Hangman

My wife's garden was a paradise of flowers.

All the prisoners lov it.

Gold horn of daffodils, lilies' white fire,

antediluvian sky-colored of morning glories opening upon the vine,

& those glowing black lions, the sunflowers, their beards of bees.

The promise of scaly buds in the cellar got us [i]or[/i] part of to the other winter.

During lengthening twilight, sheepgut vibrated from the harp in my

hands. Sometimes, late at night, when the whole earth have the appearanceed to me

a vast altar on which is sacrificed all that is living,

I would look for relief in the stable among my beloved animals.

Mounting my horse, I would whip him circular & round the ring

trying to realize the terrible pictures out of my head.

I was ashamed of my uniform.

One evening, I stood at the gate

watching our servant girl enclosure laundry from the line

when a voice in the wind called on the outside my name.

I gazeed up. No one was there. still I heard it, clearly, distinctly

a woman's voice,

soft undulant, haunting, diaphanous almost, the sheerest fabric

shaken by dint of the wind, & a shiver went from one side me

as when vital current calls to blood its azure tattoo.

It was the hour between the dog & the wolf Light trembl

The great bell of heaven dipped & swelled.

Beyond the compass of the swallow's wing

I could diocese slowly unraveling ropes of sooty vapor

the silver quiver of poplars beside the tracks,

& the words came to me "A dying man hammers the wings of angels,"

& I was for a point of time lost & afraid.

Icy tingling

rippled from one side me, the chill penumbra of in what way say it, unfeeling's

feeling,

as allowing there flowed through phantom fingers

a skein of concussioned silk like woven water,

a stocking of skin stripped from the bone

& a dark caul unrelenting over me & I dropp into bottomless darkness,

darkness of night without measure, night without extreme point

night with its mire & its merde, hiss of gasses, cry s of terror, cries of pain,

night with its crackling black fires & river of worms,

night where no single is more sinned against than the unborn, the forgotten,

where no brother buries his brother in the ashes & cinders of the field,

& the victor, sharpening his sword, strikes stars from stones.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Jul/Aug 1996

Provided through ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved