fingers at your cheek, my lips at your ear
whispering the story of my hand on the surface of a lake
three inches deep: the tympanum of experience
is struck by
this.
And by these things shall ye know
him:
"Un homme
ne peut se sauver seul" she said.
His true Penelope was Dylan.
And however you look at it it's
all
the same to me:
the insane sound of the sky
falling in fourths and fifths; the lucid
intervals of silent portage, back and forth
across the rock-slides, iced-teas, heaths,
the leafless paramos of paradox, to paramount
my Lady's exchequer of Vogue, her Currency.
Up to the minute of my latest death
I tried governing my passions. It was
useless: I succeeded only in opening and closing
like a valve or a valence. Values were
verdicts; death was everywhere
apparent and voluptuous.
Now and now it is true and blue, now
it is true and it
is
blue, Miss Stein and
Mr. Stevens suggest to me; but if it is red
like Philosophy's Table, and false
like lying, what is the matter
and why
is
trying?
What
is the matter; why
is
trying.
In the nursery the love-children are crying.
On the record, Lady sings the blues, dying . . .
and in my grandmother's parlour games are being played
forever, like ... charades, perhaps: acting out
with pre-Freudian largesse of innocent pleasure
the dream-pantomimes of an age thriving and
