Between the shoulder and the head
The guillotine must play
And cleave with clash unmerited
The generating day . . .
Till the separated parts, not dead,
Rise and walk away.
ANNE KNISH
Opus 134
LISTEN, my friend,
That you may understand me.—
In my earliest youth
I dreamed in hues volcanic.
I saw each day open
Like a curtain of flame.
Black slaves attended
My waking moments;
Three ebony slaves
Washed sleep from my white body.
Three ebony slaves
Around my ivory smoothness
Folded heavy robes
Of crimson and white.
And as I issued forth
Into the blue vault of the daylight
A grey ape pranced before me
And a leopard crept behind.
This was the state
Of my young heritage.
Scarlet as the voice of trumpets
Was the pageant of my days.
Can I accept now
The twilight?
And soon the dark, where all colors
Die?
Before I die, I will hold one last revel!
I will have golden cups and poppy curtains!—
And yet—
No! . . . In a black hall
The black table shall spread far down before me
And all the feasters garbed in black.
Then, at the feast's height, I arising
Shall with a gesture like the midnight
Throw back my midnight robe and suddenly stand
Naked, the sole white flame of the world.
EMANUEL MORGAN
Opus 63
THE seven deathly spears of memory
Setting behind a god, a golden glorious
Halo of land and sea
Even for you and me,
Even for us . . .
The spear of Egypt,
Orange,
Through the sleeping lid,
With all the power of the bulk of a pyramid.