The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley
Page 4
didn’t want to move.
.
Kid’s face, lifting
big yellow speed boat
with proper gas motor
out of pool after
it’s conked out, all
the other kids around,
watching him. He’s in
some sad defensive place
now. It’s still his.
.
Lots of older
women here talking
to younger women.
Now one, by herself,
pregnant, walks by.
Her legs look thin from the back.
.
This park is really used.
It’s got bare ground
like in Boston.
.
Can see tennis players,
with roller skaters behind them.
“One world.”
.
Trees dancing now.
They dig it.
.
And you can’t
be alone for long.
4/19
Hong Kong—Last Words
I want to get off
the fucking world and
sit down in a chair,
and be there.
4/21
Tokyo, Japan
Things to Do in Tokyo
FOR TED BERRIGAN
Wake up.
Go to sleep.
Sit zazen five days
in five minutes.
Talk
to the beauty next to me
on plane, go-
ing to San Francisco.
Think it’s all a dream.
Return
“passport, wallet and ticket”
to man I’d taken them from.
No mistakes.
This time.
Remember mother
ashed in an instant.
No tears.
No way, other than this one.
Wander. Sing
songs from memory. Tell
classical Chinese poet
Bob Dylan’s the same.
Sit again in air.
Be American.
Love. Eat
Unspeakable Chicken—
“old in vain.”
Lettuce, tomato—
bread. Be humble.
Think again.
Remy Martin is
Pete Martin’s brother?
Drink. Think
of meeting Richard Brautigan,
and brandy, years ago.
(All the wonder,
all the splendor,
of Ezra Pound!)
Don’t be dismayed,
don’t be cheap.
No Hong Kong,
no nothing.
Be on the way
to the way
to the way.
Every day’s happy,
sad. “That’s the way”
to think. Love
people, all over.
Begin at the beginning,
find the end.
Remember everything,
forget it. Go on,
and on. Find ecstasy,
forget it.
Eat chicken entirely,
recall absent friends.
Love wife
by yourself, love
women, men,
children.
Drink, eat
“and be merry.” Sleep
when you can. Dogs
possibly human?—
not cats or birds.
Let all openings be openings.
Simple holes.
Virtue is people,
mind’s eye in trees,
sky above,
below’s water, earth.
Keep the beat
Confucian—“who
controls.” Think man’s
possibly beauty’s brother,
or husband.
No matter, no mind.
It’s here, it’s around.
Sing
deliberately.
Love all relations,
be father to daughters,
sons. Respect
wife’s previous residence
in Tokyo, stories
she told. All time,
all mind, all
worlds,
can’t exist
by definition—
are one.
.
The Winner
I’m going to beat
everything I can.
.
American Love
A big-assed
beauty!
.
Memory
A fresh
sea breeze.
.
The
[Thinking of L.Z., “That one could, etc.”]
A’s
4/21
Kyoto
Inn / Kyoto
Suddenly here,
let down, into room,
as if bare—
tea,
and packaged small cake,
food also for thought—
squat
on bottom, floor,
feel heavy—
but sure of place,
in place.
Where time’s been,
years, a humor
can’t
be absent.
So woman, my age,
who’s led me
through corridor,
slides door open,
comes into room again,
laughs
at misunderstanding.
“The bath
tonight?” No,
tomorrow
night. “Eat
Japanese
in the morning?”
Eat–
in the morning.
4/23
For Benny
Kids of Kyoto
visible through split
bamboo screen—
across canal
to street. One lifts
her skirt, blue,
to reveal red underpants
her friend
then examines.
It’s a small world,
these subtle
wooden houses,
sliding screens,
mats on floor,
water running
so often within hearing—
all that, and the
keeper of this tiny inn,
a woman, laughs,
thank god, as I crash
from wall to wall.
I’m sitting here,
having seen six
temples this morning,
wondering if I lack
religion. Old man
now passes,
shaved head, grey clothes,
and a woman stops
to look in her purse.
It’s just about
four o’clock—
it’s grey, shifting clouds,
no rain as yet.
I like it, and I’m happy
to sleep on the floor,
which I do, like a log.
It’s truly time
to study the water,
passing, each specific
ripple, flicker
of light—take
everything I know
and put it out there,
where it’s got to go.
4/24
Later
Drunks leaning on your arm,
and the endless drinking
in Japan, and going
to Osaka—
“where the men chew tobacker
and the women wiggy-
waggy-woo . . .”
.
No way
today.
.
Cheap Thrill
Write in air
with flourishes.
4/25
Sapporo
Women
I’ll always
look that way
to see
where I’m going.
4/27
Seoul, Korea
Seoul Sounds
FOR ENGLISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF KOREA
Weird, flat seeming—
tho’ mountains surround—
old Seoul!
And they’s got
soul-food
and soul-folk, these
instant Irish.
Syncretic,
someone said, when
I’d asked, was there
Confucian true root?
Much mixed in,
thus, but tough,
hold to it,
push back.
Sentimental,
like Americans—
cry and laugh!
Once in, confusions
grow less,
though day’s grey
and I’m stretched,
got to talk
in an hour.
But here
in this room, there’s
a peace, and some hope
I can say it,
make words sing
human truth:
If one’s still
of many,
then one’s not alone—
If one lives
with people,
then one has a home.
.
Place
FOR MARIA
Let’s take
any
of the information of
this world and
make a picture,
dig. The
fact of things,
you know, the
edges, pieces
of so-called
reality, will doubtless
surface. So
surfaces— abstract
initial e-
vent—are—
god knows, god
possibly cares, and
now some other
“thing” is
the case, viz., “I
love you,” now
I’m here.
4/29
Maria Speaks
Still morning
again. “Mendel’s
successor”—the
Zen brother
next door
who kept
insects in
a jar—perfected
listening
to things
“spreading their legs,”
“fish tanks filled with bugs.”
.
Kids / Seoul
Watching incredible kids
cross street, against traffic,
pushing a bike—
little girl leads, hand
on the handlebars—
heart’s so content
to be pleased,
to find joy,
like they say,
can be simple.
.
Talk
Talking Ginsbergian
chop-talk’s
a pleasure—see
person, find face
right over middle.
Look down for shoes,
legs just above.
Something to look at,
and something to love!
4/30
Taegu
There
Miles back
in the wake,
days faded—
nights sleep seemed
falling down
into some deadness—
killing it,
thinking dullness,
thinking body
was dying.
Then
you changed it.
.
Clock
How to live
with some plan
puts the days
into emptiness,
fills time
with time?
.
Not much
left to go on—
it’s moving
out.
.
Gifts
Giving me things,
weights accumulate.
I wish
you wouldn’t—
I wish we
could eat
somewhere,
drink.
.
Friend
“Father’s dead,”
feel flutter,
wings, trying
to beat the dark.
.
Going Home
You’ll love me
later, after
you’ve tried
everything else
and got tired.
But body’s
catching up,
time’s lost
as possibility.
Mind’s no longer
a way
tonight.
5/1
Seoul
Korean slang
for Americans:
“hellos”
.
9:45 AM
Sitting in plane still
in airport, bright
tight sunlight
thru window, guy
sitting in seat alongside,
Japanese, flips pages
of white book. In the aisle
people wander, looking for seats.
.
Nobody here to love
enough to want to.
.
American chichi traveler
just flashed past, her
long brown hair wide open!
.
Catches pillow
flipped to her—
In charge.
.
Probable Truth
It’s best
to die
when you can.
Tokyo
Place
Long gone time—
waves still crash in?
Fall coming on?
.
Shifting head to
make transition, rapid
mind to think it.
.
Halfway to wherever,
places, things
I used to do.
.
Out Here
People having a good time
in the duty-free shop,
Tokyo Airport—
can you knock it. Recall
Irving Layton’s classic line
re his mother: “her face
was flushed with bargains, etc.”
Can’t finally think
the world is good guys
and bad guys, tho’ these creeps
drive me back into this
corner of the bar—but I’d
choose it anyhow, sit,
hoping for company. A few
minutes ago I was thinking:
“Fuck me, Ruby, right
between the eyes!”
Not any more, it’s later,
and is going to get later yet
’fore I get on plane, go home,
go somewhere else at least.
It’s raining, outside, in
this interjurisdictional headquarters.
I’m spooked, tired, and approaching
my fiftieth birthday. Appropriately
I feel happy, and sad,
at the same time. I think of
Peter Warshall’s amulet I’ve worn
round my neck for two months now—
turtle, with blue bead cosmos—
that’s enough. Nancy Whitefield’s
childhood St. Christopher’s medal
has stayed safe in the little box
wherein I keep fingernail clippers,
and a collar button, and several
small stones I picked up on a beach.
People still around but
they’re fading out now to
get another plane. Hostess,
picking up her several fried chicken
quick lunches, smiles at me,
going past. Guy with spoonbill
blue cap and apparently
; American bicentennial mottoes
on front of it, orders a San Miguel
beer. Now he knocks on glass door,
adjacent, I guess his wife’s on
the other side. Days, days
and nights, and more of same—
and who wins, loses, never
that simple to figure out.
I’ll be a long way away
when you read this—and I won’t
remember what I said.
.
Dear
You’re getting fat,
dear.
.
Then
Put yourself where you’ll be
in five hours
and look back
and see if you’d do the same
the way you’re doing it
all the time.
.
That’s not easy
to think about.
.
It was
once.
.
Which Is to Say
You could do everything
you could do.
.
Killing time
by not looking
by killing time.
.
Jaws
See one more person
chewing something
I’ll eat them both.
.
Kid’s giggling
obbligato.
.
No one’s going
anywhere.
.
Epic
Save some room
for my epic.
.
Absence makes
a hole.
.
Any story
begins somewhere
and any other story
begins somewhere else.
.
Here
Since I can’t
kill anyone,
I’d better
sit still.
.
She’s Back!
Styles of drinking, the cool
hand extended, the woman
with the one leg crossed,
sticking out. Now the handsome
one walks off, business
completed. Time to go.
.
If you could look
as good as you could
look, you surely would.
.
Eyes
Tall
dark
woman
with
black, wide,