Chapter V

Little inexorable lips at my breast
Drink me out of me
In a fine sharp stream.
Little hands tear me apart
To find what they need.

I am weak with love of you,
Little body of hate!

BRUISED SUNLIGHT

WATER MOODS

RAIN ON THE SEASHORE

Curling petals of rain lick silver tongues.
Fluffy spray is blown loosely up between thin silver lips
And slithers, tinkling in hard green ice, down the gray rocks.

White darkness--
An expressionless horizon stares with stone eyes.
The sea lifts its immense self heavily
And falls down in sickly might.

The emptiness is like a death of which no one shall ever know.

SHIP MASTS

They stand
Stark as church spires;
Bare stalks
That will blossom
(Tomorrow perhaps)
Into flowers of the wind.

MONOCHROME

Gray water,
Gray sky drifting down to the sea.
The night,
Old, ugly, and stern,
Lies upon the water,
Quivering in the twilight
Like a tortured belly.

ANTIQUE

Clouds flung back
Make fan-shaped rays of faded crimson
Brocaded on dim blue satin;
Through the wrinkled dust-blue water
The little boat
Glides above its sunken shadow.

ECHO LOOKS AT HERSELF

The ship passes in the night
And drags jagged reflections
Like gilded combs
Through the obscure water.
Spun glass daisies float on a gold-washed mirror.

SPELL

In the dark I can hear the patter.
Bare white feet are running across the water.
White feet as bright as silver
Are flashing under dull blue dresses.
Wet palms beat,
Impatiently,
Petulantly,
Slapping the wet rocks.

HUNGRY SHADOWS

RAINY TWILIGHT

Dim gold faces float in the windows.
Dim gold faces and gilded arms...
They are clinging along the silver ladders of rain;
They are climbing with ivory lamps held high,
Starry lamps
Over which the silver ladders
Thicken into nets of twilight.

THE STORM

Herds of black elephants,
Rushing over the plains,
Trample the stars.
The ivory tusk of the leader
(Or is it the moon?)
Flashes, and is gone.
Tree tops bend;
Crash;
Fire from hoofs;
And still they rush on,
Trampling the stars,
Bellowing,
Roaring.

NYMPHS

The drift of shadows on the mountainside,
Blue and purple gold!
Purple dust sifting through fingers of ivory:
Cool purple on ivory breasts.
I see arms and breasts,
Upturned chins,
Slanting through the dust of purple leaves:
Ivory and gold,
Bare breasts and laughing eyes,
That drift on the shadowy surf
And surge against the side of the mountain.

WINTER DAWN

Cloudy dawn flower unfolds;
Moon moth gyrates slowly;
Snow maiden lets down her hair,
And in one shining silence,
It slips to earth.

THE WALL OF NIGHT

SPRINGTIME TOO SOON

The moon is a cool rose in a blue bowl.
There are no more birds.
The last leaf has fallen.
The trees in the twilight are naked old women.

The moon is an old woman at the door of her tomb.
Clouds combed out in the wind
Are gray hair she has wound about her neck.
The water is an old gray face that mirrors the springtime.

STARS

Like naked maidens
Dancing with no thought of lovers,
Blinking stars with dewy silver breasts
Pass through the darkness.
White and eager,
They glide on
Toward the gray meshed web of dawn

And the mystery of morning.
Then,
About me,
The white cloud walls
Stand as sternly as sepulchers,
And from all sides
Peer and linger the startled faces,
Pale in the harshness of the sunlight.

NIGHT MUSIC

Through the blue water of night
Rises the white bubble of silence--
Rises,
And breaks:
The shivered crystal bell of the moon,
Dying away in star splinters.
The still mists bear the sound
Beyond the horizon.

NOCTURNE OF WATER

A shining bird plunges to the deep,
Becomes entangled with seaweed,
And never more emerges.
Pale golden feathers drift across the sky,
Fire feathered clouds,
Riding the weightless billows of back velvet
On the horizon.

THE LONG MOMENT

A white sigh clouds the fields
Into quietness.
Above the billowed snow
I drift,
One year,
Two years,
Three years.
Hurt eyes mist in the blue behind me.
The moon uncoils in glistening ropes
And I glide downward along the dripping rays
To a marble lake.

DESIGNS

I

Night

Fields of black tulips
And swarms of gold bees
Drinking their bitter honey.

II

New Moon

Above the gnarled old tree
That clings to the bleakest side of the mountain,
A torch of ivory and gold;
And across the sky,
The silver print
Of spirit feet,
Fled from the wonder.

III

Tropic Moon

The glowing anvil,
Beaten by the winds;
Star sparks,
Burning and dying in the heavens;
The furnace glare
Red
On the polished palm leaves.