Cunningham, J. V.

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 13 | Issue 3 Article 11
1943
Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3
J. V. Cunningham
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Recommended Citation
Cunningham, J. V.. "Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3." New Mexico Quarterly 13, 3 (1943). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/
vol13/iss3/11
POETRY
-1 ' .
POEMS AND,EPIGRAMS: 1942-3
1. 0 NTH E CO V E R O.F M Y BOO K
This garish and red cover made me start.
. I who amused. myself with quietness
Am here di~overed. In this flowery dress
I read the wild wallpaper of.my heart.
2. ENVOI
Hear me, whom I betrayed
While in this spell I stayed,
Anger,' Cathartic aid,
Hear~ aI;ld approve my song!
See from my sheltered cove
The Cir~e of my spell, .
Calm for adventure, move,'
Wild in repose of love,
Sea-going on a shell
In a moist dream. How long
(Time to which years are vainl)
I on this. coastal plain-
Rain and rank,weed, raw air-
Served tha,t fey despair,
Far from the lands I knewl
Winds of my country blew
Not with such motion: ke~n,
Stinging, and I as1ean, ~
Savage, direct, and bitten,
Not pitying and unclean.
Anger, my 'ode is written.
333
1
Cunningham: Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1943
334
.~. ,
N:E W ME X I C 0 Q U,A R T E R L Y REV lEW
I
3. TO E ••••
,
Love at what distance mine!
On whose disdain I dine
Unfed, unfa,mished, I
In your hid counsels lie.
I know your lover, fear.
His presence is austere
As winter air; he trembles
At the interior thunder
Of chill erotic wonder,
. Though the taut face dissembles:
I know him, I am he.
Stilled in his arms, my dear,
In tenderness of fear,
Fulfilled of terror, sleepI .
8
And though you cannot. weep!
4. ·COMMENDATORY VERSES
for a Friend's Book
Good faith gives simple lines,
Or, rather, uncomplex, G
Which wariness refines
And doubts perplex
Until the engineer
Of metre, rhyme, and thought
Can only- tool each gear
To what he sought
If chance with craft combines
In the predestined space
To lend his damaged lines
Redeeming grace.
So is it in theSe pages.
By grace the damaged heart
(Once in how seldom ages!)
Issues in art.
2
New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 13 [1943], Iss. 3, Art. 11
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol13/iss3/11
, --•.
POETRY
5-
What is it to forgive?
It is not to' forget,
To forfeit memory
.In·which I live.
It is to be in debt
To those who injure me..
If, then, I shall forgive
And consciously resign
My claim in love's estate·
In which I live,
Know that the choice is mine,
And is the same as hate.
Say, then, that I forgive.
I choose indignity
In whiCh my passions bum
While I shall live,' .
Oh not for charity,
But for my old concem~
335·
6. THE AJlT OF LOVE, OR THE KISS OF. PEAC~
Speak to her heart.
That manic force,
When wits depart,
Forbids remorse.
Dream with her dreaming
Until her lust
Seems to her seeming
An act of trust.
It is not doing.
, Love's wilful potion
., Tums the ensuing, ~
And brief, commotion
To spiritual bliss.
See how the blest
Recei\1e the kiss,
Hot and undressedI
3
Cunningham: Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1943
NEW MEXICO QUARTERLY REVIE'
7. EPIGRAMS
a.
When I shall be without regret,
And shall mottality forget;
When I shall die who lived for this,
I shall not miss the things I miss.
And you who notice where I lie,
Ask not my name: It is not I.
b.
Within this mindless vault
Lie Tristan and Isolt,
Tranced in each other's beauties.
They had no other duties.
c.
~ My life from seventeen to thirty-one
Was fourteen years of doing, quite undone.
At thirty-one, indifferent to life,
I sleep apart, as if it were my wife.
d. Motto for a Sun Dial
I who by day am function of the light
Am constant and invariant. by night.
e. Meditation on the Calculus
From almost naught to almost all I flee,
And almost has almost confounded me,
Zero my limit, and infinity.
} this child's game where you grow warm and warmer,
And new grand passions still exceed, the former,
In what orgasm of high sentiment '
Will you conclude, and find the flesh content?
'>
g.
I hoarded hurt, as dams torrential rain,
And time grows fertile with extended pain.
4
New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 13 [1943], Iss. 3, Art. 11
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol13/iss3/11
POETRY 337
h. For "a Book of Lyrics
This book aJfords
The peace of art..
,
Within these boards
The passive heart
lmpassiye sleeps,
.And. like pressed fl0'"Iers,
T1}ough scentless, keeps
The- scented hours.
i. Convalescence .
Silence, the fever of my harried days,
I found that consciousness itself b~trays.
In the last circle .of infirmity
Where I almost attained simp~icity­
So to recite as if it were not said,
So to renounce as if one lost instead-
My unabandoned soul withdrew, abhorred.
I knew oblivion was its own reward, .
"But pride is life, and ~ had longe(f for death
Only in consciousness of indra~ breath.
J. V. CUNNINGHAM
~' ,
i .
.'r -
5
Cunningham: Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1943


Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3

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Poems and Epigrams: 1942-3

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