Rhapsody on a Windy Night

Twelve o’clock.Along the reaches of the streetHeld in a lunar synthesis,Whispering lunar incantationsDissolve the floors of the memoryAnd all its clear relations,Its divisions and precisions,Every street lamp that I passBeats like a fatalistic drum,And through the spaces of the darkMidnight shakes the memoryAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,The street lamp sputtered,The street lamp muttered,The street lamp said,“Regard that womanWho hesitates toward you in the light of the doorWhich opens on her like a grin.You see the border of her dressIs torn and stained with sand,And you see the corner of her eyeTwists like a crooked pin.”

The memory throws up high and dryA crowd of twisted things;A twisted branch upon the beachEaten smooth, and polishedAs if the world gave upThe secret of its skeleton,Stiff and white.A broken spring in a factory yard,Rust that clings to the form that the strength has leftHard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,The street lamp said,“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,Slips out its tongueAnd devours a morsel of rancid butter.”So the hand of a child, automaticSlipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.I have seen eyes in the streetTrying to peer through lighted shutters,And a crab one afternoon in a pool,An old crab with barnacles on his back,Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,The lamp sputtered,The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:“Regard the moon,La lune ne garde aucune rancune,She winks a feeble eye,She smiles into corners.She smoothes the hair of the grass.The moon has lost her memory.A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,Her hand twists a paper rose,That smells of dust and old Cologne,She is aloneWith all the old nocturnal smellsThat cross and cross across her brain.The reminiscence comesOf sunless dry geraniumsAnd dust in crevices,Smells of chestnuts in the streets,And female smells in shuttered rooms,And cigarettes in corridorsAnd cocktail smells in bars.”

The lamp said,“Four o’clock,Here is the number on the door.Memory!You have the key,The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,Mount.The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wallPut your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”The last twist of the knife.