Your logic frightens me, Mandela,
Your logic frightens me. Those years
Of dreams, of time accelerated in

Just as God is not my sorrow,
neither does this prow
above our gable where a love

Particular essence . . . taken pain . . .
The gift.
And the unwrapping.

At the end of two months’ holiday there came a night
When I lay awake and the seas’ distant fretless scansion
By imagination scourged rose to a fight

Here, where confusion flowered in the rains‚
The whip-mad captains steered for Teneriffe.
Their cargo was a cry. Knouts in the sheds

Two verticals lie down,
each to the other, a horizon,
each to the other,

1. Fat Man
(Shokado)

Clearly, the man eats too much.

Deception is necessary. Disguises, too.
When I wrap this cloak around me,
I change into a barefoot, pious fellow

How strange to be sitting in this room,
to be noticing the windows — clearer than air—
how they let in everything, the leaves,

Sitting and writing on the dining room table,
I want to tell you what it is to be alive,
the yellow oilcloth table takes the imprint