Variations on a Theme by Joyce
The war is in words and the wood is the world
That turns beneath our rootless feet;
the vines that reach, alive and snarled,
Across the path where the sand is swirled,
Twist in the night. The light lies flat.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
The rain is ruin and our ruin rides
The swiftest winds; the wood is whorled
And turned and smoothed by the turning tides.
--There is rain in the woods, slow rain that breeds
The war in the words. The wood is the world.
This rain is ruin and our ruin rides.
The war is in words and the wood is the world,
Sourceless and seized and forever filled
With green vine twisting on wood more gnarled
Than dead men's hands. The vines are curled
Around these branches, crushed and killed.
The war is in words and the wood is the world.
poem by Weldon Kees
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The Climate Of Danger
The middle is the place to stand
If there can be one solid spot,
Undoubted, in that damaged land.
Two schools exist; one says there is
No region lacking hazard, pain,
And fear; the other mentions plains
Enclosed
For those
Wanting more than the perfumed rose.
On one hand, birds and trained baboons
Polish the atmosphere with words
Like slate, rasping and grey. Their moons
Are sterile as their eyes, dull marbles,
Damp and cavern-caught. And evenings
Spread through days of easy grief:
The fall
Of all
Grins from a shaky pedestal.
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poem by Weldon Kees
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The Party
The obscene hostess, mincing in the hall,
Gathers the guests around a crystal ball.
It is on the whole an exciting moment;
Mrs. Lefevre stares with her one good eye;
A friendly abdomen rubs against one’s back;
“Interesting,” a portly man is heard to sigh.
A somewhat unconvincing oriental leers
Redundantly; into the globe he peers,
Mutters a word or two and stands aside.
The glass grows cloudy with sulphorous fumes;
Beads rattle, latecomers giggle near the door.
A scene forms in the glass; silence invades the rooms.
The oriental glances up, conceals surprise
At such immediate success. Our eyes
Stare at the planes that fill the swelling globe,
Smoke-blue; blood, shelltorn faces. Suddenly a drum
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poem by Weldon Kees
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Robinson
The dog stops barking after Robinson has gone.
His act is over. The world is a gray world,
Not without violence, and he kicks under the grand piano,
The nightmare chase well under way.
The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall,
Reflects nothing at all. The glass is black.
Robinson alone provides the image Robinsonian.
Which is all of the room--walls, curtains,
Shelves, bed, the tinted photograph of Robinson's first wife,
Rugs, vases panatelas in a humidor.
They would fill the room if Robinson came in.
The pages in the books are blank,
The books that Robinson has read. That is his favorite chair,
Or where the chair would be if Robinson were here.
All day the phone rings. It could be Robinson
Calling. It never rings when he is here.
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poem by Weldon Kees
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A Musician's Wife
Between the visits to the shock ward
The doctors used to let you play
On the old upright Baldwin
Donated by a former patient
Who is said to be quite stable now.
And all day long you played Chopin,
Badly and hauntingly, when you weren't
Screaming on the porch that looked
Like an enormous birdcage. Or sat
In your room and stared out at the sky.
You never looked at me at all.
I used to walk down to where the bus stopped
Over the hill where the eucalyptus trees
Moved in the fog, and stared down
At the lights coming on, in the white rooms.
And always, when I came back to my sister's
I used to get out the records you made
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poem by Weldon Kees
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Interregnum
Butcher the evil millionaire, peasant,
And leave him stinking in the square.
Torture the chancellor. Leave the ambassador
Strung by his thumbs from the pleasant
Embassy wall, where the vines were.
Then drill your hogs and sons for another war.
Fire on the screaming crowd, ambassador,
Sick chancellor, brave millionaire,
And name them by the name that is your name.
Give privilege to the wound, and maim
The last resister. Poison the air
And mew for peace, for order, and for war.
View with alarm, participant, observer,
Buried in medals from the time before.
Whisper, then believe and serve and die
And drape fresh bunting on the hemisphere
From here to India. This is the world you buy
When the wind blows fresh for war.
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poem by Weldon Kees
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The Bell From Europe
The tower bell in the Tenth Street Church
Rang out nostalgia for the refugee
Who knew the source of bells by sound.
We liked it, but in ignorance.
One meets authorities on bells infrequently.
Europe alone made bells with such a tone,
Herr Mannheim said. The bell
Struck midnight, and it shook the room.
He had heard bells in Leipzig, Chartres, Berlin,
Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Rome.
He was a white-faced man with sad enormous eyes.
Reader, for me that bell marked nights
Of restless tossing in this narrow bed,
The quarrels, the slamming of a door,
The kind words, friends for drinks, the books we read,
Breakfasts with streets in rain.
It rang from europe all the time.
That was what Mannheim said.
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poem by Weldon Kees
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A Pastiche For Eve
Unmanageable as history: these
Followers of Tammuz to the land
That offered no return, where dust
Grew thick on every bolt and door. And so the world
Chilled, and the women wept, tore at their hair.
Yet, in the skies, a goddess governed Sirius, the Dog,
Who shines alike on mothers, lesbians, and whores.
What are we governed by? Dido and Carrie
Chapman Catt arrange themselves as statues near
The playground and the Tivoli. While warming up the beans,
Miss Sanders broods on the Rhamnusian, the whole earth worshipping
Her godhead. Later, vegetables in Athens.
Chaste in the dungeon, swooning with voluptuousness,
The Lady of the Castle weds pure Christ, the feudal groom.
Their bowels almost drove Swift mad. "Sad stem,
Sweet evil, stretching out a lion's jaws," wrote Marbode.
Now we cling together in our caves. That not impossible she
That rots and wrinkles in the sun, the shadow
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poem by Weldon Kees
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Dead March
Under the bunker, where the reek of kerosene
Prepared the marriage rite, leader and whore,
Imperfect kindling even in this wind, burn on.
Someone in uniform hums Brahms. Servants prepare
Eyewitness stories as the night comes down, as smoking coals await
Boots on the stone, the occupying troops. Howl ministers.
Deep in Kyffhauser Mountain's underground,
The Holy Roman Emperor snores on, in sleep enduring
Seven centuries. His long red beard
Grows through the table to the floor. He moves a little.
Far in the labyrinth, low thunder rumbles and dies out.
Twitch and lie still. Is Hitler now in the Himalayas?
We are in Cleveland, or Sioux Falls. The architecture
Seems like Omaha, the air pumped in from Düsseldorf.
Cold rain keeps dripping just outside the bars. The testicles
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poem by Weldon Kees
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Statement With Rhymes
Plurality is all. I walk among the restaurants,
the theatres, the grocery stores; I ride the cars
and hear of Mrs. Bedford’s teeth and Albuquerque,
strikes unsettled, someone’s simply marvelous date,
news of the German Jews, the baseball scores,
storetalk and whoretalk, talk of wars. I turn
the pages of a thousand books to read
the names of Buddha, Malthus, Walker Evans, Stendhal, André Gide,
Ouspenski; note the terms: obscurantism,
factorize, fagaceous, endocarp; descend
the nervous stairs to hear the broken ends
of songs that float through city air.
In Osnabrück and Ogden, on the Passamaquoddy Bay,
in Ahmednagar, Waco (Neb.), in Santa Fé,
propelled by zeros, zinc, and zephyrs, always I’m pursued
by thoughts of what I am, authority, remembrance, food,
the letter on the mezzanine, the unemployed, dogs’ lonely faces, pianos and decay.
Plurality is all. I sympathize, but cannot grieve
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poem by Weldon Kees
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