SPECTRA A BOOK OF POETIC EXPERIMENTS BY ANNE KNISHANDEMANUEL MORGAN NEW YORKMITCHELL KENNERLEY1916 COPYRIGHT 1916 BYMITCHELL KENNERLEY PRINTED IN AMERICA CONTENTS PAGETo Remy de Gourmont (Emanuel Morgan) viiPreface (Anne Knish) ix SPECTRA BY EMANUEL MORGANOPUS PAGE1 Drums 532 Hope 146 If I Were Only Dafter 567 A Bunch of Grapes 89 Frogs' Legs on a Plate 5713 A Peacock-Feather 1114 I Had Put Out My Leaves 5115 Despair Comes 616 The Guillotine 2017 Needles and Pins 4629 Knives 3131 Thank God that We Can Laugh 2740 Two Cocktails Round a Smile 3541 Spectres 245 The Locust-Tree 4946 No Other Angle 4047 Giver of Bribes in the Brightness of Morning 3755 The Impossible 4362 Three Little Creatures 1663 Spears 2378 I Am Beset 6379 Only Lovers 66101 The Piano 61104 Madagascar 59 SPECTRA BY ANNE KNISHOPUS PAGE1 The Seconds Bob By 4140 I Have not Written--That You May Read 2650 The Piano Lives in a Dusk 167 I Would Not in the Early Morning 1076 Years Are Nothing 480 Oh, My Little House of Glass 5288 So We Came Back Again 3696 You Are the Delphic Oracle 33118 If Bathing Were a Virtue 7122 Upstairs There Lies a Sodden Thing 39126 His Eyes 12131 I Am Weary 18134 Listen, My Friend 21135 In a Tomb of Argolis 64150 Sounds 29151 Candle, Candle 15181 Skeptical Cat 62182 He's the Remnant of a Suit 60187 I Do Not Know Very Much 58191 The Black Bark of a Dog 48195 Her Soul Was Freckled 55200 If I Should Enter to his Chamber 45 TO REMY DE GOURMONT POET, a wreath!--No matter how we had combined our flowers, You would have worn them--being ours. . . . On you, on them, the showers-- O roots beneath! EMANUEL MORGAN. PREFACE THIS volume is the first compilation of the recent experiments inSpectra. It is the aim of the Spectric group to push the possibilitiesof poetic expression into a new region, --to attain a fresh brillianceof impression by a method not so wholly different from themethods of Futurist Painting. An explanation of the term "Spectric" will indicate something of thenature of the technique which it describes. "Spectric" has, in thisconnection, three separate but closely related meanings. In the firstplace, it speaks, to the mind, of that process of diffraction bywhich are disarticulated the several colored and other rays of whichlight is composed. It indicates our feeling that the theme of apoem is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the colorless whitelight of infinite existence falls and is broken up into glowing, beautiful, and intelligible hues. In its second sense, the termSpectric relates to the reflex vibrations of physical sight, andsuggests the luminous appearance which is seen after exposure ofthe eye to intense light, and, by analogy, the after-colors ofthe poet's initial vision. In its third sense, Spectric connotesthe overtones, adumbrations, or spectres which for the poet hauntall objects both of the seen and the unseen world, --thoseshadowy projections, sometimes grotesque, which, hovering around thereal, give to the real its full ideal significance and its poeticworth. These spectres are the manifold spell and true essence ofobjects, --like the magic that would inevitably encircle a mirror fromthe hand of Helen of Troy. Just as the colors of the rainbow recombine into a white light, --justas the reflex of the eye's picture vividly haunts sleep, --just asthe ghosts which surround reality are the vital part of thatexistence, --so may the Spectric vision, if successful, synthesize, prolong, and at the same time multiply the emotional images ofthe reader. The rays which the poet has dissociated into colorfulbeauty should recombine in the reader's brain into a new intensityof unified brilliance. The reflex of the poet's sight should sustainthe original perception with a haunting keenness. The insubstantialityof the poet's spectres should touch with a tremulous vibrancy ofultimate fact the reader's sense of the immediate theme. If the Spectrist wishes to describe a landscape, he will notattempt a map, but will put down those winged emotions, thosefantastic analogies, which the real scene awakens in his own mind. In practice this will be found to be the vividest of all modes ofcommunication, as the touch of hands quickens a mere exchange of names. It may be noted that to Spectra, to these reflected experiences oflife, as we perceive them, adheres often a tinge of humor. Occidentalart, in contrast to art in the Orient, has until lately been afraidof the flash of humor in its serious works. But a growing acquaintancewith Chinese painting is surely liberating in our poets and paintersa happy sense of the disproportion of man to his assumed place inthe universe, a sense of the tortuous grotesque vanity of theindividual. By this weapon, man helps defend his intuition of theAbsolute and of his own obscure but real relation to it. The Spectric method is as yet in its infancy; and the poems thatfollow are only experimental efforts toward the desired end. Amongthem, the most obvious illustrations of the method are perhaps _Opus41_ by Emanuel Morgan and _Opus 76_ by Anne Knish. Emanuel Morgan, with whom the Spectric theory originated, hasfound the best expression of his genius in regular metrical formsand rhyme. Anne Knish, on the other hand, has used only freeverse. We wish to make it clear that the Spectric manner doeshot necessitate the employment of either of these metrical systemsto the exclusion of the other. Although the members of our group would by no means attempt toestablish a claim as actual inventors of the Spectric method, yet we can justifiably say that we have for the first timeused the method consciously and consistently, and formulatedits possibilities by means of elaborate experiment. Amongrecent poets in English, we have noted few who can be regardedin a sure sense as Spectrists. ANNE KNISH. ANNE KNISH_Opus 50_ THE piano lives in a duskWhere rich amber lightsQuiver obscurely. It exists only at twilight;And somewhere afarIn the depths of a tropic forestThe sun is now setting, and the phoenix looksMysteriously toward the gold. I think I must have been born in such a forest, Or in the tangle of a Chinese screen. There is indigo in this music;This dusk is filled with amber lights;Through the tangled evening of heavy flower-scentsCome footfallsThat surely I can almost remember. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 41_ SPECTRES came dancing up the wind, Trailing down the long grass, Shooting high, undisciplined, To join the sun and see you pass . . . The colors of the pointed glass. Under a willow-maze you went Unsaddened . . . But a violet beamFell on the white face, backward bent, Of a body in a stream. Into the sun you came again, With sun-red light your feet were shod . . . And round you stood a ring of feathered men With naked arms acknowledging a god. Indigo-birds and squirrels on a tree And orioles flashed in and out . . . The yellow outline of Eurydice Waited for Orpheus in a black redoubt With a beaded fern you waved away a gnat . . . And maidens, hung with vivid beads of green, One of them bearing in her arms an orange cat, Held palms about a queen. Then you were lost to sight And locking trees became the clouds of you, Till you emerged, the moon upon your shoulder, and the night Bloomed blue. ANNE KNISH_Opus 76_ YEARS are nothing;Days alone count;These, and the nights. I have seen the grey stars marching, And the green bubbles in wine, And there are Gothic vaults of sleep. My cathedralHas one great spireTawny in the sunlight. Gargoyles haunt its nave;High up amid its dark-archesForgotten songs live shadowy. Gold and sardonyxDeck its altars. Its mighty roofIs copper rivering with the rain. Tomorrow lightning swords will comeAnd thunder of cannon. They will unrivet this roofOf mighty copper. Before the eyes of my gargoyles, In the sound of my forgotten songs, They will take it. And as the rain sluices downI shall have to follow my roof into the war. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 15_ DESPAIR comes when all comedy Is tameAnd there is left no tragedy In any name, When die round and wounded breathing Of love upon the breastIs not so glad a sheathing As an old brown vest. Asparagus is feathery and tall, And the hose lies rotting by the garden-wall. ANNE KNISH_Opus 118_ IF bathing were a virtue, not a lust, I would be dirtiest. To some, housecleaning is a holy rite. For myself, houses would be emptyBut for the golden motes dancing in sunbeams. Tax-assessors frequently overlook valuables. Today they noted my jade. But my memory of you escaped them. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 7_ BEYOND her lips in the dark are a man's feet Composed and dead . . . In the light between her lips is a moving tongue-rip sweet, Red. Her arms are his white robes, They cover a king, His ornaments her crescent lobes And two moons on a string. Sheba, Sheba, Proserpina, Salome, See, I am come!--king, god, saint!--With the stone of a volcano O show that you know me, Pound till the true blood pricks through the paint! Twitch of the dead man's feet if he remembers A bunch of grapes and a ripped-open gown. --And the live man's eyes are night after embers, Two black spots on a white-faced down . . . And in the dawn, lava . . . Rolling down . . . Down-rolling lava on an up-pointing town. ANNE KNISH_Opus 67_ I WOULD not in the early morningStart my mind on its inevitable journeyToward the East. There are white domes somewhereUnder that blue enameled sky, white domes, white domes;Therefore even the creamIs safest yellow. Cream is better than lemonIn tea at breakfastI think of tigers as eating lemons. Thank God this tea comes from the green grocer, Not from Ceylon. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 13_ O PEACOCK-FEATHER Drawn through a death-dim hole, With colors blurred together, Persian pattern of a soul-- Is it enough to have belonged To the exaltation of a birdRound whom they thronged Each time her high tail stirred? . . . I loved a woman whose two eyes, One blue, one gray, Would blockLike cliffs my foothold in the skies . . . She is dead, they say-- Dead as a peacock. ANNE KNISH_Opus 126_ HIS eyesAre the resurrection. Once when beneath the moonriseThey looked into mine, Grey mists held mastery between us, And I knew that his soulHad gone down into death. But tonight a golden star-dustIs pouring through space, And the mist is burned away by it. Tonight his soul awakensOut of its splendid cerements, And through his eyes the miracleArises to the earth. I have prayed long beside the tombAnd touched the grave-clothsWith living fingers. I have lain my breastsAgainst the graniteOf the sarcophagusWhere he was. Prayers for the dead I offered upAnd hecatombs. Today there was a wonder in the sunrise. I knew that there were glories in the skyAnd new branches of willow on the earth. And my soul trembled with prophecy. I prophesiedThe resurrection. Now it has come. And I lie shakenBefore its tumult. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 2_ HOPEIs the antelopeOver the hills;FearIs the wounded deerBleeding in rills;CareIs the heavy bearTearing at meat;FunIs the mastodonVanished complete . . . And I am the stag with the golden hornWaiting till my day is born. ANNE KNISH_Opus 151_ CANDLE, candle, Flicker and flow--I knew you once-- But it was not long ago, it was Last night. And you spoiled my otherwise bright evening. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 62_ THREE little creatures gloomed across the floor And stood profound in front of me, And one was Faith, and one was Hope, And one was Charity. Faith looked for what it could not find, Hope looked for what was lost, (Love looked and looked but Love was blind), Charity's eyes were crossed. Then with a leap a single shape, With beauty on its chin, Brandished a little screaming ape . . . And each one, like a pin, Fell to a pattern on the rug As flat as they could be--And died there comfortable and snug, Faith, Hope and Charity. That shape, it was my shining soul Bludgeoning every sham . . . O little ape, be glad that I Can be the thing I am! ANNE KNISH_Opus 131_ I AM weary of salmon dawnsAnd of cinnamon sunsets;Silver-grey and iron-greyOf winter dusk and mornTorture me; and in the amethystine shadowsOf snow, and in the mauve of curving cloudsSome poison has dwelling. Ivory on a fan of Venice, Black-pearl of a bowl of Japan, Prismatic lustres of Phoenician glass, Fawn-tinged embroideries from looms of Bagdad, The green of ancient bronze, cinereous tingeOf iron gods, --These, and the saffron of old cerements, Violet wine, Zebra-striped onyx, Are to me like the narrow walls of homeTo the land-locked sailor. I must have fire-brands!I must have leaves!I must have sea-deeps! EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 16_ DEATH on a cross was not the blade In Mary's heart . . . For the mother of man and the son of the maid Had walked one night apart, When his beard was not yet grown--and, afraid, She had seen his young words dart. Between a mother and a son, The guillotine . . . It falls, it falls, and one by one, Unseeing and unseen, They face the great sharp shining ton That time has eaten green. Between the shoulder and the head The guillotine must playAnd cleave with clash unmerited The generating day . . . Till the separated parts, not dead, Rise and walk away. ANNE KNISH_Opus 134_ LISTEN, my friend, That you may understand me. -- In my earliest youthI dreamed in hues volcanic. I saw each day openLike a curtain of flame. Black slaves attendedMy waking moments;Three ebony slavesWashed sleep from my white body. Three ebony slavesAround my ivory smoothnessFolded heavy robesOf crimson and white. And as I issued forthInto the blue vault of the daylightA grey ape pranced before meAnd a leopard crept behind. This was the stateOf my young heritage. Scarlet as the voice of trumpetsWas the pageant of my days. Can I accept nowThe twilight?And soon the dark, where all colorsDie? Before I die, I will hold one last revel!I will have golden cups and poppy curtains!--And yet-- No! . . . In a black hallThe black table shall spread far down before meAnd all the feasters garbed in black. Then, at the feast's height, I arisingShall with a gesture like the midnightThrow back my midnight robe and suddenly standNaked, the sole white flame of the world. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 63_ THE seven deathly spears of memorySetting behind a god, a golden gloriousHalo of land and seaEven for you and me, Even for us . . . The spear of Egypt, Orange, Through the sleeping lid, With all the power of the bulk of a pyramid. The spear of Chile, Yellow, Through the thrilling cheek, With all the push of an upturned Andean peak. The spear of Thibet, Violet, Through the eager hand, The thrust of the iron of a silent land. The spear of the Ice-Poles, Green, Through the warm-breathing breast, The glacial east and the glacial west The spear of Norway, Blue, Through the curved arm-pit, The cheerless sun majestic in a jagged slit. The spear of India, Indigo, Through the holy side, A heaven-touching temple-roof down a mountain-slide. The spear of Europe, Red, In the mouth's breath, The million-splintering scream of death . . . Even to us, The seven-spearing sun, The sword of separation before our love is done; Even for us, A simian shapeThrowing seven souls on the sea-wet cape; Even for usWho smile mouth to mouth, The full tornado from the seven-forked south; Even to usWho clasp with our knees, The scattering upheaval of the seven cold seas! And this is as near as lovers ever come, Their words are dumb;This is as near as they have ever kissed, Their lips are ocean-mist. Yet what avail the sevenSpears of memoryAgainst the obstinate archeryOf light, the spears of heaven? ANNE KNISH_Opus 40_ I HAVE not written, reader, That you may read. . . . They sit in rows in the bare school-roomReading. Throwing rocks at windows is better, And oh the tortoise-shell cat with the can tied on!I would rather be a can-tierThan a writer for readers. I have written, reader, For abstruse reasons. Gold in the mine . . . Black water seeping into tunnels . . . A plank breaks, and the roof falls . . . Three men suffocated. The wife of one now works in a laundry;The wife of another has married a fat man;I forget about the third. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 31_ THE night is growing deep with snow O put your hand in mine, While the mirthful secrets that we know Bloom in the fire-shine--Flakes falling with an undertow Of delicate design. Hushed are the courts where ladies went Unquestioning to quaffGoblets of liquid firmament-- Thank God that we can laugh! Hushed are the plains where Asia poured The blood of peacock kings--But we can echo, thank the Lord, What the China teapot sings: Nothing bereaves The eternal tune Of little crisp leaves Green in the moon. The night is deeper still with snow . . . O let us never stirFrom the mirthful secrets that we know Of old diameter!Eve laughed at Adam long ago, And Adam laughed at her. ANNE KNISH_Opus 150_ SOUNDS, pure sounds--Nothing--Vibrancies of the air--And yet-- This summer nightThere are crickets shrillingBeyond the deep bassoon of frogs. They cease for a momentAs the rattling clangorOf the trolleyBumps by. I hear footstepsHollow on the pavementNow desertedAnd blank of sound. They die. The crickets now are sleeping;Even the leavesGrow still. And slowlyOut of the blankness, out of the silenceEmerges on soundless wings!The long sweet-slopingRise and fall of far viol notes, --The mad Nirvana, The faint and spectralDream-musicOf my heart's desire. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 29_ KNIVES for feet, and wheels for a chin, And the long smooth iron bore for a neck, And bullets for hands. . . . And the root runs in, The root of blood no stone can check, From the breasts of the grinding crash of sin, From engines hugging in a wreck. A thousand round-red mouths of painBlaring black, A twisting comrade on his backIn a round-red stain, Clotted stalks of red sumac, Discs of the sun on a bayonet-stack . . . Blood, flame, a cataractThrown upward from a desert place:Flame and blood, the one blind fact, Contained, or spouting from the face, Or coiling out of bellies, packedIn a stinking spent embrace . . . Country, a babble of black spume . . . Faith, an eyeball in the sand . . . Mother, a nail through a broken hand--A kissing fume--And out of her breast the bloody bubbling milk-red breathOf death. ANNE KNISH_Opus 96_ YOU are the Delphic OracleOf the Under-World. As we sit talking, All of us together, You flash forth sudden utteranceOf buried thingsThat writhe in obscure lifeWithin our minds' last darkness. That which we think and say notYou say and think not. In us these thoughtsLike worms stir vilely. But from you they depart as sudden butterfliesCrimson and green against the pure sky. Many are the revelers;Few are the thyrsus-bearers;And sole is Dionysus. This I inscribe to you, Singer, In memory of the crags of DelphiAnd the Thessalian vales beyond. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 40_ TWO cocktails round a smile, A grapefruit after grace, Flowers in an aisle . . . Were your face. A strap in a street-car, A sea-fan on the sand, A beer on a bar . . . Were your hand The pillar of a porch, The tapering of an egg, The pine of a torch . . . Were your leg. -- Sun on the Hellespont, White swimmers in the bowlOf the baptismal font Are your soul. ANNE KNISH_Opus 88_ SO we came back againAfter some years--Just revisitingThe scenes of our sin. Nothing is there but the garden;And we had expectedThat we would be there. I heard a wind blowingDown the sky. It came with heavy auguriesAnd passed. There was a soothsayer once in RomeWho on a white altarInspected the purple entrails of victims. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 47_ GIVER of bribes in the brightness of morning, Cities have wavered and rocked and gone down . . . But the lamps of the altars hang round you, adorning The niche of your neck and the drift of your gown. O bribe-giver, marked with purple metal-- Cut in your naked contentment there showsOn the curve of your breast one carven petal From heaven's impenetrable rose! You open the window to myriad windows, The high triangular door of the world . . . Till the walls and the roofs and the curious keystone, The carven rose with its petals uncurled, Are swayed in the swathe of the uppermost ether, Where stars are the columns upholding a dome, And the edifice rolls on a corner of ocean, Lifts on a wave, poises on foam . . . We stand on the rose, we are images golden, We move interchanging, attaining one crest:One chin and one mouth and one nose and one forehead, One mouth and one chin and one neck and one breast . . . I pull you apart from me, struggle to bind you, I free you, I rend you in seven great rays . . . And we cling to them all . . . But we lose them, and slowly-- We slip with the rainbow down the blue bays. ANNE KNISH_Opus 122_ UPSTAIRS there lies a sodden thingSleeping. Soon it will come downAnd drink coffee. I shall have to smile at it across the table. How can I?For I know that at this momentIt 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 plainsWhere dust is blown, A king onceBuilt of baked clay and bulls of bronzeA 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 wayAs raw meats are all ugly. Why do we feed on the dead?Or would at least it were with cries and lustOf slaying our human foodBeneath 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 lechersOr Sabbath-keepers. Morality comes from God. He was busy. He forgot to make beauty. Why does he not call back into their hen-houseThis ugly straggling flock of secondsThat trail byWith 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 faceWith 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 doveOr some peninsula Let me speak love-- Or call some battle or some temple-bell Or many-curving pineOr some cool truth-containing well Or thin cathedral--mine! ANNE KNISH_Opus 200_ IF I should enter to his chamberAnd 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 rubAnd 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 gray And know not what they say:Rain, Rain. But after the whirl of fright And great shouts and flashes, The pounding clashes And deep slashes, After the scattered ashes Of the night, Heaven's height Abashes With a gleam through unknown lashesOf delicious points of light. ANNE KNISH_Opus 191_ THE black bark of a dogMade patterns against the night. And little leaves flute-noted across the moon. I seemed to feel your soft looksSteal across that quiet evening roomWhere once our souls spoke, long ago. For that was of a vastness;And this night is of a vastness . . . There was a dog-bark then--It was the soundOf my rebellious and incredulous heartIts patterns twined about the starsAnd drew them downAnd devoured them. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 45_ AN angel, bringing incense, prays Forever in that tree . . . I go blind still when the locust sways Those honey-domes for me. All the fragrances of dew, O angel, are there, The myrrhic rapture of young hair, The lips of lust; And all the stenches of dust, Even the palm and the fingers of a hand burnt bare With a curling sweet-smelling crust, And the bitter staleness of old hair, Powder on a withering bust . . . The moon came through the window to our bed. And the shadows of the locust-tree On your white sweet body made of me, Of my lips, a drunken bee. . . . O tree-like Spring, O blossoming days, I, who some day shall be dead, Shall have ever a lover to sway with me. For when my face decays And the earth moulds in my nostrils, shall there not be The breath therein of a locust-tree, The seed, the shoot of a locust-tree, The honey-domes of a locust-tree, Till lovers go blind and sway with me?-- O tree-like Spring, O blossomy days, To sway as long as the locust sways! EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 14_ BESIDE the brink of dream I had put out my willow-roots and leavesAs by a stream Too narrow for the invading greavesOf Rome in her trireme . . . Then you came--like a screamOf beeves. ANNE KNISH_Opus 80_ OH my little house of glass!How carefullyI have planted shrubberyTo plume before your transparency. Light is too amorous of you, Transfusing through and throughYour panes with an effulgence never new. SometimesI am terribly temptedTo throw the stones myself. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 1_ THEY enter with long trailing of shadowy cloth, And each with one hand praying in the air, And the softness of their garments is the grayness of a moth-- The lost and broken night-moth of despair. And they keep a wounded distance With following bare feet, A distance Isadoran-- And the dark moons beatTheir drums. More desolate than they are Isadora stands, The blaze of the sun on her grief;The stars of a willow are in both her hands, And her heart is the shape of a leaf. And they come to her for comfort And her black-thrown hairIs a harp of consolationSinging anthems in the air. With the dark she wrestles, daring alone, Though their young arms would aid;Her body wreathes and brightens, never thrown, Unvanquished, unafraid . . . Till light comes leaping On little children's feet, Comes leaping Isadoran-- And the white stars beatTheir drums. ANNE KNISH_Opus 195_ HER soul was freckledLike the bald headOf a jaundiced Jewish banker. Her fair and featurous faceWrithed likeAn albino boa-constrictor. She thought she resembled the Mona Lisa. This demonstrates the futility of thinking. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 6_ IF I were only dafter I might be making hymnsTo the liquor of your laughter And the lacquer of your limbs. But you turn across the table A telescope of eyes. And it lights a Russian sable Running circles in the skies. . . . Till I go running after, Obeying all your whims--For the liquor of your laughter And the lacquer of your limbs. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 9_ WHEN frogs' legs on a plate are brought to me As though I were divinity in France, I feel as God would feel were He to see Imperial Russians dance. These people's thoughts and gestures and concerns Move like a Russian ballet made of eggs;A bright-smirched canvas heaven heaves and burns Above their arms and legs. Society hops this way and that, well-taught; But while I watch, in cloudy state, I feel as God would feel if he were brought Frogs' legs on a plate. ANNE KNISH_Opus 187_ I DO not know very much, But I know this--That the storms of contempt that sweep over us, Ready to blast any edifice before thenRise from the fathomless maelstromOf contempt for ourselves. If there be a god, May he preserve meFrom striking with these lightningsThose whom I love. Saying which, Zarathustra strolled onDown Fifth Avenue. The last three linesAre symptomatic. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 104_ HOW terrible to entertain a lunatic!To keep his earnestness from coming close! A Madagascar land-crab onceLifted blue claws at meAnd rattled long black eyesThat would have got meHad I not been gay. ANNE KNISH_Opus 182_ "HE'S the remnant of a suit that has been drowned;That's what decided me, " said Clarice. "And so I married him, I really wanted a merman;And this slimy quality in himWon me. No one forbade the banns. Ergo--will you love me?" EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 101_ HE not only playsOne noteBut holds another noteAway from it--As a loverLiftsA waft of hairFrom loved eyes. The piano shivers, When he touches it, And the leg shines. ANNE KNISH_Opus 181_ SKEPTICAL cat, Calm your eyes, and come to me. For long ago, in some palmed forest, I too felt claws curlingWithin my fingers . . . Moons wax and wane;My eyes, too, once narrowed and widenedWhy do you shrink back?Come to me: let me pat you--Come, vast-eyed one . . . Or I will spring upon youAnd with steel-hook fingersTear you limb from limb. . . . There were twins in my cradle. . . . EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 78_ I AM beset by liking so many people. What can I do but hide my face away?--Lest, looking up in love, I see no eyes or lidsIn the gleaming whirl of day, Lest, reaching for the fingers of love, I know not which are they, Lest the dear-lipped multitude, Kissing me, choke me dead!-- O green eyes in the breakers, White heave unquieted, What can I do but dive again, again--again--To hide my head! ANNE KNISH_Opus 135_ IN a tomb of Argolis, Under an arch of great stones, Where my eyes were sightless, groping, I touched this figment of clay. Forgotten vase of immemorial Greece, Colorless form!I have entered to the blind darkOf the tomb where you have slept foreverAnd with the dreams of my importunate handsI touch you in the profound darkness. You are cold and estranged;Yet the ends of my fingers cling to your porous surface. You are thin and very tall;My palm can cover your mouth. Your lip curves but a little;Around your throatMy two hands meet, And then part as I follow the swellingRhythm that downward widens, And I pass around and under, And the returning lineEbbs home. Beneath your feet I touch cold marble;My hand returnsTo sleep upon your breastDreaming it warm. EMANUEL MORGAN_Opus 79_ ONLY the wise can see me in the mist, For only lovers know that I am hereAfter his piping, shall the organist Be portly and appear? Pew after pew, Wave after wave . . . Shall the digger dig and then undo His own dear grave? Hear me in the playing Of a big brass band . . . See me, straying With children hand in hand . . . Smell me, a dead fish . . . Taste me, a rotten tree. . . . Someday touch me, all you wish, In the wide sea.