LXXVI

And the sun high over horizon hidden in cloud bank

            lit saffron the cloud ridge

                                    where memory stands

“Will”

                                                “break his political

but not economic system”

But on the high cliff

            flowered branch and sleeve moving

                                    and she, called Spring

                        in the timeless air

that they suddenly stand in my room here

between me and the olive tree

            on the slope and at the three-way crossing?

            and answered: the sun in his great periplum

leads in his fleet here

                        under our cliffs

under our craggy cliffs

                        alevel their mast-tops

and the barefoot girl, and she who said: I still have the mould,

and the rain fell all the night long

that troubling wind blew

                        there is wind space and rain space

            no more an altar

from the three-way crossing to the castle

                        the olives grey over grey holding walls

and their leaves turn under Scirocco

            the barefoot girl: I am the moon

            and they have broken my house

the huntress in broken plaster keeps watch no longer

time, time and as to customs

by Babylonian wall

            out of his bas relief, for that line

we recall him

            and who’s dead, and who isn’t

            and will the world ever take up its course again?

very confidentially I ask you: Will it?

                                    dead and buried

not even a wall

                                    no longer

                                                            finished

extinct

                                    and there are I suppose

no reprints

                        bricabrac

                                                bricabrac

            seadrift snowin’ ’em under

            every man to his junk-shop

houses shd/have been built in the ’80’s

(or ’60’s) for a’ that

            but

           

                                    trick sunlight softens London’s November

                        progress

                                    to know the ground and the dew

            but to keep ‘em three weeks                        centered

                                                            we doubt it

and in government not to lie down on it

                                                                        the  word  is  made

perfect            sincerity

better gift can no man make to a nation

            than the sense of Confucius

            nor in historiography nor in making anthologies

            each one in the name of his god

So that in the synagogue in Gibraltar

            the sense of humour seemed to prevail

            during the preliminary parts of the whatever

but they respected at least the scrolls of the law

                        from it, by it, redemption

            @ $8.50, @ $8.67 buy the field with good money

no unrighteousness in meteyard or in measure (of prices)

and there is no need for the Christians to pretend that

            they wrote Leviticus

            chapter XIX in particular

                        with justice Zion

not by cheating the eye-teeth out of anyone

Why not rebuild it?

Criminals have no intellectual interests?

“Hey, Snag, wot are the books ov the’ bibl’”

“name ’em, etc.

“Latin? I studied latin.”

                        said the nigger murderer to his cage-mate

(cdn’t be sure which of the two was speaking)

“c’mon, small fry,” sd/ the smaller black lad

                                    to the larger.

“Just playin’” before death no prostitution

(that’s progress me yr’ ’ ’ se/call it progress/)

in the timeless air over the sea-cliffs

But to set here the roads of France,

                        the inn low by the river’s edge,

the poplars; to set here the roads of France

                        the quarried stone beyond

                         — as seen against Sergeant Beaucher’s elegant profile —

and the tower on an almost triangular base

“in heaven have I to make?”

            but all the fur and fair women

            and there is also the more northern (not nordic)

tradition

                                                                        extending

                                    to the ship models in Danzig . . .

if they have not destroyed them

is measured by the to whom it happens

            and to what, and if to a work of art

            then to all who have seen and who will not

                                                            the unruly

            Everyone says that fortune doesn’t last

In fact a small rain storm . . .

                                    as it were a mouse, out of cloud’s mountain

recalling the arrival

                        veneration of thunder

                                    memory for the conversation

            (or “go on”) of idiots

was such as even the eminent

            has, if equalled at moments (? sintheticly)

            certainly never surpassed

            All say that good fortune does not last

                                                has lasted at least until our time

                                                has been refurbished

                                                kept up by

                                    artificial respiration

                                                            they got out a

                                    special edition

of caricatures

                                    the altar on the rostrum

20 years of the dream

            and the clouds near to Pisa

                        are as good as any in Italy

                                    to the fountain in Florida

                        the floral fountain

                                    that laid hold of her flanks of air

drawing her to him

                                    Aphrodite

no cloud, but the crystal body

                        the tangent formed in the hand’s cup

            as live wind in the beech grove

                                    as strong air amid cypress

Persephone

                                    and to those without passion

the sphere moving crystal, fluid,

            none therein carrying rancour

Death, insanity/suicide degeneration

that is, just getting stupider as they get older

to suffer more

                                    nothing matters but the quality

of the affection —

in the end — that has carved the trace in the mind

where memory stands

and if theft be the main principle in government

            (every bank of discount

there will be larceny on a minor pattern

a few camions, a stray packet of sugar

                        and the effect of the movies

            the guard did not think that the Führer had started it

Sergeant XL thought that excess population

                                    demanded slaughter at intervals

            Lay in soft grass by the cliff’s edge

with the sea 30 metres below this

                        and at hand’s span, at cubit’s reach moving,

the crystalline, as inverse of water,

                        clear over rock bed

                        and tamed beasts

the gemmed field on the right with fawn, with panther,

            corn flower, thistle and sword flower

            to a half metre grass growth,

lay on the cliff’s edge

                        . . . nor is this yet communion

            nor here souls, nor persons

            neither here in hypostasis

and under her planet

                        the long meadow with poplars

            the mountain and shut garden of pear trees in flower

here rested.

                                    .     .     .     .

“both eyes, (the loss of) and to find someone

            who talked his own dialect. We

            talked of every boy and girl in the valley

            but when he came back from leave

he was sad because he had been able to feel

            all the ribs of his cow . . . . ”

this wind out of Carrara

is soft as a third heaven

as the cat walked the porch rail at Gardone

            the lake flowing away from that side

was still as is never

                                                in the silence

            and the spring of their squeak-doll is broken

                                    and the B.B.C. can lie

            but at least a different bilge will come out of it

                        at least for a little, as is its nature

can continue, that is, to lie.

                                    As a lone ant from a broken ant-hill

from the wreckage of Europe, I, writer.

            The rain has fallen, the wind coming down

            out of the mountain

parts reassembled.

            . . . and within the crystal, went up swift

in colour rose-blue before sunset

and carmine and amber,

are these spirits? people?

                                    tangibility by no means communion

                                    but the crystal can be weighed in the hand

formal and passing within the sphere

                                                no overstroke

                        no dolphin faster in moving

                                    nor the flying azure of the wing’d fish

                        when he comes out into the air, living arrow.

and the clouds over the Pisan meadows

                                    are indubitably as fine as any to be seen

from the peninsula

                        the barbarians have not destroyed them

            Ladder at swing jump as for a descent from the cross

O white-chested martin, God damn it,

                        as no one else will carry a message,

            say to My Dearest: I love.

            Her bed-posts are of sapphire

                        for this stone giveth sleep.

                        and in spite of the barbarians

                        periwinkle and a sort of dwarf morning-glory

                        that knots in the grass, and a sort of buttercup

and complications

Paradise is not artificial

            States of mind are inexplicable to us.

            weeping            weeping            weeping

                                    those who are honest

                                                I pitied the others

probably not enough, and at moments that suited my own convenience.

                        Paradise is not artificial,

                                                            nor is hell.

Came East Wind as comforter

and at sunset the swine shepherdess

            driving the pigs home, fair-haired goddess

                                    under the two-winged cloud

                                    as of less and more than a day

by the soap-smooth stone posts

shd/I chuck the lot into the tide-water?

                        the proofs  “A Lume Spento”/

            shd/I shift to the other side

                                                or wait 24 hours,

                                    free then, therein the difference

                                    in the great ghetto, left standing

with the new bridge of the Era where was the old eyesore

                        and Tullio Romano carved the sirenes

                                    as the old custode says: so that since

            then no one has been able to carve them

                        for the jewel box

                                                            the place of skulls

and in the font to the right as you enter

                        are all the gold domes

Arachne, who bears my good fortune, go spin on that tent rope

                        you who pass by this road:

                                    “this lamp is for the virgin.”

                        “Don’t fight”

                        meaning: don’t work so hard,

Arachne who bears my fortune;

                                                Athene, who wrongs thee?

                                                who wrongs you

That butterfly has gone out thru my smoke hole

“Dawnt let ’em git you” burred the bearded Dottore

            to warn one against Babylonian intrigue

                                    and there have been since then

very high episcopal vagaries

                        well, my window

            looked out on the shipyard

            things have ends and beginnings

and the gilded reliquaries neither then nor up to the present

                                                            the bas relief

                        and the care in contriving

                                    the long hall over the arches

                        “64 countries and down a boilin’ volcano”

                                                says the sargent

ex rum-runner (the rum being red wine)

                        “running whisky” sez he; mountain oysters?

                        papered over with tears

                        polished tears TEARS

                        bricks thought into being out of nothing

                        suave in the cavity of the rock the shell

                                    RAINBOW THRONED, IMMORTAL

                                    that butterfly has gone out thru my smoke hole

IMMORTAL,   cruel. Against buff the rose for the

background

                                                he painted it

            that a cameo should remain

                        an altar fragment

                                                poor devils

poor devils sent to the slaughter

            slave against slave

            to the sound of the bumm drum, to eat remnants

                        for a usurer’s holiday to change the

price of a currency

            CHANGING ONE CURRENCY . . . .

                                    A NOBLE ISLAND

            woe to them that conquer with armies

                        and whose only right is their power.