I
If I insist that violets
Are intellectual eyes
Dotting with a wave of sight
The chained recalcitrance of earth,
Philosophers and scientists—
Blind boys who bolt themselves within a room—
Will seek to torture me
For the flashing witchcraft
That rides on thunderclaps
Called imagination.
The crystallized escape
Of fear is known as logic,
And men have used it to light
Small spaces in the wilderness of black.
But I prefer to mount
Huge horses of the wind,
Whose fantastic laughter
Separates to metaphors
And similes that hurl their decorations
Against the wide malevolence of space.
When I return to the morbid
Helplessness of earth
And shake off the dream of freedom,
Men ply their knives of gods
And creeds upon my skin.
Much traveling through space
Has made me immune to pain,
And metaphors and similes
Aid my counting of blood-drops,
Bringing color to mathematics.
Maiden, where are you going,
With impudence that makes your arms and legs
Unnecessary feathers?
Your eyes have interceded
Between the flesh and soul,
And show a light of reconciliation.
For whom have you prepared yourself?
I go to see an acrobat
Reviled by men, and acting
Within a lonely circus owned
By Mind, Soul, & Heart, Incorporated.
I love his limbs whose muscles
Compete with twirls of gossamer,
And Oh, I love him not
With the drooling, fevered weight of earth.
He turns my blood to one
Profusion of melted wings.
Maiden, why is this acrobat
Better than men who stand within
The favored halls of mind and heart,
Playing, with lust and dignity,
Violins and trumpets?
They are not better, and he,
Whose thoughtful quickness combines
The pliantness of mind and soul,
He is not worse—the thoughts of men
Stand still on high roofs of the mind,
Or borrow sorceries of flesh,
While he, with flimsy trails
Of ruffles on a gaudy jacket,
Every stately, fierce, robust
Finality that men have made.
He cares not whether he is right or wrong.
He seeks a decorative speed
Of thought and soul, and he is not afraid
Of being insincere.
Men loathe him, but I clothe him
With magnificent, specific
Fabrics slighter than the remorse of a child
And bearing involved births of colors.
Strength is not alone
The size and thickness known to men!
Words, it is apparent
That you are crucified and fondled
By the pride of each new generation.
O words, whose sportive formations
Could make the courts of intellect
Belligerent and insane,
Men have sentenced you
To scores of endless drudgeries.
Weakened by the years,
You guard the dying bonfires
Of each nation and race.
Again, like hordes of cattle,
You drag the expectations
Of social theories and remedies,
Stopping only when the blood of men
Washes away your useless labours.
I have seen your bands
Of ragged courtesans
Marching in feverish lines
To rescue the rites of sex.
I have watched you rush
To repair the cracks
In breaking cathedrals and churches.
With gilded, exclamatory vowels
You garnish the cowering of earth,
And with recurring darkness
You spurn the peering mind.
Again you are hands of intellect,
Disrobing the flesh of men
And carefully preserving
Each discarded garment
With a pinch of powdered emotion.
Again you are driven forth
To warm the evening hours of a nation.
(“They could never restrain themselves
To wait at home for the postman ...
Would Copperfield marry Dora or Agnes?”)
Sentimental breathlessness
Fleeing from the helpless decay of thought.
O words, brow-beaten bricklayers
Obeying the shouts of science
And raising walls upon whose top
The soul is perched, contemptuously
Squinting down at toiling pygmies:
O words, and you can be
Superbly demented skeptics,
Betraying the unctuous failures of earth;
Riding the wild horse of the mind:
Bringing spurs into play;
Summoning with pain the lurking soul.