little tree
little silent Christmas
tree
you are so little
you are more like a
flower
who found you in the
green forest
and were you very sorry
to come away?
see
i will comfort you
because you smell so
sweetly
i will kiss your cool
bark
and hug you safe and
tight
just as your mother
would,
only don’t be afraid
look
the spangles
that sleep all the year
in a dark box
dreaming of being taken
out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains
red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all
to you to hold.
every finger shall have
its ring
and there won’t be a
single place dark or unhappy
then when you’re quite
dressed
you’ll stand in the
window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very
proud
and my little sister
and i will take hands
and looking up at our
beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"
the bigness of cannon
is skilful,
but i have seen
death’s clever enormous
voice
which hides in a
fragility
of poppies. . . .
i say that sometimes
on these long talkative
animals
are laid fists of huger
silence.
I have seen all the
silence
full of vivid noiseless
boys
at Roupy
i have seen
between barrages,
the night utter ripe
unspeaking girls.
Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break
onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your
blueeyed boy
Mister Death
when god lets my body
be
From each brave eye
shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles
therefrom
the purpled world will
dance upon
Between my lips which
did sing
a rose shall beget the
spring
that maidens whom
passion wastes
will lay between their
little breasts
My strong fingers
beneath the snow
Into strenuous birds
shall go
my love walking in the
grass
their wings will touch
with her face
and all the while shall
my heart be
With the bulge and
nuzzle of the sea
why did you go
little fourpaws?
you forgot to shut
your big eyes.
where did you go?
like little kittens
are all the leaves
which open in the rain.
little kittens who
are called spring,
is what we stroke
maybe asleep?
do you know? or maybe
did
something go away
ever so quietly
when we weren’t
looking.
when life is quite
through with
and leaves say alas,
much is to do
for the swallow, that
closes
a flight in the blue;
when love’s had his
tears out,
perhaps shall pass
a million years
(while a bee doses
on the poppies, the
dears;
when all’s done and
said, and
under the grass
lies her head,
by oaks and roses
deliberated.)
O Distinct
Lady of my unkempt
adoration
if I have made
a fragile curtain
song under the window
of your soul
it is not like any
songs
(the singers the others
they have been faithful
to many things and
which
die
i have been sometimes
true
to Nothing and which
lives
they were fond of the
handsome
moon
never spoke ill of the
pretty stars
and to
the serene the
complicated
and the obvious
they were faithful
and which i despise,
frankly
admitting i have been
true
only to the noise of
worms
in the eligible day
under the unaccountable
sun)
Distinct Lady
swiftly take
my fragile certain song
that we may watch
together
how behind the doomed
exact smile of life’s
placid obscure palpable
carnival where to a
normal
melody of probable
violins dance
the square virtues with
the oblong sins
perfectly
gesticulate the accurate
strenuous lips of
incorruptible
Nothing
under the ample
sun, under the
insufficient
day under the noise of
worms