The Lost Lunar Baedeker Read Free Page B

stretched muscles of a mouth
    Is no part of myself
    There is a climax in sensibility
    When pain surpassing itself
    Becomes Exotic
    And the ego succeeds in unifying the positive and negative poles of sensation
    Uniting the opposing and resisting forces
    In lascivious revelation
    Relaxation
    Negation of myself as a unit
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Vacuum interlude
    I should have been emptied of life
    Giving life
    For consciousness in crises              races
    Through the subliminal deposits of evolutionary processes
    Have I not
    Somewhere
    Scrutinized
    A dead white feathered moth
    Laying eggs?
    A moment
    Being realization
    Can
    Vitalized by cosmic initiation
    Furnish an adequate apology
    For the objective
    Agglomeration of activities
    Of a life.
    LIFE
    A leap with nature
    Into the essence
    Of unpredicted Maternity
    Against my thigh
    Touch of infinitesimal motion
    Scarcely perceptible
    Undulation
    Warmth            moisture
    Stir of incipient life
    Precipitating into me
    The contents of the universe
    Mother I am
    Identical
    With infinite Maternity
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Indivisible
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Acutely
    Â Â Â Â Â Â I am absorbed
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Into
    The was—is—ever—shall—be
    Of cosmic reproductivity
    Rises from the subconscious
    Impression of a cat
    With blind kittens
    Among her legs
    Same undulating life-stir
    I am that cat
    Rises from the sub-conscious
    Impression of small animal carcass
    Covered with blue-bottles
    â€”Epicurean—
    And through the insects
    Waves that same undulation of living
    Death
    Life
    I am knowing
    All about
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Unfolding
    The next morning
    Each woman-of-the-people
    Tip-toeing the red pile of the carpet
    Doing hushed service
    Each woman-of-the-people
    Wearing a halo
    A ludicrous little halo
    Of which she is sublimely            unaware
    I once heard in a church
    â€”Man and woman God made them—
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Thank God.

Italian Pictures
    July in Vallombrosa
    Old lady sitting still
    Pine trees standing quite still
    Sisters of mercy               whispering
    Oust the Dryad
    O consecration of forest
    To the uneventful
    I cannot imagine anything
    Less disputably respectable
    Than prolonged invalidism in Italy
    At the beck
    Of a British practitioner
    Of all permissible pastimes
    Attendant upon chastity
    The one with which you can most efficiently insult
    Life
    Is your hobby of collecting death-beds
    Blue Nun
    So wrap the body in flannel and wool
    Of superior quality from the Anglo-American
    Until that ineffable moment
    When Rigor Mortis
    Divests it of its innate impurity
    While round the hotel
    Wanton Italian matrons
    Discuss the better business of bed-linen
    To regular puncture of needles
    The old lady has a daughter
    Who has been spent
    In chasing moments from one room to another
    When the essence of an hour
    Was in its passing
    With the passionate breath
    Of the bronchitis-kettle
    And her last little lust
    Lost itself in a saucer of gruel
    But all this moribund stuff
    Is not wasted
    For there is always Nature
    So its expensive upkeep
    Goes to support
    The loves
    Of head-waiters
    The Costa San Giorgio
    We English make a tepid blot
    On the messiness
    Of the passionate Italian life-traffic
    Throbbing the street        up            steep
    Up              up              to the porta
    Culminating
    In the stained frescoe of the dragon-slayer
    The hips of women sway
    Among the crawling children they produce
    And the church hits