Irradiations; Sand and Spray — IRRADIATIONS (Parts XXV through XXXVI)

XXV

As I wandered over the city through the night, I saw many strange things: But I have forgotten all Except one painted face.

Gaudy, shameless night-orchid, Heavy, flushed, sticky with narcotic perfume, There was something in you which made me prefer you Above all the feeble forget-me-nots of the world.

You were neither burnt out nor pallid, There was plain, coarse, vulgar meaning in every line of you And no make-believe: You were at least alive, When all the rest were but puppets of the night.

XXVI

Slowly along the lamp-emblazoned street, Amid the last sad drifting crowds of midnight Like lost souls wandering, Comes marching by solemnly As for some gem-bedecked ritual of old, A monotonous procession of black carts Full crowded with blood-red blossom: Scarlet geraniums Unfolding their fiery globes upon the night.

These are the memories of day moulded in jagged flame: Lust, joy, blood, and death.

With crushed hands, weary eyes, and hoarse clamour, We consecrate and acclaim them tumultuously Ere they pass, contemptuous, beyond the unpierced veil of silence.

XXVII

I think there was an hour in which God laughed at me, For as I passed along the street, saw that all the women--although their bodies were dexterously concealed-- Were thinking with all their might what men were like: And the men, mechanically correct, cigars at lips, Were wanting to rush at the women, But were restrained by respectability or timidity, Or fear of the consequences or vanity or some puerile dream Of a pale ideal lost in the vast grey sky.

So I said to myself, it is time to end all this: I will take the first woman that comes along.

And then God laughed at me--and I too smiled To see that He was in such good humour and that the sun was shining.

XXVIII

I remember, there was a day During which I did not write a line of verse: Nor did I speak a word to any woman, Nor did I meet with death.

Yet all that day I was fully occupied: My eyes saw trees, clouds, streets, houses, people;

My lungs breathed air;

My mouth swallowed food and drink;

My hands seized things, my feet touched earth, Or spurned it at my desire.

On that day I know I would have been sufficiently happy, If I could have kept my brain from bothering at all About my next trite poem;

About the tedious necessities of sex;

And about the day on which I would at last meet death.

XXIX

It is evening, and the earth Wraps her shoulders in an old blue shawl.

Afar off there clink the polychrome points of the stars, Indefatigable, after all these years!

Here upon earth there is life, and then death, Dawn, and later nightfall, Fire, and the quenching of embers: But why should I not remember that my night is dawn in another part of the world, If the idea fits my fancy?

Dawns of marvellous light, wakeful, sleepy, weary, dancing dawns, You are rose petals settling through the blue of my evening: I light my pipe to salute you, And sit puffing smoke in the air and never say a word.

XXX

I have seemed often feeble and useless to myself, And many times I have wished that the tedium of my life Lay at last dissolved in the cold acid of death: Yet I have not forgotten The sparkling of waters in the sunlight, The sound of a woman's voice, Gliding dancers, Chanting worshippers, A child crying, The wind amid the hills.

These I can remember, And I think they are more of me Than the wrinkles on my face and the hungry ache at my heart.

XXXI

My stiff-spread arms Break into sudden gesture;

My feet seize upon the rhythm;

My hands drag it upwards: Thus I create the dance.

I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight: I swim through seas of rain: I dig my toes into earth: I taste the smack of the wind: I am myself: I live.

The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins: Professors are still arguing about the past and the future: I am sick of reading marginal notes on life, I am weary of following false banners: I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present;

There is nothing about me you are more likely to notice than my being: Let me therefore rejoice silently, A golden butterfly glancing against an unflecked wall.

XXXII

Today you shall have but little song from me, For I belong to the sunlight.

This I would not barter for any kingdom.

I am a wheeling swallow, Blue all over is my delight.

I am a drowsy grass-blade In the greenest shadow.

XXXIII

My desire goes bristling and growling like an angry leopard;

My ribs are a hollow grating, my hair is coarse and hard, My flanks are like sharp iron wedges, my eyes glitter as chill glass;

Down below there are the meadows where my famished hopes are feeding, I will waylay them to windward, stalking in watchful patience, I will pounce upon them, plunging my muzzle in the hot spurt of their blood.

XXXIV

The flag let loose for a day of festivity;

Free desperate symbol of battle and desire, Leaping, lunging, tossing up the halyards;

Below it a tumult of music, Above it the streaming wastes of the sky, Pinnacles of clouds, pyres of dawn, Infinite effort, everlasting day.

The immense flag waving Aloft in glory: Over seas and hilltops Transmitting its lightnings.

XXXV

What weave you, what spin you, What wonder win you, You looms of desire?

Sin that is splendour, Love that is shameless, Life that is glory, Life that is all.

XXXVI

Like cataracts that crash from a crumbling crag Into the dull-blue smouldering gulf of a lake below, Landlocked amid the mountains, so my soul Was a gorge that was filled with the warring echoes of song.

Of old, they wore Shining armour, and banners of broad gold they bore: Now they drift, like a wild bird's cry, Downwards from chill summits of the sky.

Fountains of flashing joy were their source afar;

Now they lie still, to mirror every star.

In circles of opal, ruby, blue, out-thrown, They drift down to a dull, dark monotone.

Pluck the loose strings, singer, Thrum the strings;

For the wind brings distant, drowsy bells of song.

Loose the plucked string, poet, Spurn the strings, For the echoes of memory float through the gulf for long.

My songs seem now one humming note afar: Light as ether, quivering 'twixt star and star, But yet, so still I know not whence they come, if mine they are.

Yet that low note Increases in force as if it said, "I will": Kindled by God's fierce breath, it would the whole world fill.

Till steadily outwards thrown, By trumpets blazoned, from the sky downblown, It grows a vast march, massive, monotonous, known Of old gold trumpeteers Through infinite years: Bursting the white, thronged vaults of the cool sky.

Till hurtling down there falls one mad black hammer-blow: Then the chained echoes in their maniac woe Are loosed against the silence, to shriek uncannily.