Paterson (Revised Edition) (7 page)

house and men working the field, cut them

off! they having left their arms in the block-

house, and—without defense—carry them away

into captivity. One old man     .

Forget it! for God’s sake, Cut

out that stuff     .

Walking   —

he rejoins the path and sees, on a treeless

knoll—the red path choking it—

a stone wall, a sort of circular

redoubt against the sky, barren and

unoccupied. Mount. Why not?

A chipmunk,

with tail erect, scampers among the stones.

(Thus the mind grows, up flinty pinnacles)

.     but as he leans, in his stride,

at sight of a flint arrow-head

(it is not)

—there

in the distance, to the north, appear

to him the chronic hills     .

Well, so they are.

He stops short:

Who’s here?

To a stone bench, to which she’s leashed, within the wall a man in tweeds—a pipe hooked in his jaw—is combing out a new-washed Collie bitch. The deliberate comb-strokes part the long hair—even her face he combs though her legs tremble slightly—until it lies, as he designs, like ripples in white sand giving off its clean-dog odor. The floor, stone slabs, she stands patiently before his caresses in that bare “sea chamber”

.     to the right

from this vantage, the observation tower

in the middle distance stands up prominently

from its pubic grove

D
EAR
B. Please excuse me for not having told you this when I was over to your house. I had no courage to answer your questions so I’ll write it. Your dog
is
going to have puppies although I prayed she would be okey. It wasn’t that she was left alone as she never was but I used to let her out at dinner time while I hung up my clothes. At the time, it was on a Thursday, my mother-in-law had some sheets and table cloths out on the end of the line. I figured the dogs wouldn’t come as long as I was there and none came thru my yard or near the apartment. He must have come between your hedge and the house.
Every few
seconds I would run to the end of the line or peek under the sheets to see if Musty was alright. She was until I looked a minute too late. I took sticks and stones after the dog but he wouldn’t beat it. George gave me plenty of hell and I started praying that I had frightened the other dog so much that nothing had happened. I know you’ll be cursing like a son-of-a-gun and probably won’t ever speak to me again for not having told you. Don’t think I haven’t been worrying about Musty. She’s occupied my mind every day since that awful event. You won’t think so highly of me now and feel like protecting me. Instead I’ll bet you could kill …

And still the picnickers come on, now

early afternoon, and scatter through the

trees over the fenced-in acres     .

Voices!

multiple and inarticulate     .     voices

clattering loudly to the sun, to

the clouds. Voices!

assaulting the air gaily from all sides.

—among which the ear strains to catch

the movement of one voice among the rest

—a reed-like voice

of peculiar accent

Thus she finds what peace there is, reclines,

before his approach, stroked

by their clambering feet—for pleasure

It is all for

pleasure      .     their feet      .     aimlessly

wandering

The “great beast” come to sun himself

as he may

.          .          their dreams mingling,

aloof

Let us be reasonable!

Sunday in the park,

limited by the escarpment, eastward; to

the west abutting on the old road: recreation

with a view! the binoculars chained

to anchored stanchions along the east wall—

beyond which, a hawk

soars!

—a trumpet sounds fitfully.

Stand at the rampart (use a metronome

if your ear is deficient, one made in Hungary

if you prefer)

and look away north by east where the church

spires still spend their wits against

the sky     .     to the ball-park

in the hollow with its minute figures running

—beyond the gap where the river

plunges into the narrow gorge, unseen

—and the imagination soars, as a voice

beckons, a thundrous voice, endless

—as sleep: the voice

that has ineluctably called them—

that unmoving roar!

churches and factories

(at a price)

together, summoned them from the pit   .

—his voice, one among many (unheard)

moving under all.

The mountain quivers.

Time! Count! Sever and mark time!

So during the early afternoon, from place

to place he moves,

his voice mingling with other voices

—the voice in his voice

opening his old throat, blowing out his lips,

kindling his mind (more

than his mind will kindle)

—following the hikers.

At last he comes to the idlers’ favorite

haunts, the picturesque summit, where

the blue-stone (rust-red where exposed)

has been faulted at various levels

(ferns rife among the stones)

into rough terraces and partly closed in

dens of sweet grass, the ground gently sloping.

Loiterers in groups straggle

over the bare rock-table—scratched by their

boot-nails more than the glacier scratched

them—walking indifferent through

each other’s privacy     .

—in any case,

the center of movement, the core of gaiety.

Here a young man, perhaps sixteen,

is sitting with his back to the rock among

some ferns playing a guitar, dead pan     .

The rest are eating and drinking.

The big guy

in the black hat is too full to move     .

but Mary

is up!

Come on! Wassa ma’? You got

broken leg?

It is this air!

the air of the Midi

and the old cultures intoxicates them:

present!

—lifts one arm holding the cymbals

of her thoughts, cocks her old head

and dances! raising her skirts:

La la la la!

What a bunch of bums! Afraid somebody see

you?

Blah!

Excrementi!

—she spits.

Look a’ me, Grandma! Everybody too damn

lazy.

This is the old, the very old, old upon old,

the undying: even to the minute gestures,

the hand holding the cup, the wine

spilling, the arm stained by it:

Remember

the peon in the lost

Eisenstein film drinking

from a wine-skin with the abandon

of a horse drinking

so that it slopped down his chin?

down his neck, dribbling

over his shirt-front and down

onto his pants—laughing, toothless?

Heavenly man!

—the leg raised, verisimilitude     .

even to the coarse contours of the leg, the

bovine touch! The leer, the cave of it,

the female of it facing the male, the satyr—

(Priapus!)

with that lonely implication, goatherd

and goat, fertility, the attack, drunk,

cleansed     .

Rejected. Even the film

suppressed   :   but     .      persistent

The picnickers laugh on the rocks celebrating

the varied Sunday of their loves with

its declining light—

Walking—

look down (from a ledge) into this grassy

den

(somewhat removed from the traffic)

above whose brows

a moon! where she lies sweating at his side:

She stirs, distraught,

against him—wounded (drunk), moves

against him (a lump) desiring,

against him, bored     .

flagrantly bored and sleeping, a

beer bottle still grasped spear-like

in his hand     .

while the small, sleepless boys, who

have climbed the columnar rocks

overhanging the pair (where they lie

overt upon the grass, besieged—

careless in their narrow cell under

the crowd’s feet) stare down,

from history!

at them, puzzled and in the sexless

light (of childhood) bored equally,

go charging off     .

There where

the movement throbs openly

and you can hear the Evangelist shouting!

—moving nearer

she—lean as a goat—leans

her lean belly to the man’s backside

toying with the clips of his

suspenders        .

—to which he adds his useless voice:

until there moves in his sleep

a music that is whole, unequivocal (in

his sleep, sweating in his sleep—laboring

against sleep, agasp!)

—and does not waken.

Sees, alive (asleep)

—the fall’s roar entering

his sleep (to be fulfilled)

reborn

in his sleep—scattered over the mountain

severally     .

—by which he woos her, severally.

And the amnesic crowd (the scattered),

called about — strains

to catch the movement of one voice     .

hears,

Pleasure!   Pleasure!

—feels,

half dismayed, the afternoon of complex

voices its own—

and is relieved

(relived)

A cop is directing traffic

across the main road up

a little wooded slope toward

the conveniences:

oaks, choke-cherry,

dogwoods, white and green, iron-wood   :

humped roots matted into the shallow soil

—mostly gone: rock out-croppings

polished by the feet of the picnickers:

sweetbarked sassafras     .

leaning from the rancid grease:

deformity—

—to be deciphered (a horn, a trumpet!)

an elucidation by multiplicity,

a corrosion, a parasitic curd, a clarion

for belief, to be good dogs   :

NO DOGS ALLOWED AT LARGE IN THIS PARK

Blocked.

(Make a song out of that: concretely)

By whom?

In its midst rose a massive church.   .   . And it all came to me then—that those poor souls had nothing else in the world, save that church, between them and the eternal stony, ungrateful and unpromising dirt they lived by …..

Cash is mulct of them that others may live

secure

.     .     and knowledge restricted.

An orchestral dullness overlays their world

I see they—the Senate, is trying to block Lilienthal and deliver “the bomb” over to a few industrialists. I don’t think they will succeed but     .     .     that is what I mean when I refuse to get excited over the cry, Communist! they use to blind us. It’s terrifying to think how easily we can be destroyed, a few votes. Even though Communism is a threat, are Communists any
worse
than the guilty bastards trying in that way to undermine us?

We leap awake and what we see

fells us     .

Let terror twist the world!

Faitoute, sick of his diversions but proud of women,

his requites, standing with his back

to the lions’ pit,

(where the drunken

lovers slept, now, both of them)

indifferent,

started again wandering—foot pacing foot outward

into emptiness     .     .

Up there.

The cop points.

A sign nailed

to a tree:   Women.

You can see figures

moving beyond the screen of the trees and, close

at hand, music blurts out suddenly.

Walking   —

a

cramped arena has been left clear at the base

of the observation tower near the urinals. This

is the Lord’s line: Several broken benches

drawn up in a curving row against the shrubbery

face the flat ground, benches on which

a few children have been propped by the others

against their running off     .

Three middle aged men with iron smiles

stand behind the benches—backing (watching)

the kids, the kids and several women—and

holding,

a cornet, clarinet and trombone,

severally, in their hands, at rest.

There is also,

played by a woman, a portable organ   .   .

Before them an old man,

wearing a fringe of long white hair, bareheaded,

his glabrous skull reflecting the sun’s

light and in shirtsleeves, is beginning to

speak—

calling to the birds and trees!

Jumping up and down in his ecstasy he beams

into the empty blue, eastward, over the parapet

toward the city     .     .

.   .   .   .   .   .   .

There are people—especially among women—who can speak only to one person. And I am one of those women. I do not come easily to confidences (though it cannot but seem otherwise to you). I could not possibly convey to any one of those people who have crossed my path in these few months, those particular phases of my life which I made the subject of my letters to you. I must let myself be entirely misunderstood and misjudged in all my economic and social maladjustments, rather than ever attempt to communicate to anyone else what I wrote to you about. And so my having heaped these confidences upon you (however tiresome you may have found them and however far I may yet need to go in the attainment of
complete
self-honesty which is difficult for anyone) was enough in itself to have caused my failure with you to have so disastrous an effect upon me.

Look, there lies the city!

—calling with his back

to the paltry congregation, calling the winds;

a voice calling, calling     .

Behind him the drawn children whom his suit

of holy proclamation so very badly fits,

winkless, under duress, must feel

their buttocks ache on the slats of the sodden