46
PARTISAN REVIEW
VI
Caught in the notch of the sights and held there,
Screwed two points for wind ... the frozen squirrel
Knocked down, adorable, from the walnut bough.
The Winchester also won the Indian wars
By bolt action and by force of repetition;
A sweet piece; sweet and hot for the cavalry
After ambrosial Custer's Colt grew cold.
Now rapid as woodpeckers in evening trees
Or riveters in shipyard; fed for percussion
Steel-jacketed decimals out of belts in boxes;
Wickedly weighted, bandy and low-slung,
These marvels beat the jungle's yellow eyes.
By night flame splinters from their searching muzzles–
Or when you see that dust kicked up, flop down.
Spider-legged lightning dances miles;
While yellow stormcloud and black sighing\ trees
Flare under
his
great riding,
his
fiery veins
Branch to dark earth in thunder.
The finer canned goods
Available in 500 lb. and one ton cylinders
By industrial logic make
his
strokes look tender.
This theatre is everywhere, all the world,
And
all
the men and women snapshots merely,
Lit by the cold instantaneous street scene.
When wind blows here there's bloody murder done–
Such separation of the cellular form
No ligatures will tie what's torn together.
The quiet
earth
of God
Spouting the solar gases: smoking and crying
Till comic sirens die in the silent newsreel.
VII
Friends, take a good look at
this
Late lamented son of a bitch whose mama
And papa gave the boy all the advantages
Of a nice school and a university
Education and a nifty little
Chrysler all his own on his twenty-first
