[from Nathaniel Mackey's Splay Anthem, New Directions, 2006]
Eye on the Scarecrow
— “mu” twentieth part —
The way we lay
we mimed a body
of water. It was
this or that way
with
the dead and we
were them. No
one
worried which . . .
Millet beer made
our legs go weak,
loosed
our tongues. “The dead,”
we
said, “are drowning
of thirst,” gruff
summons we muttered
out loud in our
sleep . . .
It was a journey we
were on, drawn-out
scrawl we made a road
of, long huthered hajj
we
were on. Raw strip
of cloth we now rode,
wishful, letterless
book
the ride we thumbed . . .
Harp-headed ghost whose
head we plucked incessantly.
Bartered star. Tethered
run . . .
It was a ride we knew we’d
wish to return to. Every-
thing was everything.
nothing no less. No less
newly
arrived or ancestral, of
late having to do with
the name of parts . . .
Rolling hills rolled
up like a rug, raw sprawl
of a
book within a book
without a name known as
Namless, not to be
arrived at again . . .
It was
the Book of No Avail we
were in did we dare name
it, momentary kings and
queens,
fleet kingdon. Land fell
away on all sides.
Past
Lag we caught ourselves,
run weft at last
adequate, shadowless,
lit,
left up Atet Street,
legs tight, hill after
hill after hill.
Had it been a book Book
of Opening the Book it
would have been called,
kept
under lock and key . . .
Hyperbolic
arrest. Ra was on the
box.
It was after the end of
the world . . . To lie on
our backs looking
into the dark was all
there was worth
doing.
each the aroused eye
one another sought,
swore he or she
saw,
we lay where love’s
pharaonic torso lay
deepest, wide-eyed
all
night without sleep . . .
“String
our heads with straw,” we
said, half-skulls tied with
catgut, strummed . . .
Scratched
our strummed heads, memory
made us itch. Walked out
weightless, air what eye
was
left . . .
Someone said Rome,
someone said destroy it.
Atlantis, a third shouted
out . . .
Low ride among ruins
notwithstanding we flew.
Swam, it often seemed,
underwater, oddly immersed,
bodies
long since bid goodbye,
we
lay in wait, remote muses
kept us afloat. Something
called pursuit had us by
the nose. Wafted ether
blown
low, tilted floor, splintered
feet. Throated bone . . .
Rickety boat we rode . . .
As
though what we wanted
was to be everywhere at
once,
an altered life lived on an
ideal
coast we’d lay washed up
on, instancy and elsewhere
endlessly
entwined
31 March 2011
29 March 2011
Rainer Maria Rilke
[from Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies, 1923]
Freilich ist es seltsam, die Erde nicht mehr zu bewohnen,
kaum erlernte Gebräuche nicht mehr zu üben,
Rosen, und andern eigens versprechenden Dingen
nicht die Bedeutung menschlicher Zukunft zu geben;
das, was man war in unendlich ängstlichen Händen,
nicht mehr zu sein, und selbst den eigenen Namen
wegzulassen wie ein zerbrochenes Spielzeug.
Seltsam, die Wünsche nicht weiterzuwúnschen. Seltsam,
alles, was sich bezog, so lose im Raume
flattern zu sehen. Und das Totsein ist mühsam
und voller Nachholn, dass man allmählich ein wenig
Ewigkeit spúrt. – Aber Lebendige machen
alle den Fehler, dass sie zu stark unterscheiden.
Engel (sagt man) wüssten oft nicht, ob sie unter
Lebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Strömung
reisst durch beide Bereiche alle Alter
immer mit sich und übertönt sie in beiden.
Schliesslich brauchen sie uns nicht mehr, die Früheentrückten,
man entwöhnt sich des Irdischen sanft, wie man den Brüsten
milde der Mutter entwächst. Aber wir, die so grosse
Geheimnisse brauchen, denen aus Trauer so oft
seliger Fortschritt entspringt – : könnten wir sein ohne sie?
Ist die Sage umsonst, dass einst in der Klage um Linos
wagende erste Musik dürre Erstarrung durchdrang;
dass erst im erschrockenen Raum, dem ein beinah göttlicher Jüngling
plötzlich fúr immer enttrat, das Leere in jene
Schwingung geriet, die uns jetzt hinreisst und tröstet und hilft.
Freilich ist es seltsam, die Erde nicht mehr zu bewohnen,
kaum erlernte Gebräuche nicht mehr zu üben,
Rosen, und andern eigens versprechenden Dingen
nicht die Bedeutung menschlicher Zukunft zu geben;
das, was man war in unendlich ängstlichen Händen,
nicht mehr zu sein, und selbst den eigenen Namen
wegzulassen wie ein zerbrochenes Spielzeug.
Seltsam, die Wünsche nicht weiterzuwúnschen. Seltsam,
alles, was sich bezog, so lose im Raume
flattern zu sehen. Und das Totsein ist mühsam
und voller Nachholn, dass man allmählich ein wenig
Ewigkeit spúrt. – Aber Lebendige machen
alle den Fehler, dass sie zu stark unterscheiden.
Engel (sagt man) wüssten oft nicht, ob sie unter
Lebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Strömung
reisst durch beide Bereiche alle Alter
immer mit sich und übertönt sie in beiden.
Schliesslich brauchen sie uns nicht mehr, die Früheentrückten,
man entwöhnt sich des Irdischen sanft, wie man den Brüsten
milde der Mutter entwächst. Aber wir, die so grosse
Geheimnisse brauchen, denen aus Trauer so oft
seliger Fortschritt entspringt – : könnten wir sein ohne sie?
Ist die Sage umsonst, dass einst in der Klage um Linos
wagende erste Musik dürre Erstarrung durchdrang;
dass erst im erschrockenen Raum, dem ein beinah göttlicher Jüngling
plötzlich fúr immer enttrat, das Leere in jene
Schwingung geriet, die uns jetzt hinreisst und tröstet und hilft.
28 March 2011
Vicente Huidobro
[from Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, 1931]
| CANTO VII | |
| Al aia aia ia ia ia aia ui Tralalí Lali lalá | |
| Aruaru urulario Lalilá Rimbibolam lam lam Uiaya zollonario lalilá | |
| Monlutrella monluztrella lalolú Montresol y mandotrina Ai ai Montesur en lasurido | |
| Montesol Lusponsedo solinario Aururaro ulisamento lalilá Ylarca murllonía Hormajauma marijauda | |
| Mitradente Mitrapausa Mitralonga Matrisola matriola | |
| Olamina olasica lalilá Isonauta Olandera uruaro Ia ia campanuso compasedo | |
| Tralalá Aí ai mareciente y eternauta Redontella tallerendo lucenario Ia ia Laribamba Larimbambamplanerella | |
| Laribambamositerella Leiramombaririlanla lirilam Ai i a Temporía | |
| Ai ai aia Ululayu lulayu layu yu Ululayu | |
| ulayu ayu yu Lunatando Sensorida e infimento Ululayo ululamento | |
| Plegasuena Cantasorio ululaciente Oraneva yu yu yo Tempovío Infilero e infinauta zurrosía | |
| Jaurinario ururayú Montañendo oraranía Arorasía ululacente Semperiva ivarisa tarirá | |
| Campanudio lalalí Auriciento auronida Lalalí Io ia iiio | |
| Ai a i a a i i i i o ia | |
24 March 2011
Vicente Huidobro
[the essay "Creationism" from Vicente Huidobro's Manifestos, original published in 1925; translation by David M. Guss in The Selected Poetry of Vicente Huidobro
, New Directions, 1981]
At the end of 1916 I landed in Paris, into the world of the magazine Sic. I barely knew the language, but soon realized that I was dealing with a very futurist scene and one can't forget that just two years before, in my book Pasando y pasando, I had attacked futurism as being too old-fashioned, at the exact moment the whole world was crying out for the birth of something completely new.
I searched everywhere for this created poetry, without relation to the external world, and, when at times I believed I had found it, I soon realized that it was merely my lack of knowledge of the language which had made me see it where it was totally lacking or simply existed in small fragments, as in my earlier books of 1913 and 1915.
Have you noticed the special power, the near-creative sense that pervades the poetry written in a language you are just beginning to utter?
You find fantastic poems which just a year later make you smile.
Gathered around Apollinaire, who was such an undeniable poet, and yet apart from him, one found several earnest searchers; unfortunately, most of them lacked the holy fire, since nothing could be more false than to believe that inspiration is to be found lying in the street. True poetic inspiration is the rarest thing that exists. And I'm not using the word poet here in the intimate sense it holds for me, but rather in its habitual sense, since, for me, there has never been a single poet in the history of the planet.
Today I affirm completely, as I did ten years ago in the Atheneum in Buenos Aires: "There has never been a single poem written in the world, but only some vague essays on how to write one. Poetry is yet to be born on our globe. And its birth will be an event that will revolutionize mankind like the greatest earthquake." I sometimes wonder if it will not go by unnoticed.
Let's make it clear, then, that each time I speak of "poet" I simply use the term to be understood, like stretching a rubberband to encircle those who are nearest the importance which I assign it.
During the period of the magazine Nord-Sud, of which I was one of the founders, we all had more or less the same orientation in our outlooks, but were far enough from another at the core.
While others were making oval skylights, I was making square horizons. As all skylights are oval, poetry continues to be realist. As horizons are not square, the author offers something created by himself.
When Horizon Carré (Square Horizon) came out, here is how I explained the title in a letter to friend an critic Thomas Chazal:
Square horizon. A new fact, invented by me, created by me, which couldn't exist without me. I want, dear friend, to capture in this title the whole of my aesthetics, which you have been aware of for some time now.
This title explains the basis of my poetic theory. Condensed within it is the essence of my principles.
1. To humanize the object. Everything that passes through the body of the poet must be subjected to the greatest possible amount of his heat. Here something as vast and enormous as the horizon is humanized; it becomes intimate, thanks to the adjective SQUARE. The infinite nests in our heart.
2. The indefinite becomes precise. In shutting the windows of our soul, whatever was able to escape, gasify, and unravel, remains enclosed and is solidified.
3. The abstract becomes concrete and the concrete abstract. This means the perfect balance, since if the abstract leaned toward the more abstract, it would dissolve in your hands or filter through your fingers. And if you made the concrete even more concrete, it would help you drink wine or furnish your home, but it would never furnish your soul.
4. Whatever is too poetic to be created is transformed into something created by changing its common value, so that if horizon was poetic in itself, if horizon was poetry in life, by qualifying it with square, it stops being poetry in art. From dead poetry it becomes living poetry.
The few words explaining my concept of poetry on the first page of the book we are speaking of, tells you what I wanted to accomplish in those poems. It said:
To create a poem by taking the elements of life and transforming them to give them a new and independent life of their own.
Nothing descriptive or anecdotal. Emotion must be born from the creative strength alone.
Make a POEM like nature makes a tree.
In the end, it was my exact concept before arriving in Paris: the act of pure creation which you will find, as a true obsession, in every aspect of my work from 1925 on. And this is still my concept of poetry. The poem created in all its parts, as a new object.
I will repeat here the axiom I gave in my talk at the Atheneum in Madrid in 1921, and finally in Paris, in my speech at the Sorbonne, an axiom which sums up my aesthetic principles: "Art is one thing and Nature another. I love Art very much and Nature very much. And if I accept the representations that a man makes from Nature, it proves I love neither Nature or Art."
In two words and to conclude: the creationists are the first poets who have brought to art a poem invented in all parts by the author.
Here, in these pages about creationism, is my poetic testament. I bequeath it to the poets of tomorrow, to those who will be the first of this new species being, the poet, this new species to be born soon; I can feel it. There are signs in the sky.
The near-poets of today are very interesting, but their interests do not interest me.
The wind points my flute toward the future.
, New Directions, 1981]At the end of 1916 I landed in Paris, into the world of the magazine Sic. I barely knew the language, but soon realized that I was dealing with a very futurist scene and one can't forget that just two years before, in my book Pasando y pasando, I had attacked futurism as being too old-fashioned, at the exact moment the whole world was crying out for the birth of something completely new.
I searched everywhere for this created poetry, without relation to the external world, and, when at times I believed I had found it, I soon realized that it was merely my lack of knowledge of the language which had made me see it where it was totally lacking or simply existed in small fragments, as in my earlier books of 1913 and 1915.
Have you noticed the special power, the near-creative sense that pervades the poetry written in a language you are just beginning to utter?
You find fantastic poems which just a year later make you smile.
Gathered around Apollinaire, who was such an undeniable poet, and yet apart from him, one found several earnest searchers; unfortunately, most of them lacked the holy fire, since nothing could be more false than to believe that inspiration is to be found lying in the street. True poetic inspiration is the rarest thing that exists. And I'm not using the word poet here in the intimate sense it holds for me, but rather in its habitual sense, since, for me, there has never been a single poet in the history of the planet.
Today I affirm completely, as I did ten years ago in the Atheneum in Buenos Aires: "There has never been a single poem written in the world, but only some vague essays on how to write one. Poetry is yet to be born on our globe. And its birth will be an event that will revolutionize mankind like the greatest earthquake." I sometimes wonder if it will not go by unnoticed.
Let's make it clear, then, that each time I speak of "poet" I simply use the term to be understood, like stretching a rubberband to encircle those who are nearest the importance which I assign it.
During the period of the magazine Nord-Sud, of which I was one of the founders, we all had more or less the same orientation in our outlooks, but were far enough from another at the core.
While others were making oval skylights, I was making square horizons. As all skylights are oval, poetry continues to be realist. As horizons are not square, the author offers something created by himself.
When Horizon Carré (Square Horizon) came out, here is how I explained the title in a letter to friend an critic Thomas Chazal:
Square horizon. A new fact, invented by me, created by me, which couldn't exist without me. I want, dear friend, to capture in this title the whole of my aesthetics, which you have been aware of for some time now.
This title explains the basis of my poetic theory. Condensed within it is the essence of my principles.
1. To humanize the object. Everything that passes through the body of the poet must be subjected to the greatest possible amount of his heat. Here something as vast and enormous as the horizon is humanized; it becomes intimate, thanks to the adjective SQUARE. The infinite nests in our heart.
2. The indefinite becomes precise. In shutting the windows of our soul, whatever was able to escape, gasify, and unravel, remains enclosed and is solidified.
3. The abstract becomes concrete and the concrete abstract. This means the perfect balance, since if the abstract leaned toward the more abstract, it would dissolve in your hands or filter through your fingers. And if you made the concrete even more concrete, it would help you drink wine or furnish your home, but it would never furnish your soul.
4. Whatever is too poetic to be created is transformed into something created by changing its common value, so that if horizon was poetic in itself, if horizon was poetry in life, by qualifying it with square, it stops being poetry in art. From dead poetry it becomes living poetry.
The few words explaining my concept of poetry on the first page of the book we are speaking of, tells you what I wanted to accomplish in those poems. It said:
To create a poem by taking the elements of life and transforming them to give them a new and independent life of their own.
Nothing descriptive or anecdotal. Emotion must be born from the creative strength alone.
Make a POEM like nature makes a tree.
In the end, it was my exact concept before arriving in Paris: the act of pure creation which you will find, as a true obsession, in every aspect of my work from 1925 on. And this is still my concept of poetry. The poem created in all its parts, as a new object.
I will repeat here the axiom I gave in my talk at the Atheneum in Madrid in 1921, and finally in Paris, in my speech at the Sorbonne, an axiom which sums up my aesthetic principles: "Art is one thing and Nature another. I love Art very much and Nature very much. And if I accept the representations that a man makes from Nature, it proves I love neither Nature or Art."
In two words and to conclude: the creationists are the first poets who have brought to art a poem invented in all parts by the author.
Here, in these pages about creationism, is my poetic testament. I bequeath it to the poets of tomorrow, to those who will be the first of this new species being, the poet, this new species to be born soon; I can feel it. There are signs in the sky.
The near-poets of today are very interesting, but their interests do not interest me.
The wind points my flute toward the future.
01 March 2011
Paul Harding
[from Paul Harding's Tinkers
, Bellevue Literary, 2009]
Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas. Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes. The ice is far too thick to chop through. You will never do it. You could never do it. So buy the gold, warm it with your skin, slip it onto your lap when you are sitting by the fire and all you will otherwise have to look at is your splintery husband gumming chew or the craquelure of your own chapped hands.
, Bellevue Literary, 2009]Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas. Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes. The ice is far too thick to chop through. You will never do it. You could never do it. So buy the gold, warm it with your skin, slip it onto your lap when you are sitting by the fire and all you will otherwise have to look at is your splintery husband gumming chew or the craquelure of your own chapped hands.
11 February 2011
Nicanor Parra
[from Nicanor Parra’s Antipoems: How to look better & feel great,
anti-translator Liz Werner, New Directions, 2004]
Apropos of Nothing
WE HAVE TO PAVE OVER the mountain range
but the choice isn’t between cement and blood
as I thought in 1970
it must be paved over with violets
we have to plant violets
we have to cover everything with Violetas Parra
humility
equality
fraternity
we have to fill the world with Violetas
0
THE CHILEAN GOLDFINCH – in my book –
has an obligation to keep quiet
until he has regained his liberty
and not to think about anything but
freedom
the door of the dungeon
action, not just more delicious words
either he wins back the name “bird,”
that means love of liberty,
or he deserves to be called reptile
the last straw
is to start singing lyrics of the blind
as though in Chile there was nothing wrong
0
I NEARLY screwed myself over being so sincere
optimism got me nothing but trouble
for being compassionate – for being humble
the kick in the ass was double
That’s what you get for being a fool, it’s clear
That’s what happens when you preach the upstanding and good
Luckily everything’s changed as much as it possibly could
now that I steal
silver and gold patron-saint charms by the truckload
and eat for a hundred, instead of for one:
everybody respects me for real
now that I don’t ask for or show mercy
Across the river in la Chimba I’m the favorite son
now that I’ve lost my faith
I’m waiting for them
to canonize me any minute. Amen
0
A PARTY OF 17 DELINQUENTS
was surprised yesterday
in the area surrounding the Capital Building
transporting oranges
and a copy of the Holy Bible
3 of the extremists fled
not without first battling the police
who found themselves obliged to act in self-defense
the group of subversives was found dead
0
MAKE SURE TO SAY BROTHEL and not whorehouse
rather than prostitute, say escort
Our Lord
instead of Jesus Christ
Milky Way – not pie in the sky
the word makes the man
don’t ever call it sun
say king of stars
when you say Military Decree
you’ll see how your popularity soars
but say coup d’etat and they’ll look down their noses
it’s ugly to say wop
Italian citizen is your best choice
it’s more respectful
and much more Christian
yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the truth
the man who says steed instead of horse
already has his future guaranteed
0
POETRY POETRY it’s all poetry
we make poetry
even when we’re going to the bathroom
Christ of Elqui’s own words
to piss is to make poetry
as poetic as strumming a lute
or shitting poeticizing farting
and so we’ll just see what poetry is
Prophet of Elqui’s own words
0
DESTROY THIS PAPER after reading it
poetry is tailing you
and me too
it’s after all of us
anti-translator Liz Werner, New Directions, 2004]Apropos of Nothing
WE HAVE TO PAVE OVER the mountain range
but the choice isn’t between cement and blood
as I thought in 1970
it must be paved over with violets
we have to plant violets
we have to cover everything with Violetas Parra
humility
equality
fraternity
we have to fill the world with Violetas
0
THE CHILEAN GOLDFINCH – in my book –
has an obligation to keep quiet
until he has regained his liberty
and not to think about anything but
freedom
the door of the dungeon
action, not just more delicious words
either he wins back the name “bird,”
that means love of liberty,
or he deserves to be called reptile
the last straw
is to start singing lyrics of the blind
as though in Chile there was nothing wrong
0
I NEARLY screwed myself over being so sincere
optimism got me nothing but trouble
for being compassionate – for being humble
the kick in the ass was double
That’s what you get for being a fool, it’s clear
That’s what happens when you preach the upstanding and good
Luckily everything’s changed as much as it possibly could
now that I steal
silver and gold patron-saint charms by the truckload
and eat for a hundred, instead of for one:
everybody respects me for real
now that I don’t ask for or show mercy
Across the river in la Chimba I’m the favorite son
now that I’ve lost my faith
I’m waiting for them
to canonize me any minute. Amen
0
A PARTY OF 17 DELINQUENTS
was surprised yesterday
in the area surrounding the Capital Building
transporting oranges
and a copy of the Holy Bible
3 of the extremists fled
not without first battling the police
who found themselves obliged to act in self-defense
the group of subversives was found dead
0
MAKE SURE TO SAY BROTHEL and not whorehouse
rather than prostitute, say escort
Our Lord
instead of Jesus Christ
Milky Way – not pie in the sky
the word makes the man
don’t ever call it sun
say king of stars
when you say Military Decree
you’ll see how your popularity soars
but say coup d’etat and they’ll look down their noses
it’s ugly to say wop
Italian citizen is your best choice
it’s more respectful
and much more Christian
yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the truth
the man who says steed instead of horse
already has his future guaranteed
0
POETRY POETRY it’s all poetry
we make poetry
even when we’re going to the bathroom
Christ of Elqui’s own words
to piss is to make poetry
as poetic as strumming a lute
or shitting poeticizing farting
and so we’ll just see what poetry is
Prophet of Elqui’s own words
0
DESTROY THIS PAPER after reading it
poetry is tailing you
and me too
it’s after all of us
24 January 2011
Tomas Tranströmer
[from Tomas Tranströmer's The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer
, tr. Robert Bly, Graywolf, 2001]
Allegro
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no taxes to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
"We do not surrender. But want peace."
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.
, tr. Robert Bly, Graywolf, 2001]Allegro
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no taxes to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
"We do not surrender. But want peace."
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.
05 January 2011
Octavio Paz
[from Octavio Paz's The Collected Poems: 1957-1987, ed. Eliot Weinberger, tr. Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 1987]
Sunstone [excerpt]
. . .
I travel your body, like the world,
your belly is a plaza full of sun,
your breasts two churches where blood
performs its own, parallel rites,
my glances cover you like ivy,
you are a city the sea assaults,
a stretch of ramparts split by the light
in two halves the color of peaches,
a domain of salt, rocks and birds,
under the rule of oblivious noon,
dressed in the color of my desires,
you go on your way naked as my thoughts,
I travel your eyes, like the sea,
tigers drink their dreams in those eyes,
the hummingbird burns in those flames,
I travel your forehead, like the moon,
like the cloud that passes through your thoughts,
I travel your belly, like your dreams,
your skirt of corn ripples and sings,
your skirt of crystal, your skirt of water,
your lips, your hair, your glances rain
all through the night, and all day long
you open my chest with your fingers of water,
you close my eyes with your mouth of water,
you rain on my bones, a tree of liquid
sending roots of water into my chest,
I travel your length, like a river,
I travel your body, like a forest,
like a mountain path that ends at a cliff
I travel along the edge of your thoughts,
and my shadow falls from your white forehead,
my shadow shatters, and I gather the pieces
and go with no body, groping my way,
. . .
Sunstone [excerpt]
. . .
I travel your body, like the world,
your belly is a plaza full of sun,
your breasts two churches where blood
performs its own, parallel rites,
my glances cover you like ivy,
you are a city the sea assaults,
a stretch of ramparts split by the light
in two halves the color of peaches,
a domain of salt, rocks and birds,
under the rule of oblivious noon,
dressed in the color of my desires,
you go on your way naked as my thoughts,
I travel your eyes, like the sea,
tigers drink their dreams in those eyes,
the hummingbird burns in those flames,
I travel your forehead, like the moon,
like the cloud that passes through your thoughts,
I travel your belly, like your dreams,
your skirt of corn ripples and sings,
your skirt of crystal, your skirt of water,
your lips, your hair, your glances rain
all through the night, and all day long
you open my chest with your fingers of water,
you close my eyes with your mouth of water,
you rain on my bones, a tree of liquid
sending roots of water into my chest,
I travel your length, like a river,
I travel your body, like a forest,
like a mountain path that ends at a cliff
I travel along the edge of your thoughts,
and my shadow falls from your white forehead,
my shadow shatters, and I gather the pieces
and go with no body, groping my way,
. . .
27 December 2010
Pablo Neruda
[from Pablo Neruda's Confieso que he vivido, tr. Carol Peters, Plaza & Janés, 1998]
I examined [the toilet] with curiosity. It was a wooden box with a hole in the middle, very like the unit I was used to in my rural childhood, in my country. But ours sat over a deep pit or over a stream of running water. Here the receptable was a simple metal cube under the round hole.
The cube appeared clean every day without my knowing how the contents disappeared. One morning I rose earlier than usual. I stood astonished at what was happening.
From deep inside the house, like a dark moving statue, came the most beautiful woman I had seen up until that point in Ceylon, a Tamil, of the pariah caste. She wore a red & gold sari of the stiffest fabric. Above bare feet she wore heavy anklets. On either side of her nose shone two red studs. They must have been ordinary glass, but on her they seemed rubies.
She headed toward the privy with solemn steps, without seeing me, without giving the slightest sign of my existence, & disappeared with the sordid receptacle on top of her head, moving away at her godlike pace.
She was so beautiful that in spite of her humble task she stayed in my mind. As if she were a wild animal, arrived from the jungle, belonging to another existence, a separate world. I called to her without effect. Later I left some gift in her path, silk or fruit. She passed without hearing or looking. That miserable route had been transformed by her dark beauty into the obligatory ceremony of an indifferent queen.
One morning, totally determined, I took her tightly by the wrist & stared at her, face to face. I had no language to speak to her. Without a smile she allowed me to lead her & quickly she was nude on my bed. Her narrow waist, her full hips, the abundant swell of her breasts, made her the equal of thousands of sculptures in the south of India. The encounter was of a man with a statue. She stayed the whole time with her eyes open, passive. It made me despise myself. It did not happen again.
I examined [the toilet] with curiosity. It was a wooden box with a hole in the middle, very like the unit I was used to in my rural childhood, in my country. But ours sat over a deep pit or over a stream of running water. Here the receptable was a simple metal cube under the round hole.
The cube appeared clean every day without my knowing how the contents disappeared. One morning I rose earlier than usual. I stood astonished at what was happening.
From deep inside the house, like a dark moving statue, came the most beautiful woman I had seen up until that point in Ceylon, a Tamil, of the pariah caste. She wore a red & gold sari of the stiffest fabric. Above bare feet she wore heavy anklets. On either side of her nose shone two red studs. They must have been ordinary glass, but on her they seemed rubies.
She headed toward the privy with solemn steps, without seeing me, without giving the slightest sign of my existence, & disappeared with the sordid receptacle on top of her head, moving away at her godlike pace.
She was so beautiful that in spite of her humble task she stayed in my mind. As if she were a wild animal, arrived from the jungle, belonging to another existence, a separate world. I called to her without effect. Later I left some gift in her path, silk or fruit. She passed without hearing or looking. That miserable route had been transformed by her dark beauty into the obligatory ceremony of an indifferent queen.
One morning, totally determined, I took her tightly by the wrist & stared at her, face to face. I had no language to speak to her. Without a smile she allowed me to lead her & quickly she was nude on my bed. Her narrow waist, her full hips, the abundant swell of her breasts, made her the equal of thousands of sculptures in the south of India. The encounter was of a man with a statue. She stayed the whole time with her eyes open, passive. It made me despise myself. It did not happen again.
25 December 2010
Octavio Paz
[from Octavio Paz's The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987, Bilingual Edition
, ed. Eliot Weinberger, tr. Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 1990]
Motion
If you are the amber mare
I am the road of blood
If you are the first snow
I am he who lights the hearth of dawn
If you are the tower of night
I am the spike burning in your mind
If you are the morning tide
I am the first bird's cry
If you are the basket of oranges
I am the knife of the sun
If you are the stone altar
I am the sacrilegious hand
If you are the sleeping land
I am the green cane
If you are the wind's leap
I am the buried fire
If you are the water's mouth
I am the mouth of moss
If you are the forest of the clouds
I am the axe that parts it
If you are the profaned city
I am the rain of consecration
If you are the yellow mountain
I am the red arms of lichen
If you are the rising sun
I am the road of blood
, ed. Eliot Weinberger, tr. Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 1990]Motion
If you are the amber mare
I am the road of blood
If you are the first snow
I am he who lights the hearth of dawn
If you are the tower of night
I am the spike burning in your mind
If you are the morning tide
I am the first bird's cry
If you are the basket of oranges
I am the knife of the sun
If you are the stone altar
I am the sacrilegious hand
If you are the sleeping land
I am the green cane
If you are the wind's leap
I am the buried fire
If you are the water's mouth
I am the mouth of moss
If you are the forest of the clouds
I am the axe that parts it
If you are the profaned city
I am the rain of consecration
If you are the yellow mountain
I am the red arms of lichen
If you are the rising sun
I am the road of blood
23 December 2010
Omar Pérez
[from Omar Pérez's Did You Hear About the Fighting Cat?
, tr. Kristin Dykstra, Shearsman, 2010]
Some call it the Game, others the Flower or the Mirror. All agree that it deals with an instrument for mutation, a fan that becomes sword, then branch -- dry or covered in flowers -- then a sudden flame, then silence. A fan for a journey.
The creature arrives on the Island with the purpose of mutation, yet the waters of the amniotic ocean cause it to forget. The creature arrives on the Island without a purpose. Later it learns: praxis, poeisis, Kyrie eleison, benedictus qui venit in nomine domini. I can't give you anything but love baby. Il faut être absolumment sincère, Cubanness is love, women are in charge.
The word is there in the game, but it is not the game. Morality and the cyclical working of consciousness are there in the game, but they are not the game. Nation is a woman bearing corn, liberty one of the childish watchwords that the players exchange. The creature practices forgetting and its body catches flame with a memory, one that lances the Island and the water separating it from other islands. O, lightning spreading across the surface of the waters! O creature upright in the body of the lightning!
"It is a technique for sincerity that comprehends all techniques," said the Man of the island mountain.
"I want to learn it," the Creature blurted.
"It's easy. Anchor the improvisational. For example, a kiss. Improvise the anchored. For example, a mountain on an island. Deal a death blow to discernment."
"And my thoughts?" the Creature protested.
"They're worthless. Consider them insects on the bark of a growing tree. That is the sublimity of thought, if you're interested in knowing it."
"I have questions to answer," the Creature reflected.
"Don't answer anything. Don't react to proofs. Another Creature awaits you now. Show it what you have forgotten."
, tr. Kristin Dykstra, Shearsman, 2010]Some call it the Game, others the Flower or the Mirror. All agree that it deals with an instrument for mutation, a fan that becomes sword, then branch -- dry or covered in flowers -- then a sudden flame, then silence. A fan for a journey.
The creature arrives on the Island with the purpose of mutation, yet the waters of the amniotic ocean cause it to forget. The creature arrives on the Island without a purpose. Later it learns: praxis, poeisis, Kyrie eleison, benedictus qui venit in nomine domini. I can't give you anything but love baby. Il faut être absolumment sincère, Cubanness is love, women are in charge.
The word is there in the game, but it is not the game. Morality and the cyclical working of consciousness are there in the game, but they are not the game. Nation is a woman bearing corn, liberty one of the childish watchwords that the players exchange. The creature practices forgetting and its body catches flame with a memory, one that lances the Island and the water separating it from other islands. O, lightning spreading across the surface of the waters! O creature upright in the body of the lightning!
"It is a technique for sincerity that comprehends all techniques," said the Man of the island mountain.
"I want to learn it," the Creature blurted.
"It's easy. Anchor the improvisational. For example, a kiss. Improvise the anchored. For example, a mountain on an island. Deal a death blow to discernment."
"And my thoughts?" the Creature protested.
"They're worthless. Consider them insects on the bark of a growing tree. That is the sublimity of thought, if you're interested in knowing it."
"I have questions to answer," the Creature reflected.
"Don't answer anything. Don't react to proofs. Another Creature awaits you now. Show it what you have forgotten."
20 December 2010
Pablo Neruda
[from Pablo Neruda's The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems (Bilingual Edition)
, ed. Mark Eisner, tr. Stephen Kessler, City Lights, 2004]
It Means Shadows
What hope to consider, what pure foreboding,
what definitive kiss to bury in the heart,
to submit to the origins of homelessness and intelligence,
smooth and sure over the eternally troubled waters?
What vital, speedy wings of a new dream angel
to install on my sleeping shoulders for perpetual security,
in such a way that the path through the stars of death
be a violent flight begun many days and months and centuries ago?
Suppose the natural weakness of suspicious, anxious creatures
all of a sudden seeks permanence in time and limits on earth,
suppose the accumulated ages and fatigues implacably
spread like the lunar wave of a just-created ocean
over lands and shorelines tormentedly deserted.
Oh, let what I am keep on existing and ceasing to exist,
and let my obedience align itself with such iron conditions
that the quaking of deaths and of births doesn't shake
the deep place I want to reserve for myself eternally.
Let me, then, be what I am, wherever and in whatever weather,
rooted and certain and ardent witness,
carefully, unstoppably, destroying and saving himself,
openly engaged in his original obligation.
, ed. Mark Eisner, tr. Stephen Kessler, City Lights, 2004]It Means Shadows
What hope to consider, what pure foreboding,
what definitive kiss to bury in the heart,
to submit to the origins of homelessness and intelligence,
smooth and sure over the eternally troubled waters?
What vital, speedy wings of a new dream angel
to install on my sleeping shoulders for perpetual security,
in such a way that the path through the stars of death
be a violent flight begun many days and months and centuries ago?
Suppose the natural weakness of suspicious, anxious creatures
all of a sudden seeks permanence in time and limits on earth,
suppose the accumulated ages and fatigues implacably
spread like the lunar wave of a just-created ocean
over lands and shorelines tormentedly deserted.
Oh, let what I am keep on existing and ceasing to exist,
and let my obedience align itself with such iron conditions
that the quaking of deaths and of births doesn't shake
the deep place I want to reserve for myself eternally.
Let me, then, be what I am, wherever and in whatever weather,
rooted and certain and ardent witness,
carefully, unstoppably, destroying and saving himself,
openly engaged in his original obligation.
18 December 2010
Audre Lorde
[from Audre Lorde's The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance: Poems 1987-1992
, Norton, 1993]
The Electric Slide Boogie
New Year's Day 1:16 AM
and my body is weary beyond
time to withdraw and rest
ample room allowed me in everyone's head
but community calls
right over the threshold
drums beating through the walls
children playing their truck dramas
under the collapsible coatrack
in the narrow hallway outside my room
The TV lounge next door is wide open
it is midnight in Idaho
and the throb easy subtle spin
of the electric slide boogie
step-stepping
around the corner of the parlor
past the sweet clink
of dining room glasses
and the edged aroma of slightly overdone
dutch-apple pie
all laced together
with the rich dark laughter
of Gloria
and her higher-octave sisters
How hard it is to sleep
in the middle of life.
, Norton, 1993]The Electric Slide Boogie
New Year's Day 1:16 AM
and my body is weary beyond
time to withdraw and rest
ample room allowed me in everyone's head
but community calls
right over the threshold
drums beating through the walls
children playing their truck dramas
under the collapsible coatrack
in the narrow hallway outside my room
The TV lounge next door is wide open
it is midnight in Idaho
and the throb easy subtle spin
of the electric slide boogie
step-stepping
around the corner of the parlor
past the sweet clink
of dining room glasses
and the edged aroma of slightly overdone
dutch-apple pie
all laced together
with the rich dark laughter
of Gloria
and her higher-octave sisters
How hard it is to sleep
in the middle of life.
05 December 2010
Rubén Darío
[from Rubén Darío, tr. Lysander Kemp, in Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology, Texas, 1996]
To Roosevelt [1905]
The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak
with Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman.
You are primitive and modern, simple and complex;
you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod.
You are the United States,
future invader of our naive America
with its Indian blood, an America
that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are a strong, proud model of your race;
you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy.
You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar,
breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a professor of Energy,
as the current lunatics say.)
You think that life is a fire,
that progress is an irruption,
that the future is wherever
your bullet strikes.
No.
The United States is grand and powerful.
Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder
runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes.
If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion.
And Hugo said to Grant: "The stars are yours."
(The dawning sun of the Argentine barely shines;
the star of Chile is rising . . .) A wealthy country,
joining the cult of Mammon to the cult of Hercules;
while Liberty, lighting the path
to easy conquest, raises her torch in New York.
But our own America, which has had poets
since the ancient times of Nezahualcóyotl;
which preserved the footprints of great Bacchus,
and learned the Panic alphabet once,
and consulted the stars; which also knew Atlantis
(whose name comes ringing down to us in Plato)
and has lived, since the earliest moments of its life,
in light, in fire, in fragrance, and in love --
the America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa,
the aromatic America of Columbus,
Catholic America, Spanish America,
the America where noble Cuauhtémoc said:
"I am not on a bed of roses" -- our America,
trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love:
O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls,
our America lives. And dreams. And loves.
And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful.
Long live Spanish America!
A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are roaming free.
Roosevelt, you must become, by God's own will,
the deadly Rifleman and the dreadful Hunter
before you can clutch us in your iron claws.
And though you have everything, you are lacking one thing: God!
To Roosevelt [1905]
The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak
with Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman.
You are primitive and modern, simple and complex;
you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod.
You are the United States,
future invader of our naive America
with its Indian blood, an America
that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are a strong, proud model of your race;
you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy.
You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar,
breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a professor of Energy,
as the current lunatics say.)
You think that life is a fire,
that progress is an irruption,
that the future is wherever
your bullet strikes.
No.
The United States is grand and powerful.
Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder
runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes.
If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion.
And Hugo said to Grant: "The stars are yours."
(The dawning sun of the Argentine barely shines;
the star of Chile is rising . . .) A wealthy country,
joining the cult of Mammon to the cult of Hercules;
while Liberty, lighting the path
to easy conquest, raises her torch in New York.
But our own America, which has had poets
since the ancient times of Nezahualcóyotl;
which preserved the footprints of great Bacchus,
and learned the Panic alphabet once,
and consulted the stars; which also knew Atlantis
(whose name comes ringing down to us in Plato)
and has lived, since the earliest moments of its life,
in light, in fire, in fragrance, and in love --
the America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa,
the aromatic America of Columbus,
Catholic America, Spanish America,
the America where noble Cuauhtémoc said:
"I am not on a bed of roses" -- our America,
trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love:
O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls,
our America lives. And dreams. And loves.
And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful.
Long live Spanish America!
A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are roaming free.
Roosevelt, you must become, by God's own will,
the deadly Rifleman and the dreadful Hunter
before you can clutch us in your iron claws.
And though you have everything, you are lacking one thing: God!
04 December 2010
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
[from Carlos Drummond de Andrade, tr. Mark Strand, in Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology
, Texas, 1996]
Um boi vê os homens
An Ox Looks at Man
They are more delicate even than shrubs and they run
and run from one side to the other, always forgetting
something. Surely they lack I don't know what
basic ingredient, though they present themselves
as nobel or serious, at times. Oh, terribly serious,
even tragic. Poor things, one would say that they hear
neither the song of air nor the secrets of hay;
likewise they seem not to see what is visible
and common to each of us, in space. And they are sad,
and in the wake of sadness they come to cruelty.
All their expression lives in their eyes — and loses itself
to a simple lowering of lids, to a shadow.
And since there is little of the mountain about them —
nothing in the hair or in the terribly fragile limbs
but coldness and secrecy — it is impossible for them
to settle themselves into forms that are calm, lasting,
and necessary. They have, perhaps, a kind
of melancholy grace (one minute) and with this they allow
themselves to forget the problems and translucent
inner emptiness that make them so poor and so lacking
when it comes to uttering silly and painful sounds: desire, love,
jealousy
(what do we know?) — sounds that scatter and fall in the field
like troubled stones and burn the herbs and water,
and after this it is hard to keep chewing away at our truth.
, Texas, 1996]Um boi vê os homens
An Ox Looks at Man
They are more delicate even than shrubs and they run
and run from one side to the other, always forgetting
something. Surely they lack I don't know what
basic ingredient, though they present themselves
as nobel or serious, at times. Oh, terribly serious,
even tragic. Poor things, one would say that they hear
neither the song of air nor the secrets of hay;
likewise they seem not to see what is visible
and common to each of us, in space. And they are sad,
and in the wake of sadness they come to cruelty.
All their expression lives in their eyes — and loses itself
to a simple lowering of lids, to a shadow.
And since there is little of the mountain about them —
nothing in the hair or in the terribly fragile limbs
but coldness and secrecy — it is impossible for them
to settle themselves into forms that are calm, lasting,
and necessary. They have, perhaps, a kind
of melancholy grace (one minute) and with this they allow
themselves to forget the problems and translucent
inner emptiness that make them so poor and so lacking
when it comes to uttering silly and painful sounds: desire, love,
jealousy
(what do we know?) — sounds that scatter and fall in the field
like troubled stones and burn the herbs and water,
and after this it is hard to keep chewing away at our truth.
Pablo Neruda
ten ways of looking at a stanza
from Pablo Neruda’s “Walking Around”
[Pablo Neruda]
Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.
[Google translator]
So on Monday as oil burns
when he sees me coming with my convict face,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and take[s] steps of hot blood into the night.
[John Felstiner]
That's why Monday flares up like gas
when it sees me coming with my jailhouse face,
and howls like a wounded wheel as it goes by,
and makes hot bloody tracks toward night.
[Forrest Gander]
That’s why Monday burns like kerosene
when it sees me show up with my mugshot face,
and it shrieks on its way like a wounded wheel,
trailing hot bloody footprints into the night.
[W. S. Merwin]
For this reason Monday burns like oil
at the sight of me arriving with my jail-face,
and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel,
and its footsteps towards nightfall are filled with hot blood.
[Jerome Rothenberg]
So the day called Monday started burning like oil
when it sees me pull in with my face of a jailhouse,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks of hot blood in the direction of night.
[Ben Belitt]
That’s why Monday flares up like an oil-slick,
when it sees me up close, with the face of a jailbird,
or squeaks like a broken-down wheel as it goes,
stepping hot-blooded into the night.
[Robert Bly]
That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
[Donald Devenish Walsh]
That is why Monday day burns like petroleum
when it sees me coming with my jailbird face,
and as it passes it howls like a wounded wheel,
and it takes hot-blooded steps toward the night.
[Nathaniel Tarn?]
This is why, Monday, the day, is burning like petrol,
when it sees me arrive with my prison features,
and it screeches going by like a scorched tire
and its footsteps tread hot with blood towards night.
from Pablo Neruda’s “Walking Around”
[Pablo Neruda]
Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.
[Google translator]
So on Monday as oil burns
when he sees me coming with my convict face,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and take[s] steps of hot blood into the night.
[John Felstiner]
That's why Monday flares up like gas
when it sees me coming with my jailhouse face,
and howls like a wounded wheel as it goes by,
and makes hot bloody tracks toward night.
[Forrest Gander]
That’s why Monday burns like kerosene
when it sees me show up with my mugshot face,
and it shrieks on its way like a wounded wheel,
trailing hot bloody footprints into the night.
[W. S. Merwin]
For this reason Monday burns like oil
at the sight of me arriving with my jail-face,
and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel,
and its footsteps towards nightfall are filled with hot blood.
[Jerome Rothenberg]
So the day called Monday started burning like oil
when it sees me pull in with my face of a jailhouse,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks of hot blood in the direction of night.
[Ben Belitt]
That’s why Monday flares up like an oil-slick,
when it sees me up close, with the face of a jailbird,
or squeaks like a broken-down wheel as it goes,
stepping hot-blooded into the night.
[Robert Bly]
That's why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
[Donald Devenish Walsh]
That is why Monday day burns like petroleum
when it sees me coming with my jailbird face,
and as it passes it howls like a wounded wheel,
and it takes hot-blooded steps toward the night.
[Nathaniel Tarn?]
This is why, Monday, the day, is burning like petrol,
when it sees me arrive with my prison features,
and it screeches going by like a scorched tire
and its footsteps tread hot with blood towards night.
03 December 2010
Pablo Neruda
[from John Felstiner's Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu
, Stanford, 1980]
Walking Around
It so happens I'm tired of being a man.
It so happens I walk into tailorshops and movies
all shriveled up, impervious, like a swan of felt
steering through waters of origin and ash.
The smell of barbershops makes me break out sobbing.
All I want is the quiet of stones or wool,
all I want is to see no stores or gardens,
or merchandise or eyeglasses or elevators.
It so happens I'm tired of my feet and fingernails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I'm tired of being a man.
Still it would be delightful
to frighten a notary with a cut lily
or do in a nun with one smack of an ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
screaming until I died of cold.
I just can't go on as a root in the dark,
swaying, stretching, shivering with sleep,
downwards, in the soaking guts of the earth,
absorbing and musing, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery for me.
I can't go on being root and tomb,
isolated cellar, warehouse of frozen
stiffs, dying of grief.
That's why Monday flares up like gas
when it sees me coming with my jailhouse face,
and howls like a wounded wheel as it goes by,
and makes hot bloody tracks toward night.
And shoves me to certain corners, certain dank houses,
to hospitals with bones coming out the window,
to certain shoestores reeking of vinegar,
to streets as frightful as crevices.
There are sulfur-colored birds and hideous intestines
hanging from the doors of houses I hate,
there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that must have wept for shame and horror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and poisons, and navels.
I'm walking around with calm, with eyes, with shoes,
with rage, with forgetfulness,
I walk along, I go past offices and orthopedic shops,
and backyards with clothing hung from a wire:
underpants, towels, and shirts that weep
slow dirty tears.
, Stanford, 1980]Walking Around
It so happens I'm tired of being a man.
It so happens I walk into tailorshops and movies
all shriveled up, impervious, like a swan of felt
steering through waters of origin and ash.
The smell of barbershops makes me break out sobbing.
All I want is the quiet of stones or wool,
all I want is to see no stores or gardens,
or merchandise or eyeglasses or elevators.
It so happens I'm tired of my feet and fingernails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I'm tired of being a man.
Still it would be delightful
to frighten a notary with a cut lily
or do in a nun with one smack of an ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
screaming until I died of cold.
I just can't go on as a root in the dark,
swaying, stretching, shivering with sleep,
downwards, in the soaking guts of the earth,
absorbing and musing, eating every day.
I don't want so much misery for me.
I can't go on being root and tomb,
isolated cellar, warehouse of frozen
stiffs, dying of grief.
That's why Monday flares up like gas
when it sees me coming with my jailhouse face,
and howls like a wounded wheel as it goes by,
and makes hot bloody tracks toward night.
And shoves me to certain corners, certain dank houses,
to hospitals with bones coming out the window,
to certain shoestores reeking of vinegar,
to streets as frightful as crevices.
There are sulfur-colored birds and hideous intestines
hanging from the doors of houses I hate,
there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that must have wept for shame and horror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and poisons, and navels.
I'm walking around with calm, with eyes, with shoes,
with rage, with forgetfulness,
I walk along, I go past offices and orthopedic shops,
and backyards with clothing hung from a wire:
underpants, towels, and shirts that weep
slow dirty tears.
17 November 2010
from Tadeusz Różewicz in Postwar Polish Poetry
, ed Czeslaw Milosz, University of California, 1983]
To the Heart
I saw
a cook a specialist
he would put his hand
into the mouth
and through the trachea
push it to the inside
of a sheep
and there in the quick
would grasp the heart
tighten his grip
on the heart
rip out the heart
in one jerk
yes
that was a specialist
, ed Czeslaw Milosz, University of California, 1983]To the Heart
I saw
a cook a specialist
he would put his hand
into the mouth
and through the trachea
push it to the inside
of a sheep
and there in the quick
would grasp the heart
tighten his grip
on the heart
rip out the heart
in one jerk
yes
that was a specialist
16 November 2010
Anna Świrszczyńska
[from Anna Świrszczyńska in Postwar Polish Poetry, ed Czeslaw Milosz, University of California, 1983]
The Same Inside
Walking to your place for a love feast
I saw at the street corner
an old beggar woman.
I took her hand
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the same kind,
I sensed this instantly
as a dog knows by its scent
another dog.
I gave her money,
I could not part from her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.
And then I no longer knew
why I was walking to your place.
, ed Czeslaw Milosz, University of California, 1983]The Same Inside
Walking to your place for a love feast
I saw at the street corner
an old beggar woman.
I took her hand
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the same kind,
I sensed this instantly
as a dog knows by its scent
another dog.
I gave her money,
I could not part from her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.
And then I no longer knew
why I was walking to your place.
16 October 2010
Lisa Olstein
[from Lisa Olstein's Lost Alphabet,
Copper Canyon, 2009]
[white spring]
I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things -- articulation of wing, fineness of hair -- as if the moth itself disappears but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that's arresting, and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They'll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.
. . .
[newcomers to the field of endeavor]
There's something dead in the road. No one will touch it. The specimen I'm studying won't sit still. I can no longer do it: swab the ether, drop it into the flapping jar. Ilya watches me from across the room. If I lay the jar on its side with the lid removed eventually the moth will slow its beating. A rinse of sugar-water at the rim draws it to the edge, keeps it there drinking, for a moment, as if from a great glass flower. I usually have time to record family and size, primary markings. This one moves quickly, lights for barely a second at a time. Soon it will fly off and come to rest on some other surface in the room, usually the rough ceiling, which is becoming winged with them.
. . .
[arrivals]
Moths ride the room as if a meadow. As if rainfall, hover, nectar, soar. I close my eyes. I feel them, the smell of them, the smell of me. Surely this insight is a defect. I will not cherish the pain or need it. As if to covet any part would render increase when it is clear that wishing is nothing. But there are patterns; parts of my brain gain voice, grow louder. Small doors of perception open, close.
. . .
[from this vantage point your view will be clear]
Any shift in philosophy introduces the need for new habits of body. I am learning how gently to lift them, to turn them swiftly and rest them again, on their wings, wings to table, which I sand smooth each morning. To do it with no fluttering, with as little as possible. It is a strange gymnastics, their bodies, mine: what to grasp, when to release, the nature of a turn, the will of the whole channeled into the fingertips. It takes all my strength. It is necessary to practice, to imagine myself the moth, my arms its wings, my legs gone.
Copper Canyon, 2009][white spring]
I am working on a specimen so pale it is like staring at snow from the bow of a ship in fog. I lose track of things -- articulation of wing, fineness of hair -- as if the moth itself disappears but remains as an emptiness before me. Or, from its bleakness, the subtlest distinctions suddenly increase: the slightest shade lighter in white begins to breathe with a starkness that's arresting, and the very idea of color terrifies. It has snowed and the evening is blue. The herders look like buoys, like waders the water has gotten too deep around. They'll have to swim in to shore. Their horses are patient. They love to be led from their stalls. They love to sharpen their teeth on the gate. They will stand, knees locked, for hours.
. . .
[newcomers to the field of endeavor]
There's something dead in the road. No one will touch it. The specimen I'm studying won't sit still. I can no longer do it: swab the ether, drop it into the flapping jar. Ilya watches me from across the room. If I lay the jar on its side with the lid removed eventually the moth will slow its beating. A rinse of sugar-water at the rim draws it to the edge, keeps it there drinking, for a moment, as if from a great glass flower. I usually have time to record family and size, primary markings. This one moves quickly, lights for barely a second at a time. Soon it will fly off and come to rest on some other surface in the room, usually the rough ceiling, which is becoming winged with them.
. . .
[arrivals]
Moths ride the room as if a meadow. As if rainfall, hover, nectar, soar. I close my eyes. I feel them, the smell of them, the smell of me. Surely this insight is a defect. I will not cherish the pain or need it. As if to covet any part would render increase when it is clear that wishing is nothing. But there are patterns; parts of my brain gain voice, grow louder. Small doors of perception open, close.
. . .
[from this vantage point your view will be clear]
Any shift in philosophy introduces the need for new habits of body. I am learning how gently to lift them, to turn them swiftly and rest them again, on their wings, wings to table, which I sand smooth each morning. To do it with no fluttering, with as little as possible. It is a strange gymnastics, their bodies, mine: what to grasp, when to release, the nature of a turn, the will of the whole channeled into the fingertips. It takes all my strength. It is necessary to practice, to imagine myself the moth, my arms its wings, my legs gone.
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