Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser Read online

  All night I returned to the places of my love.

  My love escaped me. May not the blood's frail drums

  ever pulse healing in wrists and lips made known

  whispering convalescence through a mist of sleep?

  Let me approach infinity in love and sorrow, waiting

  with the doubled strength of my own will and love,

  burning with copper-spun electric fire, unconsumed,

  a bush upon a barren darkening plain.

  My blood must be fed on foreign substance, lacking

  the knowledge of those gestures, roots of words, unfeeling

  the wet intestinal movings of another body, starving

  not knowing the muscles' flexing.

  Shall we losing our ego gain it, saddening

  after no response and a turning away? Sheer

  the skyscrapers stand, pure without meaning, single

  in desire rising to touch the sky :

  the diver waits, arms thrust in white dihedral

  to air and next moment's water : the flash of shock

  travels through diver lover tower plane reaching

  sky, a contact in desire, leaving

  bondage in flight. Sever the cords binding our bones,

  loosen us to each other, approach, night, return me love :

  unblind me, give me back myself, touch me now :

  slide, night, into the climates of the mind.

  3

  The cattle-trains edge along the river, bringing morning on a white vibration

  breaking the darkness split with beast-cries : a milk-wagon proceeds

  down the street leaving the cold bottles : the Mack truck pushes

  around the corner, tires hissing on the washed asphalt. A clear sky

  growing candid and later bright.

  Ceiling unlimited. Visibility unlimited.

  They stir on the pillows, her leg moving, her face swung windowward

  vacant with sleep still, modeled with light's coming ; his dark head

  among the softness of her arm and breast, nuzzled in dreams,

  mumbling the old words, hardly roused. They return to silence.

  At the airport, the floodlights are snapped off.

  Turning, he says, “Tell me how's the sky this morning?” “Fair,” she answers,

  “no clouds from where I lie; bluer and bluer.” “And later and later—

  god, for some sleep into some noon, instead of all these mornings

  with my mouth going stiff behind the cowling and wind brushing

  away from me and my teeth freezing against the wind.”

  Light gales from the northwest : tomorrow, rain.

  The street is long, with a sprinkling of ashcans ; panhandlers

  begin to forage among banana-peels and cardboard boxes.

  She moves to the window, tall and dark before a brightening sky,

  full with her six-months' pregnancy molded in ripeness.

  Stands, watching the sky's blankness.

  Very soon : “How I love to see you when I wake,” he says,

  “How the child's meaning in you is my life's growing.”

  She faces him, hands brought to her belly's level, offering,

  wordless, looking upon him. She carries his desire well.

  Sun rises : 6:38 a.m. Sun sets….

  “Flying is what makes you strange to me, dark as Asia,

  almost removed from my world even in your closenesses :

  that you should be familiar with those intricacies

  and a hero in mysteries which all the world has wanted.”

  Wind velocity changing from 19 to 30.

  “No, that's wrong,” and he laughs, “no personal hero's left

  to make a legend. Those centuries have gone. If I fly,

  why, I know that countries are not map-colored, that seas

  belong to no one, that war's a pock-marking on Europe : “

  The Weather Bureau's forecast, effective until noon.

  “Your friends sleep with strange women desperately,

  drink liquor and sleep heavily to forget those skies.

  You fly all day and come home truly returning

  to me who know only land. And we will have this child.”

  New York to Boston : Scattered to broken clouds.

  “The child will have a hard time to be an American,”

  he says slowly, “fathered by a man whose country is air,

  who believes there are no heroes to withstand

  wind, or a loose bolt, or a tank empty of gas.”

  To Washington : Broken clouds becoming overcast.

  “It will be a brave child,” she answers, smiling.

  “We will show planes to it, and the bums in the street.

  You will teach it to fly, and I will love it

  very much.” He thinks of his job, dressing.

  Strong west northwest winds above 1000 feet.

  He thinks how many men have wanted flight.

  He ties his tie, looking into his face.

  Finishes breakfast, hurrying to be gone,

  crossing the river to the airport and his place.

  Broken clouds to overcast.

  She does not imagine how the propeller turns

  in a blinding speed, swinging the plane through space;

  she never sees the cowling rattle and slip

  forward and forward against the grim blades' grinding.

  Cruising speed 1700 R.P.M.

  Slipping, a failing desire ; slipping like death

  insidious against the propeller, until the blades shake,

  bitten by steel, jagged against steel, broken,

  and his face angry and raked by death, staring.

  Strong west northwest or west winds above 2000 feet.

  She watches the clock as his return time hurries,

  the schedule ticking off, eating the short minutes.

  She watches evening advance ; she knows the child's stirring.

  She knows night. She knows he will not come.

  Ceiling unlimited. Visibility unlimited.

  The rough skin dusty with coal on the slack hands ;

  lover trailing regret through the evening streets

  uncomforted, walking toward destruction :

  the mouth of the young pilot stiffening

  (I love to see you when I wake at morning)

  hurtling, spiralling that plucks the breath from the throat

  in a long chute to gauged mechanic death.

  Greyly our vigor seeps away, the fingers

  weak and the lips unspeaking, somberly

  devoid of wholeness are we drowned again

  mumbling death as our cheeks stiffen

  as we go down these maelstroms : dissolution.

  Harsh blue screams summer from behind the plane

  the sea stiffens under it sculpturally.

  Split space, monotonous and even-winged,

  continue toward despair methodically.

  Destruction and a burning fill these lives

  unloved incompetent they compromise

  with death and the bases of emotion fearing

  the natural calm inclusiveness of time.

  Tigers follow in a splendor of motion

  sleek death treads unperturbed among these things,

  time rages like a tiger and the

  savage defeat swallows the fallen wings

  plunging

  O Icarus accurate white into the sea

  the wax support too trusted ; the white pride

  in sovereignty collapsed ; go down to harbor,

  go down, plane, to the water's eagerness

  engulfed, plunging

  We have prayed torrents of humility, open

  in anguish to be hurt, in terror to be fooled.

  We are beyond demand, waiting a minute

  unconscious in attendance : here is strength to be used

  delicately, most subtly on the controls and levers.

&nb
sp; They begged that time be condensed. Extend space for us,

  let us include this memory in ourselves,

  time and our dividend of history.

  THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLANE

  1 THE STRUCTURE OF THE PLANE

  Kitty Hawk is a Caesar among monuments ;

  the stiff bland soldiers predestined to their death

  the bombs piled neatly like children's marbles piled

  sperm to breed corpses eugenically by youth

  out of seductive death.

  The hill outdoes our towers

  we might treasure a thistle grown from a cannon-mouth

  they have not permitted rust and scum and blossoms

  to dirty the steel,

  however we have the plane

  the hill, flower among monuments.

  “To work intelligently” (Orville and Wilbur Wright)

  “one needs to know the effects of variations

  incorporated in the surfaces…. The pressures on squares

  are different from those on rectangles, circles, triangles, or ellipses…

  The shape of the edge also makes a difference.”

  The plane is wheeled out of the hangar. The sleeves shake

  fixing the wind, the four o'clock blue sky

  blinks in the goggles swinging over his wrist.

  The plane rests, the mechanic in cream-colored overalls

  encourages the engine into idling speed.

  The instructor looks at his class

  and begins the demonstration.

  “We finally became discouraged, and returned to kite-flying.

  But as we grew older we had to give up this sport,

  it was unbecoming to boys of our ages.”

  On the first stroke of the piston the intake valve opens,

  the piston moves slowly from the head of the cylinder,

  drawing in its mixture of gas and air. On the second stroke

  the piston returns, the valve closes. The mixture is compressed.

  A spark occurs, igniting America, opening India,

  finding the Northwest Passage, Cipango spice,

  causing the mixture to burn, expanding the gases

  which push the piston away on the power stroke.

  The final exhaust stroke serves to release the gases,

  allowing the piston to scavenge the cylinder.

  We burn space, we sever galaxies,

  solar systems whirl about Shelley's head,

  we give ourselves ease, gentlemen, art and these explosions

  and Peter Ronsard finger-deep in roses ;

  gentlemen, remember these incandescent points,

  remember to check, remember to drain the oil,

  remember Plato O remember me

  the college pathways rise

  the president's voice intoning sonnets

  the impress of hoofmarks on the bridle path

  the shining girls the lost virginities

  the plane over a skeletal water-tower

  our youth dissolving O remember

  romantically dissolving remember me.

  Blue smoke from the exhaust signifies too much oil.

  Save yourselves from excesses, dirt, and tailspins.

  These are the axioms : stability, control,

  and equilibrium : in a yaw, in a roll, or pitch.

  Here, gentlemen, are the wings, of fabric doped and painted

  here is the rudder

  here the propeller spins

  : BE hammers in the brain

  FLY and the footbeat of that drum

  may not be contradicted

  must be mine

  must be made ours, say the brothers Wright together

  although the general public had been invited

  few dared a cold December

  in order to see another plane not fly.

  The helmet is strapped tight, orders are shouted

  the elbows of steel move in oil

  air is forced under the ship, the pilot's hand

  is safe on the stick, the young student sits

  with the wind mottling his eyelashes, rigidly.

  Centuries fall behind his brain, the motor

  pushes in a four-beat rhythm, his blood moves,

  he dares look at the levels mounting in clouds

  the dropping fields of the sky the diminishment of earth ;

  now he thinks I am the child crying Mother

  this rim is the threshold into the hall's night

  or the windowsill livened with narcissus.

  The white edge of the bath a moment before

  slipping into watery ease, the windowsill

  eager for the jump into the street

  the hard stone under my back, the earth

  with its eyes and hands its eyes and hands

  its eyes

  fixed eyes on the diminishing

  take me back the bath had fronds of steam

  escaping the hands held my head

  my eyes slipped in oil looking along your beauty

  earth is painful the distance hurts

  mother the night, the distance, dear

  he is standing with one look of hate upon him

  screams at the pilot you bastard, you bastard, jumps

  trailing a long scream above him, the plane yaws down,

  the motor pulls heavily, the ground is dark November,

  his parachute opens a bright plume surrendering downward,

  the plane heads up again, no good in following,

  continues unfascinated by night or land or death.

  2 THE STRIKE

  “Well,” he said, “George, I never thought you were with us.

  You walked out of the shaft as if you'd spent years of your life

  planning some day to walk out once without blinking

  and not stop for a smoke but walk over to our side.”

  “No,” he said, “I never expected to. It was only the last cut:

  before that, I'd have worked no matter who starved first.”

  The snow was stamped down with black nailprints

  the stamping was a drum to warm them, stiff veins, crusted hands.

  “Carrying guns, boys!” said the director. “Now, boys;

  I'll speak to the others and see what I can do.”

  The heavy-set miner spat on the peel of snow.

  The fingers weighed on the triggers. December bit

  into the bone, into the tight skulls, creaking one word.

  Tell how the men watched the table, a plate of light,

  the rigid faces lit around it, the mouths

  opening and clamping, the little warmth

  watched against the shafts of the breakers.

  Tell how the men watched.

  Tell how the child chewed its shoe to strips.

  That day broke equal grey, the lockers empty,

  the cages hanging in a depth of silence.

  Shall we say : there were two lines at last :

  death played like a current between them, playing,

  the little flames of death ran along those eyes : ?

  Death faced the men with a desperate seduction,

  lifted a hand with the skill of a hypnotist.

  They were so ready in khaki with bayonets.

  “George!” he heard. That had once been his name.

  Very carefully he had stepped from his place,

  walked over his ground, over the last line.

  It seemed impossible he should not die.

  When a gun faces you, look down the bore,

  that is the well of death : when it confronts you

  it is not satisfied, it draws you steadily

  more loving than love, eagerer than hunger,

  resolving all unbalance. He went to it.

  However, the line held. The plump men raised themselves

  up from the chairs in a dreary passion of wrath,

  hoisted themselves to the doorway. Spoke.

  There was his body, purpl
ed, death casing him

  in ice and velvet and sleep. Indeed, they spoke,

  this was unwarranted. No, they conceded. No.

  Perhaps the strike might equal victory,

  a company funeral, and the trucks of coal

  ladled up from the earth,

  heaped on this grave.

  3 THE LOVER

  Answer with me these certainties

  of glands swelling with sentiment

  the loves embittered the salts and waters mixing

  a chemic threatening destruction.

  Answer the men walking toward death

  leaping to death meeting death in a kiss

  able to find of equilibrium none

  except that last of hard stone kissing stone.

  Answer the lover's questioning in the streets

  the evenings domed with purple, the bones

  easing, the flesh slipping perfume upon the air :

  all surfaces of flight are pared to planes

  equal, equilibrated, solid in fulfilment. No way

  is wanted to escape, no explosions craved,

  only this desire must be met, this motion

  be balanced with passion ;

  in the wreaths of time given to us what love

  may reach us in the streets the books the years

  what wreaths of love may touch our dreams,

  what skeins of fine response may clothe our flesh,

  robe us in valor brave as our dear wish

  lover haunting the ghosts of rivers, letting time

  slide a fluid runner into darkness

  give over the sad eyes the marble face of pain

  do not mourn : remember : do not forget

  but never let this treason play you mate,

  take to yourself the branches of green trees

  watch the clean sky signed by the flight of planes

  know rivers of love be flooded thoroughly

  by love and the years and the past and know

  the green tree perishes and green trees grow.

  Knock at the doors ; go to the windows ; run,

  you will not find her soon who, lost in love,

  relinquished last month to that silver music

  repeating in her throat forsaken tunes.

  Rigid and poised for the latest of these lovers

  she stretches acute in waiting on the bed

  most avaricious for the length of arms

  the subtle thighs and heavy confident head.

  Taut with a steel strut's singing tautness she

  clinches her softness anguished at postponement

  hardening all her thought she swears to be

  unpacified by minutes of atonement.

  The ticking of an ormolu clock taxes

  her body with time's weight. The opened door

  adjusts such things ; responsive, she relaxes