EXPERIENCE OF BLOOD
I never knew there was so much blood
in a man until my son killed himself
he did it with a kitchen knife stab-
bing himself all over and cutting his
wrists then he got into the bathtub
and died there in the water that's
where we found him but could he have
changed his mind for a moment the floor
was a carpet of blood & blood was spat-
tered on the walls the basin was cov-
ered with blood did he stand there
looking at himself in the mirror still
wondering who he really was and then
went on with it I had to wipe away the
blood it took me four hours to do it
but I couldn't have asked anyone else
because after all it was my blood too.
THE CAVE
Leaning over me her hair
makes a cave around her
face a darkness where her
eyes are hardly seen she
tells me she is a cat she
says she hates me because
I make her show her pleas-
ure she makes a cat-hate
sound and then ever so
tenderly hands under my
head raises my mouth into
the dark cave of her love.
The Collected Poems of
James Laughlin
New Directions 2013
edited by Peter Glassgold
THE DAZE OF LOVE
Comes sometimes from
the blaze of light
when an asteroid
passes us too near.
There is also
the softer radiance
when we are separated
and sink into sleep
thinking of each other.
A LONG NIGHT OF DREAMING
and when I finally awoke
from it we seemed to be
back where we'd left off
some thirty years before
in the compartment of a
wagon-lit somewhere in
Italy loving and arguing
soft words and then hard
words over where we'd go
next to Venice or Rome or
better to split again you
back to him I back to her.
SO MUCH DEPENDS
For William Carlos Williams
Bill on the way you saw
the way your heart saw
what your your eyes saw not
just the way you saw a
wheelbarrow or the falls
or the blossoms of the
shad tree or Floss in a
rose and 100 other flow-
ers your patients & the
babies and the measure
of your lines in Brueg-
hel's painting of that
dance so many things the
rest of us would never
have seen except for you.
TOUCHING
I want to touch you
in beautiful places
places that no one
else has ever found
places we found to-
gether when we were
in Otherwhere such
beautiful places.
J A M E S L A U G H L I N
A LONG NIGHT OF DREAMING
and when I finally awoke
from it we seemed to be
back where we'd left off
some thirty years before
in the compartment of a
wagon-lit somewhere in
Italy loving and arguing
soft words and then hard
words over where we'd go
next to Venice or Rome or
better to split again you
back to him I back to her.
SO MUCH DEPENDS
For William Carlos Williams
Bill on the way you saw
the way your heart saw
what your your eyes saw not
just the way you saw a
wheelbarrow or the falls
or the blossoms of the
shad tree or Floss in a
rose and 100 other flow-
ers your patients & the
babies and the measure
of your lines in Brueg-
hel's painting of that
dance so many things the
rest of us would never
have seen except for you.
TOUCHING
I want to touch you
in beautiful places
places that no one
else has ever found
places we found to-
gether when we were
in Otherwhere such
beautiful places.
J A M E S L A U G H L I N
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-laughlin
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3039/the-art-of-publishing-no-1-part-1-james-laughlin
