410
KARL SHAPIRO
Counterfeiters, defenders of hell-gate. The intentionally mad, aristo–
crats of the verb, apologists of exile, culture nationalists, founders
of the Next Phase.
Studies of the decrease of light. Paintings of right angles. Poems
with square edges. Literary quarterlies refined from steel.
*
*
*
The teacher recites her lesson: the poem lifts me; it tips my arrows.
No matter the horror; it washes us, the blood-washed poem.
The teacher recites her lesson: this is reality; this is the ideal. This
is the touch of God. My Muse, my mother, my fertile one.
(A slow leak in the footnotes: the goddess bleeds apace.)
Why do you paint your lips? Is it time to eat?
The tigress rolls its cubs. The dainty sparrow, proletarian bird, lights
on the horse turd, a golden bun. The mouse in the trap has
exquisite fur. I touch it with my fingers before I lift it from
the drawer on its well-made mouse trap. The vertebra of the
rattlesnake lies in the palm of my hand, a masterpiece of subtle
bone. Where did you get it? The doll pouts: the child is learn–
ing a picture. You have to be taught to
read
a picture. The
savage looks at the photograph of himself; he turns it sideways
and upside-down. Why doesn't it register?
The class convenes in the library attic. I introduce myself and throw
their books out of the window. We will write a poem together,
I say. (I see the gothic in their eyes.)
It
turns out nicely.
My Utamaro is pea-green. I see what Vincent saw.
Sunday cut into colored squares,
Chicago Tribune,
Japanese print
of future generations, I collect your yellows and washy blues.
Bold line of Dick Tracy, Lautrec of murder, sexless, decisive,
one riddle solved, a fresh body produced. Your palindromes, a
villain named Etah. Evil, said Carroll, is live spelled backwards.
Permanent orphan of generations, has Daddy gone to fight the
Communists with his private army and his diamond stickpin?
Carrot-top orphan who still says
Hark!
Cornbeef and cabbage man, pining for the brownstone days. Matronly
Maggie with a rolling pin. (Pogo and Peanuts leave me cold.)
