Richard Tillinghast
BLUE
(after Mallarme)
The serene irony of infinite blue–
beautiful without trying, like flowers,
unnerves yr. local poet,
who calls his gift a curse, and just survives
crossing a desert peopled by tragedies.
Running away, my eyes closed, still I feel it gaze
with its stone-age remorse, into my hollow soul.
Where is there to run?
What haggard night can I seize with my hands
to throw, bleeding, in the face of this contempt?
Climb, fogs!
Release your monotonous powders into the blue,
your ragged lines of snow,
to drown the dark November days.
Put up a white ceiling of silence.
And you! Drift in from oblivious swamps
just this side of Hell-
clutching to you as you come, slime and pale roses –
You, Precious Boredom, fill with a tireless hand
the great blue holes the birds keep making in the sky.
Let the sad chimneys incessantly smoke!
Let a wandering prison of smog
-fear seeping through its black bars–
asphyxiate the sun,
morbidly yellow on the horizon.
