ELEGY FOR A FORGOTTEN POET

In Memoriam Hart Crane 

When first your serpent’s eye of wisdom

Lifted up to light, you might have known

There is no salvage from a sacrifice:

 

A flawed heart hurled like a broken die

Upon the altar of a prodigal quest

For the sperm whale’s fabled ambergris

Among the scattered seamen of the world.

 

Below the Southern Gulf ’s steep swell,

Beckoning onward but unseen,

The Inverted Cross arose and fell.

 

The alien constellation led

To Vera Cruz. (Night lay in wait,

A tangle of orchids rank with blood.)

 

Whirled from the Zodiac then, scarred

And pitted knuckles recoiled and struck,

And your myth collapsed like a House of cards. 

 

Into the dark obsidian sea,

Into the dark sea, bow-wave and stern-wake            

White with phosphor, arched and flung

Your long and lightly tossing bones.      

                                                             

Sleep now, poor castaway, and rest.

What’s cast away can’t be called lost,

And no dreams break

In the sea’s bed or the belly of the shark.

 

O Master and original, most rare

Mixed metaphor!  Among

Galaxies of islands your fantasy was spun,

In flights of stars and drifting foam.              

 

 

                     

 

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=30293 

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/crane/misc.htm

 

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