The Chamber

By Michael McClure b. 1932 Michael McClure

for Jack Kerouac

IN LIGHT ROOM IN DARK HELL IN UMBER IN CHROME,

I sit feeling the swell of the cloud made about by movement

of arm leg and tongue. In reflections of gold

light. Tints and flashes of gold and amber spearing

and glinting. Blur glass…blue Glass,

black telephone. Matchflame of violet and flesh

seen in the clear bright light. It is not night

and night too. In Hell, there are stars outside.

And long sounds of cars. Brown shadows on walls

in the light

of the room. I sit or stand

wanting the huge reality of touch and love.

In the turned room. Remember the long-ago dream

of stuffed animals (owl, fox) in a dark shop. Wanting

only the purity of clean colors and new shapes

and feelings.

I WOULD CRY FOR THEM USELESSLY

I have ten years left to worship my youth

Billy the Kid, Rimbaud, Jean Harlow

IN DARK HELL IN LIGHT ROOM IN UMBER AND CHROME I

feel the swell of

smoke the drain and flow of motion of exhaustion, the long sounds of cars

the brown shadows

on the wall. I sit or stand. Caught in the net of glints from corner table to

dull plane

from knob to floor, angles of flat light, daggers of beams. Staring at love’s face.

The telephone in cataleptic light. Marchflames of blue and red seen in the

clear grain.

I see myself—ourselves—in Hell without radiance. Reflections that we are.

The long cars make sounds and brown shadows over the wall.

I am real as you are real whom I speak to.

I raise my head, see over the edge of my nose. Look up

and see that nothing is changed. There is no flash

to my eyes. No change to the room.

Vita Nuova—No! The dead, dead world.

The strain of desire is only a heroic gesture.

An agony to be so in pain without release

when love is a word or kiss.

Source: Of Indigo and Saffron: New and Selected Poems (University of California Press, 2011)

Biography

Beat poet, playwright, novelist, and documentary filmmaker Michael McClure was born in Marysville, Kansas, and raised there and in Seattle. Educated at the University of Wichita, the University of Arizona, and San Francisco State College—where he studied with poet Robert Duncan—he gave his first poetry reading in 1955 alongside Allen Ginsberg.

McClure’s poetry combines spontaneity, typographical experimentation, Buddhist . . .

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