ov.-^.,,-o, /\^j^,_v co^.^%.■\ .**\ ' y% r^^^Ws J"^-^'-. V^'\^* "<'^*^-'/ V^^#' V' J^ \.**-H^\**^ '^°«.''''.-'*'*aO^ "V*'*/^*.^*^ V V - ' • BLOOD OF THINGS ALFRED KREYMBORG BOOKS BY ALFRED KBEYMBORO Moods and Studies (Out of print) Apostrophes (Out of print) Erna Vitek, a Novel Mushrooms Plays for Poem-Mimes Blood of Things Plays for Merry Andrews (In preparation) Editor of the New Verse Anthologies, Others, For 1916 Others, For 1917 Others, For 1919 BLOOD OF THINGS A Second Book of Free Forms BY ALFRED KREYMBORG Author of * 'Mushrooms,** "Plays for Poem-Mimes,*' etc. NICHOLAS L. BROWN NEW YORK MCMXX Copyright, 1920, by NICHOLAS L. BROWN Poems in this volume have ap- peared in the following periodi- cals, to which the author makec his acknowledgment: The Bookman- Bruno Chap Books Cartoons The Catholic Anthology The Crisis The Dial The Free Spirit The Little Review The Modern School The New Republic The New York Tribune Others Playboy Poetry, A Magazine op Verse The Poetry Journal The Poetry Review of America The Seven Arts ©CIA576050 AlJii \2 ib20 To DOROTHY KREYMBORG CONTENTS PAGE TETE-A-TETE 13 CLAVICHORD 14 MIDNIGHT CAPRICE 16 PEBBLE, SONG AND WATER-FALL 19 NUN SNOW: A PANTOMIME OF BEADS ... 29 ZOOLOGY 26 Syllogism 26 Parrakeets 26 Owls 26 Camels 27 Worms 28 Robins 28 ducklikgs 29 Roaches 29 Primer 30 Hen-Beino 30 Geometry 33 Rhymes 34 ARIAS AND ARIETTES 35 Serexata 35 Valse 36 Grasses 36 Tiger-Lily 37 Harvest Dirge 39 Roundelay 39 Indian Sky 40 Indian Summer 41 Arabs 42 Mirage 43 Patch 43 Threnody .44 Sun-Water 45 CONTENTS PAGE Keg 46 The Hudson 46 GOLDPIECES AND HEMSTITCHES 48 Bell 48 GoU)PIECE3 48 ClL\DLE 49 Chikaman 49 Cries 50 Mollusc 50 BoY-LlGHTKING 50 Hemstitches 51 Polysyllable 52 Clo\t:r 53 Rouge 54 Katydids 58 OLD PEOPLE 60 Endings 60 Phallic 61 A While 62 Middle-Age 63 Old Marriage 63 Old Beggar Heels 64 Triangles 64 PROSE RHYTHMS, 1906 66 A Lover Tells 66 A Poor Man Tells 66 A Madman Tells 67 A Dead Man Tells 68 DOROTHY 70 Her Eyes 70 Her Hair 71 Her Hands 71 Her Body 72 Clay 73 Ovals 73 Alchemy 73 Others 73 Three 74 Westminster 75 Agate 75 Illusions 75 Jade 75 Image 76 CONTENTS PAOE BLOOD OF THINGS 78 Scrap 78 Pump 78 Puddle 78 Show-Case 79 Cigar-Indian 79 Cigar-Butt 80 Letter-Box 80 Dust 81 Park-Bench 81 Weighing-Machine 82 Dung 82 Electric Sign 83 Bits 84 COINS 85 Copper 85 Silver 85 Gold 86 THE ROUND OF A FIVE AND TEN CENT STORE . 87 Things 87 Ring 87 Hatchet Versus Hammer 88 Paper Roses 88 Thimble 89 Coffee-Mill 89 Dishes 89 Mouse-Trap 90 Aisles 90 Nickels and Dimes 91 Round 91 PHYSIOLOGY 93 Leaves 92 Eyes 93 Stomach 94 Heart 95 Brains 96 CITY DANDELIONS 97 Jasmine Way 97 Lanes 97 City Dandelions 98 Testaments 99 Manufacture 99 Landowner 100 CONTENTS PAGE Roman Hunger 101 Heredity 102 That Is 104 D^R^GLE 105 32^ Fahrenheit 107 On DiT 108 Heliotrope 109 Wedlock 109 Rooms 110 Carbon-Dioxide Ill 17 + 4x3 — 112 Such and Such 114 Fifth Avenue 115 Propaganda 117 Chess Players 120 Miss Sal's Monologue 125 CROWNS AND CRONIES 130 Vision 130 Cronies 131 Indoors 131 To THE Others 132 To W. C. W. M. D 133 To A Small Sculptor 134 Greek or Perhaps Roman Epigram 135 Screen Dance 136 To Whitman 137 Red Chant 137 The Nobility 139 Self-Esteem 139 Poetry 140 Patriot 141 1914 Pasts 142 Christianity 142 You Therje 143 The Next Drink 144 Conjugation 145 Rococo Kinsmen 147 Arrows 148 Need I Say, Where? 149 INITIALS 150 WORD 151 BLOOD OF THINGS ALFRED KREYMBORG BLOOD OF THINGS A SECOND BOOK OF FREE FORMS TETE-A-TETE In the whither of you, there are deathless things, some foolish, some fine, I might beckon you to ? — I'm bone and flesh, blood and brain of a sort for a start? — with an instrument, you can see and hear, I stroke to a sort of a start? — I'm groping my way ? — seeking my self? — yes ! — but — I might prove the way to finding you ? — 13 14 BLOOD OF THINGS accidentally touch some phrase in my riddle, solving you though it doesn't solve me ? No? — but — listen to me — going to you! CLAVICHORD If you stand where I stand — in my boudoir — (don't mind my shaving — I can't afford a barber) — you can see into her boudoir — you can see milady — her back, her green smock, the bench she loves her hair always down in the morning — black, and nearly as long as the curtains — with ringlets at the tips — the hairdresser called this a. m. — him I have to, I want to afford. Unhappily, you can't see her face — only the back of her small round head — and a glint of her ears, two glints — but her hands, alas, not her hands, though happily, you can hear them. BLOOD OF THINGS IS It isn't a clavichord — only a satinwood square — bought cheap at an auction — but it might be, you'd think it, a clavichord, bequeathed by the past — it sounds quite like feathers. Bach? Yes, who else could that be — whom else would you have in the morning — with the sun and milady? Grave? Yes, but so is the sun — not always ? No, but please don't ponder — listen, hear the theme — hear it dig into the earth of harmonies. A dissonance? No, it's only a stone — which powders into particles with the rest. Now follow the theme — down, down, into the soil — calling, evoking the spirit of birth — you hear those new tones — that sprinkle, that burst — roulade and arpeggio? Gently now, firmly — with solemn persuasion — hiding a whimsic raillery — (does a dead king raise his forefinger?) — though they would, though they might — no phrase can escape — the theme rules. Unhappy ? No, 16 BLOOD OF THINGS they ought to be happy — each is because of, in spite of, the other — that is democracy — he can't spare a particle — that priest of the morning sun. A mistake ? Yes indeed, but — all the more human — would you have her drum like a schoolmaster abominable right note at the right time — in the morning, so early — or ever at all? — she'll play it again — oh don't, please don't clap — you'll disturb them ! Here, try my tobacco — good, a deep pipeful, eh ? — an aromatic blend — my other extravagance — yes, I'll join you, but wait — I must first dry my face ! MIDNIGHT CAPRICE Prisoner there, I would bring you — what is it? — what shall I call it ? — no, midnight between us, BLOOD OF THINGS 17 scarce any feeling can find you. Ah, I have a light in me — where is the light in me? — and you have a light in you — haven't you a light in you ? — but the corridor — where is the corridor? — however I call or you yearn, is there a corridor? I could sneak you a thought — would the gaoler see a thought? — which might reach — what is it ? — the chink in you? Even so — what thought has a body, knees, arms, hands, a mouth? — has thought a body, can thought touch thought ? — nor can I find the chink in me — have I a chink in me ? Prisoner there, sing you to yourself, sing I to myself — this be our courtship ! Nay, I came from the cell of a woman once — she had a light in her — she had a corridor — she sneaked me out to me — 18 BLOOD OF THINGS was the gaoler away ? Even so — what body has a thought to remember that ? — or how it was done ? — and how to do it again? — were I mother to myself, could I do it? — ah ! were I mother to myself, and you father to yourself — is that our corridor? Prisoner there — look — can you see from where you are ? — have you a sorrow ? — is that your sorrow, silver hood and silver cloak, dainty hands and dainty feet, dancing a slow step with mine ? — what a happy movement now ! — one can fairly hear a gigue ! Or has that fop of a moon — come through a flimsy cloud • — like a rider through a hoop — for another caprice with the stars? foppery courts frippery? Even so, cannot ever sorrows meet? BLOOD OF THINGS 19 PEBBLE, SONG AND WATER FALL Have yovL a religion, a philosophy, a theory or two or three? — bring them out here — a bath in this air won't hurt them — or you can keep them in your pockets — nobody here for you to show them to, for you and your thought to be doubted by — and scatter them at the last (you may find them useless?) down the mountain slope — poke them with a stick and watch them slide over strange soil and past stranger surroundings, only to bounce and skip and twirl and fly — (fancy the joy they'd have, pent up as they were back East !) then to nestle out of sight, beyond all argumentation I Have you no religion, no philosophy, no theory or two or three? — you can pick them up, have them for the mere stooping, or break them, pluck them pleasantly — Indian paint-brush. 20 BLOOD OF THINGS baby-blue-eyes, forget-me-not, the yellow monkey-weed — dizzier climbing (like a bug up the side of a wall !) will give you clouds of wild lilac, or wild clematis, or a spray of the manzanita, so named by the race of Fray Junipero 1 Or come and steal a bird song — (the mocking bird will teach you how!) or don't steal it — let them play on you, (so many snatches the birds have here!) let them start innocent counterpoint with the aid of the wood-choir falls, these water falls the high snow and higher sun contrive with the aid of the chance of the day ! Pebble, song, or water fall, pebble, song, or water fall — which one will you choose? — (why not have them all?) there's only the sky — and this is a sky. Brother, this great Sierra sky, big and round and blue, meeting the horizon wherever you stare — there's only this sky BLOOD OF THINGS 21 to see what you do or don't do — (it doesn't spy!) and these trees ! These trees ? — out here they're so still and so silent, you'd fancy them dead — they don't even whisper a ghostly phrase — and if they have thoughts, (like the folk back East !) they have a way of sharing them without polluting the air with conjecture — and there's no wind to carry their gossip, if of a sudden they gossiped a trifle ! Let us go — you and I — with creeds — without creeds — or with and without — the mountains out here — these gray Sierra elephants — you can crawl up their sides — and from high broad shoulder to higher and highest — (if there is a highest?) they won't shrug you off — not that they're docile — they simply don't care 1 Nevertheless and notwithstanding, for the sake of imbroglio — suppose we gave them a tickle or two 22 BLOOD OF THINGS right through their hides to a rib or two? — (elephants must have a rib somewhere?) and suppose they did mind and did shrug us off? Pebble, song, or water fall — which one would you choose for toppling and sliding and bouncing and skipping and twirling and flying? — (fancy the joy we'd have, pent up as we were back East!) but why not have all three ? — pebble, song, and water fall, pebble, song, aTid water fall — then to nestle out of sight, beyond all argumentation! Come on. Brother ! But wait ! One moment ! Don't forget to bring your humility ! NUN SNOW: A PANTOMIME OF BEADS Earth Voice Is she thoughtless of life, a lover of imminent death, Nun Snow BLOOD OF THINGS 23 touching her strings of white beads ? Is it her unseen hands which urge the beads to tremble ? Does Nun Snow, aware of the death she must die alone, away from the nuns of the green beads, of the ochre and brown, of the purple and black — does she improvise along those soundless strings in the worldly hope that the answering, friendly tune, the faithful, folk-like miracle, will shine in a moment or two? Moon Voice Or per adventure, are the beads merely wayward, on an evening so soft, and One Wind is so gentle a mesmerist as he draws them and her with his hand? Earth Voice Was it Full Moon, who contrives tales of this order, and himself loves the heroine, Nun Snow — ■ 24 BLOOD OF THINGS Wind Voice Do you see his beads courting hers ? — lascivious monk I — Earth Voice Was it Full Moon, slyly innocent of guile, propounder of sorrowless whimseys, who breathed that suspicion? Is it One Wind, the wily, scholarly pedant — is it he who retorts — Wind Voice Like olden allegros in olden sonatas, all tales have two themes, she is beautiful, he is beautiful, with the traditional movement, their beads court each other, revealing a cadence as fatally true as the sum which follows a one-plus-one so, why inquire further? Nay, inquire further, deduce it your fashion ! Nun Snow, as you say, touches her strings of white beads, Full Moon, BLOOD OF THINGS 25 let you add, his lute of yellow strings ; and, Our Night is square, nay, Our Night is round, nay, Our Night is a blue balcony — and therewith close your inquisition Earth Voice Who urged the beads to tremble? They're stiU now ! Fallen, or cast over me ! Nun, Moon and Wind are gone ! Are they betraying her? — Moon Voice Ask our Night — Earth Voice Did the miracle appear? — Moon Voice Ask Our Night, merely a child on a balcony, letting down her hair and black beads, a glissando — ask her what she means, dropping the curtain so soon ! ZOOLOGY SYLLOGISM Love is an old dog who is faithful to his master heritage. Even when Life, that old house cat, scratches him, he returns to the hearth — his tail down, but his tail wagging. On rare occasion, she lets him sleep near her — in the coal bin. PARRAKEETS If you don't put two in a cage, parrakeets die. Please put two in a cage, whoever you are? OWLS Blue Sky opens one eye at a time ; but it sees in a wink 2(5 BLOOD OF THINGS 27 more than your two in their eternity. Is his other eye closed? — yes, but it sees what even the owls cannot see : Chinese parasols spread out ere mid-day ! If you had an open eye and a closed eye, an open which closes, a closed which opens, you would see all your twin eyes are blind to : born one after the other, they might see day and night, now and then, love and love, meet at last ! CAMELS I have water of my own to take me towards the horizon ! But there are oases wide away, and a beckoning image of camels ! I love myself, but I love them more — though they change to trees, though they change to trees! 28 BLOOD OF THINGS Let the sand of Sahara spread my shroud, and the wisdom of Arabs sneer epitaph — " Camel love never agrees, camel love changes to trees ! " — I'll follow even the last mirage ! WORMS I was once as free as you, I was once as young as you; sand to me, a sweet pure food, life to me, one oozy slime; for I was once as long as you, longer far than most of you : now I'm only two short worms — worms you couldn't call me. Living two lives, never one, two small lives, each more than one, we so twain, a twain remain, twain of one and one of twain. Treacherous day, a sunny day, sunniest day that ever I knew, a thing crawled near, cut me in two, I that once was long like you. ROBINS He did the best he could. With what he was. Towards love that came. BLOOD OF THINGS 29 Now, this not-yet-old young man pecks at love, eyeing it, touching it, dropping it, eyeing it, like a wary robin with a wriggling worm. DUCKLINGS Oh wise-eyed duck, waddling like an empress, tell me: Would you be more happy or less happy or not at all happy if you had twelve ducklings, or ten ducklings, instead of eleven duckhngs, quacking you dumb? ROACHES You, sir, you they call a man : you blowsmut against her? Ordinarily, I'm such a shameless softie. 30 BLOOD OF THINGS my shoe-leather squirms squashing a roach ; but I'd enjoy, though it choke me with creeps and stain me with blood (if such have blood to bleed) : you, sir, I'd enjoy castrating. PEIMEE Why does the man flay the horse ? If he is late again, the boss will discharge him. Why does the boss flay the man? If trade won't improve, his wife will be grumpy. Why does the wife flay the boss? If she wears that hat much longer, the neighbors will sneer. See the man flay the horse ! HEN-BEING Being cooped in a crate, cooped in a crate, as one is cooped in crates on West South Water Street of the filthy, stinking Chicago River — BLOOD OF THINGS 31 being cooped in a crate with more hens than a crate can hold, is not an existence, even for hens, but it gives one a sense of safety, monotony, warmth and interest I don't deplore. What I deplore is this being yanked by the neck, yanked by the neck, yanked by the neck, and being flung, crammed and damned by a common, filthy, stinking West South Water Street poultryman of the filthy, stinking Chicago River, from one crate to another, one crate to another, one crate to another. It's enough to make an old hen squawk, and I'm an old hen, if you please, a roosterless, eggless, chickenless hen! There's ever the hope in a hen like me that the next crate will be one's last, so that this being slammed from one crate to another, one crate to another. 32 BLOOD OF THINGS one crate to another, will reach a cadence. I'm an old hen, if you please, a roosterless, eggless, chickenless, and I can endure filthy, stinking West South Water Street of the filthy, stinking Chicago River of the filthy, stinking Loop of Chicago, Illinois, but wring my neck ere my time if I don't squawk truth for all hens when I aflSrm that this one crate to another, one crate to another, one crate to another, is no hop forward but a hop backward from being cooped in a crate, cooped in a crate. Being cooped in a crate, a hen might find something to scratch, though it's only one's neighbor, and one is sans claws, sans even a feather, to scratch her with ! Oh, Poultry Man, you are truly the God of hens ! BLOOB OF THINGS 8B GEOMETRY Never a mouse chases ever a tail, never a mouse ever sees that always a cat catches always a mouse, cats being kittens who once chased their tails ; Toss a pebble into a stream, never a circle catches a circle ; shoot a dawn-ball into the sky, never a moonbeam catches a sun; drop the same thought on the floor, only a kitten catches a tail, the tail being straight, the kitten a circle : Yet never a mouse chases ever a tail, never a mouse ever sees that always some death catches always his mouse, 34. BLOOD OF THINGS deaths being kittens who once chased their tails. RHYMES We birds — we hop — and then peck and coo — humans keep their feet on the ground ! We bulls and cows — we lick — and then lap and moo — humans keep their tongues in their cheeks ! Pooh — but they have still much to learn about loosening ! ARIAS AND ARIETTES SERENATA Your brain is a garret scurrying with gray mice (mice that were white ere dust touched them gray) seeking the cheese you removed from your cupboard. (I am wrong, as usual.) Your brain is a tower clamoring with birds (such a whirring of wings, the color is blurred) mocking the discordant choral you used to try on your clavier. (I am wrong, as usual.) Your brain is a wintry wood on a hill looking afar in the solitude and hearkening the song (is it snow or a breeze?) the vast silence essays with numbed breathing. (I am wrong, as usual.) Your brain is a balcony — isn't it a balcony waiting for hands below to bring their crooked veins into tune? 35 36 BLOOD OF THINGS And I the troubadour who can twang you back to the garden? (Or am I wrong, as usual?) VALSE Softly — yes, that is her patter in the hall; she has returned. Eagerly — yes, that is her form in the door ; she is here. Madly — yes, these are her arms ; this mouth is hers. Tenderly — yes, these are her eyes ; her eyes are these. She loves me ; she loves me still — and a little more ! GEASSES Who would decry instruments — when grasses, BLOOD OF THINGS S7 ever so fragile, provide strings stout enough for insect moods to glide up and down in glissandos of toes along wires or finger-tips on zithers — though the mere sounds be theirs, not ours — theirs, not ours, the first inspiration — discord without resolution — who would decry being loved, when even such tinkling comes of the loving? TIGER-LILY To have reached the ultimate top of the stalk, single, tall, fragile ; to hang like a bell, through sheer weight of oneself. 38 BLOOD OF THINGS rather than pride of it being the top, no higher to go, rather than modesty of it being only a stalk, one among myriads ; to have one's six petals, refusing the straight for the curve, dipping mere pin-pricks around the horizon ; to have six tongues, which, however the mood of the wind may blow, refuse to clap into sound ; and to keep, withal, one's finest marvel, one's passionate specks, invisible : tiger-lily, if I bow, it is not in imitation ; it is in recognition of true being. BLOOD OF THINGS S9 HARVEST DIRGE Why do you hearken so, ears of corn? Wheat, you beckon your yellow to me? CoTrWy sir, s7ie*s commg, sir. Come, sir, she's come. Why do you go away, cloud, like a hearse? Remove your gold spectacles, stream, and weep? Come, sir, she's gomg, sir. Come, sir, she's gone. ROUNDEIiAY The rain comes, the worm comes, the foot comes — and thus it goes, and thus it goes — The sun comes, the rose comes, the hand comes — and thus it goes, and thus it goes — Rose to worm, hand to foot, five feet apart — and thus it goes, and thus it goes — 40 BLOOD OF THINGS The wind breathes, the two return, dust, to the sky — and thus it goes, and thus it goes — INDIAN SKY The old squaw is one with the old stone behind her. Both have squatted there — ask mesa, or mountain, how long? The bowl she holds — clay shawl of her art, clay ritual of her faith — is one with the thought of the past, and one with the now, though dim, a little old, strange. The earth holds her as she holds the bowl — ask kiva, or shrine, how much longer? No titan, no destroyer, no future thought, can part earth and this woman, BLOOD OF THINGS 41 woman and bowl: the same shawl wraps them around. INDIAN SUMMER What was the tune you heard on the way that you must dawdle here, cut a reed like any truant, cut crooked holes in the reed, and dabble with burbling phrases which can only tremble and halt no matter how fearfully carefully you blow? The tune you heard didn't limp ? Time, you're a dunce. My word on it — you could have breathed echo when the air was near — now it's a wraith beyond even tiny embodiment? That amorphous haze, arpeggic fall of those leaves, glint of that bird — or was it a squirrel? — (had it been a rat it would have bitten you !) they ought to preach your heedlessness, no man can essay a pavanne with his phrases at variance — it is a pavanne, don't deny it! And why propose a pavanne when nobody dances pavannes, 42 BLOOD OF THINGS and why ask a flute to mimic the tone of a spinet? Dear dunce — your tune begins to sound feminine — go away — the phrases are exquisite daggers — move along, move along : we have all sought the same lady twice ! AEABS Melancholy lieth dolorously ill, one heel full fatally smitten : Melancholy twitcheth and sigheth : " Must such as I, because of an itch, move from the cheery sloth of a couch, from watching my valorous nomad musings coming and passing like pilgrims en route from mooning philosophy on to the sun — must such as I, almost ready to follow them, legs follow musings like sheep follow bells — must such as I, because of a scratch imprinted by small, ignominious teeth of a small, black, common, eifeminate witch, surely not one of my bidding — jjiove? What way is this, God, to make a man move? " And his bed-fellow. Happiness, petrified, groaneth: " What way is this, God, to make a man stone? BLOOD OF THINGS 43 MIRAGE Yonder hill lifts its blue mist, like a lady a fan, and lowers it, enticing you further. Can you enfold her? — suppose you do ? — and only the mist embrace you? — don't conclude the fan the lady ! Suppose you can't? — and the mist slap your face? — don't conclude the fan a fan, no lady behind it: yonder hill lifts its blue mist, like a lady a fan. PATCH I shall turn my yard into dahlias or better still, marigolds I I cannot endure the spectre of its baldness. I am old — nay worse, middle-aged! The very young girls no longer kiss me — with objection? 44 BLOOD OF THINGS One of the brazen sect — does the devil send them back from the past ? — actually fondled my gnu's beard, and brushed my promontory with her cheek, to the tune of " pretty patch, pretty patch ! " I do not mind being loved — but I do care about playing specimen for a sensation a very young girl cannot have of a very young man ! To-morrow — nay, to-night — my seeding begins ! — Marigolds, dahlias, asters, daisies, weeds — any growth will do ! THRENODY I have been a snob to-day. Scourge me with a thousand thongs ! The crowds were atoms passing by. Plunge me into a vat of tar ! Love was dead all day. Tyrant I had a feast of self. Hang me from the city gallows ! His harem, pride and vanity. Throw my body to Doodle Dandy ! Love was dead all day. BLOOD OF THINGS 45 Let him tear my I from me. Let him stick it on a pike. Let him dance through every street. For all to jeer, for all to damn. Love was dead all day. Let him fling the selfish thing into the public pool of shame. And raise a stone that all may read, those that live and those to come : " Love was dead all day." SUN-WATER Only yesterday — I used to carry my old winter bones through the streets — no sun to make the sap in them stir — no stream to make the sap in them start — and now that I'm here, sun up there, stream out there, sun out there, stream up there — I don't know what I want to say, even towards a vain little self -tickling song? 46 BLOOD OF THINGS Very early spring: will you wait for me ? KEG What use is this stream ? — there isn't a keg anywhere for us to ride, like a pony, bareback — if we had a keg to ride, we wouldn't be tempted to beg anywhere — we couldn't, you know, on a keg in a stream and any time I'd beg of you — any time I did, and you'd think me too near you'd give the keg a kick — and I'd roll to the other side — what use is this stream ? THE HUDSON Great, broad stream: When I am brave, will you carry me along to your mother, the sea? — I've heard your mother, the sea, croon afar, " they were brave," as she cradles their bodies ; " they were brave," your child-echo crooning us here. I want my body to be firm, my face and eyes smooth ; BLOOD OF THINGS 47 when I go there must be pride in my final thought ; equality with my eternal fellows ; shadow must greet shadows with clean hand; this is no time to take me, stream ; my death must be like theirs 1 And she — she who stands behind me, wistful, glad and nodding me courage she, too, must be able to croon, '' he was brave." GOLDPIECES AND HEMSTITCHES BELIi I'm full of children this morning. I can feel them flying kites all the way up and down my veins. You never saw such black eyes, bloody noses, never heard such laughter. When school time comes, they'll go away — all except one. I hope that bell never rings. GOIJ)PIECES Lads, along the way of my time, I have stooped to many pieces, most of them bad. But you like their jangle as much as their jingle. Whether you earn them or not, the gold ones are for you. 48 BLOOD OF THINGS 49 CEADLE The blue-eyed youngster and the fat old man play ball in me. And music — the one his penny flute, the other his bassoon. Their toleration is most indulgent — the one with grins, the other with a smile. When they are tired, they go to bed together, though their dreams — the one dreams of solemn white beards, the other of twinkling white legs. The woman, who looks in on them at times, careful not to disturb them, likes this time best. She rocks their cradle for them. CHINAMAN It is useless to contend with her superstitions. That she is lovely and loveth thee should quiet thee. 50 BLOOD OF THINGS When some dream of hers, not come true, masters her and masters thee, then is the night to cry, ah me, and seek thy bed. . . . Smile thy prayer like a Chinaman. • CEIES How can you ask milk of her heart when she only has milk in her breasts, milk of her breasts destined for a cry milk in her heart could never nourish? M0L1.USC Try your dagger elsewhere. You will only snap it here. Her heart is a mollusc. It never leaves her body. BOY-UGHTNING Oh, big Mister Cloud, send me a black cloak like yours? BLOOD OF THINGS 5i And a white plume and ruffles — And your dagger ! Maybe it's a tomahawk ! Please, Mister Cloud, I'd be the pride of the street like you, and scare everybody — even the bullies ! Mother wouldn't dare call me home 1 And your blue wings, maybe you'd send me your wings ? So I could fly? Or sail! Mister Cloud, you're worse than a giant — how you growl, how you glare, how you shout — don't, don't go away, don't, don't go away ! You're crawling on your enemies ? On the palefaces? KiU 'em, kill 'em all, kill 'em, kill 'em all — but look out. Mister Cloud ! Snatch off your plume or they'll see you — hide your tomahawk ! Oo, Mister Cloud ! HEMSTITCHES Lasses, I could do better hemstitches for you 52 BLOOD OF THINGS if I were a woman — preferably not your mother — but try to imagine that, though I loved such as you, older than you, I will never love you, and I will sew you something you can tuck away in the secret drawer of your dresser, you may take out if only to try on near your glass on such nights when you are lonesome, and no boy gives you a thought. POL.YSYLIJVBLE You would say — a girl of six is hardly old enough for philosophy — but you would say, wouldn't you? — a girl of six is old enough for pain, old enough to be sought by the fashionable lover, death, and his thumbs of strangulation ? — and you would say, had you seen her, wouldn't you? — a girl of six BLOOD OF THINGS 53 is old enough for grammar and the adept use of monosyllables with the intrusion of an occasional polysyllable? — and you would have said, had you heard her, wouldn't you? — there was absolutely no theological intention in what she asked — a girl of six is hardly old enough for that, although her mother had told her, God had made her — " What did I do to God that He does this to me? Am I not His child — or did I misbehave? " CLOVER The next time you come, small sister, you and your shy smaller brother, you lifting your head and pointing your eyes (clover asleep in your arms), he too small to be braver than shy : If I'm not at home, if by that time, a day too old, I'm asleep in the ground, you try asking him those questions that wrinkled my head, (I never able to answer a question), and when your brother responds, if by that time he's taller than shy, 54 BLOOD OF THINGS maybe I'll answer too, with the nod of a clover, if by that time I'm a clover awake? ROUGE You, lass (the one-not-quite-dear-enough), are such and such a person with such and such an appearance. What's that you say ? — there's no helping the latter? (Wait — you're younger, quicker than I — feminine, more feminine — wait and I'm with you — here's what I'm coming to!) Redden your heart, not your face — contract it, squeeze it, (you know what I mean?) hug yourself, want yourself, want yourself lovelier, (I don't mean as to face!) and it'll redden, have and give deeper thrills — ^nd you, yes, you too — BLOOD OF THINGS 55 (and so will your face !) and win wiser fellows and hold them much longer ! • what's that you say ? They, even they stay longer for faces ? — perhaps — yes — but — redden it anyhow, redden it all the more — - (what I mean is — what I'm coming to) your self-love — which, do you see, is what we all look into ? — will always give you something quite-dear-enough to ponder — and as to those chaps, (men are so dull !) let them look to their own ! Now, should one of them, even one of them — (blessed with instinct he got from his mother more than his father — that you may swear to !) should such a one come prying — 56 BLOOD OF THINGS he and his self-love — with an idea (always the same at the last) to change your person to his — thinking he can do so — you change his to yours, if you can, and if you can't, there's no use anyhow — he's no good that way — if it must be that way — and it usually must (unless I'm dull too) — » so, send him home — give him a bone or a locket to gnaw at or finger — there's nourishment in memory — his pride will recover — do you see? What's that? — it's sad? — of course ! — everything is ! — (and so much the better, life so much richer!) for, whether you win him, or he win you, or you lose him, or he lose you, (and, do you see. BLOOD OF THINGS 57 there's never the one nor the other?) of course it's sad — everything is — (what I mean is) that's not enough reason for sitting so glum — flowers don't do it ! . . , What I'm coming to (one moment more, hang it all !) — nobody'll ever get you — it'll always be you that chases you and catches you, if it can ! — so, hug yourself, want yourself, want yourself lovelier (here's what I mean, I suppose) for your own almost-dear-enough sake — and your face will do the rest — if it must — if you want it to — if you can't help but want it to — you, perhaps, with an eye on some bee of a chap you'd like to give 58 BLOOD OF THINGS what you can of yourself — (of you — to him — for you ! — the sly boomerang, eh?) for you to be proud of — and him to be proud of — though, as I say — it's only himself that he's after — (you two and your two !) do you see? It's a muddle — I know — but don't droop your head — that's right ! — get up ! — fine ! — Now — try — your — glass I Eh? KATTDIDS Lass and lad, consider your friends and relations — this laughter of yours is unmoral — immoral really I On the grave of one's love, nobody sings a katydid duo, does a gargoyle dance, drops irresponsible flowers ! Not dead ? Yes, it is ! The one slinks this way, the other slinks that, when you're through pirouetting? BLOOD OF THINGS 59 At least have it look like death — j oy is indecent, inconsiderate, unsociable — you'll never win stones in that fashion ! OLD PEOPLE ENDINGS Life, loving to listen to old folk arguing the comparative claims upon glory of the diseases they've had that he brought them — each one's resistance mightier than his rivals', and each one's pride gorgeously inflating the facts of a case and Death, just loving to reflect on the cool, healing kiss, a round period with which she'll seal their stories : these twain are almost like twins craving the same old tale be told in the same old way — these twain would be twins were it not for the preference, that Life likes his to end in adventure, while Death likes hers to end at home. 60 BLOOD OF THINGS 61 PHAL.LIC Hail, steel spike of a river, bending and straightening, forcing and twisting, driving your way down the bowels of hills and mountains, bending them back on all sides, breaking them open, tearing up children, stones strewn everywhere I — Your soft, clear look with its stone-white thought — hail, crooked grandmother, humped on a boulder, eyeing your daughters, heedless of thought from heeding their reckless, stone-smooth, shell-tinted offspring — none old enough to think as you do — hail to your look as it lights still softer on the filthy (some would say) little boys 62 BLOOD OF THINGS digging their way down the mud of its banks ! A WHILE Rain drops, passionately gregarious, passionately garrulous, as they come, driven like tears from Eden's trees, in fore-knowledge of house-tops where egos scatter — unless and until they touch ground-holes where egos stick and at least do some good — are the kin of blood drops, tongues and the words of old people, reminiscently gregarious, reminiscently garrulous — unless and until they have children. This is why I hearken the childless, and assume the role of repartee breezes : BLOOD OF THINGS 63 juggling rain or juggling blood, breezes keep drops from falling — a while. MIDDUE-AGB She, like an old-time street organ which has lost its half-tones, or never had any, is frantically running the diatonic - whether to find those tones, or to save the loss of these she has, is not for me to know. The one for whom she plays is a wheezy accordeon whose one everlasting tonality lies in a foreign key. OLD MABEIAGE That old fool — as the men-folk sneer — trudging the hill — his mule-day over — is it because his back is bent — that he carries those dandelions — the easier to reach if you're bent ? — 64 BLOOD OF THINGS or is it because — as the women-folk sigh — he has warmed-over whims — for that other old fool — at the top of the hill — is it the sunset beckons him to ? OLD BEGGAR HEELS The right of the heel of her right shoe and the left of the heel of her left are worn to the ground, so wabbly and low does she bend her knees, so long has she done it there. Give her a penny, and you will see. If you want to be sure, give her two. triangles: in memory of h. c. k. This is the last long tired day ; the omnipresence of dissolution, dwarfed to the circle of each eye. The dance of his breathing, quicker and louder than scraping of feet, ceases like sap in leaves that are still. BLOOD OF THINGS 65 One eye says to another: This was a dance like staccato of steel in the hand of an invisible madman thrusting the past with the final deep twist. One eye says to another: His eyes brushed mine like dogs, which I must house and feed, lest I be henceforth alone. One eye says to another: I'm afraid to breathe in, for fear of breathing out; yet breathe out, one must, to breathe in. On€ eye says to another: But there's comfort in formulas, in the easy triangular round ; have his stone-lip lisp it again : Eyes breathe softly to eyes: May this entity, now a nonentity, not lose identity. Eyes embrace eyes . . . and dance his dirge . . . to their own minuets . . . 66 BLOOD OF THINGS PROSE RHYTHMS, 1906 A IX)VER TELLS It is a bit of a river that flows between two strips of land. Thousands of honeyless hives bury the strip on this, thousands the strip on that side — honeyless hives choked by honeyless, two-legged lives — but what of these? It is night. It is night, and a song, borne by a friendly wind, steals across the river, across from yonder side to this, across to me. It is not a song of night's ; it is not a song of Nature's ; it is not a song of the gods. It is . . . but stay I It is not for you. Your name is Profanation; you are of the honeyless two-legs that choke the honeyless hives that bury the earth . . . It is a bit of a river that flows between. It is night. A song steals across to me. And only the river 'twixt singer and me ! A POOR MAN TELLS Nature, like some harlot of the streets, was wear- ing her freshest rouge and her latest fashion's cos- tume. Behind the rouge and the costume, the old allurement watched and waited: the still tempting face, the still voluptuous body. It was poor I who chanced to pass that way, and stopped, though much against my will. And Nature whispered me some- thing: whispered me her price with her sighing, ca- BLOOD OF THINGS 67 joling voice. I moved on a little, hesitated and stopped again. Yes, I would have dared, but I could not dare. I would have dared to approach, look into the ever tempting face, raise the garment and enjoy the ever voluptuous body. But I could not dare : Nature's price was too high for my soul's thin pocketbook. And I passed on, though much against my will. A MADMAN TELLS Mirrored in the depths of thy twin tarns of love- liness so tender, where, as elsewhere, spring laughs, summer roves, autumn dreams and winter sleeps; and where, as elsewhere, joy and passion and melan- choly and sorrow pass their lives, so constant and so pure, certain twin reflections have enshrined them- selves in holy, beatific solitude. Ripples come, dis- port themselves, chase one another and disappear, and the tarns frown or smile as is their mood. The wind, jealous, of an avaricious temper, and weary of the love of flowers and butterflies, deserts his south- ern clime to woo these brides with his song, so melo- dious, so haunting, so compelling. But the tarns frown or smile as is their mood. The feathered chil- dren of the air fly from afar and, in the joy of the moment, serenade the consecrated spot with their poignant outpouring of an idolatrous invocation. But the tarns frown or smile as is their mood. Not- withstanding that the ripples come and disport them- 68 BLOOD OF THINGS selves, that the wind steals hither to woo, that the children of the air gather for their invocation, the twin reflections lament not, neither do they sorrow. For the ripples will go and the wind will go and the air folks will go, hence, far away, to unknown climes, to return again, but only to go, always to go. Therefore, the twin reflections are happy, immortally happy, whether spring laugh or summer rove or au- tumn dream or winter sleep, for, in the depths of the tarns they have enshrined themselves in holy, beati- fic solitude, living, sleeping and dreaming an ever- lasting elysium of elysian transcendentalism. Bliss- ful, ah, blissful I ! A DEAD MAN TELLS Indifferently, and yet, with an unbiased sort of half sportiveness, half seriousness, the rain beats down on my grave. The wind comes driving along from his home in the north-east, causing the trees to sing an unearthly air, now a dirge and now a scherzo. Down here, inside this lovely ebony casket that was, the worms, partly in joy and partly in regret, help themselves to that which is left of me to be digni- fied with the name, Body, at the same time giving me the delightful assurance that my skeleton days and those days when I am to romp with companion dust atoms are not so far hence. What an inestimable pleasure it is for me to reflect, that when Nature, assisted by these gentle myrmidons of hers, shall have BLOOD OF THINGS 69 realized her little business of the decomposition of my body, she will have succeeded with an even closer artistic completeness than Life and his myrmidons in their decomposition of that part of me which I once tried to dignify with the name, Soul ! DOROTHY HER EYES Her eyes hold black whips — dart of a whip lashing, nay, flicking, nay, merely caressing the hide of a heart — and a broncho tears through canyons walls reverberating, sluggish streams shaken to rapids and torrents, storm destroying silence and solitude! Her eyes throw black lariats — one for his head, one for his heels — and the beast lies vanquished — walls still, streams still — except for a tarn, or is it a pool, or is it a whirlpool twitching with memory ? 70 BLOOD OF THINGS 71 HEE HAIR Her hair is a tent held down by two pegs — ears, very likely — where two gypsies — lips, dull folk call them — read your soul away: one promising something, the other stealing it. If the pegs would let go — why is it they're hidden? — and the tent blow away — drop away — like a wig — or a nest — maybe you'd escape paying coin to gypsies — maybe — HER HANDS Blue veins of morning glories — blue veins of clouds — blue veins bring deep-toned silence after a storm. 72 BLOOD OF THINGS White horns of morning glories — white flutes of clouds — sextettes hold silence fast, cup it for aye. Could I blow morning glories — could I lip clouds — I'd sound the silence her hands bring to me. Had I the yester sun — had I the morrow's — brush them like cymbals, I'd then sound the noise. HKR BODY Her body gleams like an altar candle — white in the dark — and modulates to voluptuous bronze — bronze of a sea — under the flame. BLOOD OF THINGS 78 CUkT I wish there were thirteen gods in the sky, even twelve might achieve it: Or even one god in me: • Alone, I can't shape an image of her. OVALS I find my faith in two oval rooms an inch apart: uncertain in the one, I have only to glance at the other ! ALCHEMY Not even rain could make her lovelier — and I am no god. OTHEES There is too the love of her 74. BLOOD OF THINGS through others' love of her. There is too the love of her through others' love of her love of me. There is even the love of her though others' love of her be only love of my love of her. THREE I and my lovely lady sit down where we can see each other and chat about the lovely lady I and my lovely lady love. BLOOD OF THINGS 75 WESTMINSTER The niche cut for her by chance and her and me might be deeper if chance and she and I had been some other chance and she and I. But there it is ! AGATE Memories take the impress of shadows one breathes on the face of a stream : black agate the shadow she leaves. ILLUSIONS This tree, whose top flirted with the sky, whose branches dared the uttermost east and west, whose roots penetrated China, whose leaves were elves — My companion gone, it is less than a shrub. JADE Towards the green and age of Chinese jade. 76 BLOOD OF THINGS the moods and thoughts of the eyes and leaves of the cat and tree in the tiny dose of my her for me lift and lower: lower, then lift towards my me for her, the age and green of the Chinese love I feel for her, and try to carve and pray to see in this jade for her. iMAea Showing her immortal — it's mine to do — but I can't. Shaping her — just as she is — a thing to turn a glance to an eternity — mood shaping form — imperishable — it's there — I can see it — but I can't say it. BLOOD OF THINGS 77 There's no secret about it — she tells it every breathing, breathless moment — I can hear it — but I can't say it. What can my mere body and scrivening leave you, if it doesn't leave you her? If I could transcribe one infinitesimal phase of the trillion-starred endowment which comes tumbling out of simply trying to look at her, or out of catching a glance, slyly pointed, trying to look at me, stirring a trillion-starred emotion, vibrating like a bell across endless tides of endless seas — I'd do it — but I can't. I love her so much, I can't do anything else. BLOOD OF THINGS SCEAP I'm a scrap of paper — nothing to look at or ponder, they think, who see but themselves wherever they crawl ! To urchin and artist, ragpicker, seer — I'm shiny, crinkly, shapely, white! Out come their heads, like turtles', they do ! PUMP I'm not the scullery-scrub of the street! Let wind, rain and sun rinse and shine it ! I'm a low round steady back for a child who hasn't reached boyhood to learn leap-frogging — and for a boy who's reached manhood — not to forget ! PUDDI^ If your feather's gone crooked in the wind, try me; I'm the mirror, lass, you couldn't take along ! 78 BLOOD OF THINGS 79 If the city's made you lose, lad, your lake in the woods : I'm the pool — wade in ! — you didn't leave behind ! If your legs have softened muscles from living in a house : take a jump across my breast — it's water you need now! If you've stumbled on the habit of staring at the ground : pay me the fare of a glance, and I'll ride you to the sky! SHOW-CASE Twenty-four white collars will find twenty-four callers : if he lives well, size sixteen, thin, old or vain, size twelve : bad, a noose were fitter, dead, a wreath, sixteen or twelve quite the same : so, for the temporal present, come, twenty-four callers, and find twenty-four white collars ! CIGAR-INDIAN My tomahawk — will it descend — strike cleave a white skull? No — I am obsolete — a servile symbol of the art of my ancestors fallen a trade — inside, the symbol of conquest — 80 BLOOD OF THINGS a shopkeeper — this one a German ! Behold in me, the defeat of the past — sculptured dissolution ; and the new scarecrow — man turned to wood ! May the next who tomahawks peace - — take my place ! CIGAR-BUTT I'm the shabby relic of yestereve — spent it with a lady and a gentleman — lady cost him thirteen dollars, fourteen agonies — I but fifteen cents t Yet I who helped him with his revery — I who helped him decide to marry her — I who helped him better than stammer the pro- posal — helped him reform, give up painting, start in busi- ness, start a home — home, children, furniture, trappings and all, all a consequential adjunct to the realm — I who helped him be what he is — me he threw in the gutter — me, at least, the tomb of what he was I LETTEE-BOX Lift your hand to mine — a little higher — don't be timid — BLOOD OF THINGS 81 and to-morrow — or Thursday, the latest — another — smaller than yours — will approach my green brother's — (Toledo, did you say?) and the next day — or Saturday, the latest — still another — my gray brother's — will return your boomerang! DUST We are molecules — whose fate it is to quarrel — who knows why? It isn't when we're underfoot — it's when we're in the air — two of us after one air-hole! We don't do it — we like being still — it's the wind does it! Do lovers know why? PARK-BENCH I'm long and green and cool like the tree that I came from. They set me here, the ones who are long on green, to keep cool the ones who aren't. And to render back to God, through me if they can, 82 BLOOD OF THINGS what they have stolen of the freedom of things! WEIGHING-MACHINE There's the one who wheedles — " lift your pointer three pounds higher " — and the other who wheedles — " drop it three pounds lower " — always meeting in the sorry duet — " so I find favor with him 1 " I say to them both, to them all — weight is the substance of earthly endeavor, and if I were a man, science would choose me the bigger, since decomposition asserts, the nearer to lean, the nearer to death, and self-preservation, the nearer to stout, the nearer to life — but as I'm a weighing-machine, set here to adjudicate avoirdupois, wisdom would choose me the smaller : she gives me lighter work to do — and some day, some stout one will kill me! DUNG I have my uses too : I relieve satiety: I satisfy hunger: horse and fly ! BLOOD OF THINGS 83 And my country cousin: cattle and grain ! If we didn't: where would man be? ELECTRIC SIGN I call your attention to me — I am America! I come in the dark — I burn and blaze the dark away 1 I am electricity — I set fire to the street, like lightning all heaven! Whether you want to or whether you don't, you've got to see me — the biggest crowd in the world comes to me — richest and poorest — j oiliest brotherhood — crowds jostle crowds for me — I am Broadway ! Whether you need it or whether you don't, 3^ou've got to buy what I sell — I sell the products of this, my land, as multiform, numerous and skillfully contrived as the tiniest particles of this, my earth and mountains, of this, my lakes and rivers, of this, my stars and sky ! My neighbor there — he's selling the same — it's the best on the globe — after mine ! 84 BLOOD OF THINGS We're competitors in the main artery of strife which gives life to the body and perpetual ore to the soul! I was bom in America — I was made in America — and I'U go to the scrap-heap of America — to make room for some greater American! Do I brag? — sensitive, cultured, reticent foreigner, why shouldn't I ? — I'm the ego of the new world — Africa — Asia — Europe — the old world's dead — I'm the new ! I call your attention to me — I come in the dark — skeptical foreigner, mark you this boast — yesterday's history, prepare a new page: To-morrow, you'll see me in Europe! BITS I found these bits while going along from Fourteenth Street to Forty-second. How could those fellows ask a fellow going along policeman, vender, truck driver, motorman, and even the snobbish chauffeur — how could they bawl out that symphony, cacophonous and contrapuntal — " where in Hell are you going? " — BLOOD OF THINGS 85 at a fellow with nothing but a pencil and a pad? You have to be blind, hard of hearing, to see what street things do ! You have to change to a thing, ere things can speak to you! COINS I. COPPER Some bodies chase pennies, and live penny lives, by hoarding three pennies, in fear of just two; then hoarding two pennies, in fear of just one; then hoarding one penny, in fear of the zero, as round in its emptiness, perfectly round, as bodies all are which chase pennies. II. SILVER Whether winds chase the clouds, or clouds chase the winds; whether shadows the grasses, or grasses the shadows; which part of the circle 86 BLOOD OF THINGS starts chasing the rest's unimportant ; important that bodies chase bodies with undulating, mystic caresses of unseen wings: wings brushing wings. III. GOLD Something flipped somebody into the air, and he fell, head over tail over head over tail, a moth blind with stars, clutching light, clutching dark : here — where hand of man, feet of bug: fail not to turn him, if you would have both of him, undermost, equal to, if not as cleanly as uppermost: see ? THE ROUND OF A FIVE AND TEN CENT STORE THINGS We five and ten cent things are small — but — neglect of a button may lose you your job, hook and eye crooked, her social prestige: angles of pins web her hair, luring you, a prince in her thought with a pin in your tie: unseen safeties smooth her bodice round her breast, unseen stitches, your jacket round your chest: we five and ten cent things are small — but — a but can grow bigger than a tragedy, sir ! Here*s seed for your bird, sir — come, make it svng! RING Now — the fourth finger tip of her left hand — that's the lip to her heart — the digit itself, sir, the artery — so — if you touch the tip with your tip — index tip of your right — then — if her heart likes it — 87 88 BLOOD OF THINGS it'll tell the digit, which'll tell the tip, which'll tell your lip — whether to buy me! Or — better still — take her tip between index and thumb — like a telegrapher — you can never be sure of a method with woman! Then — oh ! — is this the lady ? — gee, she's nice ! — why'd you not say you knew how? — bashful ? — I know ! — I hope ni do? — ah! That'll cost you a nickel^ sir — thank you! HATCHET VERSUS HAMMER The past needs chopping away: buy a " Washington " hatchet — that's me ! The present needs knocking fast : don't buy a " King " hammer — that's him ! Use my edge for the one, my back for the other : one man's job is a better man's job ! There's chopping to do eoery day, sir! PAPER ROSES We're stronger than Nature's roses — BLOOD OF THINGS 89 grew from the tendrils of women — each woman's ten tendrils — for the joj of other women — east side women — and the gift of east side men — east side pocketbooks! Women know women — make roses which last! They^ll cost you a dime, sir — thank you! THIMBLE I'm intended for her third finger tip — lest a needle prick it — and for the tips of her lashes — should a word-needle, them! Lip salve'll help the hurt if you do, sir! COFFEE-MILL Like Mother Dew bent over her soil — grind away merrily — make the morning smell brown — till the whole room itself chum round! Coffee boils deeper than roses, sir! DISHES A lot of us together — we do look prosperous - 90 BLOOD OF THINGS make a funny clatter — our curves best for mouths — our flats load whole muttons — our sides walls for gravy ! Gravy — there's the danger — pray God, don't bring her a lot of us together — a dish pan's a grave — and dish water's gravy that'll foul the meat of your love — and stick to the remains like a shroud 1 Dont let those glasses squeeze, sir — thei/We fragile! MOUSE-TRAP You two need a trap with four holes : one to catch her illusions: one to catch yours : one to catch your self-love : one to catch hers: only then will one cheese last you two! Warram^ted to 'Mil as soon as they nibble, sir! AISLES Your eyes have spied us: your feet have come and gone ! Your hands have reached across us: salesgirls reached you theirs! Ribbons you bought tied her hat to her head : we're more than ribbons that tie her to you ! BLOOD OF THINGS 91 Nighttime, it^s we that can't close our eyes : daytime, it's we that pray you'll return ! Aigrettes? — not here, sir! — they'd fly away! NICKELS AND DIMES You helped us build our skyscraper! We've helped you build yours ! May God tip the spire! Costs a prayer extra, sir — donH mention it! ROUND A mere poet is penniless. Mightn't he try a round poem to bind her? That'll bring her liberty, sir! PHYSIOLOGY LEAVES We were green, green ? — till they wrung out our blood, the green sap! Now we are white — white as white can be to the eye, black as white can be to the thought ! Lines, thin lines are our veins — most of them, horizontal parallels, two of them, vertical parallels ! — horizontals blue, verticals pink, mocking the texture of man-veins ! — the pink, erect as two columns, mocking the stability of civilization! He holds us down with one hand and with the other, gripping a feather, spatters us with hieroglyphs ! — not like an aboriginal, red-burning African, red-burning Eskimo ! — but like any white civilian with his hieroglyphs, hieroglyphs, some down one column, some down the other, 92 BLOOD OF THINGS 9S more down one column, more down the other — hating, detesting, knifing each other as only a debit and credit can hate ! We were green ! — we used to sing to the wand of the wind! EYES We are his eyes. We do not see. We do not see grain, we see people; we do not see people, we see people gathering grain; we do not see people gathering grain, we see people loading freight cars ; we do not see people loading freight cars, we see freight cars en route ; we do not see cars, we see endless eels, eels of white tape; we do not see tape, we see figures ; we do not see figures — gold is what we see. We are his eyes. We tell him, buy wheat at par ! 94 BLOOD OF THINGS STOMACH I told him — that even in love — that thought for the without — one must preserve oneself. I told him — a little love is admissible — all-love suicidal. I told him — even if one love a little, one must preserve oneself. I told him — even in fair play — the love phrase of commerce, which calls for a recognition of the balance between two factors or people — one must preserve oneself. It's fine to sa}^, but not fair, — not fair to oneself — '' My dear sir, I'd like to offer you more than you ask "— that's an instance of loving, of a thought for the without — not an instance of living, of the thought for the within — as I told him. He said, — but that was years ago — " Mustn't I save my soul.'^ " — BLOOD OF THINGS 95 and I said, — and that was instantaneously — " Your body's your soul — and even if it isn't — don't you need a body to preserve your soul? " I'm proud of my pupil. I told him — and he was only a stripling. I haven't had to tell him since. HEART I was his heart. . . . I felt like a woman once. I used to stand at the well, pumping blood, lifting blood, blood as clean as water, and drop it into his pore-cups, millions of clean pore-cups. . . . Wriggling things slid into the well. Things his stomach vomited. That hag of the devil, his stomach. . . . They had to live. Even I will say, even they must live. So they devoured my blood. Smuttied it, soaked it in slime. And left ofFal. . . . I am his heart. . . . I pump offal, lift offal. Offal is what I give. Offal the pore-cups receive. . . . 96 BLOOD OF THINGS I used to sing at my labors. I don't sing now. I whisper a curse. . . . I am his hate. . . . BRAINS We are weary. . . . We exist in the back of his head. We are the worms squirming there. Kick open some earth and you'll see us. We are his machinery. Look at machines and you'll see us. Their veins twist like ours. . . . He keeps us slaving. Day-time, over-time, dreaming-time. He, a slave, keeps us slaving. . . . There's a god in his middle. He's worm to that god. Poke a worm's middle, you'll see him. . . We want to rest. To lie out flat. We want him to die. ... Though earth worms go on. Do outside what we did inside. Brother worms wearier. . . . Wearier than we are. . . . CITY DANDELIONS JASMINE WAY I hear it was a girl? Why, they were saying it was a girl? Isn't that nice and what are you calling him? I'd an uncle by that name — it's so pretty — when's the christening? I must wear my new white frock — Jonathan — they'll call him Johnny — have you tried our new green grocer? So much cheaper than old Fleischmann — yours a boy, the Jones' a girl — they'll be sweethearts when they're bigger? Weil, I never — what with Mary Hatfield soon, and the Spindles to be married, Jasmine Way is certainly growing — Good day to you, mam! LANES Do you wish to hear songs, silent songs, gone, to come, or never to come, no lane of fallen leaves, 97 98 BLOOD OF THINGS however red or brown or gold, however soft to the tread, is as caressing as the hard gray flagstone of a city street. Look at one and hear. CITY DANDEUONS Jane Street is ever gloomy towards evening, Horatio and Charles, Milligan and Gay : A long, spectral, mysterious man comes with his wand and touches the lamps — this one, that one, the next, the next — and they blossom ! Jane Street smiles and is cheery at dawn, Horatio and Charles, Milligan and Gay: The man comes again — and this one. BLOOD OF THINGS 99 that one, the next, the next — blow away ! TESTAMENTS They wait under the same sky — along the same level — throughout the same rain — and — honest humans crawl to both — but — there is a difference wider than a city block between the House of Moses on Second Avenue and the Chapel of the Immaculate Virgin on Third. MANUFACTURE The great house is black. Years ago, it was red — made of red bricks, made by red men. The city, a dream of white men turned to soot, charcoaled it — don't blame the sun. Cut into the huge wall — here, there, here, there — are windows 100 BLOOD OF THINGS as regular as shiny playing cards. Windows are made of glass, and as glass is transparent, the mere effort of a glance may see a stiff, perpetual, right, left, right, left, up, down, up, down, arms, heads, arms, heads. Are these, jokers, come to life? — or mannikins, made to jump on a string between sticks by the mere effort of squeezing, relaxing? landowner (to b. k.) Because of his ownership of a portion of the universe so minute that not even Jehovah, in his most omniscient mood, could locate it; because of his dominion for a duration of the infinite 80 infinitesimal that a breath in, breath out on the part of The Same divides its be and be-not; because of this empire of his over a longitude and latitude BLOOD OF THINGS 101 scarce the size or the strength of a pinchlet of dynamite — that blessed microbe wears a silk hat on Sundays — while others, less blessed than he, dig up his potatoes, dig down their own graves — with the hope that their Mondays may grow to such Sundays. ROMAN HUNGER (to L. R.) A truer harbinger of the dawn of a day's labors than any cock crow, a truer signal for the start of a race than whip, spur or pistol — the lady of the mansion blows her nose with a free and stentorian magnificence — a forest horn call for servants and maids to come scurrying from bed-room holes in garrets and cellars — a solemn command for 102 BLOOD OF THINGS the eggs to start popping, the bacon to sizzling, the coifee to simmering — for, be it known that, on this particular day (each day being particular), the lady suffers an unusually cosmic appetite — and, that the sound may shatter unruly silence and penetrate walls, she employs no kerchief, but seizes her bedsheet — in which be it known to ears that stay skeptical, though the thunder seizes black clouds to blow his nose, the crash is less terrifying to trees than the call to her slaves when their lady blows hers. HEEEDITY The old man in the drawing-room oil BLOOD OF THINGS 103 invented the harrow, or the rake, or the hoe, or something. I didn't learn whether she is his daughter, or granddaughter, his niece, grandniece, or what. But after seeing the blue and white awning playing tunnel from the curb to her front door, and that furniture, those rugs, those paintings, that statuary, the marble cupids in the gardens, and then the puppets who compose her society — I longed that some other had invented the harrow, or the rake, or the hoe, or something — or that the high forehead in the drawing-room oil had been a mere huckster 104 BLOOD OF THINGS of shoe laces, or rhubarb, or whisk brooms, or something. THAT IS If I weren't what I am — if I hadn't been bom what I was — I wouldn't be what I am — that is — I'd have a decent j ob down-town — with a stipend of respectable proportions — I'd have a Sunday suit as well as a week-day — I wouldn't be looking so shabby — and my wife wouldn't eye me so — I feel like a roach when she eyes me so — that is — if she weren't what she is — if she hadn't been bom what she was — she wouldn't be what she is — she wouldn't have a Sunday as well as a week-day — and I wouldn't eye her so — she turns like a thief when I eye her so — that is — if my mother and father had had more discrimination in their choice of each other — if her mother and father had BLOOD OF THINGS 105 had more discrimination in their choice of each other — no, that is — if Nature had had more discrimination with my mother and father and her mother and father — she wouldn't have asked me to go to the Browns — to-day being Sunday — or I'd surely have gone to the Browns — to-day being Sunday — and I with a Sunday suit — I with a decent job down-town — I with a respectable stipend — yes, that is — I wouldn't be sitting here — and she wouldn't be sitting there — she telling the Browns about it — and I reading Darwin — what can he tell me about it ? DEREGLE In my mind, such as it is, bassoons hobnob with pelicans. The explanation is, since there must be an explanation, or a truth has, of course, no reason for being, or idea, still less, no right to be sounded — the explanation is not 106 BLOOD OF THINGS in the interest for the contrasting facts, bassoons, very tall, very thin, very black, pelicans, very short, very stout, very white, any more than one's predilection for Voltaire, very tall, very thin, Rabelais, very short, very stout, is interest for the contrasting facts — but the explanation is, if it's this, that there's kinship with the exaggeration of bassoons and Voltaire high up, who see and who sing life as lower, and pelicans and Rabelais low down, who see and who sing life as higher, than it actually is if you're logical and true to your middleness of virtues — and the explanation is, if not this, that, since in my mind, such as it is, bassoons hobnob with pelicans, the deduction must be, in lands where there must be deductions, that this can but be an idea of some sort, and that this screed, such as it is, is an examination not into them so much as it is into me, which is, if you reason in rhyme, all that a screed can be, is it not? BLOOD OF THINGS 107 82° FAHRENHEIT To the really humble progenitor of Doctor Jurisprudence, or even the mere chaste student of his miraculous common denominator, a glimpse of the domestic discipline imposed, with such benign artistry, by her ladyship, the Unapproachable Irreproachable, will aiford proof, without cost of emotion, of the favorite aphorism, that the perfecting of the microcosm is a closer adumbration of the Medico's sacred behest as to ethical procedure than the quixotic, out-of-doors pursuit of the macrocosm; an added glimpse of the breakfast repast-demeanor of his lordship, the Subdued Abducted, with a particular notation of how his once hot glances have become icicles of buttermilk, should crystallize wisdom, or celibacy, as it happens, 108 BLOOD OF THINGS and therewith leave the heart frozen against further palpitation. ON DIT It starts with a tongue hissing into an ear, spreading the vacuous head to a ball on strings of a neck legs run with on stilts through streets and down lanes, bumping folk in their stalls, pulling eyes out of sockets and tongues out of nests, eye-bloated, tongue-bellowed head-balloons tossing on neck strings and leg stilts from roofs down to sidewalks, back yards to front stoops, some tangled in wash lines or telegraph wires, only to jerk dangling messages there! Comes a sun-prick of light, or a moon-wave of sleep, heads burst or lie limp like fish full of air or rats full of water in carts or in cellars! BLOOD OF THINGS 109 HELIOTROPE " 0, ah, ee. . . . I want a man with leopard's eyes and the neck of a, neck of a swan, I could hang him to the hottest, saddest tree in Hell, and dance to the, dance to the tune of his writhing legs! O, ah, ee. . . . I'd crawl up beside him though the bark turn to, bark turn to thistles and thorns, and strangle me with his wild, wild beard till my dead body be his dead body, and his dead body be, his dead body be. . . ." The lady wears the mildest of blue eyes. Receives every Friday at ^\e. Sips tea as you or I sip tea. . . . But her cheek bones are high, after the Polish fashion, and of late, she has been reading Przybyszewski, bound in heliotrope. WEDLOCK It can never be Angela, 110 BLOOD OF THINGS though hers is a body for whose possession one would barter one's inheritance of Heaven. Of understanding she is as free as a mule. It can never be Allura. Her soul shines like an owl's eye at night, and she plays Ravel as one loves to hear Ravel. But she is flat-breasted and powders her nose. One should wed solitude. BOOMS The rooms you leave seem more sorrowful than faces ; they eye you like animals. Their dumb service is past; they have no legs to follow you. BLOOD OF THINGS 111 If their courage had a tongue, it would have said, go; thej have no ears for what you say. . . . Monday, they will give what they gave you to an Italian woman with eight children. CARBON-DIOXLDE Oh master Americans, so supreme over this and all ages in lawfully bridging the chasm between any two sums with the process, indigenous and doubly divine, of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division — I ask you, how is it, that the tiddle-diddle-doo breathed into yonder flute by the trained carbon-dioxide of yonder wandering tatterdemalion — how is it that, whereas you sanction the barter of hens for gold, pigs for gold, ducks for gold, by tossing your clinkety-clink to the merest squawk-squawk, oint-oint, quack- quack — that this tiddle-diddle-doo, while it doesn't say in words audible to the ear or legible to the eye — 112 BLOOD OF THINGS " will jou drop me a penny for beauty ? " — how is it, I say, that that huckster of the flute, who needs but an addition of oxygen equal to a subtraction of carbon-dioxide, lest he fall and beauty fall with him, is thin as a worm and white as a shell? — have you no process for pleasure, or is pleasure unlawful among you? 17 + 4^X3 — That superannuated, moral supernumerary of worldly well-being Man has sumamed, Conscience, is miraculously free from acrimonious shoots in the breast of our American Citizen — for — when one has a female helpmeet, with seventeen graces, become a slave of docility, become a mummied puppet which bobs to us, its mantelpiece Buddha, for each nod we vouchsafe or glance awry, which knows what dishes, what cutlery, what napery should adorn the pabulum board, and what proportion of calories and carbohydrates the respective hours of eight, noon and six should proffer for the god's health and propitiation, BLOOD OF THINGS 113 which knows how near the moon his pillow should rise, what wink of the morning to whisper, "Cuckoo!"— and — when one has a mission domicile snuggling three more dormitories than his Neighbor Citizen's bungalow, plus three more Persian rugs, plus three more Morris chairs, plus three more sculptures cut in marble, not in clay — and — when one has thus built and prevailed through one's genius in the addition, subtraction, multiplication and di- vision of the numerals of Arabia as applied to the bartering of corn in Nebraska — and — when one has done all this and all that under the motherly approbation of that old dowager and monitress over the good and evil conduct of hens, caterpillars, crocodiles, giraffes, brook-trout, sea-urchins, pebbles, nasturtiums and weeping wil- lows, Man in his discriminate affection has surnamed. Law — who is there in our New England, Middle West or California, 114 BLOOD OF THINGS who dares even dream disapprobation when our American Citizen remarks from the depths of his ease, to his Neighbor Citizen in the throes of his envy — " yes — it's a fine day — trading was excellent — my wife's well — the verandah's newly painted — we're both fond of blue — the latest? we're calling him Archibald each man to his duty — I'm not looking for credit — yes — I'm voting the Republican ticket ! " SUCH AND SUCH It is very easy for a dead emotion to be very wise: it is very easy for a dead emotion to prognosticate, if such and such begin between such and such, such and such eventuates, perforce beyond further peradventure ergo, you must not love. It must be very nice to feel nothing, know everything, BLOOD OF THINGS 115 and be able to sit the chair of philosophy, or is it anthropology, or is it psycho-analysis, in an American university : I should like so much to be able to say, perforce beyond further peradventure, ergo, you must not live. But it is very hard for a such and such to be very wise. FIFTH AVENUE I sat on the front seat of a Fifth Avenue bus — an event — not significant : I sat on the front seat, thinking, reflecting, meditating — on my importance to the world, or — importance to myself ? — an inquiry — not significant — but significant to me, as I sat on that front seat, reflecting back, meditating forward — thinking about the significance of the sale of a poem I had sold. 116 BLOOD OF THINGS for five green leaves, to an editor — and which I would see in his paper to-morrow — and which his public would see and might read — million people, two million — and three or four of them, blessed with vision, might hail and remember, as significant — and me as important, not self-important: and I sat, meditating forward, toward a later sun-day, when I — yellow leaves richer — why not ? — might be sitting — why not ? — on the front seat of a runabout, or an automobile, or a limousine — recognized — pointed out — universally cheered by this world of twin sidewalks — instead of unrecognized — igTiored — alone — on the top of a bus, my thinking, reflecting, meditating bowing low — very low to hoping, speculating, imagining. . . . when of a sudden — with a clatter before and a clatter behind — BLOOD OF THINGS 117 with a screaming before and a screeching behind — with universal vociferation fore and aft — with a fellow in a silk hat, higher than Pike's Peak — on the back seat ! — a U-S-boat chasing a U-boat? — whizzed by — shot by — vanished — seen — not seen — heard — not heard ! He wasn't I — in fancy there — self-important grown important ! He wasn't I — in reincarnation of somebody like Homer's ghost — somebody like Shakespeare's — somebody like Whitman's I He was in reality — in the bone and flesh — somebody like Wilson! He was indeed — Woodrow Wilson! This ... is to-morrow. ... I'm still . . . alive. . . . but no longer . . . dreaming. . . . PROPAGANDA Under one arm, she carried a dog, dog-docile dog, under the other, she squeezed a cat, cat-squirming cat; top of her hat, 118 BLOOD OF THINGS she'd tied a cage, cage for a squirrel, squirrel-chat squirrel; top of her back, a bundle, enormous enough to take in a household; behind her, in front, on both sidewalks, in the gutter, and even from windows and veritable housetops, something like a million folk, so it seemed, crowded, thinking jostling absurdities, grinning grotesque good-fellowship, nudging strange ribs with strange elbows ; and methought: Ludicrous creature, you do more, unconsciously, towards cementing folk, out in the open, than a congress of self-conscious, senatorial, ambassadorial, regal and BLOOD OF THINGS 119 presidential orations, concerning leagues and the like — behind closed doors. CHESS PLAYERS Chess players live in old damp basements, fifty or a hundred to the basement: old damp basements are chess players' homes, fifty or a hundred to the home. They play there, eat there, smoke there, sleep there — don't sleep on divans, settees, ottomans — sleep on the tables, or just underneath, or half the body on a chair, the other on the floor. (If you fancy me a raconteur, try Grand Street off the Bowery !) Never a proprietor of old chess dungeons shoos away a neophyte of Caissa's : lodging-house etiquette is fully deserved by a masonry as venerable as Job's. Or set aside Caissa, patron saint of chess, and analyze the problem with your New York eye: first of all, these denizens have no other home; secondly, they're stolid and so dead a weight at night, one and two and three o'clock a. m. the time they're through, 120 BLOOD OF THINGS 121 he'd need a dozen wheelbarrows to cart them away; and where should he dump them? — down an alley or a sewer? — devotees are lost if they ever touch the world; he'd grow a silly bankrupt if he even aired them out ; last of all, they're old, older than patriarchs, older than the bible and as old as Israel; turn them out of doors, he'd be turning out his race; a gentile " goy " might do it, but you'll never see a Jew! (If you care to test a creed, try Grand Street off the Bowery!) Chess players squeeze out a mite of livelihood, squeeze each other for the stake, a nickel a game: twelve or thirteen hours buy one's coffee, one's doughnuts ; satiety this against the hunger chessdom breeds: but — you've got to be adroit enough and shrewd enough; scholarship won't do; you must have imagination; and then you'll need the third and hardest, only age can forge, courage to make the move you've felt your brain conceive : but — if you haven't got the brain to beat him, do it with your tongue; 122 BLOOD OF THINGS scare him from the winning coup, sneak his thought elsewhere : call him " potzer," " nebich," " kibitz "; if that trio don't confound him, sneer him " goy " ; the weird vernacular has always this to addle Jews: but — if you haven't got the tongue to thwart him, do it with your beard; unless your beard is long enough though, wait until it grows ; then let it wave across the field like a willow in the wind, then hover near a corner like a broom that's done its day; and when he blares " schachmatt " at you, you raise the elfin growth, disclose a rook he couldn't see which makes off with his queen, and twists the mate against him like a dagger in the dark ! (You sneer me, historian? — try Grand Street off the Bowery!) Chess players vie in old damp basements, till some of them have nickels and some of them have none: as long as some are still alive and only some are dead. BLOOD OF THINGS 123 old damp basements are chess players' homes. When chess players die, they lay down their kings, do it with a noble touch, if they've learned the game at all: for " a move's a move, you can never retract," the mystic law from first to last, beginner up to peer ! Consider cross-eyed Spielmann who resigned two dawns ago ; Spielmann knew Caissa's word; he'd played her eighty years: played her as a boy when he won from Lilienkron, played her at the close when he lost to Lilienthal; played her through the way between from Rosenzweig to Ziegenschwarz, Kalinski to Rabino- witz; and more than played her on that crag, the night he beat lame Steinitz, little squatty champion for five and twenty years, Goliath of chessdom, till David Lasker brought him down! It may have been an accident, Goliath fast asleep from defeating all the masters and the tyros of this world — but " Spielmann once beat Steinitz ! " was the epitaph that dawn as they stretched him on two tables for the first move to the grave: 124 BLOOD OF THINGS " a doddering dufFer like Lilienthal beat Spiel- mannr ? Caissa, our Caissa, it was who queened that pawn I " They dug their clinking nickels out of vests and up from trousers to dig a checkered plot for Spielmann who beat Steinitz ! (No Potter's Field takes king or pawn from Grand Street off the Bowery J) MISS SAL'S MONOLOGUE To Mr, Bert Williams, the Mastersinger of Vaudeville Come, get up, Sal, peel off another, peel still another day off the calendar — come, get along, peel them for noon-time — potatoes — peel them for night-time — potatoes — some folk like them for breakfast, peel some for breakfast — potatoes — slip your knife between their skin and flesh and mind, don't go slipping it between your own — potatoes — if Mr. Columbus hadn't been what he was, had he been what you are, Sal, he'd never have felt the world round, he'd have felt it a 125 126 BLOOD OF THINGS potato — crooked and wrinkled, never the same shape twice, no shape at all, full of bumps and crevices, warts like mountain peaks — no place for a man in his senses to go crawling, exploring — he'd have seen it what it is, a potato, and another, and then another, and then still another — and he'd have stayed at home like you, peeling, peeling potatoes, a potato peeling potatoes — go, peel them off your back, off your arms, off your hips, off your legs, off your feet — clothes — clothes — when you call me in the moniing, Mr. Rooster, don't call me Sal any more, I don't know that name any more, I don't answer to it any more, somebody else whose name is Sal, BLOOD OF THINGS 127 let her answer to it, mine isn't Sal — if you've got to get me up again, you call out, Potato — go, peel them off the bed, quilt, counterpane, sheet, and get under and dream — yes, be fooled a little more — yes, I know you, Mr. Bed — you're a nice soft fellow to lie with — you and your spooky talk, telling me your yams fit to turn a nigger white — about potato goblins coming and going on match-sticks for legs, they doing the cake-walk, me playing the tune — " peel. Honey, I'm peeling off my heart for you, so peel away your heart for me, do ! " — I told you, Mr. Rooster, never to call me again — told you my name is Potato — told you not to call out Sal any more — told you to get up someone else by that name — come, get up, Potato — yes, that's me — peel open your eyes — yes, I'll peel — 128 BLOOD OF THINGS come, peel off another, still another to-day — Mr. To-day, yes, I know — don't have to tell me about you, I know you, Man — and yesterday, and day before yesterday, and day before day before yesterday, and to-morrow, and day after to-morrow, and day after day after to-morrow — your whole family, Mr. Man, the whole of old Mr. Noah's ark of you to-days — and day after day after day after to-morrow, when I die — I know that too — laid out, a skinned potato in a tub — it being my to-day — you can't tell me, I know that they'll peel off some earth, and stick me under, and that'll be an end to peeling — I know that too — yes — no — no — not if the wind use the rain, Mr. Wind use Mr. Rain BLOOD OF THINGS 129 for still another knife to come peeling some more — oh Mr. Lord — oh good Mr. Lord — peel open your eye — peel Mr. Cloud off Mr. Sun before Mr. Wind bring Mr. Rain to come peeling me from under the skin of Mr. Sod — oh dear Mr. Lord — if they do, Mr. Lord — if they've got to, Mr. Lord — if thej^'ve got to get me up, it being my to-day — and you've got to call me, me that's used to being called — don't call out, Sal, just call out. Potato — whisper Mr. Gabriel to whisper, Potato — or I simply can't promise nobody, no-day, no -how — to peel the worms off my body, and the body off my soult CROWNS AND CRONIES VISION You have yet to attain contemplation of a person without intervention of your own — and so, you have not beheld your own. You hold the glass, face to you, back to him — not having felt the earth hold its sea sky-ward, the sky hold its sun earth-ward. It needs but a twist of reflection to bring recognition around — but that needs the titan-wrist pulse of the earthquake and pulse of the meteor of heredity and humility, 130 BLOOD OF THINGS 131 whose child is self-annihilation. CRONIES You there, with a quill in space, stroke against time, scratch on the ball, one-two-three : the ball revolves, yes, around another, yes, and you then, quill, stroke, scratch, one- two-three, vanish, yes, no space, no time, no ball, no you, no: except in me here, with a quill in space, stroke against time, scratch on the ball, one-two-three, so! INDOOES On a day like this, when nobody dresses his outdoor best, 132 BLOOD OF THINGS except some fop with a lady to woo (this time with wheedling of satin), when the bickering rain is satin enough for the sky to come wooing the earth (last time with streamers of sun-down) : on a day so dull, it is best for a man (this time with nothing to win, be the mood) to resign the game to dandies and skies and, sans advancement of earth's way or woman's, to go to the nook of some rhymester's book — providing his noise isn't tiresome, too, wooing Dame Art with demode wiles. TO THE OTHERS On, crusaders ! Whither? Nowhere ! The past? Sneers ! Present ? Snarls ! Future? Snubs ! Fodder? BLOOD OF THINGS 133 Cocoanuts ! Where? In trees ! How? At jour heads ! Do? You! On, crusaders ! TO w. c. w. M. D, There has been another death. This time, I bring it to you. You are kind, brutal, you know how to lower bodies. I ask only that the rope isn't silk, (silk doesn't break) nor thread, (thread does.) If it lifts and lowers common things, it will do. 134 BLOOD OF THINGS TO A SMALL SCULPTOR Thought being in, not out — your eyes look in, not out — (they do, that's what scares me!) and though your body is small, the thought it holds is bigger than the moon — (it is, that scares me more!) now, if you could look out, not in — and could get me into your eyes, into your thought — (I'm small, though my hope is bigger than the moon!) and could get that thought into BLOOD OF THINGS 1S5 your fingers, and your fingers in and out, around and over the clay — I'd sit for you always — (no, if that could be — that'd scare me most I) I think I'll run away! GREEK OR PERHAPS ROMAN EPIGRAM Cynthia worked along the principle of the annihilation of all which doesn't contribute to the one-self, the principle of hatred, a biological principle ; Cleon, along the principle of the accumulation of all which can possibly contribute to the all-self, the principle of love, a biological principle; (the second might be written first) so the gods, who work along the principle of the annihilation of the all-but-one 136 BLOOD OF THINGS and the accumulation of the all-for-one, the principle of life, the biological principle, the gods parted them; (the third, too, might be written first) especially if you are a Cynthia and Cleon plus a penchant for writing Greek or perhaps Roman epigrams out of the sorrows due to the arrows of Juno and Jove — or Jove and Juno — whichever it is. SCREEN dance: FOR RIHANI Its posterior pushing its long thin body, a procession of waves lifting its head — a green caterpillar: Its roots digging and drinking, the sap driving outward and up, shaking its yellow head — the mountain top of a tree: BLOOD OF THINGS 137 Idling along in the blue, an easy white holiday, swimming away towards the rim of the bowl — a cloud: Dipping and twirling, soaring, floating, following after — a butterfly. TO WHITMAN Monster ! You would take me, tiny me, in your huge paws and scrunch me? Child! I can take you, tiny you, between my thumbs and love you. Come on ! RED CHANT There are veins in my body, Fenton Johnson — veins that sway and dance because of blood that is red; there are veins in your body, Fenton Johnson — veins that sway and dance because of blood that is red. Let a master prick me with his pin — 188 BLOOD OF THINGS the bubble of blood shows red; Let a master prick you with his pin — the bubble of blood shows red. Let a woman love me, let a womsin love you — the blood that rises is red. Let my gray eye turn to yours, let your brown eye turn to mine — the blood behind them is red. Let my skin wrinkle to a grin, let your skin wrinkle to a grin — red blood inspired the wrinkles. Let me think of a spirit, let you think of a spirit — the bodies that nourished the thought are red. Let me think of loving you, let you think of loving me — the hearts that nourished the thought are red. Let me say it as well — why shouldn't I? — let you say it as well — why shouldn't you? — the tongues that say it are red. Let me sing you a song — is it foolish? — let you sing me a song — is it foolish? — songs and singers are red. Let us go arm in arm down State Street — let them cry, the easily horrified: " Gods of our fathers, look at the white man chumming with the black man ! " BLOOD OF THINGS 139 Let us nudge each other, you and I — without humilitj^, without defiance: " We are red," let us answer ! THE NOBILITY Behind blinking lids of banter, playing at butterfly, profundity digs his cave. Careless of her weak yellow gums, sorrow smiles like a toad, then snarls an insipid ditty. Not unruefully, the aged night trees raise their petticoats ; their skinny white knees protrude and flirt with the fireflies. The earth snores in his sleep as the worms, squirming his brain, weave a nightmare of glee. For a noble breath or two, scorn is god. ... The river plays on, on his flute. The stupid mountains shrug their shoulders. The elephant moon goes, wagging his head. SEI/F-ESTEEM I know a man who takes his art as he takes his coffee 140 BLOOD OF THINGS with a complacent lumpling of sugar. He studies her as he does his neighbors — with more or less equal emotion. He doesn't grovel to her; nor does he fall to snivel worship. They fence with watchful wit and then put arms about each other; gravely, impersonally. I esteem this man beyond all others. POETRY Ladislaw the critic is five feet six inches high, which means that his eyes are five feet two inches from the ground, which means, if you read him your poem, and his eyes lift to five feet and a trifle more than two inches, what you have done is Poetry — should his eyes remain at five feet two inches, you have perpetrated prose, and do his eyes stoop — which heaven forbid ! — BLOOD OF THINGS 141 the least trifle below five feet two inches, you are an unspeakable adjective. PATRIOT This man bleeds for a tune the lightest wind can destroy from mortal ken. Out of himself, he has cut a reed — and into it, he breathes rhythms. What makes him blow, on a day when the clarion rules, is an imaginary nation, with one creed, and one language, and a ghost for queen, who pins him no praise when he dies breathing rhythm to the last. 1914 PASTS Science drove his plough, so straight, so strong, so true, deep and far into the past and turned it topsy-turvy. Now, we are frantically busy, with all of our many hands, sowing the next past. CHRISTIANITY When men stand men against trees to be shot : why don't they lift their arms out : : parallel with the earth and the sky are traitors and deserters to a lesser 142 BLOOD OF THINGS 143 love to be deprived of this simple final comfort by traitors and deserters to a greater? YOU THEEEI Hey there, you there, you of the skulking, round-shouldered eyes : Twist your eyes over here — give them a slap on the back so they turn — a j ab in the ribs so they straighten — eh? no, don't put them in uniforms — this isn't a matter of dress-parade, of volunteers, conscription, but a matter of undress-parade, the moment for saluting the nude! Ah there — I knew you could do it — now : open the lips of your eyes — breathe the truth of your heart just once through your eyes — the truth in you, you have truth in you, the truth you breathe from one breath to another breathe it forth from the crypt of you out through the mouth of your eyes — open them wider, wider, let the horizon hear ! You dread your truth ? — 144 BLOOB OF THINGS then fling it out, kick it out — one can't soil the seat of the pants of a truth — give it a full-legged, bouncing kick — or, as well if you must, breathe it out, carefully, fastidiously, shameful phrase after phrase — breathe the truth of your heart just once through your eyes t Oh yes, I know — we'll treat you like a poaching nigger — burn you the way they did Joan of Arc — poke your carcass with the boot of a lie stronger than any truth of the ages — and mouth frothing spit for your epitaph ! Eyes — shoulder arms — ready — take aim — shoot us your truth just once from your depths: shoot us the name of your country ! Eh? No! Humanity? Corporal! Line up your firing squad! That straight-bodied soul is a traitor! Hellow there, you there — and Christ'll mouth open your eyes with a kiss 1 THE NEXT DRINK It's a marvelous age that we live in I (It is, sir!) In Greece, they fought with mere javelins and spears 1 (Child's play!) BLOOD OF THINGS 145 In later times — well, what of Bonaparte? (Waterloo?) And the poor pretty handful who fell? (Tin soldiers!) When you think of the motors and aeroplanes, (The dreadnoughts !) and the millions of men in the field at one time, (Ten million dead!) and the seas and the seas of bullets and blood ! (And the gold!) Yes, the twenty-two millions a day that it costs ! ( Vanderbilt's fortune!) Why, we're right to be proud, sir, and happy and gay} (That we are!) It's our duty, we should be, we should be ! (We should!) Come, have the next drink on me I CONJUGATION . . . now, let you listen to : kilHng folk is still another way of killing rats — rats dying of feeding on festering wounds containing poisoning resulting from firing — or testing the sentence according to grammar — an instructive experiment for the class — if I err, let some scholar correct me — 146 BLOOD OF THINGS the participle, killing, is derived from the active verb, infinitive, to kill, the conjugation of which is, kill, killed, killing, kiUed — kill, the action of somebody firing, killed, the action on somebody fired upon, killing, the action on somebody else by somebody fired upon, killed, the action on somebody else by somebody fired upon — kill and killing standing in the active voice, killed and killed in the passive : now, let me hear — since the theorem of it duplicates the theorem of the verb, to kill — I expect an accurate response — let me hear your conjugation of the verb, to feed, in the sentence, feeding folk is still another way of feeding rats — or rather, if you prefer it — feeding rats is still another way of feeding folk — the order of action is immaterial — - the conjugation, in either case, the same — now, let me hear. ... BLOOD OF THINGS 147 ROCOCO KINSMEN My two old brothers are growing older. Soon they'll be hobbling to crutches or canes. My two blinking brothers are well-nigh blind. Soon I'll be leading them, they who lead me. The heart, he says wistfully : " What has become of that sprite, that child with the head of a crocus, folk used to call with a short pretty name ? You recall how he ran to them, kicking a gigue? The head, he answers wistfully : " I no longer see him, brother. He must have fallen in the storm last night." Wistfully, the heart : " Who were the ones that buried him? Were they kind, can you say ? " Wistfully, the head : " I do not know, brother. I hearkened a terrible curse. But it might have been the wind 1 " Wistfully, the heart : " Can we not beg from man to man? Some courteous sir might give us the tale? We'll sing him our rondel, and not ask a sou ! " " It may be too late for our roundelay, it might sound old-fashioned, as dead as a dirge," 148 BLOOD OF THINGS wistfully, the head. Wistfully, the heart: " We could lift our voices from plaintive to loud, and strike new crooked rhythms on timbal and lute?'^ " New crooked rhythms might bring us an ear — your thought is j ocund — let us try," wistfully, the head. Wistfully, the heart : " Let us ask this queer fellow to show us the mar- ket — an errand like this — " " An errand like this — must look innocent, cheerful — " wistfully, the head. I answered quite wistfully, as wistfully as they : " I wiU try," I said. My rococo kinsmen are stupid and slow. If 3^ou must kill each other, can't you do it with- out hate? They'd nod a little, bow low, caper and grin ! AEEOWS Let the body of me quiver men shoot it at men — an arrow at an arrow — I an arrow, he an arrow — he the other me ! — BLOOD OF THINGS 149 It will play boomerang — the soul of me meet the soul of me — touch, turn, shoot back, pierce the men who say, kill ! — Shoot bodies with hatred — the soul shoots back love ! — God says so, each time He writes a new dawn ! NEED I SAY, WHERE? My country doesn't hate people, but elements in people — my country'd kill these. Nay, my country'd take these to a place it knows, somewhere — need I say, where ? — and have them playfully nurse, playfully nursed by, their kindred. Twins love twins. INITIALS He goes along, in his thin flesh, narrow bones, slow blood, old hat, old clothes, old shoes, singing for love, battling for love. He will go down, in thinner flesh, narrower bones, slower blood, older hat, older clothes, older shoes, battling for love, dying for love. He will be put away, in a thin box, down a narrow slit, of the old earth, growing for love, rising for love : his initials carved on a thin seed, narrow seed, 150 BLOOD OF THINGS 151 slow seed, the carving as slow as he was slow, carving his K on a song. WORD When the old man in me tweaks the sleeve of the lad and whispers, " fine " if ever it comes, that is the word I'll bend to. A SELECTED LIST IN BELLES-LETTRES PUBLISHED BY NICHOLAS L. BROWN NEW YORK Hermann Bahr THE MASTER. A drama in three acts. Adapted for the American stage by Benjamin F. Glazer. Cloth, $1.00. John Lloyd Balderston THE GENIUS OF THE MARNE. A play in three scenes with an introduction by George Moore. Boards, $1.20. Mitchell S. Buck EPHEMERA. Hellenic prose poems. Printed on Japan paper, and bound in half-vellum. Gilt top. Edition limited to 750 copies. $2.25. THE SONGS OF PHRYNE. All that is known of Phryne's life and career is told in these twenty-nine songs. 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