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Collecte Works

Page 5

by Lorine Niedecker


  NEXT YEAR OR I FLY MY ROUNDS TEMPESTUOU

  Wade all life / backward to its / source which / runs too far / ahead.

  The satisfactory / emphasis is on / revolving. / Don't send / steadily; after / you know me / I'll be no one.

  To give / heat is within / the control of / every human / being.

  If you circle / the habit of / your meaning, / it's fact and / no harm / done.

  Laymen / due to the stars / around 1910 and / erudition even / sat backwards / on diaphrams / kept for the / female so / long without / flowers.

  You will / arrange to / better me when / the pastry / comes and / cherries are / such double- / days.

  Her under- / standing of him / is more touch- / ing than intelli- / gent; he holds / her knees with- / out her knowing / how she's boned.

  I can always / go back to / fertilization, / kimonos, wrap- / arounds and / diatribes.

  For so long one / has seen nothing / to be really anxious / about—it's always / just a flower in / the buttonhole, / but insipid con- / nections count / for a day- / tomorrow is / the fairest.

  Don't worry / about the comma, / darling, nobody / ekes out a more / facile distend—/ bathroom / luxury.

  Dali's “Archeological / Reminiscence of / Millet's Angelus” / Strike a thrall. / Bring an ear- / drum up to a / laughing order / at spittle point. / For tipped aurals / and aluminum / casticulars.

  The trouble / is: this stirs / a real mean- / ing. / Humanity / is engaged—/ on equal burial.

  English Singers-/ They came in sing-/ ing and we/ not ut walking.

  The monster died / of his last breath, / ate a honey and / grew waxen.

  I talk at the top / of my white / resignment.

  What a / white muffler / in a dark coat / will do for a / dull man.

  Good deed, my / love. The ele- / ment of folk- / time. Nerves / are my past / monogamy, / said her arms / going farther. / Rock me out.

  Summer—/ I don't hum / the least of my / resistance, / I give it a fly.

  Sweet ears, / attentive, not / too loud to risk, / rest them in a / madrigal bal- / cony above / any purpose / for not.

  All night,/ all night,/ and what is / it on a post-/ card.

  Van Gogh's / “Bar”—/ In all free states / the selves un- / mix and walk / the table's / length.

  That's sweet / on a target—/ nobody'd know / the ham line. / Holes are too / late nowa- / days. One / freak ass to / wire.

  Balcony scene in / Romeo and Juliet—/ a white kerchief / comes into a / pocket shirred / onto a blue silk / gown. / Or from Row / L in the balcony?

  I like a / loved one to / be apt in / the wing.

  Sweet ekes / of soft drips—/ bathroom / luxuries.

  Transubstan- / tiation of acro- / bats, moon-eyes / and downward / mouth. Round- / acres intrude / a nose where / no listening / ever came. / Smooth out the / substance of your / acetylene worry.

  Jesus, I'm / going out / and throw / my arms / around.

  DOMESTIC AND UNAVOIDABLE

  Voices from dining room and hall off study. Voices of old man and old woman as their shadows pass back and forth with trays of food and drink, near entrance of study—their forms are reflected on wall of study. The curtain rises on a young man seated at desk in the study, busy with pencil, paper, ruler. The only light is shed from a reading lamp onto desk and leaving rest of room in comparative darkness. A confused murmur of voices of men and women from dining room soon becomes merely a suspicion of sound as of air in a tunnel or as a loud speaker of a radio turned on but not speaking—movement in stillness out of which the action of the words comes clear.

  Gentleman gentle— …. Miserly….

  Woman high— …. motion….

  Woman low— …. intensifies a goal….

  Gentleman loud— …. and a featherman's….

  Woman husky— …. hat.

  Old man— (with bottle and spoon) Take every hour when necessary; the complaint must be necessary several hours.

  Gentleman gentle— …. Ex—….

  Gentleman loud— …. collect….

  Woman high— …. in trinity….

  Woman low— …. and doubly the canticle….

  Woman husky— …. waste.

  Old man— They don't have a minister; they have a doctor.

  Woman husky— Oh, do you think we should indoctrinate at certain points?

  Gentleman loud— Well, one thing….

  Woman low— …. announces a fabricoid….

  Woman high— …. and another….

  Gentleman gentle— …. assembles a divinity.

  Gentleman loud— Downstairs I tender the right….

  Old woman— After dinner the women smoke and the men retire to the front room.

  Woman high— Some men, they say, entered the forest today; it was a bad omen; not long after a tree fell.

  Young man in study— Will they come in scarlet or in the month of the first canterbury bells?

  Woman low— Have you been….

  Woman high— …. to the bread-eaters' lately?

  Young man in study— Marigolds in stink-orange.

  Old woman— I suppose if they need stones she'll have to go along; they'll want time to pay for em.

  Young man— Always through windows a curtain about somebody else. (He gets up to look through curtains—whether door or window audience cannot tell.)

  Woman low— (Near) When I'm alone it's an open day. I clouded myself on him.

  Woman husky— But surely there is another who scenes passably?

  Woman low— (Nearer) Night that opens its puny residua unoccupied of sleep….

  Young man— (Now back at desk, looks up quickly at curtains, is silent.)

  (Even “sound” ceases. There is now and while young girl and man are to talk normal and absolute quiet. Girl's voice, for she is never seen, is intimate.)

  Young girl plain— Garden plans? I couldn't pre-arrange a garden. I'd hate to come upon a flower and find I'd put it there.

  Young man— Who are you?

  Young girl— O.S.R. Return.

  Young man— Only scientists have three initials and a last name.

  Young girl— My hand scratches seeds of whorfels.

  Young man— She's unconscious. It must be her strong will that does it.

  Young girl— And corners are precarious beasts. They put a wall of weeping between us, suffering, the technologic absolute.

  Young man— (Shifting in his chair) My dear, I have other affiliations. It's been penciled and ruled. My life is elsewhere.

  (Confused murmur begins off stage.)

  Young girl illumined— Oh, I shouldn't want you to be faithful to me alone.

  (Study light is off immediately. Servant's pantomimes again, definite.)

  Old man— (Puts his arm around the old woman) That's a very good mousetrap.

  Old Woman— How comes?

  (Confused murmur becomes “sound”. Light is turned on as if by someone unseen; no one there; light goes off again.)

  Gentleman gentle— Minockua….

  Woman high— ….the day is fattening….

  Gentleman loud— ….Brimble….

  Woman husky— …. the Brand….

  (Doors close, keys jingle.)

  Curtain.

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE HOLDING COMPANY

  PRESIDENT

  I will enforce it that after supper you speak about dusk.

  SECRETARY

  I have this concrete immolence

  VOICE OUTSIDE

  this messenger from the dead.

  PRESIDENT

  Have you looked up Sumatra's defence of cat-tails?

  SECRETARY

  Pardon sir, who gives you frantic worry when the rest of us boop on the stairs?

  PRESIDENT

  I consume it my dignity

  VOICE OUTSIDE

  to go straight to the devil

  PRESIDENT

  Stuff and retain him…I'll have him by the stem of his hat.


  SECRETARY

  O Matchbox, save him, he's the best timidity we have.

  PRESIDENT

  O why am I tired why haven't I

  a circumlocus of design

  someone to come in and say

  the pears smell ripe here . .

  But I'm bound to the fears of my weathers.

  Are you ready to release the evening?

  SECRETARY

  Maygo is waving his voice by the well.

  PRESIDENT

  Success like raisins comes first in the mouth.

  But who wants a mouthful of raisins?

  VOICES OUTSIDE

  Sylva Wergles was a worty witchwoo

  She lived by the side of a tree.

  She combed the worldside for pennies and peas

  And woo-ed a few sallies to sea.

  O my, said the counterfeit judge, By the boo

  You cost me a tendril and then a long shoot.

  Get thee from me and relate

  How frogs come out of a gate.

  SECRETARY

  It can't be commercial poetry.

  PRESIDENT

  I doubt its prowess. It lacks compulsion.

  VOICES OUTSIDE

  O sweet little Tilda's an open sale

  She comes from a baudy and lands in a gale.

  She tunes up the strings of her gay rig-a-roo

  And plays a high banner to how so come who.

  PRESIDENT

  The traffic is ended. The last star is a bonded issue.

  Sighing is extinct. I've gone to the morning entry.

  FANCY ANOTHER DAY GONE

  The glare from the brass horn makes sun-brown satin fit smoothly the girl by the window. Even the young man is straight and bright.

  SHE

  Please come. I want you to justify my landscape. (She looks out of the window and lights the late afternoon.)

  HE

  I love you magnificently. I've had every drop of blood from the moonstone put into a venture for you.

  SHE

  (takes his hands) It's a high hurt.

  HE

  The plight of the individual is our happy finale. (Both absorbed by the glow move out.)

  GRANDMOTHER

  (sidling the luminous flood) She picks and promises and castillates the dew. And he's a tin whistle substitute, works for the wonder constructor who eats and then expectorates when he wants to build a lake where a hill is.

  The family, entering, pales and points after tea-time.

  MOTHER

  Studying? Why so stupid, son.

  STUDY BOY

  (in khaki) They're putting us thru an elemental dog-trot in sargonic culture. We're now at the hammer and fan wheel stage,—star-falling comes next.

  MOTHER

  And this painting, daughter, that you hold so dear . .

  FATHER

  A silk contortion heavily blotched toward the centre.

  DAUGHTER

  He has issued also complaints in vast design.

  BLUE TIE SON

  The very devil of a good thought.

  GRANDMOTHER

  He ate a mushroom for breakfast. He can't be divine anymore.

  MOTHER

  He wears that kind of practitioner's overcoat . .

  BLUE TIE

  He repeatedly assumes his dais.

  FATHER

  All the same, I'd write him and ask what his inventions are.

  DAUGHTER

  He's done a great deal with words that look like pictures.

  FATHER

  I don't suppose a father ever cocktailed his hopes to that.

  (chorus by two small children skipping in and out):

  I don't suppose a man ever, no, I don't suppose a man ever.

  MOTHER

  What unbooked revelry . .

  GRANDMOTHER

  Today let us weep for tomorrow may be fraught with foolishness.

  MOTHER

  (pauses in front of daughter before going off completely) Darling, you've some bad laughter lines.

  DAUGHTER

  But facts are a mass of coercives.

  (Children dance in to tea-table and away.)

  GRANDMOTHER

  Not a raisin goes to cookie in this house but what they know it.

  STUDY BOY

  (The room grows an even, late daylight—Study boy takes his books nearer the window.) This map has a cherry expedition punctured by toothpicks to rescind a felled hatred. Wind me a furlough. I'm bound to need air.

  SLEEPY SON

  Feathering Heights—how they can dance up there.

  BLUE TIE

  And let their seams out in the wind…

  SLEEPY

  Sweet pillow, Madge. What exquisite tether and release.

  A little difficult, tho, to be a constant wind.

  STUDY BOY

  Oh you don't use the right weapons.

  (small children and Grandmother sing out):

  “Rings on your fingers,

  bells on your toes,”

  Tether your feathers,

  Tar all your foes . .

  DAUGHTER

  Flightful conceit….

  GRANDMOTHER

  Somnambule enchants a wiry daisy, curvets and comes back.

  STUDY BOY

  I prefer my women on paper.

  BLUE TIE

  (looking into cup) Concatenations streaking a bird with a tail-light.

  SLEEPY

  Hang your tea-cup relations.

  BLUE TIE

  (idling about the room, glances over father's shoulder at magazine) Literate man would like to hear from readers interested in talking about things that count.

  STUDY BOY

  What's a dismissed attavater?

  BLUE TIE

  It means the ease comes out of the sound.

  FATHER

  It's what is called imminent custody.

  (piano fortissimo from a nearby key)

  DAUGHTER

  Beethoven's ironworks. (The room is a strong dusk and the window steel-blue)

  (pianoworks)

  STUDY BOY

  Don't invert me. I wasn't so smelted in a long time.

  (Piano fades along with the family, the Octaves of Point Lessening.) Tomes at the window establish the smoke scene as the night of the mandolin query.

  HE

  Vertebrate lives spread the hour. On the instable count no face line ever vented approach.

  SHE

  Is the midnight capsule ready to gloat?

  HE

  It's only lachrymose and octo-even by the enervator on the tombstone. Fentry the watchman restored his eyesight on that.

  SHE

  These failings tie you up with home. For me it's just unknown distance.

  HE

  My dear, I care a great deal for the pear-shaped of the lute species.

  SHE

  It's hard to glutinize in leafless time.

  HE

  Who has unsettled you about this matter?

  SHE

  Oh—appetizers, upholders of the law . .

  HE

  Drizzlers in the sink.

  SHE

  My faint memory of viscera should be certainly viscarra.

  Let's rush the blood to some other point.

  HE

  I suppose it's profound to guess whether . .

  SHE

  (plucks the mandolin) Prayerful inebriate shelters his wings.

  HE

  (blows his cigarette smoke white in the dark) I shall never be able to enlarge my scope as I wish.

  SHE

  Have you been to the proper authorities?

  HE

  Don't be nemeebic.

  SHE

  I love you despite the coconut on your tie.

  HE

  Would you be traditional in buttering your bread?

  SHE

  Not if there were plums to placate the ardor.

  HE

  Then what are we waiting for?r />
  (Grandmother candles her hopes to an empty room, has them blown by the wind at the window, trudges the length of the night)

  News

  To wit, the lover said.

  As a young woman

  I saw that

  done

  no child

  no enlightenment.

  We approach the dignity

  of the ad.

  Or successfully maintain

  a humorous relation

  between the ayes

  and the nose

  (got to give the asses an eye)

  Faces slander

  O I see

  faces

  slander.

  Find body

  of ashamed man.

  Labor leader flogged to death,

  believed in destroying home, church

  and civilization, radio caster said,

  no right thinking people

  could deny it

  said

  People should know

  who the floggers are

  how the air mind

  gets a raise

  and the extravagant

  broadcast

  without mercy.

  The issue wouldn't have been brought up

  if your husband hadn't been killed.

  The police described him

  as an intelligent man.

  Lilies

  of the kind

  look she's right.

  The flag go hang

  in the war market

  to which the farmers

  of this country

  bring their products.

  Duck

  wobbler

  for all intentions.

  They separated

  not legally,

  the world has no notice.

  His old wife illegally starves

  his mother

  nothing left

  eats

  dies.

  You

  got food?

  I'd like to keep my hat and coat

  reasonably clean

  on the walk from New York

  to California gate unless I get work—

  will pay $10.

  My shoulder worn

  over and down Payroll Hill

  fashions mornings after.

  Raw wind, rain,

  one month going into another

 

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