Take him by shoulder and jaw, break his look back on us,
O hard to save, be saved, before we all shall drown!
But he has set his look, plunged his life deep for peace,
his face in the boiling river, and is surrendered down.
BOY WITH HIS HAIR CUT SHORT
Sunday shuts down on a twentieth-century evening.
The El passes. Twilight and bulb define
the brown room, the overstuffed plum sofa,
the boy, and the girl's thin hands above his head.
A neighbor radio sings stocks, news, serenade.
He sits at the table, head down, the young clear neck exposed,
watching the drugstore sign from the tail of his eye;
tattoo, neon, until the eye blears, while his
solicitous tall sister, simple in blue, bending
behind him, cuts his hair with her cheap shears.
The arrow's electric red always reaches its mark,
successful neon! He coughs, impressed by that precision.
His child's forehead, forever protected by his cap,
is bleached against the lamplight as he turns head
and steadies to let the snippets drop.
Erasing the failure of weeks with level fingers,
she sleeks the fine hair, combing: “You'll look fine tomorrow!
You'll surely find something, they can't keep turning you down;
the finest gentleman's not so trim as you!” Smiling, he raises
the adolescent forehead wrinkling ironic now.
He sees his decent suit laid out, new-pressed,
his carfare on the shelf. He lets his head fall, meeting
her earnest hopeless look, seeing the sharp blades splitting,
the darkened room, the impersonal sign, her motion,
the blue vein, bright on her temple, pitifully beating.
COURSE
for Betty Marshall
Years before action when the wish alone
has ammunition to threaten weakness down,
when thriving on discovery we speak
and wish a world
that wishing may not make.
Stretching our powers, we touch a broader street
crowded with hostile weapons and the weight
of death suggesting we see peace at last
and quiet cities,
rip out the eyes, and have our rest.
But we are set enough to clear a space
ample for action in this eccentric house.
An army of wishers in a dramatic grip
and crazy with
America has heat to keep its purpose up.
Determined to a world that Mr. Fist
and all his gang can't master or digest,
strengthened against the world that cannot hush
words singing down
the fever voice of death working against the wish.
MORE OF A CORPSE THAN A WOMAN
Give them my regards when you go to the school reunion;
and at the marriage-supper, say that I'm thinking about them.
They'll remember my name; I went to the movies with that one,
feeling the weight of their death where she sat at my elbow;
she never said a word,
but all of them were heard.
All of them alike, expensive girls, the leaden friends:
one used to play the piano, one of them once wrote a sonnet,
one even seemed awakened enough to photograph wheatfields—
the dull girls with the educated minds and technical passions—
pure love was their employment,
they tried it for enjoyment.
Meet them at the boat : they've brought the souvenirs of boredom,
a seashell from the faltering monarchy;
the nose of a marble saint; and from the battlefield,
an empty shell divulged from a flower-bed.
The lady's wealthy breath
perfumes the air with death.
The leaden lady faces the fine, voluptuous woman,
faces a rising world bearing its gifts in its hands.
Kisses her casual dreams upon the lips she kisses,
risen, she moves away; takes others; moves away.
Inadequate to love,
supposes she's enough.
Give my regards to the well-protected woman,
I knew the ice-cream girl, we went to school together.
There's something to bury, people, when you begin to bury.
When your women are ready and rich in their wish for the world,
destroy the leaden heart,
we've a new race to start.
THREE BLACK WOMEN
Invading nightmare, spinning up through sleep,
three loving Negresses ascend the night;
one sinks with Chinese eyes a despised man
shivering white in fear; mocking says “Take him,
I made him vastly unhappy;” dances, lifting
the purple belly pencilled delicate black.
The grandmother rises on the pointed shoulder
of the little black boy in the pink wool sweater,
bitterly asking about the deputies.
Burning, as dead skies over enemy cities
tip backward sliding, a third gleams on the South;
battlefields flicker, the scenery of doubt
dissolves in decoration on the night of
fire, black women, nightmare, dances, sleep.
FORMOSA
The sand's still blue with receding water, sky topples
its last brightness
down, day diminishing; two fishermen
walk over the sandbar, their thin indicative shadows
pointing tomorrow's sunrise on the whiteline horizon.
Tomorrow is only an interval, night's passing interval
cruises on open water here, anchored, while peace comes in.
Speedboat, run again before your smoking white
wake, while the light's collected on the hull,
until the evening turns, engaged with night.
The little dog races over the sandflats, the thin bathers
turn back to foamline, half-light discourages their daring
sea-dream. End it! omens are laughter, gay all morning,
gay before ogre midnight, spurless midnight—
midnight's an interval, darkness is promise, night's nothing,
nightmare is nothing, nothing but interval.
Eliminate all dreams : here, real : love come, high tide,
the risen, freehold moon, the fortunate island,
resting, blue-flooded, rests, delicately, the sea.
NIGHT-MUSIC
for Marya Zaturenska
TIME EXPOSURES
When the exposed spirit, busy in daytime,
searches out night, only renewer.
That time plants turn to. The world's table.
When any single thing's condemned again.
The changeable spirit finds itself out,
will not employ Saint Death, detective,
does its own hunting, runs at last to night.
Renewer, echo of judgment, morning-source, music.
Dark streets that light invents, one black tree standing,
struck by the street-light to raw electric green,
allow one man at a time to walk past, plain.
Cities lose size. The earth is field
and ranging these countries in sunset, we make quiet,
living in springtime, wish for nothing, see
glass bough, invented green, flower-sharp day
crackle into orange and be subdued to night.
The mind, propelled by work, reaches its evening:
slick streets, dog-tired, point the way to sleep,
walls rise in color, now summer shapes the Square
(and pastel five o'clock chalked on the sky).
We drive out to the suburbs,
bizarre lawns
flicker a moment beside the speeding cars.
Speed haunts our ground, throws counties at us under
night, a black basin always spilling stars.
Waters trouble our quiet, vanishing down
reaches of hills whose image legend saves:
the foggy Venus hung above the flood
rising, rising, from the sea, with her arms full of waves
as ours are full of flowers.
Down polished airways a purple dove descending
sharp on the bodies of those so lately busy apart,
wingtip on breasttip, the deep body of feathers
in the breastgroove along the comforted heart.
The head inclined offers with love clear miles
of days simple in sun and action, bright
air poised about a face in ballet strictness
and pure pacific night.
But in our ears brute knocking at all doors,
factories bellow mutilation, and we live needy still
while strength and hours run
checkless downhill.
Flattered by grief, the changeable spirit
puts on importance. Goes into the street,
adventures everywhere but places fear
is absent. Everywhere the face's look
is absent, the heart is flat,
the avenues haunted by a head whose eye
runs tears incessantly, the other eye
narrow in smiling. Everywhere, words fail,
men sunk to dust, houses condemned, walls ruined,
and dust is never an anachronism.
Everywhere the eye runs tears. And here
the hand, propelled somehow, marches the room
pulling dark windowshades down around the gaze.
And now, stately, jotting on lipstick, she
prepares to sexualize her thistle thought.
Loosens her earrings, smiling. Drives
herself far into night. Smiles, fornicating. Drives
herself deep into sleep. Sees children sleep.
THE CHILD ASLEEP
What's over England? A cloud. What's over France? A flame.
And over New York? The night.
Night is nameless, night has no name.
The crane leans down to drink the pit.
Look from the blackboard out the window.
Walk down the streets that lead to school.
Study, h'p! Pause, h'p! Recess, h'p!
I want to grow up.
Can you be direct as snow, straight to the face?
When the ball arrives, catch it! Who loves you?
What's around you and under you,
who bends above you?
Immortal is miles away, and age.
And Europe. But not so the sea.
The sea is near, mother and father near.
Not with the dirty children, dear.
Not to look at the sea.
Quiet, music is playing! Never move your face.
Wear a mask if your face moves with your
love or anger moving. God first, then us.
Friday candles. Never discuss.
See the full street—the war is over!
The birdcage swung open to the storm.
Do not love so much. Keep cool.
Keep collected. Keep warm.
“And the harsh friend, pushing away the music.”
The sand-pit high with money. The limousine.
The chauffeur filling the frost with suicide
smelling sick in garage. First strikers seen.
Death first, the stiff knees pointing up, gone breath.
“And the harsh lover: suddenly magic, making
me forget mother, sob through shut teeth, seeing
the kiss full on the palm erase the touch of death.”
What's over us? The fancy snowfall. War.
What's at our hand for truth? The curious windlass
going into the well. Quaint. Why do those men parade?
What's after sitting at the window, reading?
Lying hot in the bath, weeping at night?
Going to bed at night and at last sleeping?
ADVENTURES, MIDNIGHT
1
Give a dime to a beggar for I have seen a sight
children grown tall and tragic reason slight
charity dealt the poor again
I drove with my last love last night
through Clinton Street where sick, sick, sick
the pushcarts screened with oranges
staggering avenues of brick
and wealth and love were long away
and this man wished the old love quick.
Give more and get your dollars back all dimes
small change of love: so lied, and kissed him tight.
I saw his tired body gone to crust
and chuckling pigeons take him in their throats.
—Now see us older, foolish, refugee,
the child awake with an advertising look
gathering speed in motors, love in dimes—
what's after driving at night, answering joylessly?
The wasted pity. Thieving charity.
2
With those two I went driving in the dark,
out from our town in a borrowed car whose light
ate forests as we drove deeper into the park.
Beloved, spoke the sweet equivocal night—
those two stood clapped, each breast warmly on breast,
I stood apart to remove them from my sight:
The creased brook ran in continual unrest,
rising to seastorm in the rioting mind.
Here night and they and I—and who was merriest?
He turned his face away refusing, and so signed
for her to stop who too was comfortless
and equally needy, as tender and as blind.
On the road to the city stood the hedge whose darkness
had covered me months ago with that tall stranger
as foreign to me as this loneliness,
as enemy to me as tonight's anger
of grief in the country, shut with those two in the park:
this crying, frantic at removal, the dark, the sorrowful
danger.
3
Watching, on piers, exuberant travellers
enter the ocean where the beggar sits
desperate at exclusive waterfronts,
see how the feasted boat leaves port
covered with singing birds.
Cruising to cellophane islands, shaking off
this city's rock providing lonely tours,
grim single passports, persevering winter,
the ship slides down midnight's imperious harbor
The gilt-tiered galleries awake and dance.
What is it rippling across the deck?
What rising? What memory of ocean?
What is it ripples and rises?
The drowned heart, lifted a moment
answers clearly Here it comes.
And get your feet wet in a drowning world?
Stand on a rotten dock, obsessed with tide?
The boat's condemned, the pier sinks. The long port
offers an only country to you, traveller,
a chance of upper air to hopeful, smothering heart.
NIGHT-MUSIC
When those who can never again forgive themselves
finish their dinner, rear up from the chair,
turning to movies are caught in demonstrations
sweeping the avenues—Meet them there.
Watch how their faces change like traffic-light
bold blood gone green as horses pound the street,
as plates of sweated muscle push
them squarely back into retreat.
Notice their tremulous late overthrow
caught irresponsible : as the first rank presses
up at the brown animal breast of law
defy
ing government by horses.
And after the quick night-flurry, the few jailed,
the march stampeded, the meeting stopped, go down
night-streets to unique rooms where horror ends,
strike-songs are sung and the old songs remain.
Vaguely Ilonka draws her violin
along to Bach, greatest of trees, whereunder
earth is again familiar, grandmother,
and very god-music branches overhead.
Changeable spirit! build a newer music
rich enough to feed starvation on.
Course down the night, past scenes of horror, among
children awake, lands ruined, begging men.
Rebel against torment,
boats gone, night-battles, the sleepers up and shaking,
fear in the streets
cruelty on awaking.
Make music out of night will change the night.
DRIVEWAY
Speeding from city, feeling day
grimmer and more opaque,
a thousand times more Death than night
here on the pebbled roads, bled of all light and kind,
hastening darkness to the impatient mind,
we shook off nights our fever watched the street,
besieged by laughter from the outer room,
heard the pang, pang of bells bury our hope
for private warmth or time or bed or house
free from the failure public in that place.
Here was to be moment of proof, if any
conspiracy of night and speed and river
could lift us whole from danger, and make real
the veiny tree, the gleaming parallel
of railroad tracks and water, using our trespass well
to heal all breaches, prove our hope's disease
curable by annealing, bandage night,
blank out the city's bricked-up doors, the glare
of the night-watchman's ray, No Trespassing,
Don't Walk Here, Stay At Your Window, Keep On Looking.
Reaching the full-grown field, danger slowed down,
darkness enlarged around the blind, parked car.
No need to look; the brilliant fatal skim
of light swung over the acre, striking the night-proof dead,
the Caretaker's flashlight sending his shadow up ahead.
LOVER AS FOX
Driven, at midnight, to growth, the city's wistful turnings
lead you living on islands to some dark single house
where vacant windows mark increased pursuit,
chasing the runner outward beyond bounds
around the wildest circle of the night.
Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser Page 16