power, together with their indispensable leaders drawn from
all classes, the intellectuals,
the teachers and technicians.
Why, in this hour of travail, when death threatens the gen-
erations of man, does not the new life issue? The final in-
tegrality is lacking . . . the final completeness which is
organic consciousness, the
knowing
harmony of all the parts,
making them move to life, making them breathe together.
This, within the ready social body, is the function of the
writer.
Funeral In May
A poet suddenly cried
Metaphor metaphor why has thou forsaken me.
Lightly came a taunt from the crowd
Lo the poor poet!
But the offended voice amplified
opened the stops
continued splendid with echo:
The enigmatic certainty that opens in Art like a flower
Is the true worship of God.
All else is barbarism.
On God we poets depend for being.
On him all structures rely
all metaphors hang.
He our source center only energy eternal
Upon which in words in pigment and in sound
We arrange the experience of living
a bright a gaudy decoration
a sharp discord.
Ever since my last nervous breakdown I have known this
to be true.
We the mouthpiece of the divine
we who have the art to breathe with his breathing
Whose deft fingers play the mass
feet poised on the pedals
Whose arms swing in the arc of the mural
whose voice starts from the throat in gold song
In the breathing peace of the Lord;
We the loud affirmation
The long yea and amen tranquil in unison ....
Nevertheless my eyes fail
perhaps my verses are bad
Try as I may God eludes me.
Still my taste is of the best
no one could be better equipped.
Somehow we must stand for the eternal
the august
in the midst of crude wars.
Mysticism is a great comfort
The mystics use symbols ..•.
PARTISAN
REVIEW AND ANVIL
Not all the gold metaphor of the Roman angels is half so
wrong
Not even the baroque image
so wrong as this
to be literal literal. Alas!
Lovely metaphor redeem me from sin
and deliver us from meaning.
Then he died
snap like any business man
worry overstrain
burst a blood vessel.
Bury the poet deep in his words came the voice of the infidel
He will agonize no more.
Pick flowers without scent for his grave.
There he lies
Silly boy
So dies the copy of God. He was never happy.
God the grandiose image mocked his wits in all mirrors
Where he loved to indulge in the anxious closeup
the smile
the grimace
and the wince.
A Galahad of grace sustained by six percent in his heyday.
Scoop his grave with the jolly steam shovel.
One scoop will do.
Turn funeral to fete.
Carry the effigy off.
Burn the straw puppet.
A hollow doll made by the rasp of dry words.
Time now to bury the barbaric thing. Or deck it with lilacs
Faded full of rain smelling of ruin.
And for the flesh-and-blood poet
Take from the darkened room the ghost-haunted glass.
Give him this mark:
fOi"
his grave. Set here for his grave-stone
His perfect compani,,·'
:he mirror. Put it here out of doors,
In its blank write his epitaph out.
Newsreel our day.
Let windy leaves toss in its flash.
When we gather fresh laurel
Blow blasts on the factory whistle. Ring loud early bells.
Dance in the meadows
young and old
stalwart and swarthy.
Turn funeral to fete.
Here we inter folly
Gluttonous villainy stupidity the vanity of man.
Again and again we must dance on the grave of this death
Beating down with determined feet what it already dead;
W'eeds growing here will wear to rags where we step.
Dance
it is May
of all Mays the gayest with promise.
j
ou who are skilled with the songs lead the way with your
singing.
GENEVIEVE TAGGARD
17
