Some Trees (audio only)
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All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. Audio recordings courtesy of the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University.
Something strange is creeping across me. La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis Where Pistachio Avenue rams the 2300 block of Highland Fling Terrace.
Far from the Rappahannock, the silent Danube moves along toward the sea. The brown and green Nile rolls slowly Like the Niagara's welling descent. Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire Near where it joined the Cher. The St. Lawrence prods among black stones And mud. But the Arno is all stones. Wind ruffles the Hudson's Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing. But the yellowish, gray Tiber Is contained within steep banks. The Isar Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats Were dark blue. The Moskowa is Gray boats.
The first of the undecoded messages read: “Popeye sits in thunder, Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment, From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country.” Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: “How pleasant To spend one’s vacation en la casa de Popeye,” she scratched Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach. “M’love,” he intercepted, “the plains are decked out in thunder Today, and it shall be as you wish.” He scratched The part of his head under his hat.