Collected Poems Read Online Free

1982
 [1982]
    Monolithos means single stone, and refers to the small hill behind our house which gave the place we lived its name. It is the tip of a non-igneous stone island buried in debris when most of Thíra blew apart 3,500 years ago.
    —J.G.

ONE—1962
BETWEEN POEMS
    A lady asked me
    what poets do
    between poems.
    Between passions
    and visions. I said
    that between poems
    I provided for death.
    She meant as to jobs
    and commonly.
    Commonly, I provide
    against my death,
    which comes on.
    And give thanks
    for the women I have
    been privileged to
    in extreme.
THE PLUNDERING OF CIRCE
    Circe had no pleasure in pigs.
    Pigs, wolves, nor fawning
    lions. She sang in our language
    and, beautiful, waited for quality.
    Every month they came
    struggling up from the cove.
    The great sea-light behind them.
    Each time maybe a world.
    Season after season.
    Dinner after dinner.
    And always at the first measures
    of lust became themselves.
    Odysseus? A known liar.
    A resort darling. Untouchable.
ISLANDS AND FIGS
    The sky
    on and on,
    stone.
    The Mediterranean
    down the cliff,
    stone.
    These fields,
    rock.
    Dead weeds
    everywhere.
    And the weight
    of sun.
    In the weeds
    an old woman
    lifting off
    snails.
    Near
    two trees
    of ripe figs.
    The heart
    never fits
    the journey.
    Always
    one ends
    first.
POETRY IS A KIND OF LYING
    Poetry is a kind of lying,
    necessarily. To profit the poet
    or beauty. But also in
    that truth may be told only so.
    Those who, admirably, refuse
    to falsify (as those who will not
    risk pretensions) are excluded
    from saying even so much.
    Degas said he didn’t paint
    what he saw, but what
    would enable them to see
    the thing he had.
FOR EXAMPLE
    For example, that fragment of entablature
    in the Museo delle Terme. It continues
    giant forever. Without seasons.
    Ambergris of the Latin whale.
    For years he dealt with it, month by month
    in his white room above Perugia
    while thousands of swifts turned
    in the structures of sun with a sound like glass.
    Strained to accommodate it
    in the empty streets of Rome. Singing
    according to whether bells preempted the dark
    or rain ordered the earth. And even now,
    like Kurtz, he crawls toward the lethal merit.
THE SIRENS AGAIN
    What are we to do about loveliness? We get past
    that singing early and reach an honest severity.
    We all were part of the Children’s Crusade: trusted,
    were sold bad boats, and went under. But we still
    dream of the voices. Not to go back. Thinking
    to go on even into the confusion of pleasure.
    We hear them carol at night and do not mind the lies,
    intending to come on those women from inland.
ALBA
    After a summer with happy people,
    I rush back, scared, gulping
    down pain wherever I can get it.
OSTINATO RIGORE
    As slowly as possible, I said,
    and we went into paradise.
    Rushes alternate with floating islands
    of tomatoes. Stretches of lily pads
    and then lotus. The kingfishers
    flash and go into the lake,
    making a sound in the silence.
    After, I can hear her breathing.
    The Japanese built gardens eight
    hundred years ago as a picture
    of the Pure Land, because people
    could not imagine a happy life.
    My friend lives on the Delaware River
    and fashions Eden out of burned
    buildings that were the Automats
    of his youth in New York.
    Another designs a country
    with justice for everyone.
    I know a woman who makes heaven
    out of her body. I lie in the smell
    of water, with the sun going down,
    trying to figure out this painful
    model I have carpentered together.
A BIRD SINGS TO ESTABLISH FRONTIERS
    Perhaps if we could begin some definite way.
    At a country inn of the old Russian novels,
    maybe. A contrived place to establish manner.
    With roles of traditional limit for distance.
    I might be going back, and there would be a pause.
    Late at night, while they changed the horses on your sled.
    Or prepared my room. An occasion to begin.
    Though not on false terms. I am not looking for love.
    I have what I can manage, and too many claims.
    Just a formal