Dream Song 92

His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1969)

Room 231: the fourth week

Something black somewhere in the vistas of his heart.

Tulips from Tates teazed Henry in the moodto be a tulip and desire no morebut water, but light, but air.Yet his nerves rattled blackly, unsubdued,& suffocation called, dream-whiskey’d poursirening. Rosy there

too fly my Phil & Ellen roses, pal.Flesh-coloured men & women come & puntunder my windows. I raveor grunt against it, from a flowerless land.For timeless hours wind most, or not at all. I windmy clock before I shave.

Soon it will fall dark. Soon you’ll see starsyou fevered after, child, man, & did nothing,—compass live to the pencil-torch!As still as his cadaver, Henry marsthis surface of an earth or other, feet southeyes bleared west, waking to march.

His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1969)