Sawdust and Diamonds
From the top of the______
of the wide, white stairs,
through the rest of my life,
do you _______ for me there?
There’s a bell in my ears.
There’s the wide, white _______.
Drop a bell down the stairs.
Hear it fall ___________.
Drop a bell off of the ______.
Blot it out in the sea.
Drowning mute as a rock;
sounding __________.
There’s a _______ in the wings, hits the system of ________,
from the side, where they _______ —
see the wires, the wires, the _________.
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
makes us __________;
we couple in endless increase
as the audience __________.
And the little white _________,
made with love, made with love;
made with glue, and a _________, and some pliers
swings a low sickle arc, from its perch in the dark:
_________ down, settle down, my desire.
And the moment I _______, I was swept up in a terrible tremor.
Though no longer bereft, how I shook! And I couldn’t remember.
Then the ________shake drove a murthering stake in,
and cleft me right down through my center.
And I shouldn’t say so, but I knew that it was then, or never.
Push me back into a tree.
Bind my __________ with salt.
Fill my long ears with bees
praying please please please love
you ought not
No you ought not
Then the system of strings ______ at the tip of my wings
(cut from ________ and old magazines):
makes me warble and rise, like a ____________.
And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood —
a cord or two — which you chop, and you stack in your barrow.
It is _______ good to carry water and chop wood,
streaked with soot, heavy-booted and wild-eyed;
as I crash through the ______,
and the ropes and the pulleys trail after
and the holiest belfry burns sky-high.
Then the slow lip of fire moves _______the prairie with precision,
while, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision.
And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision,
doubled over with the hunger of lions,
Hold me close, cooed the dove,
who was stuffed, now, with ________ and diamonds.
I wanted to say: Why the long face.
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face.
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing, I will swallow your ________, and eat your cold clay,
just to lift your long face;
And though it may be _________, I will take to the grave
your precious longface.
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate —
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the ______ —
Why the long face?
In the trough of the waves,
which are ________ like dogs,
pitch we, pale-faced and grave,
as I write in my log.
Then I hear a _____ from the hull,
seven days out to sea.
It is that damnable bell!
And it tolls — well, I believe that it tolls — for me.
It tolls for me.
Though my _______ and my waist seemed so easy to break,
still, my dear, I’d have walked you to the very edge of the water.
And they will _____ all the lines of your face
in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my _____.
Darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
appears to me a _______
that the gibbering wave takes.
But if it’s all just the same, then will you say my same;
say my name in the _____, so I know when the wave breaks.
I wasn’t born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight.
No; I was all horns and ______, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.
So: enough of this terror.
We ______ to know light,
and grow evermore lighter and lighter.
You would have seen me _______,
But I could not undo that _________.
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs
_________ the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?
From the top of the______
of the wide, white stairs,
through the rest of my life,
do you _______ for me there?
There’s a bell in my ears.
There’s the wide, white _______.
Drop a bell down the stairs.
Hear it fall ___________.
Drop a bell off of the ______.
Blot it out in the sea.
Drowning mute as a rock;
sounding __________.
There’s a _______ in the wings, hits the system of ________,
from the side, where they _______ —
see the wires, the wires, the _________.
And the articulation in our elbows and knees
makes us __________;
we couple in endless increase
as the audience __________.
And the little white _________,
made with love, made with love;
made with glue, and a _________, and some pliers
swings a low sickle arc, from its perch in the dark:
_________ down, settle down, my desire.
And the moment I _______, I was swept up in a terrible tremor.
Though no longer bereft, how I shook! And I couldn’t remember.
Then the ________shake drove a murthering stake in,
and cleft me right down through my center.
And I shouldn’t say so, but I knew that it was then, or never.
Push me back into a tree.
Bind my __________ with salt.
Fill my long ears with bees
praying please please please love
you ought not
No you ought not
Then the system of strings ______ at the tip of my wings
(cut from ________ and old magazines):
makes me warble and rise, like a ____________.
And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood —
a cord or two — which you chop, and you stack in your barrow.
It is _______ good to carry water and chop wood,
streaked with soot, heavy-booted and wild-eyed;
as I crash through the ______,
and the ropes and the pulleys trail after
and the holiest belfry burns sky-high.
Then the slow lip of fire moves _______the prairie with precision,
while, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision.
And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision,
doubled over with the hunger of lions,
Hold me close, cooed the dove,
who was stuffed, now, with ________ and diamonds.
I wanted to say: Why the long face.
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face.
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing, I will swallow your ________, and eat your cold clay,
just to lift your long face;
And though it may be _________, I will take to the grave
your precious longface.
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate —
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the ______ —
Why the long face?
In the trough of the waves,
which are ________ like dogs,
pitch we, pale-faced and grave,
as I write in my log.
Then I hear a _____ from the hull,
seven days out to sea.
It is that damnable bell!
And it tolls — well, I believe that it tolls — for me.
It tolls for me.
Though my _______ and my waist seemed so easy to break,
still, my dear, I’d have walked you to the very edge of the water.
And they will _____ all the lines of your face
in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my _____.
Darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
appears to me a _______
that the gibbering wave takes.
But if it’s all just the same, then will you say my same;
say my name in the _____, so I know when the wave breaks.
I wasn’t born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight.
No; I was all horns and ______, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.
So: enough of this terror.
We ______ to know light,
and grow evermore lighter and lighter.
You would have seen me _______,
But I could not undo that _________.
From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs
_________ the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?