Back from the sea. If you would know my state of mind, read these two poems:
MY MERMAID
—Kenneth Fearing
My darling spurns the tea cup's waves.
Terrac'd on tiptoe to watch her swim.
Valiantly she dives to the dark naves
That shadows build on floors of sea.
There around the oval moon
Of a monstrous silver spoon
Wander the lonely whales of tea.
My mermaid! These lagoons are rife
With both mirage and disenchantment...
She goes down to find the dim
Scorpion at the heart of life,
Glowing from a coral dungeon.
But, in the cosmos of the cup,
The moon stirs round! and she darts up,
Fearfully gains the tea cup's brim,
Dances in sunlight on the rim.
______________________
ESCAPE
—Kenneth Fearing
Acid for the whorls of the fingertips; for the face, a surgeon's
knife, oblivion to the name;
Eyes, hands, color of hair, conditiion of teeth, habits, haunts,
the subject's health;
Wanted or not, guilty or not guilty, dead or alive, did you see this man
Walk in a cerain distinctive way through the public streets or the best hotels,
Turn and go,
Escape from collectors, salesmen, process-servers, thugs; from
the landlord's voice or a shake of the head; leave an afternoon beer;
go from an evening cigar in a well known scene,
Walk, run, slip from the earth into less than air?—
Gone from the teletype, five-feet ten; lost from the headlines,
middle-aged, gray, posed as a gentleman;
A drawling voice in a blue serge suit, fled from the radio, forehead scarred.
Tear up the letters and bury the clothes, throw away the keys,
file the number from the gun, burn the record of birth,
smash the name from the tomb, bathe the fingers in acid,
wrap the bones in lime,
Forget the street, the house, the name, the day;
But something must be saved from the rise and fall of the copper's club;
something must be kept from the auctioneer's hammer; something must be
guarded from the rats and the fire on the city dump;
Something, for warmth through the long night of death;
something to be saved from the last parade through
granite halls and go, go free, arise with the voice that pleads not guilty,
Go with the verdict that ascends forever beyond steelbarred
windows into blue, deep space,
Guilty of vagrancy, larceny, sedition, assault,
Tried, convicted, sentenced, paroled, imprisoned, released,
haunted, seized,
Under what name and last seen where? And in what disguise
did the soiled, fingerprinted, bruised, secondhand,
worn-down, scarred, familiar disguise escape?
No name, any name, nowhere, nothing, no one, none.
__________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.