Tell Else I Till

Part I: Far Oar

 

insofar as fair, so more:

I’ll have an own, no false

barbarity prevail;

conclusive sooner,

where I go as wrack

or lazily moor toe ruin;

there is a shore, there was before,

an eye on circuit oar

 

far oar,

was it known as, it is

simply no more but such

as another may say half-said;

I had rather than ruder instead

get ahead by a rudder, as much

as it was or yet is

no moor

 

there’s knot-time enough

to mend the hole-ocean

and fill it again with our cups

to our lips, rum-oar lips, to ours

knot-enough before you,

and your only, choose too;

such is even said, I say,

away, bother me, no more

 

no, not like an old love

knot-like anew, not still

until sadness is staid

and itself without notice,

fool of the mimical gladness

that lies with ennui

under, like a tide, agony;

reason goes rhymeless, ebb abides

 

as lack that being alone

sat elemental a stone-fall,

the unpris’d risers above

ground vacant and faint,

and would nor tell, remember,

soe’er some soft scold voices,

as once, nonetheless

a chaos, cool and lame

 

went wrongly more about

and seldom said as much

to no-one close at hand,

attentive who, expansive

to no end & always, dear,

I say, if such may say,

about the seldomness,

no more, that must be sad

 

knot even-eye as

mend a side and reconsider

more are, that tern, so blue

unto the seamlessness,

as cover our recover’d

over cord under cut

and brush a side along

a reed moor lallsome

 

each one say as much

only enough no more as I

and somewhat less perhaps

than not at all, and yet

the root of all is all

or more apt, after all,

a tern turns a’course

what matter who’s about