Harry Crosby Poems

  I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen

  the mirror crashes against my face
and bursts into a thousand suns
...

A sunfort flourished in my sunless heart
Beyond the Sun. Here in a tower apart
The sunbirds of my lady's eyes were caged
Alas, poor targets for the sun-god's dart.
...

X., peasant, aged thirty-four and a half; Sun-Worshipper. Father and Mother were hard drinkers. Since his fifth year patient has had epileptic convulsions-i.e. he falls down unconscious, lies still two or three minutes, and
...

I would you were the hollow ship
fashioned to bear the cargo of my love
the unrelenting glove
hurled in defiance at our blackest world
...

Proud panoply of fans and frankincense,
Gold blare of trumpets, flowered robes of state,
Unnumbered symbols of magnificence,
To lead Salome through the palace gate,
...

I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen.
The mirror crashes against my face and bursts into a thousand suns. all over the city flags cracle and bang. Fog horns scream in the harbor. The wind hurricanes through the window. Tornadoes are unmuzzled as I begin to dance the dance of the Kurd Shepherds.
I stamp upon the floor. I whirl like dervishes. Colors revolve dressing and undressing. I lash them with fury stark white with iron black harsh red with blue marble green with bright orange and only gold remains naked.
...

You business men with your large desks with your stenographers and your bell-boys and your private telephones I say to you these are the four walls of your cage.
You are tame as canaries with your small bird-brains where lurks the evil worm you are fat from being over-fed you know not the lean wild sunbirds that arrow down paths of fire.
...

The Sun! the Sun!
a fish in the aquarium of sky
or golden net to snare the butterfly
of soul
...