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Sawdust And |
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DiamondsFrom the top of the flight |
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Of the wide, white stairs |
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Through the rest of my life |
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Do you wait for me there? |
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There's a bell in my ears |
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There's a wide white roar |
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Drop a bell down the stairs |
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Hear it fall forevermore |
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Hear it fall forevermore |
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Drop a bell off of the dock |
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Blot it out in the sea |
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Drowning mute as a rock; |
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And sounding mutiny |
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There's a light in the wings |
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Hits this system of strings |
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From the side while they swing; |
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See the wires, the wires, the wires |
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And the articulation |
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In our elbows and knees |
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Makes us buckle as we couple in endless increase |
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As the audience admires |
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And the little white dove |
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Made with love, made with love: |
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Made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers |
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Swings a low sickle arc |
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From its perch in the dark |
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Settle down |
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Settle down my desire |
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And the moment |
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I slept I was swept up in a terrible tremor |
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Though no longer bereft, how |
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I shook and |
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I couldn't remember |
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Then the furthermost shake drove a murthering stake in |
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And cleft me right down through my center |
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And I shouldn't say so, but |
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I know that it was then, or never |
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Push me back into a tree |
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Bind my buttons with salt |
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And fill my long ears with bees |
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Praying: please, please, please, |
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Love, you ought not! |
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No you ought not! |
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Then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings(cut from cardboard and old magazines) |
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Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow |
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And in the place where |
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I stood, there is a circle of wood |
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A cord or two, which you chop and you stack in your barrow |
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It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood |
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Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed; |
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As I crash through the rafters |
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And the ropes and pulleys trail after |
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And the holiest belfry burns sky-high |
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Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision |
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While, somewhere, with your pliers and glue you make your first incision |
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And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision |
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Doubled over with the hunger of lions' |
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Hold me close', cooed the dove |
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Who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds |
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I wanted to say: why the long face? |
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Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face |
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Burro, buck and bray songs of long face! |
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Sing: I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay |
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Just to lift your long face |
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And though it may be madness, |
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I will take to the grave |
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Your precious longface |
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And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate- why the long face? |
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And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil- why the long face? |
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In the trough of the waves |
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Which are pawing like dogs |
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Pitch we, pale-faced and grave, |
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As I write in my log |
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Then I hear a noise from the hull |
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Seven days out to sea |
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And it is the damnable bell! |
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And it tolls - well, |
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I believe, that it tolls - for me! |
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It tolls for me! |
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And though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break |
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Still, my dear, |
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I would have walked you to the very edge of the water |
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And they will recognise all the lines of your face |
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In the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughterand darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine |
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Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes |
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But if it's all just the same, then will you say my name: |
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Say my name in the morning, so |
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I know when the wave breaks? |
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I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight |
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No, I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright |
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So: enough of this terror |
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We deserve to know light |
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And grow evermore lighter and lighter |
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You would have seen me through |
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But I could not undo that desire |
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Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire |
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Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire |
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Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire |
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From the top of the flight |
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Of the wide, white stairs |
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Through the rest of my life |
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Do you wait for me there |
