Poems by Donald Justice

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Women In Love

It always comes, and when it comes they know.

To will it is enough to bring them there.

The knack is this, to fasten and not let go.

Their limbs are charmed; they cannot stay or go.

Desire is limbo: they¼re unhappy there.

It always comes, and when it comes they know.

Their choice of hells would be the one they know.

Dante describes it, the wind circling there.

Donald Justice

Variations On A Text By Vallejo

Me moriré en Paris con aguacero ...

I will die in Miami in the sun,

On a day when the sun is very bright,

A day like the days I remember, a day like other days,

A day that nobody knows or remembers yet,

And the sun will be bright then on the dark glasses of strangers

And in the eyes of a few friends from my childhood

And of the surviving cousins by the graveside,

Donald Justice

Hell

R. B. VAUGHN speaks:

“After so many years of pursuing the ideal

I came home. But I had caught sight of it.

You see it sometimes in the blue-silver wake

Of island schooners, bound for Anegada, say.

And it takes other forms. I saw it flickering once

In torches by the railroad tracks in Medellín.

When I was very young I thought that love would come

Donald Justice

Extraits

The Man Closing Up," from Night Light" (1967),

would make his bed,

If he could sleep on it.

He would make his bed with white sheets

And disappear into the white,

Like a man diving,

If he could be certain

That the light

Donald Justice

American Sketches

CROSSING KANSAS BY TRAIN

The telephone poles

Have been holding their

Arms out

A long time now

To birds

That will not

Settle there

Donald Justice

Henry James At The Pacific

-- Coronado Beach, California, March, 1905

In a hotel room by the sea, the Master

Sits brooding on the continent he has crossed.

Not that he foresees immediate disaster,

Only a sort of freshness being lost --

Or should he go on calling it Innocence?

The sad-faced monsters of the plains are gone;

Wall Street controls the wilderness. There's an immense

Donald Justice

On A Painting By Patient B Of The Independence State Hospital For The Insane

These seven houses have learned to face one another,

But not at the expected angles. Those silly brown lumps,

That are probably meant for hills and not other houses,

After ages of being themselves, though naturally slow,

Are learning to be exclusive without offending.

The arches and entrances (down to the right out of sight)

Have mastered the lesson of remaining closed.

Donald Justice

Banjo Dog Variations

Tramps on the road: floating clouds. OLD CHINESE POEM

Agriculture and Industry

Embraced in public on a wall—

Heroes in shirt-sleeves! Next to them

The average man felt small.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,

Donald Justice

Nostalgia And Complaint Of The Grandparents

Les morts

C’est sous terre;

Ça n’en sort

Guère.

LAFORGUE

Our diaries squatted, toad-like,

On dark closet ledges.

Forget-me-not and thistle

Donald Justice

Counting The Mad

This one was put in a jacket,

This one was sent home,

This one was given bread and meat

But would eat none,

And this one cried No No No No

All day long.

This one looked at the window

As though it were a wall,

Donald Justice

Anonymous Drawing

A delicate young Negro stands

With the reins of a horse clutched loosely in his hands;

So delicate, indeed, that we wonder if he can hold the spirited creature

beside him

Until the master shall arrive to ride him.

Already the animal's nostrils widen with rage or fear.

But if we imagine him snorting, about to rear,

This boy, who should know about such things better than we,

Donald Justice

The Assassination

It begins again, the nocturnal pulse.

It courses through the cables laid for it.

It mounts to the chandeliers and beats there, hotly.

We are too close. Too late, we would move back.

We are involved with the surge.

Now it bursts. Now it has been announced.

Now it is being soaked up by newspapers.

Now it is running through the streets.

Donald Justice