The Tennis Court Oath: A Book of Poems Book

What had you been thinking about
the face studiously bloodied
heaven blotted region
I go on loving you like water but
there is a terrible breath in the way all of this
You were not elected president, yet won the race
All the way through fog and drizzle
When you read it was sincere the coasts
stammered with unintentional villages the
horse strains fatigue I guess . . . the calls . . .
I worry

the water beetle head
why of course reflecting all
then you redid you were breathing
I thought going down to mail this
of the kettle you jabbered as easily in the yard
you come through but
are incomparable the lovely tent
mystery you don't want surrounded the real
you dance
in the spring there was clouds

The mulatress approached in the hall - the
lettering easily approached along the edge of the Times
in a moment the bell would ring but there was time
for the carnation laughed here are a couple of "other"

to one in yon house

The doctor and Philip had come over the road
Turning in toward the corner of the wall his hat on
reading it carelessly as if to tell you your fears were justified
the blood shifted you know those walls
wind off the earth had made him shrink
undeniably an oboe now the young
were there there was candy
to decide the sharp edge of the garment
like a particular cry not intervening called the dog "he's coming! he's coming" with an emotion felt it sink into peace

there was no turning back but the end was in sight
he chose this moment to ask her in detail about her family and the others
The person. pleased - "have more of these
not stripes on the tunic - or the porch chairs
will teach you about men - what it means"
to be one in a million pink stripe
and not could go away the three approached the doghouse
the reef. Your daughter's
dream of my son understand prejudice
darkness in the hole
the patient finished
The could all go home now the hole was dark
lilacs blowing across his face glad he brought you
- The Tennis Court Oath, pg. 11-12
* * *

To true roses uplift on the bilious tide of evening
And morning-glories dotting the crescent day
The oval shape responding:
My first is a haunting face
In the hanging-down hair.
My second is water:
I am a sieve.

My only new thing:
The penalty of light forever
Over the heads of those who were there
And back into the night, the cough of the finishing petal.

Once approved the magenta must continue
But the bark island sees
Into the light:
It grieves for what it gives:
Tears that streak the dusty firmament.
- To Redouté, pg. 21
* * *

And if h thought that
All was foreign -
As, gas and petrol, en-
gine full of speed, barking to hear the night
The political contaminations

Of what he spoke,
Spotted azaleas brought to meet him
Sitting next day
The judge, emotions,
The crushed paper heaps.
- A White Paper, pg. 32
* * *

The worst of it all -
The white sunlight on the polished floor -
Pressed into service,
And then the window closed
And the night ends and begins again.
Her face goes green, her eyes are green;
In the dark corner playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever." I try to describe for you,
But you will not listen, you are like the swan.

No stars are there,
No stripes,
But a blind man's can poking, however clumsily, into the inmost corners of the house.
Nothing can be harmed! Night and say and beginning again!
So put away the book,
The flowers you were keeping to give someone:
Only the white, tremendous foam of the street has any importance,
The new white flowers that are beginning to shoot up about now.
- White Roses, pg. 35
* * *

Lugged to the gray arbor,
I have climbed this snow-stone on my face,
My stick, bu what, snapped the avalanche
The air filled with slowly falling rocks

Breathed in deeply - arrived,
The white room, a table covered
With a towel, mug of ice - fear
Among the legs of a chair, the ashman,
Purple and gray she starts upright in her chair.
- The Unknown Travelers, pg. 63
* * *

The water began to fall quite quietly
As pipes decorate laminations of
City unit busses pass through.
A laborer dragging luggage examined
The wet place near a bug.
It sifted slowly down the sides of buildings flat
The permanent way to make a race.
So simple was the ally. Trying the lips
The spaced demons never breaking.
They imagine something different from what it is.

Just a fat man with sunglasses
Moving through shine - the uncle in the mirror -
As it is beginning again these are the proportions -
He lauds her with a smile.

Miles away in the country the performance included glue.
The abandoned airfield will have to gave the imagination now
To be august, gray, against oneself

These things that are the property of only the few.
- The Shower, pg. 90