The Endless Return

The Gardener 

 

by Rabindranath Tagore

 

 

An unbelieving smile flits on your eyes when I come to you to
take my leave. 

I have done it so often that you think I will soon return.
To tell you the truth I have the same doubt in my mind.
For the spring days come again time after time; the full moon
takes leave and comes on another visit, the flowers come again
and blush upon their branches year after year, and it is likely
that I take my leave only to come to you again. 

But keep the illusion awhile; do not send it away with ungentle
haste.

When I say I leave you for all time, accept it as true, and let a
mist of tears for one moment deepen the dark rim of your eyes.
Then smile as archly as you like when I come again.

Cold, so cold

The Snow Man

By Wallace Stevens 

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man" from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens.

Sick Rose

You are a cultivated rose; imprisoned

unaware of your hybridity. Or that you’ve lost

your sense

for sharp, painful beauty.

I am a cactus flower; tenuous

in my hard case of thorns. Impatient

for the night. 

in which I bloom.

Beneath the stars I stole for you.

the pleasures of rolling in a bog some call the Milky Way

2 POEMS FROM THE OHARA MONOGATARI 

1 

My love is coming in a glass 
the blood of the Bourbons 

saxophone or cornet 
qu'importe ou? 

green of glass flowers dans le Kentucky 

and always the same handkerchief 
at the same nose of damask 

turning up my extravagant collar 
tossing my scarf about my neck 

the Baudelaire of Kyoto's never-ending pureness 
is he cracked in the head? 


2 

After a long trip to a shrine 
in wooden clogs so hard on the muscles 
the tea is bitter and the breasts are hard 
so much terrace for one evening 

there is no longer no ocean 
I don't see the ocean under my stilts 
as I poke along 

hands on ankles feet on wrists 
naked in thought 
like a whip made from sheerest stockings 

the radio is on the cigarette is puffed upon 
by the pleasures of rolling in a bog 
some call the Milky Way 
in far-fetched Occidental lands above the trees 
where dwell the amusing skulls 

1954 

From Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara. 

Copyright © 1964 by Frank O’Hara. 

Echo's Lament

Echo's Lament for Narcissus

 By Ben Jonson

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet, slower yet; O faintly, gentle springs;
List to the heavy part the music bears;
Woe weeps out her division when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers,
Our beauties are not ours;
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is now a withered daffodil.

Echo, Echo, Echo II

Once a noisy Nymph,
(who never held her tongue when others spoke,
who never spoke till others had begun)
mocking Echo, spied him as he drove,
in his delusive nets, some timid stags.—

for Echo was a Nymph, in olden time,—
and, more than vapid sound,—possessed a form:
and she was then deprived the use of speech,
except to babble and repeat the words,
once spoken, over and over.

Juno confused
her silly tongue, because she often held
that glorious goddess with her endless tales,
till many a hapless Nymph, from Jove's embrace,
had made escape adown a mountain. But
for this, the goddess might have caught them. Thus
the glorious Juno, when she knew her guile;
“Your tongue, so freely wagged at my expense,
shall be of little use; your endless voice,
much shorter than your tongue.” At once the Nymph
was stricken as the goddess had decreed;—
and, ever since, she only mocks the sounds
of others' voices, or, perchance, returns
their final words.

One day, when she observed
Narcissus wandering in the pathless woods,
she loved him and she followed him, with soft
and stealthy tread.—The more she followed him
the hotter did she burn, as when the flame
flares upward from the sulphur on the torch.

Oh, how she longed to make her passion known!
To plead in soft entreaty! to implore his love!
But now, till others have begun, a mute
of Nature she must be. She cannot choose
but wait the moment when his voice may give
to her an answer.

Presently the youth,
by chance divided from his trusted friends,
cries loudly, “Who is here?” and Echo, “Here!”
Replies. Amazed, he casts his eyes around,
and calls with louder voice, “Come here!” “Come here!”
She calls the youth who calls.—He turns to see
who calls him and, beholding naught exclaims,
“Avoid me not!” “Avoid me not!” returns.

He tries again, again, and is deceived
by this alternate voice, and calls aloud;
“Oh let us come together!” Echo cries,
“Oh let us come together!” Never sound
seemed sweeter to the Nymph, and from the woods
she hastens in accordance with her words,
and strives to wind her arms around his neck.
He flies from her and as he leaves her says,
“Take off your hands! you shall not fold your arms
around me. Better death than such a one
should ever caress me!” Naught she answers save,
“Caress me!”

Thus rejected she lies hid
in the deep woods, hiding her blushing face
with the green leaves; and ever after lives
concealed in lonely caverns in the hills.

But her great love increases with neglect;
her miserable body wastes away,
wakeful with sorrows; leanness shrivels up
her skin, and all her lovely features melt,
as if dissolved upon the wafting winds—
nothing remains except her bones and voice—
her voice continues, in the wilderness;
her bones have turned to stone. She lies concealed
in the wild woods, nor is she ever seen
on lonely mountain range; for, though we hear
her calling in the hills, 'tis but a voice,
a voice that lives, that lives among the hills.

Thus he deceived the Nymph and many more,
sprung from the mountains or the sparkling waves;
and thus he slighted many an amorous youth.—
and therefore, some one whom he once despised,
lifting his hands to Heaven, implored the Gods,
“If he should love deny him what he loves!”
and as the prayer was uttered it was heard
by Nemesis, who granted her assent.

NARCISSUS
There was a fountain silver-clear and bright,
which neither shepherds nor the wild she-goats,
that range the hills, nor any cattle's mouth
had touched—its waters were unsullied—birds
disturbed it not; nor animals, nor boughs
that fall so often from the trees. Around
sweet grasses nourished by the stream grew; trees
that shaded from the sun let balmy airs
temper its waters. Here Narcissus, tired
of hunting and the heated noon, lay down,
attracted by the peaceful solitudes
and by the glassy spring. There as he stooped
to quench his thirst another thirst increased.
While he is drinking he beholds himself
reflected in the mirrored pool—and loves;
loves an imagined body which contains
no substance, for he deems the mirrored shade
a thing of life to love. He cannot move,
for so he marvels at himself, and lies
with countenance unchanged, as if indeed
a statue carved of Parian marble. Long,
supine upon the bank, his gaze is fixed
on his own eyes, twin stars; his fingers shaped
as Bacchus might desire, his flowing hair
as glorious as Apollo's, and his cheeks
youthful and smooth; his ivory neck, his mouth
dreaming in sweetness, his complexion fair
and blushing as the rose in snow-drift white.
All that is lovely in himself he loves,
and in his witless way he wants himself:—
he who approves is equally approved;
he seeks, is sought, he burns and he is burnt.

And how he kisses the deceitful fount;
and how he thrusts his arms to catch the neck
that's pictured in the middle of the stream!
Yet never may he wreathe his arms around
that image of himself. He knows not what
he there beholds, but what he sees inflames
his longing, and the error that deceives
allures his eyes. But why, O foolish boy,
so vainly catching at this flitting form?
The cheat that you are seeking has no place.
Avert your gaze and you will lose your love,
for this that holds your eyes is nothing save
the image of yourself reflected back to you.
It comes and waits with you; it has no life;
it will depart if you will only go.


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 3, trans. Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922.

Echo, Echo, Echo

Late Echo 

by John Ashbery

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day.

I'm Not the Dragon

Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

By Richard Siken 
 

Every morning the maple leaves.

                               Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts

            from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big

and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out

                                             You will be alone always and then you will die.

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

         of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

                   Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party

         and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

                                                         You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?

A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.

                  Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.

            Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly

                                                                                               flames everywhere.

I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,

                that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.

I’m not the princess either.

                           Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down.

I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

               I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

         glass, but that comes later.

                                                            And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

            shut up

I’m getting to it.

                                    For a while I thought I was the dragon.

I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was

                                                                                                the princess,

cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,

          young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with

confidence

            but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,

while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,

                                                               and getting stabbed to death.

                                    Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.

          You still get to be the hero.

You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

                  What more do you want?

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you’re

            really there.

Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?

                                                       Let me do it right for once,

             for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,

you know the story, simply heaven.

                   Inside your head you hear a phone ringing

                                                               and when you open your eyes

only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.

                               Inside your head the sound of glass,

a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.

             Hello darling, sorry about that.

                                                       Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

                                    and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

            Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

            to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

                  I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not

feeding yourself to a bad man

                                                   against a black sky prickled with small lights.

            I take it back.

The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths.

                                                I take them back.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

                                                                                               Crossed out.

            Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something

underneath the floorboards.

                   Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle

                                                                                                reconstructed.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all

               forgiven,

even though we didn’t deserve it.

                                                                    Inside your head you hear

a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up

            in a stranger’s bathroom,

standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away

                           from the dirtiest thing you know.

All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly

                                                                                              darkness,

                                                                                     suddenly only darkness.

In the living room, in the broken yard,

                                  in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport

          bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of

unnatural light,

             my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.

And then the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view

                                                            of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts.

I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,

          smiling in a way

                    that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,

          up the stairs of the building

to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,

                                                I looked out the window and said

                                This doesn’t look that much different from home,

            because it didn’t,

but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.

                                           We walked through the house to the elevated train.

            All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful

                                                                                             mechanical wind.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,

            smiling and crying in a way that made me

even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I

                                                                                      just couldn’t say it out loud.

Actually, you said Love, for you,

                                 is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s

                                                                                                 terrifying. No one

                                                                                 will ever want to sleep with you.

Okay, if you’re so great, you do it—

                        here’s the pencil, make it work . . .

If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window

            is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing

river water.

            Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it

                                                                                                                 Jerusalem.

                            We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not

what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,

             a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over

and over,

             another bowl of soup.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

             Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.

                                                                                                 Forget the dragon,

leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness.

                                        Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,

             in gold light, as the camera pans to where

the action is,

             lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see

                                                the blue rings of my eyes as I say

                                                                                                   something ugly.

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,

             and I don’t want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

But it doesn’t work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.

                                                            There were some nice parts, sure,

all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas

             and the grains of sugar

                              on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I’m sorry

                                                                                  it’s such a lousy story.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently

                     we have had our difficulties and there are many things

                                                                                                  I want to ask you.

I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,

             years later, in the chlorinated pool.

                                      I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have

             these luxuries.

I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.

                                                            We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .

             When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

                  I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.

Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.

                                                  Quit milling around the yard and come inside.

 

 

“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken. From Crush, © 2006 by Yale University, published by Yale University Press.

Kiss me, Touch me, Feel me

Kiss me, touch me, feel me(lipshandseyessmilelaugh).

Tuck me into bed, listen to me, always tell the truth

let me have all of you, drop away your walls, give me the key, only
honesty.

Speak to me, run after me if I leave, never say “no," always say “yes,"
never stop dancing in the rain

Give me a million kisses a second

keep up.

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

it is so long since my heart has been with yours
e.e. cummings

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through
a darkness where new lights begin and
increase,
since your mind has walked into
my kiss as a stranger
into the streets and colours of a town–

that i have perhaps forgotten
how,always(from
these hurrying crudities
of blood and flesh)Love
coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

–after which our separating selves become

museums
filled with skilfully stuffed memories

No Second Tony

Lover, tyrant, hero-God, my Achilles
heel, cruel tiger, sweetest love,

Beautiful blue-eyed boy,

perfection,
cruelty
Sharp lines (lies)
A tongue

A curved
dagger.

A fatal flaw
pain from pleasure
inseparable. Glass
splinters

shattered inside all
succor
implied pleasure.

You will break
me a thousand
times over.
Save yourself.

just cut me open

leave me in peace
(pieces?)

which knife?

I, ritualized self-abuse
You, solitary vice

I, now you, a tyrannical beast
we don’t make it easy
the terrible things echo and crack
     gunshots
    in a mountain
        valley

Abstraction Distraction Loss

I sit and I read
Poetry
by
the light
of
the moon
I listen
to
Bats
Birdsong
the sounds of
Night
None of it brings
Me closer
to
You