Read Ebook: Sword Blades and Poppy Seed by Lowell Amy

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Ebook has 484 lines and 42315 words, and 10 pages

The Poet came home at evening, And in the candle-light He wiped and polished his cane. The orange candle flame leaped in the yellow ambers, And made the jades undulate like green pools. It played along the bright ebony, And glowed in the top of cream-coloured ivory. But these things were dead, Only the candle-light made them seem to move. "It is a pity there were no roses," said the Poet.

Peace be with you, Brother. You have chosen your part.

The Coal Picker

He perches in the slime, inert, Bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries To colours like a peacock's eyes, And half-submerged tomato-cans Shine scaly, as leviathans Oozily crawling through the mud. The ground is here and there bestud With lumps of only part-burned coal. His duty is to glean the whole, To pick them from the filth, each one, To hoard them for the hidden sun Which glows within each fiery core And waits to be made free once more. Their sharp and glistening edges cut His stiffened fingers. Through the smut Gleam red the wounds which will not shut. Wet through and shivering he kneels And digs the slippery coals; like eels They slide about. His force all spent, He counts his small accomplishment. A half-a-dozen clinker-coals Which still have fire in their souls. Fire! And in his thought there burns The topaz fire of votive urns. He sees it fling from hill to hill, And still consumed, is burning still. Higher and higher leaps the flame, The smoke an ever-shifting frame. He sees a Spanish Castle old, With silver steps and paths of gold. From myrtle bowers comes the plash Of fountains, and the emerald flash Of parrots in the orange trees, Whose blossoms pasture humming bees. He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke Bears visions, that his master-stroke Is out of dirt and misery To light the fire of poesy. He sees the glory, yet he knows That others cannot see his shows. To them his smoke is sightless, black, His votive vessels but a pack Of old discarded shards, his fire A peddler's; still to him the pyre Is incensed, an enduring goal! He sighs and grubs another coal.

Storm-Racked

How should I sing when buffeting salt waves And stung with bitter surges, in whose might I toss, a cockleshell? The dreadful night Marshals its undefeated dark and raves In brutal madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed forests and their caves. No parting cloud reveals a watery star, My cries are washed away upon the wind, My cramped and blistering hands can find no spar, My eyes with hope o'erstrained, are growing blind. But painted on the sky great visions burn, My voice, oblation from a shattered urn!

Convalescence

From out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no support can be. So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch, He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow And sandflies dance their little lives away. The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow, And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.

Patience

Be patient with you? When the stooping sky Leans down upon the hills And tenderly, as one who soothing stills An anguish, gathers earth to lie Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men Feel patience then?

Be patient with you? When the snow-girt earth Cracks to let through a spurt Of sudden green, and from the muddy dirt A snowdrop leaps, how mark its worth To eyes frost-hardened, and do weary men Feel patience then?

Be patient with you? When pain's iron bars Their rivets tighten, stern To bend and break their victims; as they turn, Hopeless, there stand the purple jars Of night to spill oblivion. Do these men Feel patience then?

Be patient with you? You! My sun and moon! My basketful of flowers! My money-bag of shining dreams! My hours, Windless and still, of afternoon! You are my world and I your citizen. What meaning can have patience then?

Apology

Be not angry with me that I bear Your colours everywhere, All through each crowded street, And meet The wonder-light in every eye, As I go by.

Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze, Blinded by rainbow haze, The stuff of happiness, No less, Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds Of peacock golds.

Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way Flushes beneath its gray. My steps fall ringed with light, So bright, It seems a myriad suns are strown About the town.

Around me is the sound of steepled bells, And rich perfumed smells Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud, And shroud Me from close contact with the world. I dwell impearled.

You blazon me with jewelled insignia. A flaming nebula Rims in my life. And yet You set The word upon me, unconfessed To go unguessed.

A Petition

I pray to be the tool which to your hand Long use has shaped and moulded till it be Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly, You take it for its service. I demand To be forgotten in the woven strand Which grows the multi-coloured tapestry Of your bright life, and through its tissues lie A hidden, strong, sustaining, grey-toned band. I wish to dwell around your daylight dreams, The railing to the stairway of the clouds, To guard your steps securely up, where streams A faery moonshine washing pale the crowds Of pointed stars. Remember not whereby You mount, protected, to the far-flung sky.

A Blockhead

Before me lies a mass of shapeless days, Unseparated atoms, and I must Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays, There are none, ever. As a monk who prays The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust Each tasteless particle aside, and just Begin again the task which never stays. And I have known a glory of great suns, When days flashed by, pulsing with joy and fire! Drunk bubbled wine in goblets of desire, And felt the whipped blood laughing as it runs! Spilt is that liquor, my too hasty hand Threw down the cup, and did not understand.

Stupidity

Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch I broke and bruised your rose. I hardly could suppose It were a thing so fragile that my clutch Could kill it, thus.

It stood so proudly up upon its stem, I knew no thought of fear, And coming very near Fell, overbalanced, to your garment's hem, Tearing it down.

Now, stooping, I upgather, one by one, The crimson petals, all Outspread about my fall. They hold their fragrance still, a blood-red cone Of memory.

And with my words I carve a little jar To keep their scented dust, Which, opening, you must Breathe to your soul, and, breathing, know me far More grieved than you.

Irony

An arid daylight shines along the beach Dried to a grey monotony of tone, And stranded jelly-fish melt soft upon The sun-baked pebbles, far beyond their reach Sparkles a wet, reviving sea. Here bleach The skeletons of fishes, every bone Polished and stark, like traceries of stone, The joints and knuckles hardened each to each. And they are dead while waiting for the sea, The moon-pursuing sea, to come again. Their hearts are blown away on the hot breeze. Only the shells and stones can wait to be Washed bright. For living things, who suffer pain, May not endure till time can bring them ease.

Happiness

Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress.

Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! This the bond: it Means to give one's soul to gain Life's quintessence. Even pain Pricks to livelier living, then Wakes the nerves to laugh again, Rapture's self is three parts sorrow. Although we must die to-morrow, Losing every thought but this; Torn, triumphant, drowned in bliss.

Happiness: We rarely feel it. I would buy it, beg it, steal it, Pay in coins of dripping blood For this one transcendent good.

The Last Quarter of the Moon

How long shall I tarnish the mirror of life, A spatter of rust on its polished steel! The seasons reel Like a goaded wheel. Half-numb, half-maddened, my days are strife.

The night is sliding towards the dawn, And upturned hills crouch at autumn's knees. A torn moon flees Through the hemlock trees, The hours have gnawed it to feed their spawn.

Pursuing and jeering the misshapen thing A rabble of clouds flares out of the east. Like dogs unleashed After a beast, They stream on the sky, an outflung string.

A desolate wind, through the unpeopled dark, Shakes the bushes and whistles through empty nests, And the fierce unrests I keep as guests Crowd my brain with corpses, pallid and stark.

Leave me in peace, O Spectres, who haunt My labouring mind, I have fought and failed. I have not quailed, I was all unmailed And naked I strove, 'tis my only vaunt.

The moon drops into the silver day As waking out of her swoon she comes. I hear the drums Of millenniums Beating the mornings I still must stay.

The years I must watch go in and out, While I build with water, and dig in air, And the trumpets blare Hollow despair, The shuddering trumpets of utter rout.

An atom tossed in a chaos made Of yeasting worlds, which bubble and foam. Whence have I come? What would be home? I hear no answer. I am afraid!

I crave to be lost like a wind-blown flame. Pushed into nothingness by a breath, And quench in a wreath Of engulfing death This fight for a God, or this devil's game.

A Tale of Starvation

There once was a man whom the gods didn't love, And a disagreeable man was he. He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him, And he cursed eternally.

He damned the sun, and he damned the stars, And he blasted the winds in the sky. He sent to Hell every green, growing thing, And he raved at the birds as they fly.

His oaths were many, and his range was wide, He swore in fancy ways; But his meaning was plain: that no created thing Was other than a hurt to his gaze.

He dwelt all alone, underneath a leaning hill, And windows toward the hill there were none, And on the other side they were white-washed thick, To keep out every spark of the sun.

For his heart was soured in his weary old hide, And his hopes had curdled in his breast. His friend had been untrue, and his love had thrown him over For the chinking money-bags she liked best.

The rats had devoured the contents of his grain-bin, The deer had trampled on his corn, His brook had shrivelled in a summer drought, And his sheep had died unshorn.

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