182 feet. . . Red sandstone, and a little shale
400 feet. . . Red sandstone, shaly
404 feet. . . Shale
430 feet. . . Red sandstone, fine grained
540 feet. . . Sandy shale, soft
565 feet. . . Soft shale
585 feet. . . Soft shale
600 feet. . . Hard sandstone
605 feet. . . Soft shale
609 feet. . . Soft shale
1,170 feet. . . Selenite, 2 x 1 x 1/16 in.
1,180 feet. . . Fine quicksand, reddish
1,180 feet. . . Pyrites
1,370 feet. . . Sandy rock, under quicksand
1,400 feet. . . Dark red sandstone
1,400 feet. . . Light red sandstone
1,415 feet. . . Dark red sandstone
1,415 feet. . . Light red sandstone
1,415 feet. . . Fragments of red sandstone
1,540 feet. . . Red sandstone, and a pebble of kaolin
1,700 feet. . . Light red sandstone
1,830 feet. . . Light red sandstone
1,830 feet. . . Light red sandstone
1,830 feet. . . Light red stone
2,000 feet. . . Red shale
2,020 feet. . . Light red sandstone
2,050 feet. . .
2,100 feet. . . Shaly sandstone
At this depth the attempt to bore through the red sandstone was abandoned, the water being altogether unfit for ordinary use…. The fact that the rock salt of England, and of some of the other salt mines of Europe, is found in rocks of the same age as this, raises the question whether it may not also be found here.
— to the teeth, to the very eyes
uh, uh
FULL STOP
—and leave the world
to darkness
and to
me
When the water has receded most things have lost their
form. They lean in the direction the current went. Mud
covers them
—fertile (?) mud.
If it were only fertile. Rather a sort of muck, a detritus,
in this case—a pustular scum, a decay, a choking
lifelessness—that leaves the soil clogged after it,
that glues the sandy bottom and blackens stones—so that
they have to be scoured three times when, because of
an attractive brokenness, we take them up for garden uses.
An acrid, a revolting stench comes out of them, almost one
might say a granular stench—fouls the mind .
How to begin to find a shape—to begin to begin again,
turning the inside out: to find one phrase that will
lie married beside another for delight . ?
—seems beyond attainment .
American poetry is a very easy subject to discuss for
the simple reason that it does not exist
Degraded. The leaf torn from
the calendar. All forgot. Give
it over to the woman, let her
begin again—with insects
and decay, decay and then insects :
the leaves—that were varnished
with sediment, fallen, the clutter
made piecemeal by decay, a
digestion takes place .
—of this, make it of this, this
this, this, this, this .
Where the dredge dumped the fill,
something, a white hop-clover
with cordy roots (of iron) gripped
the sand in its claws—and blossomed
massively, where the old farm
was and the man broke his wife’s
cancerous jaw because she was
too weak, too sick, that is, to
work in the field for him as he
thought she should .
So thinking, he composed
a song to her:
to entertain her
in her reading:
* * *
The birds in winter
and in summer the flowers
those are her two joys
—to cover her secret sorrow
Love is her sorrow
over which at heart
she cries for joy by the hour
—a secret she will not reveal
Her ohs are ahs
her ahs are ohs
and her sad joys
with the rose
—the edema subsides
Who is it spoke of April? Some
insane engineer. There is no recurrence.
The past is dead. Women are
legalists, they want to rescue
a framework of laws, a skeleton of
practices, a calcined reticulum
of the past which, bees, they will
fill with honey .
It is not to be done. The seepage has
rotted out the curtain. The mesh
is decayed. Loosen the flesh
from the machine, build no more
bridges. Through what air will you
fly to span the continents? Let the words
fall any way at all—that they may
hit love aslant. It will be a rare
visitation. They want to rescue too much,
the flood has done its work .
Go down, peer among the fishes. What
do you expect to save, muscle shells?
Here’s a fossil conch (a paper weight
of sufficient quaintness) mud
and shells baked by a near eternity
into a melange, hard as stone, full of
tiny shells
—baked by endless desiccations into
a shelly rime—turned up
in an old pasture whose history—
even whose partial history, is
death itself
Vercingetorix, the only
hero .
Let’s give the canary to that
old deaf woman; when he opens his
bill, to hiss at her, she’ll think he
is singing .
Does the pulp need further maceration?
take down the walls, invite
the trespass. After all, the slums
unless they are (living)
wiped out they cannot be re-
constituted .
The words will have to be rebricked up, the
—what? What am I coming to .
pouring down?
When an African Ibibio man is slain in battle, married women who are his next of kin rescue the corpse. No man may touch it. Weeping and singing songs, the scouts bear the dead warrior to a forest glade called Owokafai—the place of those slain by sudden death. They lay him on a bed made of fresh leaves. Then they cut young branches from a sacred tree and wave the bough over the genital organs of the warrior to extract the spirit of fertilty into the leaves. Knowledge of the rites must be kept from men and from unmarried girls. Only married women, who have felt the fertility of men in their bodies, can know the secret of life. To them it was entrusted by their great goddess “in the days when woman, not man, was the dominant sex. . ; on the guarding of this secret depended the strength of the tribe. Were the rites once disclosed—few or no babies would be born, barns and herds would yield but scanty increase, while the arms of future generations of fighting men would lose their strength and hearts their courage.” This ceremony is conducted to the accompaniment of low, wailing chants, which only these wives of warriors have authority to sing, or even to know.
—in a hundred years, perhaps—
the syllables
(with genius)
or perhaps
two lifetimes
Sometimes it takes longer .
Did I do more than share your guilt, sweet woman. The
cherimoya is the most delicately flavored of all
tropic fruit. . . Either I abandon you
or give up writing .
I was thinking about
her all day long yesterday. You know she’s been dead four years? And that son of a bitch only has one more year to serve. Then he’ll be out and we can’t do a thing about it.—I suppose he killed her.—You know he killed her, just shot her to death. And do you remember that Clifford that used to follow her around, poor man? He’d do anything she asked him to—the most harmless creature in the world; he’s been sick. He had rheumatic fever when he was a child and can’t leave the house any more. He wrote to us to send him some dirty jokes because he can’t get out to hear them himself. And we can’t either of us think of one new one to send him.
The past above, the future below
and the present pouring down: the roar,
the roar of the present, a speech—
is, of necessity, my sole concern .
They plunged, they fell in a swoon .
or by intention, to make an end—the
roar, unrelenting, witnessing .
Neither the past nor the future
Neither to stare, amnesic—forgetting.
The language cascades into the
invisible, beyond and above : the falls
of which it is the visible part—
Not until I have made of it a replica
will my sins be forgiven and my
disease cured—in wax: la capella di S. Rocco
on the sandstone crest above the old
copper mines—where I used to see
the images of arms and knees
hung on nails (de Montpellier) .
No meaning. And yet, unless I find a place
apart from it, I am its slave,
its sleeper, bewildered—dazzled
by distance . I cannot stay here
to spend my life looking into the past:
the future’s no answer. I must
find my meaning and lay it, white,
beside the sliding water: myself —
comb out the language—or succumb
—whatever the complexion. Let
me out! (Well, go!) this rhetoric
is real!
BOOK FOUR
(1951)
The Run to the Sea
I.
A N I D Y L
Corydon & Phyllis
Two silly women!
(Look, Dad, I’m dancing!)
What’s that?
I didn’t say anything .
except you don’t look silly .
Semantics, my dear .
—and I know I’m not .
Ouch! you have hands like a man . Some day,
sweetheart, when we know each other better
I’ll tell you a few things . .
Thank you. Very satisfactory. My secretary
will be at the door with your money .
No. I prefer it that way
O. K.
Good-bye
Miss . eh
Phyllis
Tiens! I’ll phone the agency .
Until tomorrow, then, Phyllis, at the same hour.
Shall I be walking again soon, do you think?
Why not?
. . . . . .
A Letter
Look, Big Shot, I refuse to come home until you promise to cut out the booze. It’s no use your talking about Mother needs me and all that bologney. If you thought anything of her you wouldn’t carry on the way you do. Maybe your family did once own the whole valley. Who owns it now? What you need is to be slapped down.
I’m having a fine time in the Big City as a Professional Woman, ahem! Believe me there’s plenty of money here—if you can get it. With your brains and ability this should be your meat. But you’d rather hit the bottle.
That’s all right with me—only I won’t wrestle with you all night on the bed any more because you got the D.Ts. I can’t take it, your too strong for me. So make up your mind—one way or the other.
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
And how are you today, darling?
(She calls me darling now!)
What sort of life can you lead
in that horrid place . Rach-a-mo, did
you say?
Ramapo
To be sure,
how stupid of me.
Right.
What was that?
Really you’ll have to speak louder
I said .
Never mind.
You mentioned a city?
Paterson, where I trained
Paterson!
Yes, of course. Where Nicholas Murray Butler was
born . and his sister, the lame one. They
used to have silk mills there .
until the unions ruined them. Too bad. Wonderful
hands! I completely forget myself .
Some hands are silver, some gold and some,
a very few, like yours, diamonds (If only I
could keep you!) You like it here? . Go
look out of that window .
That is the East River. The sun rises there.
And beyond, is Blackwell’s Island. Welfare Island,
City Island . whatever they call it now .
where the city’s petty criminals, the poor
the superannuated and the insane are housed .
Look at me when I talk to you
—and then
the three rocks tapering off into the water all .
that’s left of the elemental, the primitive
in this environment. I call them my sheep .
Sheep, huh?
Docile, are they not?
What’s the idea?
Lonesomeness perhaps. It’s a long story. Be
their shepherdess Phyllis. And I
shall be Corydon . inoffensively, I hope?
Phyllis and Corydon. How lovely! Do you
care for almonds?
Nope. I hate all kinds of
nuts. They get in your hair . your
teeth, I mean .
. . . . . .
A Letter
Lay off that stuff. I can take care of myself. And if not, so what?
This is a racket, all I got to do is give her “massage” — and what do I know about massage? I just rub her, and how I rub her! And does she like it! And does she pay! Oh boy! So I rub her and read to her. The place is full of books—in all languages!
But she’s a nut, of the worst kind. Today she was telling me about some rocks in the river here she calls her three sheep. If they’re sheep I’m the Queen of England. They’re white all right but it’s from the gulls that crap them up all day long.
You ought to see this place.
There was a hellicopter (?) flying all over the river today looking for the body of a suicide, some student, some girl about my age (she says . a Hindu Princess.) It was in the papers this morning but I didn’t take notice. You ought to have seen the way those gulls were winging it around. They went crazy .
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
You must have lots of boy friends, Phyllis
Only one
Incredible!
Only one I’m interested in
right now
What is he like?
Who?
Your lover
Oh him. He’s married. I
haven’t got a chance with him
You hussy! And what do you do together?
Just talk.
. . . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
Are you happy
Happy I’ve come?
Happy? No, I’m not happy
Never?
Well .
The couch looks
comfortable
. . . . . .
The Poet
Oh Paterson! Oh married man!
He is the city of cheap hotels and private
entrances . of taxis at the door, the car
standing in the rain hour after hour by
the roadhouse entrance .
Good-bye, dear. I had a wonderful time.
Wait! there’s something . but I’ve forgotten
what it was . something I wanted
to tell you. Completely gone! Completely.
Well, good-bye .
. . . . . .
Phyllis & Paterson
How long can you stay?
Six-thirty . I’ve got
to meet the boy friend
Take off your clothes
No. I’m good at saying that.
She stood
quietly to be undressed .
the buttons were difficult .
This is one of my father’s
best. You ought to have heard
him this morning when I
cut the tails off .
He drew back the white
shirt . slid aside the
ribbons .
Glory be to God .
— then stripped her
and all His Saints!
.
No, just broad shouldered
.
— on the couch, kissing and talking while his
hands explored her body, slowly .
courteously . persistent
.
Be careful .
I’ve got an awful cold
It’s the first
this year. We went
fishing in all
that rain last week
Who? Your father?
— and my boy friend
Fly fishing?
No. Bass. But it isn’t
the season. I know that
but nobody saw us
I got soaked to the skin
Can you fish?
Oh I have a pole and a
line and just fish along
We caught quite a few
. . . . . .
Corydon & Phyllis
Good morning, Phyllis. You are beautiful this morning (in a common sort of way) I wonder if you know how lovely you really are, Phyllis, my little Milk Maid (That’s good! The lucky man!) I dreamt of you last night.
.
A Letter
I don’t care what you say. Unless Mother writes me, herself, that you’ve stopped drinking—and I mean stopped drinking—I won’t come home.
.
Corydon & Phyllis
What sort of people do you come from, Phyllis?
My father’s a drunk.
That’s more humility than the situation demands. Never be ashamed of your origins.
I’m not. It’s just the truth.
The truth! Virtue, my dear, if one had it! is only interesting in the aggregate, as you will discover . or perhaps you have already found it so. That’s our Christian teaching: not denial but forgiveness, the Prodigal Daughter. Have you ever been to bed with a man?