ANNE KNISHOpus 1
REITERATION! . . .
The seconds bob by,So many, so many,Each ugly in its own wayAs raw meats are all ugly.Why do we feed on the dead?Or would at least it were with cries and lustOf slaying our human foodBeneath a cannibal sun!But these old corpses of alien creatures! . . .I loathe them!And too many heads go by the window,All alien—Filers of saws, doubtless,Or lechersOr Sabbath-keepers.Morality comes from God.He was busy.He forgot to make beauty.Why does he not call back into their hen-houseThis ugly straggling flock of secondsThat trail byWith pin-feathers showing?
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 55
WHY ask it of me?—the impossible!—Shall I pick up the lightning in my hand?Have I not given homages too wellFor words to understand?—
Words take you from me, bring you back again,Dance in our presence, cover your proud faceWith the incredible counterpane,Break our embrace . . .
No, not to youYour wish,But to some kangarooOr cuttle-fish
Or octopus or eagle or tarantulaOr elephant or doveOr some peninsulaLet me speak love—
Or call some battle or some temple-bellOr many-curving pineOr some cool truth-containing wellOr thin cathedral—mine!
ANNE KNISHOpus 200
IF I should enter to his chamberAnd suddenly touch him,Would he fade to a thin mist,Or glow into a fire-ball,Or burst like a punctured light-globe?It is impossible that he would merely yawn and rubAnd say—"What is it?"
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 17
MAN-THUNDER, woman-lightning,Rumble, gleam;Refusal,Scream.
Needles and pins of painAll pointed the same way;Parellel lines of painWhen the lips are grayAnd know not what they say:Rain,Rain.
But after the whirl of frightAnd great shouts and flashes,The pounding clashesAnd deep slashes,After the scattered ashes
Of the night,Heaven's heightAbashesWith a gleam through unknown lashesOf delicious points of light.
ANNE KNISHOpus 191
THE black bark of a dogMade patterns against the night.And little leaves flute-noted across the moon.
I seemed to feel your soft looksSteal across that quiet evening roomWhere once our souls spoke, long ago.
For that was of a vastness;And this night is of a vastness . . .
There was a dog-bark then—It was the soundOf my rebellious and incredulous heartIts patterns twined about the starsAnd drew them downAnd devoured them.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 45
AN angel, bringing incense, praysForever in that tree . . .I go blind still when the locust swaysThose honey-domes for me.
All the fragrances of dew, O angel, are there,The myrrhic rapture of young hair,The lips of lust;And all the stenches of dust,Even the palm and the fingers of a hand burnt bareWith a curling sweet-smelling crust,And the bitter staleness of old hair,Powder on a withering bust . . .
The moon came through the window to our bed.And the shadows of the locust-treeOn your white sweet body made of me,Of my lips, a drunken bee. . . .O tree-like Spring, O blossoming days,I, who some day shall be dead,Shall have ever a lover to sway with me.For when my face decaysAnd the earth moulds in my nostrils, shall there not beThe breath therein of a locust-tree,The seed, the shoot of a locust-tree,The honey-domes of a locust-tree,Till lovers go blind and sway with me?—
O tree-like Spring, O blossomy days,To sway as long as the locust sways!
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 14
BESIDE the brink of dreamI had put out my willow-roots and leavesAs by a streamToo narrow for the invading greavesOf Rome in her trireme . . .Then you came—like a screamOf beeves.
ANNE KNISHOpus 80
OH my little house of glass!How carefullyI have planted shrubberyTo plume before your transparency.Light is too amorous of you,Transfusing through and throughYour panes with an effulgence never new.SometimesI am terribly temptedTo throw the stones myself.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 1
THEY enter with long trailing of shadowy cloth,And each with one hand praying in the air,And the softness of their garments is the grayness of a moth—The lost and broken night-moth of despair.
And they keep a wounded distanceWith following bare feet,A distance Isadoran—And the dark moons beatTheir drums.
More desolate than they are Isadora stands,The blaze of the sun on her grief;The stars of a willow are in both her hands,And her heart is the shape of a leaf.
And they come to her for comfortAnd her black-thrown hairIs a harp of consolationSinging anthems in the air.
With the dark she wrestles, daring alone,Though their young arms would aid;Her body wreathes and brightens, never thrown,Unvanquished, unafraid . . .
Till light comes leapingOn little children's feet,Comes leaping Isadoran—And the white stars beatTheir drums.
ANNE KNISHOpus 195
HER soul was freckledLike the bald headOf a jaundiced Jewish banker.Her fair and featurous faceWrithed likeAn albino boa-constrictor.She thought she resembled the Mona Lisa.This demonstrates the futility of thinking.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 6
IF I were only dafterI might be making hymnsTo the liquor of your laughterAnd the lacquer of your limbs.
But you turn across the tableA telescope of eyes.And it lights a Russian sableRunning circles in the skies. . . .
Till I go running after,Obeying all your whims—For the liquor of your laughterAnd the lacquer of your limbs.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 9
WHEN frogs' legs on a plate are brought to meAs though I were divinity in France,I feel as God would feel were He to seeImperial Russians dance.
These people's thoughts and gestures and concernsMove like a Russian ballet made of eggs;A bright-smirched canvas heaven heaves and burnsAbove their arms and legs.
Society hops this way and that, well-taught;But while I watch, in cloudy state,I feel as God would feel if he were broughtFrogs' legs on a plate.
ANNE KNISHOpus 187
I DO not know very much,But I know this—That the storms of contempt that sweep over us,Ready to blast any edifice before thenRise from the fathomless maelstromOf contempt for ourselves.If there be a god,May he preserve meFrom striking with these lightningsThose whom I love.
Saying which,Zarathustra strolled onDown Fifth Avenue.
The last three linesAre symptomatic.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 104
HOW terrible to entertain a lunatic!To keep his earnestness from coming close!
A Madagascar land-crab onceLifted blue claws at meAnd rattled long black eyesThat would have got meHad I not been gay.
ANNE KNISHOpus 182
"HE'S the remnant of a suit that has been drowned;That's what decided me," said Clarice."And so I married him,I really wanted a merman;And this slimy quality in himWon me.No one forbade the banns.Ergo—will you love me?"
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 101
HE not only playsOne noteBut holds another noteAway from it—As a loverLiftsA waft of hairFrom loved eyes.
The piano shivers,When he touches it,And the leg shines.
ANNE KNISHOpus 181
SKEPTICAL cat,Calm your eyes, and come to me.For long ago, in some palmed forest,I too felt claws curlingWithin my fingers . . .Moons wax and wane;My eyes, too, once narrowed and widenedWhy do you shrink back?Come to me: let me pat you—Come, vast-eyed one . . .Or I will spring upon youAnd with steel-hook fingersTear you limb from limb. . . .
There were twins in my cradle. . . .
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 78
I AM beset by liking so many people.What can I do but hide my face away?—Lest, looking up in love, I see no eyes or lidsIn the gleaming whirl of day,Lest, reaching for the fingers of love,I know not which are they,Lest the dear-lipped multitude,Kissing me, choke me dead!—
O green eyes in the breakers,White heave unquieted,What can I do but dive again, again—again—To hide my head!
ANNE KNISHOpus 135
IN a tomb of Argolis,Under an arch of great stones,Where my eyes were sightless, groping,I touched this figment of clay.
Forgotten vase of immemorial Greece,Colorless form!I have entered to the blind darkOf the tomb where you have slept foreverAnd with the dreams of my importunate handsI touch you in the profound darkness.
You are cold and estranged;Yet the ends of my fingers cling to your porous surface.You are thin and very tall;My palm can cover your mouth.Your lip curves but a little;Around your throatMy two hands meet,And then part as I follow the swellingRhythm that downward widens,And I pass around and under,And the returning lineEbbs home.
Beneath your feet I touch cold marble;My hand returnsTo sleep upon your breastDreaming it warm.
EMANUEL MORGANOpus 79
ONLY the wise can see me in the mist,For only lovers know that I am hereAfter his piping, shall the organistBe portly and appear?
Pew after pew,Wave after wave . . .Shall the digger dig and then undoHis own dear grave?
Hear me in the playingOf a big brass band . . .See me, strayingWith children hand in hand . . .
Smell me, a dead fish . . .Taste me, a rotten tree. . . .Someday touch me, all you wish,In the wide sea.