So long, Carl Rakosi.

Sad news, but amusing last words. And if ya gotta go, that's the way to do it. The man was almost 101!



Here's a poem. (The spacing is as close to accurate as I can get it.)



A Journey Away

1.

I dreamed last night

that I was married.

I was scared, the woman

being very young

	          with green

stones in her garter.



She looked upon me wistfully

	                      and said:



"I was a taxi dancer

with a sweetheart on a fishing smack.

I perceive by these pains

that I am condemned to die."



From Okeanos sprang

		    her hot breath.

Her image is an ancient blue glass,

		          so subtle,



it reminded me

of one I had not seduced.

She was brushing out her hair

before the mirror.



I should have been arranging

the white poppies in the window

with the coriander.





2. 

We climbed the stairs,

the white dress flowing 

from the lady's sides.



She turned the pottery lamp.



How shall I wear you,

center crown stone,

great blue solitaire of sentiment?

They will say I am Jewish.



She took my hand and pointed out

the men’s shops with terrazzo floors,

the city desks, the shoe windows,

the Carleton waiters with a canape

of coral lobster, 666 for colds

and fevers, the suburban shore drive,

the old man hammering in the doll shop.



So light the room like air

about a willow branch.

A glass stands on the golden table.

Prints of St. Marks, The Bargello,

Mme. LeBrun and Her Daughters.

A glass vase with a spinning stem.



"This is my daughter Sue."



She sat academic as with jug

and towel for a painter.



A young girl's study: lace

and nimbus from the east.



She played a classical piano-forte,

clef-wandering sweet pinna tremolo,

a Chippendale in a dominoes etude:



the bird pirrikp pirriko prrrk

	                            ia ia

the leghorn rustling in the brush,

the creek between the rockshelves,

Nancy with a bunch of wet grapes.





3. 

You were traveling through Delos

when the end came.



On the esplanade at Cannes

the awnings suddenly

went black before me.

I was carried to the belvedere

of Villa Policastro.



In the evening

in the sight of blood and bandages

I lay there like a dressed fowl.



On a marble seat

		above the Ligurian

another evening.

		   An ideal

		   like a canary

	          singing in the dark

for appleseed and barley.



Something also from the laurel,

		   a tiny arsis.