Selected Poems. James Tate

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СКАЧАТЬ larger, darker and darker. The black moon.

Images of Little Compton, Rhode Island

      Here the tendons in the swans’ wings stretch,

      feel the tautness of their futuristic necks,

      imagine their brains’ keyhole accuracy,

      envy their infinitely precise desires.

      A red-nosed Goodyear zeppelin emerges from the mist

      like an ethereal albino whale on drugs.

      One wanders around a credible hushed town.

      Mosquito hammering through the air

      with a horse’s power: there will be no cameramen.

      We will swap bodies maybe

      giving the old one a shove.

      That’s an awful lot of work for you I said

      and besides look at your hands,

      there are small fires in the palms,

      there is smoke squirting from every pore.

      O when all is lost,

      when we have thrown our shoes in the sea,

      when our watches have crawled off into weeds,

      our typewriters have finally spelled perhaps

      accidentally the unthinkable word,

      when the rocks loosen and the sea anemones

      welcome us home with their gossamer arms

      dropping like a ship from the stars,

      what on earth shall we speak or think of,

      and who do you think you are?

From the Hole

      A horse-drawn rocket

      climbs the wooden hill:

      behind it two or three friends

      are sharing their tobacco: their hats

      are beautiful like small pieces of

      coal on their heads

      fostering goodwill.

      I’m standing in this hole, see,

      and I’m going to holler out:

      “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

      and “I’m sorry if I was a menace!”

      “Howdy doody, milkman travail!”

      “So long buoys and grills.”

      Like a harp

      burning on an island

      nobody knows about.

The Trap

      Inside the old chair

      I found another chair;

      though smaller, I liked

      sitting in it better.

      Inside that chair

      I found another chair;

      though smaller, in

      many ways I felt

      good sitting in it.

      Inside that chair

      I found another chair;

      it was smaller and

      seemed to be made

      just for me.

      Inside that chair,

      still another;

      it was very small,

      so small I could

      hardly get out of it.

      Inside that chair

      I found yet another;

      and in that, another,

      and another, until

      I was sitting in

      a chair so small

      it would be difficult

      to say I was sitting

      in a chair at all.

      I could not rise

      or fall, and no one

      could catch me.

Twilight Sustenance Hiatus

      The relentless confetti of dollars!

      I’d prefer to kiss that silent chipmunk

      on the roadside while a tiny ocean

      of dandelion seeds arranges a gray

      throne on his ear! I have no “final”

      vows to take tonight, though your hair

      might be floating down the Ohio.

      Chameleons can march around a small room

      if they want. I could sell gasoline

      on the desert, though I would miss

      the grass. Or I could even get your name

      tattooed gingerly across my wrist at dawn.

      There is so little news fit to print:

      yesterday a moth caught fire.

      Today a lost school of astronomers

      came back. We only think tomorrow

      is called “The Finished Gem.”

      Tomorrow is called … come on.

The Wheelchair Butterfly

      O sleepy city of reeling wheelchairs

      where a mouse can commit suicide if he can

      concentrate long enough

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