The Oracle of Delphi Advises: "Know Yourself"

"Delphi"

HIS SONG

Now I know
there is no before
nor after,
that all escape lies in the perfect
       contour;
now I know that the tale of his lust
is lies,
his allure has outwitted the flesh,
his lust
is pure-lust of the eyes
for beauty
in tangible things;
his words
fly with wings;

now I know
that all who have spoken ill,
who imperil
and threaten the god,
are holding their souls to the mirror,
light threatens, is active, is gone,
so it is with a song;

are you strong?
he is strong;
are you weak?
he prevails--but not you
to question
his power when you falter,
the blame is your own;
he knows not remorse nor repents,
he remains

faultless and perfect and whole;
he is;
you may burn,
you may curse,
you may threaten,
you may pour out red-gold on his
       altar,
he comes to no call,
not to magic,
nor reason;

his word
is withdrawn,
hieratic,
authentic,
a king's,
yet all may receive it;
he turns at a whim,
who answers no threat,
no call of the flute,
no drum-beat of the drum,
you may bargain
and threaten,
the prophet
is distant and mute;

yet one day
he will speak
through a child or a thrush
or a stray in the market;
he will touch
with the arm of a herdsman
your arm,
he will brush
with the lips of a brother
your lips;
you will flame into song,

that no merchant can buy,
that no priest can cajole;
he is here,
he is gone.

HIS PRESENCE

I foreswore red wine
and the white,
I was whole,
I foreswore lover and love,
all delight 
must come 
I had said,
of the soul;
I waited impassioned,
alone and alert
in the night;
did he come?

I foreswore child and my home;
I said,
I will walk,
to his most distant wood
for his laurel;
I wandered alone;
I said,
on the height, I will find
      him;
I said,
he will come with the red
first pure light of the sun;

I read volume and tome
of old magic,
I made sign and cross-sign;
he must answer old magic;
he must know the old symbol,
I swear I will find him,
I will bind
his power in a faggot,
a tree,
a stone,
or a bush or a jar
of well-water,
I went far
to old pilgrim-sites
for that water;

I entreated the grove and the spring,
the bay-tree in flower,
I was wise on my way,
they said I was wise,
I was steeped in their lore,
I entreated his love,
I prayed him each hour;
I was sterile
and barren
and songless.

I came back;
he opened my door.

HIS RIDDLE

In his power then
a toad,
or a flower,
I asked,
does it wither?
does he rise in the clod?
 does he die?
his riddle is painful,
his coming too facile,
if I serve him,
I lie
for years,
a field fallow
then furrows of rye, of wheat and of 
      barley,
spring up
all too early;

the wheat-ear
and the poppy,
nod, one with the lily,
iris
and anemone;
when my days are lonely,
he shuns me,
when busy,
he crowds through the throng
of my friends and my guests,
remember your vows, he says,
you are priest:

if I kneel at a shrine,
he says,
song is wine.

HIS ECSTASY

He is yours,
he is mine,
if we quarrel to hold him,
he goes;
his the red-lily,
the white-rose;
if you struggle to whet
your stylus,
if you hurry to melt
scented wax
for your tablets,
he knows
no pity;

you will write in the city
of fir-trees and loam,
in the fields
you will sing of the market;
you will be
among prophets,
a satyr;
when the note of the flute
calls to dance,
you will walk
drunk but not
with that mixed wine;
his tune is his own;
in his, not in your time,
ecstasy will betray you;
if he cares,
he will flay; 
if he loves,
he will slay you.



H.D. Collected Poems 1912-1944

"You must do battle with Eros"

The Elements

By Alice Notley

 

You must do battle with Eros       I am

more worried about space, pressed for details

collapsed in chaos with my sword holding up the sky the

girl said. They cared not for love lying ever that they loved

But I your leader wounded in gender and bleeding

for Eros fought it away from my true beginning as now.

Always climbing that hill in several ways.

One goes past the Baptist Church and through the ugly

trees, houses I only visualize in dreams

you have no right to pursue me to my origins man

as bipolar as the one candidate, forgettable

as the other. We once lived in a postwar barracks blue

heated by a black stove of assumptions

Eros a youth admits no equal; Aphrodite the slut;

Chaos is whom I admire that keeps forgetting

love in favor of this terrible mixity I am

for example ... these poems. Out of the pre-beginning

a different beauty. They want you to confess

something like in church, that a man will

save you. But I am your leader savior and poet

I am your general out of the desert thee

most ardent void precursor of love

Eros approaches again not the man but quality

sculpted genitals arush with the words

of unreason: I will never die. Which I is I

if I can remain chaotic I’ll tell you who you are

that you’ve never anticipated, but know

the only one. Without a thing. To be is not

to have; nor to belong; nor to have been born.

You are not the child of earth. Beauty still thy name.