And a poem in a similar vein, back in Candy Necklace,
on page 25--
I see a few of you have the copy of the text called
The Wild Troops of Proportion.
"The Wild Troops of Proportion."
Oh, the little that was all attention to be more,
is it still all attention?
To be more?
Still the shaky hunter in the too early morning cold.
The stream, upon the canvas, would go anywhere down, green,
or blue.
But is never anywhere salmon bake poured out true?
Oh, prowls, oh, loves your blue collar
blood is part of someone living and refusing
to dig a shallow hole.
You have your rights.
If the four winds fold the sky like a flag,
don't take it from their hands.
You say when.
In a labor camp, would you write a poem on your soap
with the matchstick, or wash?
Don't wash.
You are women.
You are men.
Isn't man wonderful?
He longed so much to speak his heart-- mm--
that he taught himself language-- mm--
so that what was inside him--
mm-- could be spoken to the world.
So what if you once counted nothing
on your fingers, ten infinities, and now only ten?
Prowls, would you be as a cow that stands on four t-bones
and sings with la voix sacrée de la terre ingénue?
Loves, you can get--
mm-- to 11.
History, you say, is of us and against us.
From whose breast we go houseless, provoked--
yes, we are provoked.
The list of shit jobs is too long.
Tidying the camps while the inmates stare from fences
they still cling to as their own.
Tossing bodies into pits where they bounce,
as if gaily, before settling down.
History, you horror, portioned to a giant nerve,
we've got your smell down cold.
And we won't.
We won't settle down.
I am gone away from my own bosom.
Yes, there must be gods thrown down
and hymns a festival upon the gold clouds metropolitan.
Voices of soft proclaim, beautiful things
made new for the surprise of the sky children.
Oh, women.
Oh, men.
Is it a day will not be a sum?
The sign at the exit says exit.
Are you resigned?
Full of o'erwise phlegm?
Spit it into this cuspidor I hand around.
Bang the saloons swing doors on your way out.
Bitty things, with what are they in proportion?