Summer Near the River by Carolyn Kizer

I have carried my pillow to the windowsill
And try to sleep, with my damp arms crossed upon it,
But no breeze stirs the tepid morning.
Only I stir.......Come, tease me a little!
With such cold passion, so little teasing play,
How long can we endure our life together?

No use. I put your long dressing-gown;
The untied sash trails over the dusty floor.
I kneel by the window, prop up your shaving mirror
And pluck my eyebrows.
I don't care if the robe slides open
Revealing a crescent of belly, a tan thigh.
I can accuse that non-existent breeze....

I am as monogamous as the North Star,
But I don't want you to know it. You'd only take advantage.
While you are as fickle as spring sunlight.
All right, sleep! The cat means more to you than I.
I can rouse, but then you swagger out.
I glimpse you from the window, striding towards the river.

When you return, reeking of fish and beer,
There is salt dew in your hair. Where have you been?
Your clothes weren't that wrinkled hours ago, when you left.
You couldn't have loved someone else, after loving me!
I sulk and sight, dawdling by the window.
Later, when you hold me in your arms
It seems, for a moment, the river ceases flowing.

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What Was In A Name by Carolyn Kizer

Thomas Love Peacock! Thomas Love Peacock!
I used to croon, sitting on the pot,
My sympatethic magic, at age three.
These elements in balance captured me:
Love in the middle, on his right hand a saint
And doubter. Gentle a Kempis, Thomas the Rhymer,
Wyatt, Campion, Traherne, came later.

One Love's left hand, the coarse essentials:
Skimp them, and Love, denying, slides away
Into pure Thomas, etiolated sainthood.
Before cock, the satisfying sound of liquid
Which, as it strikes against the enamel basin,
Proclaims a bodily creativity.
Then Love springs eternal; then cock comes

Demonstrating Love. The surname is complete:
Its barbed crest, its thousand eyes, its harsh cries.
Thomas Love Peacock! Thomas Love Peacock!
The person unsung, the person ritually sung.
But that was thirty years ago; a child's loving
Of God, the body, flesh of poetry.
I hail the three-in-one, the one-in-three.

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Singing Aloud by Carolyn Kizer

We all have our faults. Mine is trying to write poems.
New scenery, someone I like, anything sets me off!
I hear my own voice going on, like a god or an oracle,
That cello-tone, intuition. That bell-note of wisdom!

And I can't get rid of the tempting tic pentameter,
Of the urge to impose a form on what I don't understand,
Or that which I have to transform because it's too grim as it is.
But age is improving me: Now, when I finish a poem

I no longer rush out to impose it on friendly colleagues.
I climb through the park to the reservoir, peer down at my own reflection,
Shake a blossoming branch so I am covered with petals,
Each petal a metaphor................

By the time we reach middle life, we've all been deserted and robbed.
But flowers and grass and animals keep me warm.
And I remind myself to become philosophic:
We are meant to be stripped down, to prepare us for something better.

And, often, I sing aloud. As I goes older.
I give way to innocent folly more and more often.
The squirrels and rabbits chime in with inaudible voices.
I feel sure that the birds make an effort to be antiphonal.

When I go to the zoo, the primates and I, in communion,
Hoot at each other, or signal with earthy gestures.
We must move further out of town, we musical birds and animals,
Or they'll lock us up like the apes, and control us forever.

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The Dying Goddess by Carolyn Kizer

The love goddess, alas, grows failer,
She still has her devootes
But their hearts are not whole.
They follow young boys
From the corners of their eyes.
They become embarrassed
By their residual myths.
Odd cults crop up, involving midgets,
Partial castration, dismemberment of children
The goddess wrings her hands; they think it vanity
And it is, partly.

Sometimes, in her precincts
Young men bow curly heads.
She sends them packing
Indulgently, with blown kisses.
There are those who pray endlessly,
Stretched full-length with their eyes slut,
Imploring her, "Mother!"
She taps her toe at these. A wise goddess
Knows her own children.

On occasion, her head raises
Almost expectantly: a man steps forward.
She takes one step forward,
They exchange wistful glances.
He is only passing.
When he comes to the place
Of no destination
He takes glass after glass
In her own mirror the image wavers.
She turns her face from the smokeless brazier.

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