t at this moment
It sleeps without a sign of life; it is as good as dead.
I will not consort with reformed corpses,
I the life-lover, I the abundant.
I have known living only;
I will not acknowledge kinship with death.
White graves or black, linen or porphyry,
Are all one to me.
And yet, on the Lybian plains
Where dust is blown,
A king once
Built of baked clay and bulls of bronze
A tomb that makes me waver.

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 46_

I ONLY know that you are given me
For my delight.
No other angle finishes my soul
But you, you white.

I know that I am given you,
Black whirl to white,
To lift the seven colors up . . .
Focus of light!

ANNE KNISH
_Opus 1_

REITERATION! . . .

The seconds bob by,
So many, so many,
Each ugly in its own way
As raw meats are all ugly.
Why do we feed on the dead?
Or would at least it were with cries and lust
Of slaying our human food
Beneath a cannibal sun!
But these old corpses of alien creatures! . . .
I loathe them!
And too many heads go by the window,
All alien--
Filers of saws, doubtless,
Or lechers
Or Sabbath-keepers.
Morality comes from God.
He was busy.
He forgot to make beauty.
Why does he not call back into their hen-house
This ugly straggling flock of seconds
That trail by
With pin-feathers showing?

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 55_

WHY ask it of me?--the impossible!--
Shall I pick up the lightning in my hand?
Have I not given homages too well
For words to understand?--

Words take you from me, bring you back again,
Dance in our presence, cover your proud face
With the incredible counterpane,
Break our embrace . . .

No, not to you
Your wish,
But to some kangaroo
Or cuttle-fish

Or octopus or eagle or tarantula
Or elephant or dove
Or some peninsula
Let me speak love--

Or call some battle or some temple-bell
Or many-curving pine
Or some cool truth-containing well
Or thin cathedral--mine!

ANNE KNISH
_Opus 200_

IF I should enter to his chamber
And suddenly touch him,
Would he fade to a thin mist,
Or glow into a fire-ball,
Or burst like a punctured light-globe?
It is impossible that he would merely yawn and rub
And say--"What is it?"

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 17_

MAN-THUNDER, woman-lightning,
Rumble, gleam;
Refusal,
Scream.

Needles and pins of pain
All pointed the same way;
Parellel lines of pain
When the lips are gra