are pointed in. For the time being
    It is enough to suspend judgment, by which I don’t mean
    Forever, since judgment is also a storm, i.e., from
    Somewhere else, sinking pleasure craft at moorings,
    Looking, kicking in the sky.
    Try to move with these hard blues,
    These harsh yellows, these hands and feet.
    Our gestures have taken us farther into the day
    Than tomorrow will understand.
    They live us. And we understand them when they sing,
    Long after the perfume has worn off.
    In the night the eye chisels a new phantom.

Lost and Found and Lost Again
    Like an object whose loss has begun to be felt
    Though not yet noticed, your pulsar signals
    To the present death. “ It must be cold out on the river
    Today. ” “You could make sweet ones on earth.”
    They tell him nothing. And the neon Bodoni
    Presses its invitation to inspect