They will fall in rain
down long sparsely lighted streets
hiss on silvery windowpanes
moisten the lips
of girls leaning out
to stare after the footfalls of young men
who splash through the glimmering puddles
with nonchalant feet.

They will slap against the windows of offices
where men in black suits
shaped like pears
rub their abdomens
against frazzled edges of ledgers.

They will drizzle
over new-plowed fields
wet the red cheeks of men harrowing
and a smell of garlic and clay
will steam from the new-sowed land
and sharp-eared young herdsmen will feel
in the windy rain
lisp of tremulous love-makings
interlaced soundless kisses
impact of dead springs
nuzzling tremulous at life
in the red sundown.

Shining spring rain
O scud steaming up out of the deep sea
full of portents of sundown and islands,
beat upon my forehead
beat upon my face and neck
glisten on my outstretched hands,
run bright lilac streams
through the clogged channels of my brain
corrode the clicking cogs the little angles
the small mistrustful mirrors
scatter the shrill tiny creaking
of mustnot darenot cannot
spatter the varnish off me
that I may stand up
my face to the wet wind
and feel my body
and drenched salty palpitant April
reborn in my flesh.

I would spit the dust out of my mouth
burst out of these stiff wire webs
supple incautious
like the crocuses that spurt up too soon
their saffron flames
and die gloriously in late blizzards
and leave no seed.

_Off Pico_

XII

Out of the unquiet town
seep jagged barkings
lean broken cries
unimaginable silent writhing
of muscles taut against strangling
heavy fetters of darkness.

On the pool of moonlight
clots and festers
a great scum
of worn-out sound.

(Elagabalus, Alexander
looked too long at the full moon;
hot blood drowned them
cold rivers drowned them.)

Float like pondflowers
on the dead face of darkness
cold stubs of lusts
names that glimmer ghostly
adrift on the slow tide
of old moons waned.

(Lais of Corinth that Holbein drew
drank the moon in a cup of wine;
with the flame of all her lovers' pain