LOUISE BOGAN

"Three Songs: Masked Woman’s Song”

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Before I saw the tall man
Few women should see,
Beautiful and imposing
Was marble to me.

And virtue had its place
And evil its alarms,
But not for that worn face,
And not in those roped arms.

LOUISE BOGAN - “Several Voices Out of a Cloud”

Come, drunks and drug-takers; come, perverts unnerved!
Receive the laurel, given, though late, on merit; to whom
        and wherever deserved.

Parochial punks, trimmers, nice people, joiners true-blue,
Get the hell out of the way of the laurel. It is deathless
        And it isn’t for you.

LOUISE BOGAN - "Song for the Last Act"

Now that I have your face by heart, I look 
Less at its features than its darkening frame 
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, 
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook. 
Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show 
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read 
In the black chords upon a dulling page 
Music that is not meant for music’s cage,
Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed. 
The staves are shuttled over with a stark 
Unprinted silence. In a double dream 
I must spell out the storm, the running stream. 
The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves; 
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps 
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.