Poet James Dickey, 2/2/23: He moves among stars.

Here are some excerpts from James Dickey's wonderful long poem The Zodiac, published in 1976.

He moves among stars.

                                    Sure.      We all do, but he is star-crazed, mad

            With Einfuehling, with connecting and joining things that lay their meanings

                        Over billions of light years

                                                            Eons of time--Ah,

                        Years of light:   billions of them:   they are pictures

                        Of some sort of meaning.   He thinks the secret

                        Can be read.   But human faces swim through

            Cancer   Scorpio   Leo   through all the stupefying design,

And all he can add to it or make of it, living or dead:

                        *                        *                        *

                                                            Only one way beyond

The room.

                        The Zodiac.

                                    He must solve it   must believe it   learn to read it

                        No, wallow in it

As poetry.

                        *                        *                        *

            He has to hold on to the chair: the room is pitching and rolling--

                        He's sick   seasick with his own stars,

                        Seasick and airsick   sick

            With the Zodiac.  .  .  . 

                        He knows he's not fooling himself    he knows

                                    Not a damn thing of stars   of God   of space

Of time   love night death sex fire numbers signs words,

Not much of poetry.   But by God, we've got a universe

Here

                        Those designs of time are saying something

                        Or maybe something or other.

                                                                        Night--

                        Night tells us.   It's coming--

            Venus shades it and breaks it.    Will the animals come back

            Gently, creatively open,

            Like they were?

                                                            Yes.

            The great, burning Beings             melt into place

            A few billion-lighted inept beasts

            Of God--

                        What else is there?   What other signs   what other symbols

                        Are anything beside these?   If the thing hasn't been said

            This way,   then God can't say it.

                        *                        *                        *

                        What animal's getting outlined?

                        All space is being bolted

            Together:   eternal blackness

                                                            Studded with creatures.

            Stars.

                        Beasts.   Nothing left but the void

                                    Deep-hammering its creatures with light-years.

            Years made of light.

                                                            Only light.

                                                                                    Yes.

                        *                        *                        *

            Look, stupid, get your nose out of the sky for once.

There're things that are close to you, too. Look at that!

                        Don't cringe: look right out over town.

Real birds. There they are in their curves, moving in their great element

            That causes our planet to be blue and causes us all

                        To breathe.  Ah, long ghostly drift

            Of wings.

                                                Well, son of a bitch,

                                                                        He sits and writes,

                        And the paper begins to run

                                                                        With signs.

                                                But he can't get rid of himself enough

                        To write poetry.   He keeps thinking Goddamn

                                    I've misused myself   I've fucked up   I haven't worked--

I've traveled and screwed too much,

                                                But   but by dawn, now    NOW

            Something   coming   through-coming   down-coming   up

To me   ME!

                        His hand reaches, dazzling with drink   half alive,

            For the half-dead vision.   That room and its pages come in and

                                                                                                            Out

Of being.   You talk about looking:  would you look at that

Electric page!  What the hell did I say?   Did I say that?

                        You bastard, you. Why didn't you know that before?

            Where the hell have you been with your head?

You and the paper should have known it, you and the ink:   you write

                                                Everybody writes

With blackness. Night. Why has it taken you all this time?

                                    All this travel, all those lives

                        You've fucked up? All those books read

            Not deep enough? It's staring you right in the face.    The

                                                                                                            secret--

            Is whiteness.   You can do anything with that.   But no--

                        The secret is that on whiteness you can release

                        The blackness,

                                                The night sky.  Whiteness is death   is dying

                        For human words to raise it from purity   from the grave

                                    Of too much light.   Words must come to it

                        Words from anywhere   from   from

Swamps  mountains  mud  shit  hospitals  wars  travels  from

                                    Stars

From the Zodiac.

            You son of a bitch, you! Don't try to get away from yourself!

I won't have it! You know God-damn well I mean you! And you too,

            Pythagoras! Put down that guitar, lyre, whatever it is!

You've driven me nuts enough with your music of the spheres!

                        *                        *                        *

                                    You know that from the black death,

                                                            The forest of beast-

            Symbols, the stars are beaten down by drunks

Into the page.

                                    By GOD the poem is in there   out there

                        Somewhere    the lines that will change

                        Everything, like your squares and square roots

                                    Creating the heavenly music.

                        *                        *                        *

                                    the stars are gasping

                        For understanding.  They've had Ptolemy,

                        They've had Babylon

                                                            But now they want Hubbell

            They want Fred Hoyle and the steady-state.

                                                            But what they really want   need

                                                            Is a poet   and

            I'm going to have to be it . . . .

                                                                        WHEN?

                        In all this immensity, all this telescope-country,

                        Why this microscopic searching

                                                Of the useless human heart?