Robert Creely

I Know a Man


As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I
 
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
 
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
 
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

The Gift

He hands
down the gift
as from a great
height, his

precious
understanding clothed
in miraculous
fortitude. This

is the present
of the ages, all
rewards
in itself

But the lady--
she, disdain-
ful, all
in white for

the occasion--cries
out petutlantly, is
that all, is
that all, is
that all.

For Love

For Bobbie

YESTERDAY I wanted to

speak of it, that sense above

the others to me

important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.

Today, what is it that

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not . . .

no, if you did not

I wouldn't either, but

what would I not

do, what prevention, what

thing so quickly stopped.

That is love yesterday

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image

is only of the mind's

vague structure, vague to me

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,

crossed legs with skirt, or

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything

but that which it wishes

would come true, fears

what else might happen in

some other place, some

other time not this one.

A voice in my place, an

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but

the obsession I begin with

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or

place beyond time, no

mint left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love

it all returns.

return