I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)



"Mushrooms"

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

From The Colossus, 1960

No map traces the street 
Where those two sleepers are. 
We have lost track of it. 
They lie as if under water 
In a blue, unchanging light, 
The French window ajar 

Curtained with yellow lace. 
Through the narrow crack 
Odors of wet earth rise. 
The snail leaves a silver track; 
Dark thickets hedge the house. 
We take a backward look. 

Among petals pale as death 
And leaves steadfast in shape 
They sleep on, mouth to mouth. 
A White mist is going up. 
The small green nostrils breathe, 
And they turn in their sleep. 

Ousted from that warm bed 
We are a dream they dream. 
Their eyelids keep the shade. 
No harm can come to them. 
We cast out skins and slide 
Into another time. 

Written in 1959