Of an implicating space: not
Only purple with unexplained
Obscurities, but gathering
All time in images of dim
Insistences. A various
Room, and full of forms, reflections.
But the truth is down a long hall
And in another place. Here are
Cruel colors, terrible cold
And a burning quite as extreme.
'On the changeable bed someone
Else is lying and lying quite
Miserably. Now, following
Trials of temperature, come
Tests on teeth, examination
Nail by broken nail, and nightly
Obligation to employ each
Bright instrument that hangs upon
Its hook. This is a right surround,
Binding blur to brutality-
The genuine decor. How pat
Our word
apartment
falls in here,
For this is the life he divides
From the others, a death apart.
Richard Howard
POEM
Deeply I have heard this canticle, mute,
sweeping, mulled in the ears of girls
partial to the rose flower and the standing
willow tree.
In
the garden, easterly
the rose and willow grew. Emerald the willow
dropped, and rubies bright the roses
broke, and witch-flame burst adazzle
