Still Life Or

mobiles:
that the wind can catch at,
against itself,
a leaf or a contrivance of wires,
in the stairwell,
to be looked at from below.

We have arranged the form of a formula here,
have taken the heart out
& the wind
is vague emotion.

To count on these aspirants
these contenders for the to-be-looked-at part
of these actions
these most hopeful movements
needs
a strong & constant wind.
That will not rise above the speed
which we have calculated,
that the leaf
remain
that the wires
be not too much shaken.

© 1987 Robert Creeley

A Token

My lady

fair with

soft

arms, what

can I say to

you—words, words

as if all

worlds were there.

~Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley, “A Token” from The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975. Copyright © 1992 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted with the permission of the University of California Press, www.ucpress.edu.

Source: The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975 (2006).

For Love

for Bobbie

Yesterday I wanted to

speak of it, that sense above

the others to me

important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.

Today, what is it that

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not …

no, if you did not

I wouldn’t either, but

what would I not

do, what prevention, what

thing so quickly stopped.

That is love yesterday

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image

is only of the mind’s

vague structure, vague to me

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,

crossed legs with skirt, or

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything

but that which it wishes

would come true, fears

what else might happen in

some other place, some

other time not this one.

A voice in my place, an

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but

the obsession I begin with

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or

place beyond time, no

mind left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love

it all returns.

~ Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley, “For Love” from Selected Poems of Robert Creeley. Copyright © 1991 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted with the permission of the University of California Press, www.ucpress.edu.

Source: Poetry (May 1961).