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Read Ebook: Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments by Bynner Witter Ficke Arthur Davison
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Ebook has 119 lines and 7403 words, and 3 pages
earing at meat; Fun Is the mastodon Vanished complete . . .
And I am the stag with the golden horn Waiting till my day is born.
CANDLE, candle, Flicker and flow-- I knew you once-- But it was not long ago, it was
Last night. And you spoiled my otherwise bright evening.
THREE little creatures gloomed across the floor And stood profound in front of me, And one was Faith, and one was Hope, And one was Charity.
Faith looked for what it could not find, Hope looked for what was lost, , Charity's eyes were crossed.
Then with a leap a single shape, With beauty on its chin, Brandished a little screaming ape . . . And each one, like a pin,
Fell to a pattern on the rug As flat as they could be-- And died there comfortable and snug, Faith, Hope and Charity.
That shape, it was my shining soul Bludgeoning every sham . . . O little ape, be glad that I Can be the thing I am!
I AM weary of salmon dawns And of cinnamon sunsets; Silver-grey and iron-grey Of winter dusk and morn Torture me; and in the amethystine shadows Of snow, and in the mauve of curving clouds Some poison has dwelling.
Ivory on a fan of Venice, Black-pearl of a bowl of Japan, Prismatic lustres of Phoenician glass, Fawn-tinged embroideries from looms of Bagdad, The green of ancient bronze, cinereous tinge Of iron gods,-- These, and the saffron of old cerements, Violet wine, Zebra-striped onyx, Are to me like the narrow walls of home To the land-locked sailor.
I must have fire-brands! I must have leaves! I must have sea-deeps!
DEATH on a cross was not the blade In Mary's heart . . . For the mother of man and the son of the maid Had walked one night apart, When his beard was not yet grown--and, afraid, She had seen his young words dart.
Between a mother and a son, The guillotine . . . It falls, it falls, and one by one, Unseeing and unseen, They face the great sharp shining ton That time has eaten green.
Between the shoulder and the head The guillotine must play And cleave with clash unmerited The generating day . . . Till the separated parts, not dead, Rise and walk away.
LISTEN, my friend, That you may understand me.--
In my earliest youth I dreamed in hues volcanic. I saw each day open Like a curtain of flame. Black slaves attended My waking moments; Three ebony slaves Washed sleep from my white body. Three ebony slaves Around my ivory smoothness Folded heavy robes Of crimson and white. And as I issued forth Into the blue vault of the daylight A grey ape pranced before me And a leopard crept behind.
This was the state Of my young heritage. Scarlet as the voice of trumpets Was the pageant of my days. Can I accept now The twilight? And soon the dark, where all colors Die?
Before I die, I will hold one last revel! I will have golden cups and poppy curtains!-- And yet--
No! . . . In a black hall The black table shall spread far down before me And all the feasters garbed in black. Then, at the feast's height, I arising Shall with a gesture like the midnight Throw back my midnight robe and suddenly stand Naked, the sole white flame of the world.
THE seven deathly spears of memory Setting behind a god, a golden glorious Halo of land and sea Even for you and me, Even for us . . .
The spear of Egypt, Orange, Through the sleeping lid, With all the power of the bulk of a pyramid.
The spear of Chile, Yellow, Through the thrilling cheek, With all the push of an upturned Andean peak.
The spear of Thibet, Violet, Through the eager hand, The thrust of the iron of a silent land.
The spear of the Ice-Poles, Green, Through the warm-breathing breast, The glacial east and the glacial west
The spear of Norway, Blue, Through the curved arm-pit, The cheerless sun majestic in a jagged slit.
The spear of India, Indigo, Through the holy side, A heaven-touching temple-roof down a mountain-slide.
The spear of Europe, Red, In the mouth's breath, The million-splintering scream of death . . .
Even to us, The seven-spearing sun, The sword of separation before our love is done; Even for us, A simian shape Throwing seven souls on the sea-wet cape; Even for us Who smile mouth to mouth, The full tornado from the seven-forked south; Even to us Who clasp with our knees, The scattering upheaval of the seven cold seas!
And this is as near as lovers ever come, Their words are dumb; This is as near as they have ever kissed, Their lips are ocean-mist.
Yet what avail the seven Spears of memory Against the obstinate archery Of light, the spears of heaven?
I HAVE not written, reader, That you may read. . . . They sit in rows in the bare school-room Reading. Throwing rocks at windows is better, And oh the tortoise-shell cat with the can tied on! I would rather be a can-tier Than a writer for readers.
I have written, reader, For abstruse reasons. Gold in the mine . . . Black water seeping into tunnels . . . A plank breaks, and the roof falls . . . Three men suffocated. The wife of one now works in a laundry; The wife of another has married a fat man; I forget about the third.
THE night is growing deep with snow O put your hand in mine, While the mirthful secrets that we know Bloom in the fire-shine-- Flakes falling with an undertow Of delicate design.
Hushed are the courts where ladies went Unquestioning to quaff Goblets of liquid firmament-- Thank God that we can laugh!
Hushed are the plains where Asia poured The blood of peacock kings-- But we can echo, thank the Lord, What the China teapot sings:
Nothing bereaves The eternal tune Of little crisp leaves Green in the moon.
The night is deeper still with snow . . . O let us never stir From the mirthful secrets that we know Of old diameter! Eve laughed at Adam long ago, And Adam laughed at her.
SOUNDS, pure sounds-- Nothing-- Vibrancies of the air-- And yet--
This summer night There are crickets shrilling Beyond the deep bassoon of frogs. They cease for a moment As the rattling clangor Of the trolley Bumps by. I hear footsteps Hollow on the pavement Now deserted And blank of sound. They die. The crickets now are sleeping; Even the leaves Grow still.
And slowly Out of the blankness, out of the silence Emerges on soundless wings! The long sweet-sloping Rise and fall of far viol notes,-- The mad Nirvana, The faint and spectral Dream-music Of my heart's desire.
KNIVES for feet, and wheels for a chin, And the long smooth iron bore for a neck, And bullets for hands. . . . And the root runs in, The root of blood no stone can check, From the breasts of the grinding crash of sin, From engines hugging in a wreck.
A thousand round-red mouths of pain Blaring black, A twisting comrade on his back In a round-red stain, Clotted stalks of red sumac, Discs of the sun on a bayonet-stack . . .
Blood, flame, a cataract Thrown upward from a desert place: Flame and blood, the one blind fact, Contained, or spouting from the face, Or coiling out of bellies, packed In a stinking spent embrace . . .
Country, a babble of black spume . . . Faith, an eyeball in the sand . . . Mother, a nail through a broken hand-- A kissing fume-- And out of her breast the bloody bubbling milk-red breath Of death.
YOU are the Delphic Oracle Of the Under-World.
As we sit talking, All of us together, You flash forth sudden utterance Of buried things That writhe in obscure life Within our minds' last darkness. That which we think and say not You say and think not. In us these thoughts Like worms stir vilely. But from you they depart as sudden butterflies Crimson and green against the pure sky.
Many are the revelers; Few are the thyrsus-bearers; And sole is Dionysus.
This I inscribe to you, Singer, In memory of the crags of Delphi And the Thessalian vales beyond.
TWO cocktails round a smile, A grapefruit after grace, Flowers in an aisle . . . Were your face.
A strap in a street-car, A sea-fan on the sand, A beer on a bar . . . Were your hand
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