War

No introspective chaos...I accept
The common ordinance to love -- common
And divine -- particular,
Unique in every being, eternal sign
Of taciturnity, dissolved
In massless wings of flame; bronze
Never touched, nor will sculpted gold
(The dirty red, scars
Aching like a wound, perpetual
Gaping of mouths, singing
The heart's blood).

Every word is too much for a twisted
Tongue, half rotten, biting off and flailing
In ancient flagellations:
Chew, Vengeful god!

Rip out a beaten breast! -- and fill me
With roses, stuff me
Carnations and amarynth tides, leave me
All fragrant to die. But none: I'll go,

I'll turn the prick-point on the gun, run
From shells bursting over the sky
Like a fetid night. At least then,
With the rations all distributed, and fun
Changing into her scalping slip, I'll get a lip
Around my sun, come
Dawn I'm really exhausted,
And the tips of her hair
Will be frosted
And there's never one.


An Alchemy

Suppose this was the root of everything,
Spring blossoming into strange patterns,
Idle decorations for a crown of stars.

Suppose this was the scarlet night,
Silver enchantress weaving on the cloth
Of aching black, and turning backs.

Suppose this was a levy of dancers
Laying pale wreaths on candid cancers,
More rank than rotten meat:

It would still be art, a word
Of transmutations. How?
A line of dancing cows, brown manure
Stacked in marvellous alignments,
Tridents making forks of gels and seas,
Creeping trees. Where does the night go?

Below the well of time, and if you climb
Down fifty wooden stairs, and ten of clay,
Into the wild arms of May, and back again
Through cold December, remember to dismember
All your age. Dissembling was an answer
-- was or is -- I can't disclaim, all I can claim
Is fatigue and the rich metals that lead
Into all and a voluntary silence.