The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest. Barbara Guest

nightingales to nurse us

Oriental Movie

      Lady your orange back

      is waving at Foujita

      we’re all in a canoe

      sipping the light drink of the tamarind bark

      while the white-eyed paddles

      whisper orange

      and blue

      and the solemn wall says

      orange and blue

      to your cunning slant-eyed rind

      of a rainstorm shining

      in the gloom

      like the lights

      of Hong Kong brewed

      on the hill

      and tomorrow there’ll be another

      thin brush a thinner brush

The Crisis

      After the white-collared boats

      the smithies will return

      then we shall hear

      the ding dong.

      After the laundries, the lavatories of trains

      when velvet returns

      we shall see the snails

      making their own ding dong

      when it rains.

      After the rich seas, the closed stations,

      the plumed clocks, the long balconies,

      a quiet vista of snails.

      In the time of great kings

      I hid this knife with a friend

      to cut off the trail (silver)

      which led to my house.

      Ding dong

      without a shell.

      Having to wait until it was over

      I stayed on a sofa

      when Madame returned

      she discovered

      a frieze on the wall and she exclaimed

      in horror

      (it was over)

      You have murdered our friend!

      Ding dong

      from now on.

West Sixty-fourth Street

       for Miriam and Mitchell Ittelson

      The room isn’t as white as you’d suppose

      (accustomed to a cube of ice

      or a flake of eiderdown in Pekin

      after the palace was closed; the warriors

      in thin shirts tried to open the door

      they found a message written in clear ink

      forgetting to describe the tracks on the Yangtze floes)

      There’s a sign of Work and Joy

      facing the brave night whose shoulders

      are covered with primary colors

      under which we succumb with a smile

      Permitting the glass blowers to thicken their bottles

      while candelabra melt into forests

      gathering their heartache

      into bouquets of grass

      Yet wicker is impermanent as these burning lights

      when at daybreak it is said

      “the painter has dropped his brush in the canal”

      So afterwards we’ll go on to the Villa

      I’ll play you its record the next time we go for a walk

      in Central Park the hour the statues say “yes.”

The Time of Day

      Or when I see a sailor in front of my house on the

      sidewalk

      He is hurrying, the church bells are ringing:

      « Okay! » says the man who takes the money.

      Or when two nuns enter the library, one of them is

      going to smile

      She is not thinking of what is ahead:

      « Okay! » says the man who takes the money.

      Or the mannequin who opens a closet full of hats

      His arm holds his elbow and the hand caresses the

      face while he selects:

      « Okay! » says the man who takes the money.

      Or when someone addresses me who is not a regular

      member of the Army

      And I answer, good afternoon Major:

      « Okay! » says the man who takes the money.

      Or when I go into the room and close my door

      It is the hour for decisions and I am going to take

      a little nap:

      « Okay! » says the driver.

Heroic Stages

       for Grace Hartigan

      I had thought you were disappearing

      under the desperate monuments of sand

      I discovered you were leaning on grass

      which after green is noble.

      In the sunlight each morning

      is delivered to your table

      among the oranges and white bottles

      the Quest.

      If ever after Valhalla should proclaim

      a string of knights (usually seen wandering)

      this grey silent space would be orchestrated

      for their maneuvers. And way over there

      shining by itself in the blue twilight

      a misunderstood Chalice.

      Grand breaks!

      the forest is growing too high

      (the waves are longer; there is no sound)

      the river has turned from its bed

      rocks have no moss they have plumes

      the chiaroscuro results in serpents.

      Danger!

      where only the poets

      held to the routes by the tender-eyed peasants

      and you painters

      who have drawn those deep lines on the globes

      are without anger and starvation.

      My penitent self sing when you perceive

      it is a kindergarten

      of giants where grapes are growing.

      The wind is southerly.

      You face a park. There are wings in this atmosphere,

      sovereigns