of everything, and something
I have to let go
and that’s me, here and now.
But before leaving, may I say
that you are a great artist
whatever that turns out to be,
and art is art because of you.
I Love You
I see you, Aunt Bernice—
and your smile anticipating reality.
I don’t care any longer that you’re older.
There are times all the time the same.
I’m a young old man here on earth,
sticks, dust, rain, trees, people.
Your cat killing rats in Florida was incredible—
Pete— weird, sweet presence. Strong.
You were good to me. You had wit—
value beyond all other human possibility.
You could smile at the kids, the old cars.
Your house in N.H. was lovely.
Four Years Later
When my mother
died, her things were
distributed
so quickly. Nothing
harsh about it,
just gone,
it seemed, but
for small
mementos, pictures
of family, dresses,
a sweater,
clock.
Looking back
now, wish
I’d talked
more to her.
I tried
in the hospital
but our habit
was too deep—
we didn’t
speak easily.
Sitting
now, here,
early morning,
by myself,
can hear her—
as, “Bob,
do what you have to—
I trust you—”
words like
“presumption,” possibly
“discretion”—some
insistent demand to
cover living
with clothes—not
“dressed up” but
common, faithful—
what no other can know.
Heaven
If life were easy
and it all worked out,
what would this sadness
be about.
If it was happy
day after day,
what would happen
anyway.
Neighbors
Small horses on windowsill
adjacent, ’cross street,
kid’s apparent
window, three point
one way, one
another, to face
babydoll, sits there,
with curtains drawn.
Everyone’s gone.
July: Fargo Street
Bangs in street.
Fourth’s here again,
200th yet,
useless as ever,
’cept for energies
of kids, and the
respite from work
for all these
surrounding neighbors.
Thinking of Yeats
Break down
“innocence”—
tell truth,
be small
in world’s
wilderness.
P—
Swim
on her
as in
an ocean.
.
Think out
of it—
be here.
.
Hair’s
all around,
floats
in flesh.
.
Eyes’
measure,
mouth’s small
discretion.
Smiles.
.
Long warmth,
speaks
too.
.
Couldn’t
do it
better.
.
Can walk
along.
Blue Skies Motel
Look at
that motherfucking smokestack
pointing
straight up.
See those clouds,
old-time fleecy pillows,
like they say, whites and greys,
float by.
There’s cars
on the street,
there’s a swimming pool
out front—
and the trees
go yellow
now
it’s the fall.
Riddle
What’d you throw it on the floor for?
Who the hell you think you are
come in here
push me around.
For Pen
Thinking out
of the heart—
it’s up,
it’s down . . .
It’s that time
of day light
echoes the sun
setting west
over mountains.
I want to come home.
Ciano’s
Walking
off street
into Ciano’s—
last sun
yellow
through door.
The bar
an oval, people—
behind is
pool table.
Sitting
and thinking.
Dreaming
again
of blue eyes,
actually green—
whose head’s
red, mouth’s
round, soft
sounds—
whose waist is
an arrow
points down
to earth.
Train Going By
FOR ROSALIE SORRELS
When I was a kid
I wanted to get educated
and to college go
to learn how to know.
Now old I’ve found
train going by
will take me along
but I still don’t know why.
Not just for money
not for love
not for anything thought
for nothing I’ve done—
it’s got to be luck
keeps the world going round
myself moving on
on that train going by.
For Pen
Last day of year,
sky’s a light
open grey, blue
spaces appear
in lateral tiers.
Snow’s fallen,
will again. Morning
sounds hum, inside,
outside, roosters squawk,
dog barks, birds squeak.
—“Be happy with me.”
Loner
Sounds, crank
of kid’s cart’s axle
on street, one
floor down.
Heat’s thick,
sun’s bright
in window still
early morning,
May, fifty-first
birthday. What
time will the
car be done, time—
ready? Sits opposite,
love, in red wrapper,
sheen of silk,
sideways, hair, hands,
breasts, young
flight of fancy,
long fingers, here
in a way
wants the dream back,
keeps walking.
B.B.
What’s gone,
bugger all—
nothing lost
in mind till
it’s all
forgotten.
Morning
Light’s bright glimmer,
through green bottle
on shelf
above. Light’s white
fair air,
shimmer,
blue summer’s
come.
; Thanks
Here’s to Eddie—
not unsteady
when drunk,
just thoughtful.
Here’s to his mind
can remember
in the blur
his own forgotten line.
Or, too, lest
forgot, him in the traffic
at Cambridge, outside,
lurching, confident.
He told me later,
“I’m Catholic,
I’m queer,
I’m a poet.”
God bless him,
God love him,
I say,
praise him
who saves you time,
saves you money,
takes on the burden
of your own confessions.
And my thanks again
for the cigarettes
he gave me
someone else had left.
I won’t escape
his conversation
but will listen
as I’ve learned to,
and drink
and think again
with this dear man
of the true, the good, the dead.
Theresa’s Friends
From the outset
charmed by the soft, quick speech
of those men and women,
Theresa’s friends—and the church
she went to, the “other,”
not the white plain Baptist
I tried to learn God in.
Or, later, in Boston the legend
of “being Irish,” the lore, the magic,
the violence, the comfortable
or uncomfortable drunkenness.
But most, that endlessly present talking,
as Mr. Connealy’s, the ironmonger,
sat so patient in Cronin’s Bar,
and told me sad, emotional stories
with the quiet air of an elder
does talk to a younger man.
Then, when at last I was twenty-one,
my mother finally told me
indeed the name Creeley was Irish—
and the heavens opened, birds sang,
and the trees and the ladies spoke
with wondrous voices. The power of the glory
of poetry—was at last mine.
Later
1
Shan’t be winding
back in blue
gone time ridiculous,
nor lonely
anymore. Gone,
gone— wee thin
delights, hands
held me, mouths
winked with white
clean teeth. Those
clothes have fluttered
their last regard
to this passing
person walks by
that flat back-
yard once and for all.
2
You won’t want to be early
for passage of grey mist
now rising from the faint
river alongside the childhood
fields. School bell rings,
to bring you all in again.
That’s mother sitting there,
a father dead in heaven,
a dog barks, steam of
drying mittens on the stove,
blue hands, two doughnuts
on a plate.
3
The small
spaces of existence,
sudden
smell of burning
leaves makes
place in time
these days
(these days)
passing,
common
to one
and all.
4
Opening
the boxes packed
in the shed,
at the edge
of the porch
was to be
place to sit
in the sun,
glassed over,
in the winter
for looking out
to the west,
see the shadows
in the early
morning lengthen,
sharp cold
dryness of air,
sounds of cars,
dogs, neighbors,
persons
of house, toilet
flush, pan
rattle, door
open, never done.
5
Eloquent,
my heart,
thump bump—
My Funny Valentine
6
If you saw
dog pass, in car—
looking out, possibly
indifferently, at you—
would you—could you—
shout, “Hey, Spot!
It’s me!” After all
these years,
no dog’s coming home
again. Its skin’s
moldered
through rain, dirt,
to dust, hair alone
survives, matted tangle.
Your own, changed,
your hair, greyed,
your voice not the one
used to call him home,
“Hey Spot!” The world’s
greatest dog’s got
lost in the world,
got lost long ago.
7
Oh sadness,
boring
preoccupation—
rain’s wet,
clouds
pass.
8
Nothing “late” about the
“no place to go” old folks—
or “hell,” or
“Florida this winter.”
No “past” to be
inspired by “futures,”
scales of the imperium,
wonders of what’s next.
When I was a kid, I
thought like a kid—
I was a kid,
you dig it. But
a hundred and fifty years later,
that’s a whole long time to
wait for the train.
No doubt West Acton
was improved by the discontinuance
of service, the depot taken down,
the hangers-around there moved
at least back a street to Mac’s Garage.
And you’ll have to drive your own car
to get to Boston—or take the bus.
These days, call it “last Tuesday,”
1887, my mother was born,
and now, sad to say,
she’s dead. And especially “you”
can’t argue
with the facts.
9
Sitting up here in
newly constituted
attic room ’mid
pipes, scarred walls,
the battered window
adjacent looks out
to street below. It’s fall,
sign woven in iron
rails of neighbor’s porch:
“Elect Pat Sole.”
O sole mio, mother,
thinking of old attic,
West Acton farmhouse,
same treasures here, the boxes,
old carpets, the smell.
On wall facing, in chalk:
KISS ME. I love you.
Small world of these pinnacles,
places ride up in these
houses like clouds,
and I’ve come as far,
as high, as I’ll go.
Sweet weather,
turn now of year . . .
The old horse chestnut,
with trunk a stalk like a flower’s,
gathers strength to face winter.
The spiked pods of its seeds
start to split, soon will drop.
The patience, of small lawns, small hedges,
papers blown by the wind,
the light fading, gives way
to the season. School�
��s
started again. Footsteps fall
on sidewalk down three
stories. It’s man-made
endurance I’m after,
it’s love for the wear
and the tear here,
goes under, gets broken, but stays.
Where finally else
in the world come to rest—
by a brook, by a
view with a farm
like a dream—in
a forest? In a house
has walls all around it?
There’s more always here
than just me, in this room,
this attic, apartment,
this house, this world,
can’t escape.
10
In testament
to a willingness
to live, I,
Robert Creeley,
being of sound body
and mind, admit
to other preoccupations—
with the future, with
the past. But now—
but now the wonder of life is
that it is at all,
this sticky sentimental
warm enclosure,
feels place in the physical
with others,
lets mind wander
to wondering thought,
then lets go of itself,
finds a home
on earth.
—400 Fargo
Buffalo, N.Y.
Sept. 3rd–13th, 1977—
For Rene Ricard
Remote control factors
of existence, like
“I wanted it this way!”
And hence to Lenox
one summer’s day
with old friend, Warren Tallman,
past charming hills
and valleys give class
to that part of western Mass.
I can get funny—
and I can get lost,
go wandering on,
with friends like signboards
flashing past
in those dark nights of the soul.
All one world, Rene,
no matter one’s half
of all it is or was.
So walking with you and Pepi,
talking, gossiping,
thank god—the useful news—
what’s presently the word
of X, Y, and Z
in NYC, the breezes
on the hill, by the orchard
where Neil sits under tree,
blow the words away,
while he watches me talk,
mouth poems for them,
though he can’t hear a word.
This is art,
the public act
that all those dirt roads lead to,
all those fucking bogs
and blown-out tires
and broken fan belts—
willed decision—
call it,
though one’s too dumb to know.
For me—and possibly
for only me—a bird
The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley Page 7