CANTO 53
The sun goes down. Venus flings off her gown. Who is drowned emerges from the sea of mad
and drunken illusion. Astray, an atom whirling wildly, Love illuminates my way. I ask her opinion of the wine, giving her back things, her flute, her tiara, this very room, in which
I've circled for 600 years. Easy to get caught up, until I think I should do something. Anything. I
feel like a hermit talking to a trout. I touch her softly, and she darts away. I can't make her
make up her mind, although I've caught her heart in a net. Two eyes look at two eyes; two hands play a simple air. The hot, dry wind blows through her
hair. We conjugate the tenses of the body's language. Relax, Love, it's true, love is senses,
nonsense and double sense intensely. She's hot. To me, she'll be hot when she's 50 and still be saying, "I'm hot. God, it's hot. This
house is hot. This cup looks like hell, and I'm drinking from it, but it's cold and wet." Life is huge and cruel, and, at best, we get a chance to dance. Let's turn it upside down. Life's
up, down and crosswise. We're not hiding behind disguises. Love of love makes the poet mad. He dies and makes death wise. I called my love false love, but
what she said then. Sing Pine, Sing Pine, Sing all a Pine, no one blame her. I invite her scorn.
What's next? Who knocks? It is the wind. You're in your tower, addled on Freud. I hear the celestial choir, and wonder what's beyond. I
going to the East; let's meet somewhere in the West, say, New York. It's a very expensive place.
I'll get some special shoes to live in when it's cold. It's after midnight, hours since I came home, her eyes still before me. It's after midnight. Time
has passed, and I am in a harsh, gray desert, thinking with my feelings. Encountering each tiny
sensation, I gather up the warm truths and the sad ones, while she dances in the moonlight,
covered in colored scarves, alone but not lonely. Birds dart up. I see her name in their flight. I see her in the moving water, the clouds, even the
sun. The world is new and true and lovely. Nothing else to be. He takes her for his pleasure. I give her her pleasure, this sunrise, this pink rose. Cut roses in a vase, invisible roses, also growing there. All too well, I can divine her look.
Everything she does is a leading worthwhile. I'm in a room with a door she can go through but I can't. She's in a room with a door I can go
through but she can't. Now, I see her face in another place and try to catch the echo of her
voice. She is that woman despised by all other women and most desired by men. She is tormented by
the hostile sex that saturates her. She has spiteful days when she feels ugly and yearns for
someone to understand her pain. She dreamed she saw frozen DNA, but really it was an angel, coiled and waiting to be
discovered, in the palace of her mind. Nature has no memory. The past vanishes like the winter
winds. She's discovered that romantic love is a sentiment invented, and that all her cluttered
days culminate in this fact. Heart, how close you are. Like lightning, you strike. If you seek me, look towards the lake. I'm
free of my cage. I am Love. My pheromones can have a field day. I fly high. I fly low. Questions in the sky, answers in the snow. Love is not less for falling. Love's way is a ricochet. "Numerolgically," she says, "jello is a 9." I feel displaced and listen to The Screaming Trees. Sing
Willow, Sing Willow, Da na, da na, da na, da na, hey, hey, hey, hey