Blood and Sand

by Jack Spicer     

It is as if the poem moves
Without the poem. I have captured you.
Done all my will. Have done with all
Emotion.

There is something that bothers me about the poem
Not anything real. But a poem. Your body
The noise that nothing makes upon the shore of an ocean
The big without.

It is as if a poem moves
Without your reality. Your not being there
That defines a nice set of arms
Not holding.

Not holding what. An absentness of you.
This bed is there. Defined,
Without the poem.

Jack Spicer, “Blood and Sand, ”1959, from the Homage to Creeley notebooks at the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, appears here courtesy of the Literary Estate of Jack Spicer.