s-poem39

             
                                     
                                          
                                         
Scatterings                    
                                          
                                       
 The Purple Fox                 
                                          
                                         
Now blows a dark and brawling wind   
  Along the purple Fox;
And stands a rake beside his love             
  Near friendless coalyard docks.             
                                     
And she is supple, like a wave,           
  In her delight with him;          
But he's as stiff as any drunk          
  All bottle to the brim.               
                                  
He stumbles out and stumble in:
  She smiles; then holds him near.       
But he is numb to all her warmth,         
  And stares, and drinks his beer.    
                                     
Then quick and rough, he grips her jaw.
  She grasps his icy wrist.              
And eyes fear eyes in ghostly pale—         
  He pounds her with his fist;   
                                         
He bruises with an empty can               
  And tears her blouse away,          
And strips her to each rattling bone   
  And molds her breast like clay.              
                                        
The coal turns white; the snow turns red.   
  His love squirms like a worm.             
Though every twist would flee the beast,       
  His vorant arms grow firm.               
                                           
With seering lust his sockets roll;
  His fingers run insane.               
So crazed is he that even now                
  Her screams and tears are vain.             
                                       
And all this craze and drunkenness            
  Is tangled in her hair.                
And love is raped and turned to ash,
  And softly strangled there.                
                                     
Yet far and cold the still night falls,        
  The frozen river flows;                
But only one can tell the tale:                 
  The brawling wind that blows.                 
                                          
                                          
                                     
                      1965                 
                                          
    published in summer 1965 Pursuit          
          volume V    number 2                  
                                              
                                               
                                             
                                              
sm025      post1031