PATCHEN, Kenneth
In Memory of Kathleen
How pitiful is her sleep.
Now her clear breath is still.
There is nothing falling tonight,
Bird or man,
As dear as she.
Nowhere that she should go
Without me. None but my calling.
O nothing but the cold cry of the snow.
I Went To The City
And there I did weep
Men a-crowin’ like asses,
And livin’ like sheep.
Oh, can’t hold the han’ of my love!
Can’t hold her little white han’!
Yes, I went to the city,
And there I did bitterly cry,
Men out of touch with the earth,
And with never a glance at the sky.
Oh, can’t hold the han’of my love!
Can’t hold her pure little han’!
The Naked Land
A beast stands at my eye.
I cook my senses in a dark fire.
The old wombs rot and the new mother
Approaches with the footsteps of a world.
Who are the people of this unscaled heaven?
What beckons?
Whose blood hallows this grim land?
What slithers along the watershed of my human sleep?
The other side of knowing ...
Caress of unwaking delight ... O start
A sufficient love! O gently silent forms
Of the last spaces.
The Lions Of Fire
The lions of fire
Shall have their hunting in this black land
Their teeth shall tear at your soft throats
Their claws kill
O the lions of fire shall awake
And the valleys steam with their fury
Because you are sick with the dirt of your money
Because you are pigs rooting in the swill of your war
Because you are mean and sly and full of the pus of your pious murder
Because you have turned your faces from God
Because you have spread your filth everywhere
O the lions of fire
Wait in the crawling shadows of your world
And their terrible eyes are watching you.
As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other
As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies
O my lady, my fairest dear, my sweetest, loveliest one
Your lips have splashed my dull house with the speech of flowers
My hands are hallowed where they touched over your
soft curving.
It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me
A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . .
Don’t let anyone in to wake us.
Let us have madness
Let us have madness openly.
O men Of my generation.
Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time's dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has,
With the face that dead things wear--
nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day's evil darkness;
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves.
Be Music, Night
Be music, night,
That her sleep may go
Where angels have their pale tall choirs
Be a hand, sea,
That her dreams may watch
Thy guidesman touching the green flesh of the world
Be a voice, sky,
That her beauties may be counted
And the stars will tilt their quiet faces
Into the mirror of her loveliness
Be a road, earth,
That her walking may take thee
Where the towns of heaven lift their breathing spires
O be a world and a throne, God,
That her living may find its weather
And the souls of ancient bells in a child's book
Shall lead her into Thy wondrous house
The Character of love seen as a search for the lost
You, the woman; I, the man; this, the world:
And each is the work of all.
There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger;
The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing
Over the walkers in the village; and there are
Many beautiful arms around us and the things we know.
See how those stars tramp over the heavens on their sticks
Of ancient light: with what simplicity that blue
Takes eternity into the quiet cave of God, where Ceasar
And Socrates, like primitive paintings on a wall,
Look, with idiot eyes, on the world where we two are.
You, the sought for; I, the seeker; this, the search:
And each is the mission of all.
For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes
The built cart out; and where we go is reason.
But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling
Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter.
How smoothly, like the sleep of a flower, love,
The grassy wind moves over night's tense meadow:
See how the great wooden eyes of the forrest
Stare upon the architecture of our innocence.
You, the village; I, the stranger; this, the road:
And each is the work of all.
Then, not that man do more, or stop pity; but that he be
Wider in living; that all his cities fly a clean flag...
We have been alone too long, love; it is terribly late
For the pierced feet on the water and we must not die now.
Have you ever wondered why all the windows in heaven were broken?
Have you seen the homeless in the open grave of God's hand?
Do you want to aquaint the larks with the fatuous music of war?
There is the muffled step in the snow; the stranger;
The crippled wren; the nun; the dancer; the Jesus-wing
Over the walkers in the village; and there are
Many desperate arms about us and the things we know.