English

I

Many still patient!
An unknown number cynical
(a null;
disregard unless angry)

What do you do
when the president of a great union
says to a reporter
looking into his affairs in 1955:
" We've got the muscles.
You're just writing words. "

Don't worry,
those with grievances will be allayed
and the loyal center
will receive the medal of virtue.

IV

this ancient culture
in which women walk
as if measure were all,
and children could charm
a lizard out of a tree,
these gentle, patient men

Peace,
I dare not call you shepherd;
mother
more complex than atomic science,
are you not native to our cities?
to our fears and angers?
Must you be brief? conditional?

So sweet,
yet so uncertain!

III

The latest warning fired at Peking
by Izvestia
did not go unnoticed in Washington.
What however is really being thought there?

The President appears on the evening news
chatting comfortably with his pastor
at the church door,
and there are rumors
that he likes to barbecue outdoors
and tear down back roads at 80 miles an hour,
but it does not reassure.

Undone by an idea,
a sense of global mission
(long nights

II

Great Powers never yield . . .
unable to endure humiliation
Great enemies eternally in wait
for signs of wavering
a millimeter
and it's coffins

Thus the citizens of lower Slobbovia
always have honor.

So it is writ about an orderly universe.
This is the tacit rule of governors,
the hub of nations,
the axle-tree of world order
as undeniable and determinate
as the unicorn

I

The atmosphere might be described
as barbed wire and cement roadblocks.

An American Embassy:
man showing
pass
man adjusting
camera
man filling out
form
man listing
next of kin
man told
by travel folder
that the people are hospitable
and wear charming pantaloons
man reading
another government depot blown up,
only five civilians killed
man eyeing

III

" And what were the poets doing then? "

I have come to care
for only laborers
and poor people
and to feel ashamed
of poetry,
sitting like Chopin
on its exquisite ass
I join you, unemployed,
against injustice
(with some embarrassment)
as you pass, dejected,
in the open doorway
of a red-hot freight
with the sound of ash cans
in the early morning.

Yet it may all be for the best.
We know the business men now
for what they are.

II

Hard-eyed daughter of Puritans,
mother of work,
on welfare now,
her youngest dead of leukemia,
in a condemned building,
rats at night,
sits on the deep cry,
the green eyes flaring contra,
" I am still one of you. "
And from its base, unuttered,
another,
" Be not dispirited! "

Writes,
" I know now that the loss
of propriety
is stronger than the soul. "
A terrible year!

Come now behold
Within this Knot What Flowers do grow:
Spanglde like gold:
Whence Wreaths of all Perfumes do flow.
Most Curious Colours of all sorts you shall
With all Sweet Spirits sent. Yet thats not all.

Oh! Look, and finde
These Choicest Flowers most richly sweet
Are Disciplinde
With Artificiall Angells meet.

RANK TWO

Whence Come these Spicy Gales? Shall we abuse
Such sweet Perfumes with putrid noses?
Who did in this Diffusive Aire Diffuse
Such Aromatick fumes or Posies?
These Spirits are with Graces sweetly splic'te;
What Good Comes in them? Oh! they Come from Christ!

RANK THREE

Whence Come these Cloudy Pillars of Perfume?
Sure Christ doth on his Garden blow

SOUL

But oh the Tempter harries me so fast
And on me falls to make me fall at last.
Had I but Grace surely I might repell
His firy Darts that dart on fire from hell.

SAINT

If you had none, he never would bestow
Such darts upon you Grace to overthrow.
The Bullets shot are blinde, the fowlers eye
Aims at the marke before he lets them fly.

SOUL

But he bewilders me: I scarce can finde
But lose myselfe again within my minde.
My thoughts are Laberryntht, I can't enjoyn