Approaches to How They Behave

What does it matter if the words

I choose, in the order I choose them in,

Go out into a silence I know

Nothing about, there to be let

In and entertained and charmed

Out of their master’s orders? And yet

I would like to see where they go

And how without me they behave.

Speaking is difficult and one tries

To be exact and yet not to

Exact the prime intention to death.

On the other hand the appearance of things

Must not be made to mean another

Thing. It is a kind of triumph

To see them and to put them down

As what they are. The inadequacy

Of the living, animal language drives

Us all to metaphor and an attempt

To organize the spaces we think

We have made occur between the words.

The bad word and the bad word and

The word which glamours me with some

Quick face it pulls to make me let

It leave me to go across

In roughly your direction, hates

To go out maybe so completely

On another silence not its own.

Before I know it they are out

Afloat in the head which freezes them.

Then I suppose I take the best

Away and leave the others arranged

Like floating bergs to sink a convoy.

One word says to its mate O

I do not think we go together

Are we doing any good here

Why do we find ourselves put down?

The mate pleased to be spoken to

Looks up from the line below

And says well that doubtful god

Who has us here is far from sure

How we on our own tickle the chin

Of the prince or the dame that lets us in.

The dark companion is a star

Very present like a dark poem

Far and unreadable just out

At the edge of this poem floating.

It is not more or less a dark

Companion poem to the poem.

Language is expensive if

We want to strut, busked out

Showing our best on silence.

Good Morning. That is a bonny doing

Of verbs you wear with the celandine

Catching the same sun as mine.

You wear your dress like a prince but

A country’s prince beyond my ken.

Through the chinks in your lyric coat

My ear catches a royal glimpse

Of fuzzed flesh, unworded body.

Was there something you wanted to say?

I myself dress up in what I can

Afford on the broadway. Underneath

My overcoat of the time’s slang

I am fashionable enough wearing

The grave-clothes of my generous masters.

And what are you supposed to say

I asked a new word but it kept mum.

I had secretly admired always

What I thought it was here for.

But I was wrong when I looked it up

Between the painted boards. It said

Something it was never very likely

I could fit in to a poem in my life.

The good word said I am not pressed

For time. I have all the foxglove day

And all my user’s days to give

You my attention. Shines the red

Fox in the digitalis grove.

Choose me choose me. Guess which

Word I am here calling myself

The best. If you can’t fit me in

To lying down here among the fox

Glove towers of the moment, say

I am yours the more you use me. Tomorrow

Same place same time give me a ring.

Backwards the poem’s just as good.

We human angels as we read

Read back as we gobble the words up.

Allowing the poem to represent

A recognizable landscape

Sprouting green up or letting green

With all its weight of love hang

To gravity’s sweet affection,

Arse-versa it is the same object,

Even although the last word seems

To have sung first, or the breakfast lark

Sings up from the bottom of the sea.

The poem is not a string of knots

Tied for a meaning of another time

And county, unreadable, found

By chance. The poem is not a henge

Or Easter Island emerged Longnose

Or a tally used by early unknown

Peoples. The words we breathe and puff

Are our utensils down the dream

Into the manhole. Replace the cover.

The words are mine. The thoughts are all

Yours as they occur behind

The bat of your vast unseen eyes.

These words are as you see them put

Down on the dead-still page. They have

No ability above their station.

Their station on silence is exact.

What you do with them is nobody’s business.

Running across the language lightly

This morning in the hangingover

Whistling light from the window, I

Was tripped and caught into the whole

Formal scheme which Art is.

I had only meant to enjoy

Dallying between the imaginary

And imaginary’s opposite

With a thought or two up my sleeve.

Is the word? Yes Yes. But I hear

A sound without words from another

Person I can’t see at my elbow.

A sigh to be proud of. You? Me?

Having to construct the silence first

To speak out on I realize

The silence even itself floats

At my ear-side with a character

I have not met before. Hello

Hello I shout but that silence

Floats steady, will not be marked

By an off-hand shout. For some reason

It refuses to be broken now

By what I thought was worth saying.

If I wait a while, if I look out

At the heavy greedy rooks on the wall

It will disperse. Now I construct

A new silence I hope to break.

Source: Selected Poems (Ecco Press, 1980)