“The End of the Weekend” by Anthony Hecht

A dying firelight slides along the quirt
Of the cast-iron cowboy where he leans
Against my father’s books. the lariat
Whirls into darkness. My girl, in skin-tight jeans,
Fingers a page of Captain Marryat,
Inviting insolent shadows to her shirt.

We rise together to the second floor.
Outside, across the lake, an endless wind
Whips at the headstone of the dead and wails
In the trees for all who have and have not sinned.
She rubs against me and I feel her nails.
Although we are alone, I lock the door.

The eventual shapes of all our formless prayer,

This dark, this cabin of loose imaginings,

Wind, lake, lip, everything awaits

The slow unloosening of her underthings.

And then the noise. Something is dropped. It grates

Against the attic beams.

I climb the stairs

Armed with a belt.

A long magnesium strip

Of moonlight from the dormer cuts a path

Among the shattered skeletons of mice.

A great black presence beats its wings in wrath

Above the boneyard burn its golden eyes.

Some small grey fur is pulsing in its grip.

(6)

“The Burglar of Babylon” by Elizabeth Bishop

On the fair green hills of Rio

There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio

And can’t go home again.

On the hills a million people,

A million sparrows, nest,
Like a confused migration

That’s had to light and rest,

Building its nests, or houses,

Out of nothing at all, or air.
You’d think a breath would end them,

They perch so lightly there.

But they cling and spread like lichen,

And the people come and come.
There’s one hill called the Chicken,

And one called Catacomb;

There the hill of Kerosene,

And the hill of the Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,

And the hill of Babylon.

Micuçú was a burglar and killer,

An enemy of society.
He had escaped three times

From the worst penitentiary.

They don’t know how many he murdered

(Though they say he never raped),
And he wounded two policemen

This last time he escaped.

They said, “He’ll go to his auntie,

Who raised him like a son.
She has a little drink shop

On the hill of Babylon.”

He did go straight to his auntie,

And he drank a final beer.
He told her, “The soldiers are coming,

And I’ve got to disappear.

“Ninety years they gave me.

Who wants to live that long?
I’ll settle for ninety hours,

On the hill of Babylon.

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me.

I’ll run as long as I can.
You were good to me, and I love you,

But I’m a doomed man.”

Going out, he met a mulata

Carrying water on her head.
“If you say you saw me, daughter,

You’re just as good as dead.”

There are caves up there, and hideouts,

And an old fort, falling down.
They used to watch for Frenchmen

From the hill of Babylon.

Below him was the ocean.

It reached far up the sky,
Flat as a wall and on it

Were freighters passing by,

Or climbing the wall, and climbing

Till each looked like a fly,
And then fell over and vanished;

And he knew he was going to die.

He could hear the goats baa-baa-ing,

He could hear the babies cry;
Fluttering kites strained upward;

And he knew he was going to die.

A buzzard flapped so near him

He could see its naked neck.
He waved his arms and shouted,

“Not yet, my son, not yet!”

An Army helicopter

Came nosing around and in.
He could see two men inside it,

But they never spotted him.

The soldiers were all over,

On all sides of the hill,
And right against the skyline

A row of them, small and still.

Children peeked out of windows,

And men in the drink shop swore,
And spat a little cachaça

At the light cracks in the floor.

But the soldiers were nervous, even

With tommy guns in hand,
And one of them, in a panic,

Shot the officer in command.

He hit him in three places;

The other shots went wild.
The soldier had hysterics

And sobbed like a little child.

The dying man said, “Finish

The job we came here for.”
He committed his soul to God

And his sons to the Governor.

They ran and got a priest,

And he died in hope of Heaven
—A man from Pernambuco,

The youngest of eleven.

They wanted to stop the search,

But the Army said, “No, go on,”
So the soldiers swarmed again

Up the hill of Babylon.

Rich people in apartments

Watched through binoculars
As long as daylight lasted.

And all night, under the stars,

Micuçú hid in the grasses

Or sat in a little tree,
Listening for sounds and staring

At the lighthouse out at sea.

And the lighthouse stared back at him,

Till finally it was dawn.
He was soaked with dew and hungry,

On the hill of Babylon.

The yellow sun was ugly,

Like a raw egg on a plate—
Slick from the sea. He cursed it,

For he knew it sealed his fate.

He saw the long white beaches

And people going to swim,
With towels and beach umbrellas,

But soldiers were after him.

Far, far below, the people

Were little colored spots,
And the heads of those in swimming

Were floating coconuts.

He heard the peanut vendor

Go peep-peep on his whistle,
And the man that sells umbrellas

Swinging his watchman’s rattle.

Women with market baskets

Stood on the corners and talked,
Then went their way to market,

Gazing up as they walked.

The rich with their binoculars

Were back again, and many
Were standing on the rooftops,

Among TV antennae.

It was early, eight or eight-thirty.

He saw a soldier climb,
Looking right at him. He fired

And missed for the last time.

He could hear the solider panting,

Though he never got very near.
Micuçú dashed for shelter.

But he got it, behind the ear.

He heard the babies crying

Far, far away in his head,
And the mongrels barking and barking.

Then Micuçú was dead.

He had a Taurus revolver,

And just the clothes he had on,
With two contos in the pockets,

On the hill of Babylon.

The police and populace

Heaved a sigh of relief,
But behind the counter his auntie

Wiped her eyes in grief.

“We have always been respected.

My shop is honest and clean.
I loved him, but from a baby

Micuçú was always mean.

“We have always been respected.

His sister has a job.
Both us gave him money.

Why did he have to rob?

“I raised him to be honest,

Even here, in Babylon slum.”
The customers had another,

Looking serious and glum.

But one of them said to another,

When he got outside the door,
“He wasn’t much of burglar,

He got caught six times—or more.”

This morning the little soldiers

Are on Babylon hill again;
Their gun barrels and helmets

Shine in the gentle rain.

Micuçú is buried already.

They’re after another two,
But they say they aren’t as dangerous

as the poor Micuçú.

On the fair green hills of Rio

There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio

And can’t go home again.

There’s the hill of Kerosene,

And the hill of the Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,

And the hill of Babylon.

“Visits to St. Elizabeths” by Elizabeth Bishop

[1950]

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.