Five Poems From “Helen: A Revision”

Nothing is known about Helen but her voice
Strange glittering sparks
Lighting no fires but what is reechoed
Rechorded, set on the icy sea.

All history is one, as all the North Pole is one
Magnetic, music to play with, ice
That has had to do with vision
And each one of us, naked.
Partners. Naked.

* * *

Helen: A Revision
ZEUS: It is to be assumed that I do not exist while most people in the vision assume that I do exist. This is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience. I have to talk like this because I am the lord of both kinds of sky—and I don't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs, I mean the bright sky and the burning sky. I have no intention of showing you my limits. The players in this poem are players. They have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players. I have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play. I am called Zeus and I know this.

THERSITES: [Running out on the construction of the stage.] The fourth wall is not as important as you think it is.

ZEUS: [Disturbed but carrying it off like a good Master of Ceremonial.] Thersites is involuntary. [He puts his arm around him.] I could not play a part if I were not a player.

[...] Read more

poem by Jack Spicer
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Ode For Walt Whitman

A Translation for Steve Jonas

Along East River and the Bronx
The kids were singing, showing off their bodies
At the wheel, at oil, the rawhide, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners were drawing silver out of boulders
While children made perspective drawings of stairways.

But no one went to sleep
No one wanted to be a river
No one loved the big leaves, no one
The blue tongue of the coastline.

Along East River into Queens
The kids were wrestling with industry.
The Jews sold circumcision’s rose
To the faun of the river.
The sky flowed through the bridges and rooftops—
Herds of buffalo the wind was pushing.

[...] Read more

poem by Jack Spicer
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!