Dear Hopkins. Gentle Manley. Rare Gerard. Fine name.
What we do is us. Because of you. For that we came.
THE OTHER ME
I do not writeThe other meDemands emergence constantly.But if I turn to face him much too swiftlyThenHe sidles back to where and whenHe was beforeI unknowingly cracked the doorAnd let him out.Sometimes a fire-shout beckons him,He reckons that I need him,So I do. His taskTo tell me who I am behind this mask.He Phantom is, and I facadeThat hides the opera he writes with God,While I, all blind,Wait raptureless until his mindSteals down my arm to wrist, to hand, to fingertipsAnd, stealing, find Such truths as fall from tonguesAnd burn with sound,And all of it from secret blood and secret soul on secret ground.With gleeHe sidles forth to write, then run and hideAll week until another try at hide-and-seekIn which I do pretendThat teasing him is not my end.Yet tease I do and feign to look away,Or else that secret self will hide all day.I run and play some simple game,A mindless leapWhich from sleep summons forthThe bright beast, lurking, whose preservesAnd gaming ground? My breath,My blood, my nerves.But where in all that stuff does he abide?In all my rampant seekings, where's he hide?Behind this ear like gum,That ear like fat?Where does this mischief boyHatrack his hat?No use. A hermit he was bornAnd lives, recluse.There's nothing for it but I join his ruse, his game,And let him run at will and make my fame.On which I put my name and steal his stuff,And all because I sneezed him forth With sweet creation's snuff.Did R. B. write that poem, that line, that speech?No, inner-ape, invisible, did teach.His reach, clothed in my flesh, stays mystery;Say not my name.Praise other me.
TROY
My Troy was there, of course,Though people said: Not so.Blind Homer's dead. His ancient myth'sNo way to go. Leave off. Don't dig.But I then rigged some means wherebyTo seam my earthen soul or die.I knew my Troy.Folks warned this boy it was mere taleAnd nothing more.I bore their warning, with a smile,While all the while my spadeWas delving Homer's gardened sun and shade.Gods! Never mind! cried friends: Dumb Homer's blind!How can he show you ruins that n'er were?I'm sure, I said. He speaks. I hear. I'm sure.Their advice spurnedI dug when all their backs were turned,For I had learned when I was eight:Doom was my Fate, they said. The world would end!That day I panicked, thought it true,That you and I and theyWould never see the light of the next day -Yet that day came.With shame I saw it come, recalled my doubtAnd wondered what those Doomsters were about?From that day on I kept a private joy,And did not let them senseMy buried Troy;For if they had, what scorns,Derision, jokes;I sealed my City deepFrom all those folks;And, growing, dug each day. What did I findAnd given as gift by Homer old and Homer blind?One Troy? No, ten!Ten Troys? No, two times ten! Three dozen!And each a richer, finer, brighter cousin!All in my flesh and blood,And each one true.So what's this mean?Go dig the Troy in you\
Go NOT WITH RUINS IN YOUR MIND
Go not with ruins in your mindOr beauty fails; Rome's sun is blindAnd catacomb your cold hotel!Where should-be heavens could-be hell.Beware the temblors and the floodThat time hides fast in tourist's bloodAnd shambles forth from hidden homeAt sight of lost-in-ruins Rome.Think on your joyless blood, take care,Rome's scattered bricks and bones lie thereIn every chromosome and geneLie all that was, or might have been.All architectural tombs and thronesAre tossed to ruin in your bones.Time earthquakes there all life that growsAnd all your future darkness knows,Take not these inner ruins to Rome,A sad man wisely stays at home;For if your melancholy goesWhere all is lost, then your loss growsAnd all the dark that self employsWill teem -so travel then with joys.Or else in ruins consummateA death that waited long and late,And all the burning towns of bloodWill shake and fall from sane and good,And you with ruined sight will seeA lost and ruined Rome. And thee?Cracked statue mended by noon's lightYet innerscaped with soul's midnight.So go not traveling with moodOr lack of sunlight in your blood,Such traveling has double cost,When you and empire both are lost.When your mind storm-drains catacomb,And all seems graveyard rock in RomeTourist, go not.Stay home.Stay home!