Badmind

The Mountain Afterglow
Afterglow goldens the peak
Its rock-beak glows
Like raw blood
And red, red is the snowfield beneath it
Inevitably my thoughts go to Christ's blood
Which our weakness drinks
And to the blood of another useless hopeless war
Then from its blackness the heart cries to the peak
'Oh give us a sign!
Make us a sign!'
But back to our valley
Comes only the sun's dying glow
As so softly, so delicately
The bright rock and snow
Fade into night
And night clouds fold dark on the stars
Prolegomenon
Toward Future Study
Of the Implications of Interrelations
In Two Distinct Types of Auto-Eroticism
She is not Helen, Iseult, or Guinevere
Those dead and cloudy girls insult
Her function and her gift
I fear the ancient lays of love and after
Would it be admirable to disregard the modern laughter?
The pain is loosed by some wag god
Or stale mojusque
Should I write of old loves they still have never heard?
Or love as Lancelot on a four lane street?
I repeat, why love from books that make Iseult appear
Encased in modern language notes
Or spread in photographic lyres?
And who would wonder what flesh can give?
In which of all those Troys did Helen live?
Screed 1
I say you this poem, quietly
After long confession had drawn out spasms of its time
Humor of my peers gelled
Cold and pitiless
I face masters in the candor of my white city
A shambles where dust sains wind
Without evocation, appeal, desire
With zodiacal exhaustion as the great snake rounds
Is no one else to speak
I'll end this reading of this group with a poem
Which has the title "The Last Poem to be Written"
And the quotation with which it begins is from Ezra Pound
His version from the opening line of the poem by Propertius
Which begins "Quando cumque gitur nostros, Mars cloudet oculos."
The Last Poem to be Written
When, when, and whenever
Death closes our eyes
Still shall I behold her
Smiling such brightness
Lady of brightness
And the illumined heart
Soft walker in my blood
Snow color
Sea sound
Track of the ermine
Delicate in the snow
Line of the sea wave
Delicate on the sand
Lady of all brightness
Donna del mio cuore