"A"—Second Movement

"A"-SECOND MOVEMENT

The clear music-

Zoo-zoo-kaw-kaw-of-the-sky.

Not mentioning names, says Kay,

Poetry is not made of such things.

Old music, itch according to its wonts,

Snapped old cat-guts from Johann Sebastian,

Society, traduction twice over.

Damn you, Kay,

What do you, Kay, know about it!

Wherever always we are

Crowds the sea in upon us,

Slivers of slugs from the seaweed,

Tossed cuttlefish shouldering

Ball of imperialism,

Wave-games of its stanchions: nations-

Navies and armaments drilling-

Churning of old religions, epos,

Agamemnon carrying off at least two for his comfort-

The women, epopt, caryatid, holding, holding, the world-

cornice,

"Please now and thank you,"

(Agamemnon), very much like the sailors,

Lust and lust ritornelle.

Tutti! the blue square-inch trouser seats sticking through

portholes,

Laughter, laced blue over torus

Gibes from the low deck:

Ai-yuh, look at boy Ricky

(Splash of white pail-wash, scuttling and laughter).

Grinds the sea of half-hours,

Each half-hour the clocks strike,

Half-human, half-equestrian,

Clitter-clatter of wave-forms,

Sea-horses up blind alleys,

Never appeased, desire to break the cross-walls of the

alleys.

Cross-walls like locks of canal (never end-walls)

rising, replacing,

Till of an afternoon

Launches the moon upon sea-whorl; green, flowering, open-

ing leaf within leaf

Floats upon wave-edge; liveforever,

pearl-clean, giant-size,

Green leathery leaf within leathery vision-

Hyaline cushions it, sunned, as of sand-gold-

(All imagined)

Johann Sebastian . . . old...

Listen... -

Listen, Kay . . . the music is in the flower,

Leaf around leaf wrapped around the center leaf,

Profuse but clear the outer leaf breaking on space;

Bountiful the flower, there is space to step to the central

heart,

Listen-the music is in the flower,

It is not the sea but hyaline cushions the flower

(Liveforever, everlasting).

The leaves never topple from each other

The strength of each leaf is a buttress flung for the other,

I have stepped with haired ankle,

As with fetlock, to the center leaf,

I have looked into the mild orbs of the flower,

My eyes have drowned in the mild orbs;

Hair falling over ankle, hair falling over forehead.

What is at my lips, have I kissed the flower,

It is green yet graciously ferruginous,

The flower bears the iron-rust lightly,

The flower is the steel piston at my chest,

No air stirs, but, hear . .. the music steeps in the

center-

It is not the sea, but what floats over it-

I walked out upon Easter Sunday

As who should say,

This is my face,

This is my form,

Faces and forms, I would put you

down

In a style as of leaves growing.

A train crossed the country: (cantata).

A sign behind trees read (blood-red as intertwined Rose of

the Passion)

"Wrigley's."

Boy and girl with crosses of straw for their nosegays

Impinged upon field as on ocean.

Breath fast as in love's lying close.

I crouched again, high-O my God, into the flower!

"Around Thy tomb here sit we weeping"

Just for the fun of it, "O Saviour blest"

And the double chorus singing,

The song out of the voices.