Tuesday, November 12, 2024

cento- Cut Down My Arboretum (Ginsberg, Sexton, Whitman, Greathouse, Myles, Stone, Diaz, Seuss, and Limon)



Someone is dead.

Even the trees know it.

All things please the soul,

When the water boils I get

Shells & seaweed,

A cup of tea.




Through a mist

I play,

With my reflection of you.

Have you ever loved the body 

Of a woman?

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm,

Knuckles, thumb, forefinger, 

Finger-joints, finger-nails,

Along its fingers the tree.

Your long fingers, thin body,

And long bones of improbable genius;

This is the female form,

Curling hair of the breast, breast-bone,

Breast-side, The womb, the teats, nipples,

Breast-milk,

Tears.

Can you

Imagine what it was

Like to be one of them?

Heads of snarled hair,

Something in the tree.

We sat among them.




Laughter, weeping, love-looks, 

love-perturbations and risings.

We were two girls then,

Kissing so tenderly it feels 

Rude to watch.

The farmer’s daughter in the 

Backyard green tree cemetery,

A weeper, from a long line of weepers.

This is the female form.

I won't promise A certain seizure 

But these please the soul well.

This is the female form,

Books, art, religion, time,

An enemy

Of change. 

Green on green, on green,

Or is it red? Red is a reflection, 

Red is you.




If they want to say something bad 

They whisper

Are you normal tonight? Everyone

Here, are we all normal.

Are you normal?

You know I am not.

Someone is dead.

You know I get to sink

My teeth in Nature,

In You, feminine you, 

Elbows, knees, dreams,

Goodnight.

Have they ever loved 

The body of a woman?

They are only light because we are dark.




In the distance, a tree falls.

Someone is dead.

Now the tree is gone. The men are gone,

Cement and aluminium 

Bashed open their skulls.

Sun and moon and tree.

He was fucked up anyway. 




He would send her up the tree,

Now she is gone

Who slept away my life.

She who had my eyes

Blinking

Screaming vomiting whispering.

The soul is innocent and immortal 

It should never die.

Oh my swan, my drudge, my dear wooly rose,

Can you

Imagine what it was

Like to be one of them?

It is in his walk,

You and he might touch each other.

That of the male is perfect, 

And that of the female is perfect.

They are kissing so tenderly.

Watch.



All things please the soul, 

But these please the soul well.

I see my soul reflected in Nature,

My soul with inexpressible 

Completeness, sanity, beauty,

Tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks,

brains and imagination.

I am not

Alone tonight.




She is the sum of yourself 

And your dream,

She is in her place and moves

With perfect balance.

She has no right to a sight

Of her endless reflection.

She is all there,

All Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,

All Cheeks, temples, forehead,

Chin, throat, 

Back of neck, neck-slue, 

Ribs, belly, backbone,

She is all.




A strong set of thighs,

Well carrying the trunk above,

A tree falls.

One part off the trunk on the ground,

And the other somehow continuing on.

A tree falls,

The child climbed up where the dead tree grew.

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