Two for Franz Kline

I: THB GUNNER
The color of a pass
is
black and white, so is

the color of the world, break
our heads and make our voices

hoarse as we will
in denying it.

Black and white,
7 and 11

hell is black and heaven
white, the models
for the world we live in.

Birds fly, beetles fly,
birds and beetles borne on
thin winds lacking color, borne
miles to obscure ends, without

an argument the fact is
held and so accepted, black

and white, life
and death, eggs and dung
and procreation and the life

goes out in tiny heaps of dust: where
color is is in
those places we
have made within the

world, but they are
simply, places, the world passes
hugely on each side, huge
and black, and white

II: THE DARK HALLWAY
Love is not involved, a black
and white world. White
dresses move
across the black

waters of the lake.

Are dimmed as night comes down, they
move too, in ignorance of love, love
is not involved. Black and white,
simple,
a throw,
movement, and over

there the grass is green as the
ladies see it, lie upon it, move

over it, but to me it is black
grass
nor even grass, black
masses, clumps of black

upon which the ladies’ dresses
are still, and now I hear

their voices, far, a natural thing
without colors, tones or shades, natural
voices.