Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."

And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
whose head was cut off in Shanghai

A CLAIM

Renowned Leonardo's
world-famous
"La Gioconda"
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.

The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth:
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese
named SI-YA-U.
Gioconda ran off
after her lover;
Gioconda was burned

It is late at night, cold and damp
The air is filled with tobacco smoke.
My brain is worried and tired.
I pick up the encyclopedia,
The volume GIC to HAR,
It seems I have read everything in it,
So many other nights like this.
I sit staring empty-headed at the article Grosbeak,
Listening to the long rattle and pound
Of freight cars and switch engines in the distance.
Suddenly I remember
Coming home from swimming
In Ten Mile Creek,
Over the long moraine in the early summer evening,
My hair wet, smelling of waterweeds and mud.

A step-mother drove me from home, embittering me.
A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue.
For years I was his mistress -- no one knew.
I learned from him the parasite cunning
With which I moved with the bluffs, like a flea on a dog.
All the time I was nothing but "very private" with different men.
Then Daniel, the radical, had me for years.
His sister called me his mistress;
And Daniel wrote me: "Shameful word, soiling our beautiful love!"
But my anger coiled, preparing its fangs.
My Lesbian friend next took a hand.

(ll. 1082-1089) And there was also in that tribe another son of
Lamech, called Tubal Cain, a smith skilled in his craft. He was
the first of all men on the earth to fashion tools of husbandry;
and far and wide the city-dwelling sons of men made use of bronze
and iron.

(ll. 1090-1103) Then to his two beloved wives, Adah and Zillah,
Lamech rehearsed a tale of shame: "I have struck down a kinsman
unto death! I have defiled my hands with the blood of Cain! I
smote down Enoch's father, slayer of Abel, and poured his blood

(ll. 1002-1005) Then the Lord of glory spake unto Cain, and asked
where Abel was. Quickly the cursed fashioner of death made
answer unto Him:

(ll. 1006-1008) "I know not the coming or going of Abel, my
kinsman, his lot or portion; I was not my brother's keeper."

(ll. 1008-1021) And the Gracious Spirit, Lord of angels, made
answer unto him: "Why hast thou slain that faithful man thy
brother in thy wrath, and his blood calleth and crieth unto Me?
Accursed for ever, driven into exile, thou shalt be punished for

(Died, South African War, March 27, 1900)


With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,
He had no part whose hands were clear of gain;
But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life
To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain.

Later shall rise a people, sane and great,
Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one;
Telling old battles over without hate --
Not least his name shall pass from sire to son.

He may not meet the onsweep of our van
In the doomed city when we close the score;

Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet,
king, and king of poets
For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English,
he is the veritable King of the King's English

The English of the life of the city,
and the English of music;

Let them rejoice because he rejoiced and was joyous;
For his joy was superior, it was supreme, for it was accomplished
After the suffering of much evil, the evil of the torment of pride,

Vivid with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,
And the lift receives us.
Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight
The car shoots upward,
And the air, swirling and angry,
Howls like a hundred devils.
Past the maze of trim bronze doors,
Steadily we ascend.
I cling to you
Conscious of the chasm under us,
And a terrible whirring deafens my ears.

The flight is ended.

We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge--

Ah, but the City of Pain: how strange its streets are:
the false silence of sound drowning sound,
and there--proud, brazen, effluence from the mold of emptiness--
the gilded hubbub, the bursting monument.
How an Angel would stamp out their market of solaces,
set up alongside their church bought to order:
clean and closed and woeful as a post office on Sunday.
Outside, though, there's always the billowing edge of the fair.
Swings of Freedom! High-divers and Jugglers of Zeal!
And the shooting gallery with its figures of idiot Happiness