Paterson (Revised Edition) (13 page)

are flames with a requirement, a belly of their

own that destroys—as there are fires that

smolder

smolder a lifetime and never burst

into flame

Papers

(consumed) scattered to the winds. Black.

The ink burned white, metal white. So be it.

Come overall beauty. Come soon. So be it.

A dust between the fingers. So be it.

Come tatterdemalion futility. Win through.

So be it. So be it.

An iron dog, eyes

aflame in a flame-filled corridor. A drunkenness

of flames. So be it. A bottle, mauled

by the flames, belly-bent with laughter:

yellow, green. So be it—of drunkenness

survived, in guffaws of flame. All fire afire!

So be it. Swallowing the fire. So be

it. Torqued to laughter by the fire,

the very fire. So be it. Chortling at flames

sucked in, a multiformity of laughter, a

flaming gravity surpassing the sobriety of

flames, a chastity of annihilation. Recreant,

calling it good. Calling the fire good.

So be it. The beauty of fire-blasted sand

that was glass, that was a bottle: unbottled.

Unabashed. So be it.

An old bottle, mauled by the fire

gets a new glaze, the glass warped

to a new distinction, reclaiming the

undefined. A hot stone, reached

by the tide, crackled over by fine

lines, the glaze unspoiled     .

Annihilation ameliorated:     Hottest

lips lifted till no shape but a vast

molt of the news flows. Drink

of the news, fluid to the breath.

Shouts its laughter, crying out—by

an investment of grace in the sand

—or stone: oasis water. The glass

splotched with concentric rainbows

of cold fire that the fire has bequeathed

there as it cools, its flame

defied—the flame that wrapped the glass

deflowered, reflowered there by

the flame: a second flame, surpassing

heat     .

Hell’s fire. Fire. Sit your horny ass

down. What’s your game? Beat you

at your own game, Fire. Outlast you:

Poet Beats Fire at Its Own Game! The bottle!

the bottle! the bottle! the bottle! I

give you the bottle! What’s burning

now, Fire?

The Library?

Whirling flames, leaping

from house to house, building to building

carried by the wind

the Library is in their path

Beautiful thing! aflame     .

a defiance of authority

—burnt Sappho’s poems, burned

by intention (or are they still hid

in the Vatican crypts?)     :

beauty is

a defiance of authority     :

for they were

unwrapped, fragment by fragment, from

outer mummy cases of papier mâché, inside

Egyptian sarcophagi     .

flying papers

from old conflagrations, picked up

haphazard by the undertakers to make

moulds, layer after layer

for the dead

Beautiful thing

The anthology suppressed, revived even by

the dead, you who understand nothing

of this:

Dürer’s
Melancholy
, the gears

lying disrelated to the mathematics of the

machine

Useless.

Beautiful thing, your

vulgarity of beauty surpasses all their

perfections!

Vulgarity surpasses all perfections

—it leaps from a varnish pot and we see

it pass — in flames!

Beautiful thing

—intertwined with the fire. An identity

surmounting the world, its core — from which

we shrink squirting little hoses of

objection — and

I along with the rest, squirting

at the fire

Poet.

Are you there?

How shall I find examples? Some boy

who drove a bull-dozer through

the barrage at Iwo Jima and turned it

and drove back making a path for the others —

Voiceless, his

action gracing a flame

—but lost, lost

because there is no way to link

the syllables anew to imprison him

No twist of the flame

in his own image : he goes nameless

until a Niké shall live in his honor—

And for that, invention is lacking,

the words are lacking:

the waterfall of the

flames, a cataract reversed, shooting

upward (what difference does it make?)

The language,

Beautiful thing—that I

make a fool of myself, mourning the lack

of dedication

mourning its losses,

for you

Scarred, fire swept

(by a nameless fire, that is unknown even

to yourself) nameless,

drunk.

Rising, with a whirling motion, the person

passed into the flame, becomes the flame—

the flame taking over the person

—with a roar, an outcry

which none can afford (we die in silence, we

enjoy shamefacedly—in silence, hiding

our joy even from each other

keeping

a secret joy in the flame which we dare

not acknowledge)

a shriek of fire with

the upwind, whirling the room away—to reveal

the awesome sight of a tin roof (1880)

entire, half a block long, lifted like a

skirt, held by the fire—to rise at last,

almost with a sigh, rise and float, float

upon the flames as upon a sweet breeze,

and majestically drift off, riding the air,

sliding

upon the air, easily and away over

the frizzled elms that seem to bend under

it, clearing the railroad tracks to fall

upon the roofs beyond, red hot

darkening the rooms

(but not our minds)

While we stand with our mouths open,

shaking our heads and saying, My God, did

you ever see anything like that? As though

it were wholly out of our dreams, as

indeed it is, unparalleled in our most sanguine

dreams     .

The person submerged

in wonder, the fire become the person     .

But the pathetic library (that contained,

perhaps, not one volume of distinction)

must go down also —

B
ECAUSE IT IS SILENT
. I
T

IS SILENT BY DEFECT OF VIRTUE IN THAT IT

CONTAINS NOTHING OF YOU

That which should be

rare, is trash; because it contains

nothing of you. They spit on you,

literally, but without you, nothing. The

library is muffled and dead

But you are the dream

of dead men

Beautiful Thing!

Let them explain you and you will be

the heart of the explanation. Nameless,

you will appear

Beautiful Thing

the flame’s lover —

The pitiful dead

cry back to us from the fire, cold in

the fire, crying out—wanting to be chaffed

and cherished

those who have written books

We read: not the flames

but the ruin left

by the conflagration

Not the enormous burning

but the dead (the books

remaining). Let us read     .

and digest: the surface

glistens, only the surface.

Dig in—and you have

a nothing, surrounded by

a surface, an inverted

bell resounding, a

white-hot man become

a book, the emptiness of

a cavern resounding

Hi Kid

I know you just about to shot me. But honest Hon. I have really been to busy to write. Here there, and everywhere.

Bab I haven’t wrote since October so I will go back to Oct. 31, (Oh by the way are friend Madam B. Harris had a party the 31, but only high browns and
yellow
so I wasn’t invited)

But I pay that no mind, cause I really (pitched myself a ball) Went to the show early in the day, and then to the dance at the club, had me a (some kinded fine time) I was a feeling good believe me you. child.

But, child, Nov 1, I did crack you know yourself I been going full force on the (jug) will we went out (going to Newark) was raining, car slaped on brakes, car turned around a few times, rocked a bit and stopped facing the other way, from which we was going. Pal, believe me for the next few days. Honey, I couldn’t even pick up a half filled bucket of hot water for fear of scalding myself.

Now I don’t know which did it the jug or the car skidding but all I know is I was nowhere on nerves. But as they say alls well that ends well So Nov 15, I mean Kid I was so teaed that I didn’t know a from z I really mean I was teaed Since Nov 15 I Have been at it again ever since.

But now for the (Boys) How Raymond James People going with Sis but is in jail for giving Joseble Miller a baby.

Robert Blocker has taken his ring from Sally Mitchell

Little Sonny Jones is supposed to be the father of a girl’s baby on Liberty St.

Sally Mund Barbara H Jean C and Mary M are all supposed to be going to have kids Nelson W. a boy on 3rd St is father to 3 kids on their way.

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

P. S. Kid do you think in your next letter of your you could tell me how to get over there.

Tell Raymond I said I bubetut hatche isus cashutute Just a new way of talking kid. It is called (Tut) maybe you heard of it. Well here hoping you can read it

D

J

B

So long.

Later

Beautiful thing

I saw you:

Yes, said

the Lady of the House to my questioning.

Downstairs

(by the laundry tubs)

and she pointed,

smiling, to the basement, still smiling, and

went out and left me with you (alone in the house)

lying there, ill

(I don’t at all think that you

were ill)

by the wall on your damp bed, your long

body stretched out negligently on the dirty sheet     .

Where is the pain?

(You put on a simper designed

not to reveal)

—the small window with two panes,

my eye level of the ground, the furnace odor     .

Persephone

gone to hell, that hell could not keep with

the advancing season of pity.

—for I was overcome

by amazement and could do nothing but admire

and lean to care for you in your quietness —

who looked at me, smiling, and we remained

thus looking, each at the other     .     in silence     .

You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for

the fire and I

attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty

Shaken by your beauty     .

Shaken.

—flat on your back, in a low bed (waiting)

under the mud plashed windows among the scabrous

dirt of the holy sheets     .

You showed me your legs, scarred (as a child)

by the whip     .

Read. Bring the mind back (attendant upon

the page) to the day’s heat. The page also is

the same beauty: a dry beauty of the page —

beaten by whips

A tapestry hound

with his thread teeth drawing crimson from

the throat of the unicorn

.     .     .     a yelping of white hounds

—under a ceiling like that of San Lorenzo, the long

painted beams, straight across, that preceded

the domes and arches

more primitive, square edged

.     a docile queen, not bothered

to stick her tongue out at the moon, indifferent,

through loss, but     .

queenly,

in bad luck, the luck of the stars, the black stars

.     the night of a mine

Dear heart

It’s all for you, my dove, my

changeling

But you!

—in your white lace dress

“the dying swan”

and high-heeled slippers—tall

as you already were—

till your head

through fruitful exaggeration

was reaching the sky and the

prickles of its ecstasy

Beautiful Thing!

And the guys from Paterson

beat up

the guys from Newark and told

them to stay the hell out

of their territory and then

socked you one

across the nose

Beautiful Thing

for good luck and emphasis

cracking it

till I must believe that all

desired women have had each

in the end

a busted nose

and live afterward marked up

Beautiful Thing

for memory’s sake

to be credible in their deeds

Then back to the party!

and they maled

and femaled you jealously

Beautiful Thing

as if to discover whence and

by what miracle

there should escape, what?

still to be possessed, out of

what part

Beautiful Thing

should it look?

or be extinguished—

Three days in the same dress

up and down     .

I can’t be half gentle enough,

half tender enough

toward you, toward you,

inarticulate, not half loving enough

BRIGHTen

the cor

ner

where
you
are!

—a flame,

black plush, a dark flame.

It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence.

Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive.

There is a drumming of submerged