How to explain how in summer I feel winter in my bones. Perhaps it’s just my age and the care I take in walking down the stairs. Or perhaps I sense another kind of fall this autumn, one that comes as young and old alike struggle to put one foot in front of the other, not knowing where or how we will stand upright in the winter storm that’s coming, for a storm it may be even though the sky now is clear and summer days invite repose. I am not sleeping well. Are you? I am not speaking of sleep that counts the hours we lie unconscious in our beds, but the deep sleep that makes us glad when we wake to see snow fall in the tropics or a child free of care. What worries me is that winter may be already here and we don’t know it. Mark Strand’s “Lines for Winter” is a poem that speaks to us whatever the season. -hjh (7.31.2020)
BY MARK STRAND
for Ros Krauss
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
Walt Whitman is known as a poet of praise, yet in“Poem on the Proposition of Nakedness” (aka “Respondez”) Whitman speaks with sustained anger as if he has been betrayed by a lover or by his own illusions. It is a reckless poem, an eruption, the irony so impassioned and imperative that we are compelled to answer, “No, No, No, it cannot be. We must not allow it to be who we are.” That the poem speaks directly to our own times is what disturbs me most. Whitman himself seemed to have been aware of the poem’s unseemliness, of its searing force, and excluded it from editions of Leaves of Grass published after 1876.
Poem on the Proposition of Nakedness
By Walt Whitman
RESPONDEZ! Respondez! |
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(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;) |
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Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade! |
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Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking? |
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Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles; |
5 |
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the front and speak; |
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Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions! |
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Let the old propositions be postponed! |
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Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results! |
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Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery! |
10 |
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?) |
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Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls! |
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Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres! |
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Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other spheres! |
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Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems contradict another! |
15 |
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their eyes be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love! |
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(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption! |
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Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high; |
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Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around and upon you, O my days! my lands! |
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For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the atmosphere;) |
20 |
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other theory would you?) |
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Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead you?) |
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Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings! |
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Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made! |
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Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let the heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man! |
25 |
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the audience! let there be apathy under the stars! |
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Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can tyrannize, let him tyrannize to his satisfaction! |
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Let none but infidels be countenanced! |
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Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust, be taken for granted above all! let writers, judges, governments, households, religions, philosophies, take such for granted above all! |
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Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women! |
30 |
Let the priest still play at immortality! |
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Let death be inaugurated! |
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Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and learn’d and polite persons! |
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Let him who is without my poems be assassinated! |
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Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of these, be put on a perfect equality with man and woman! |
35 |
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the most filthy of diseases! |
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Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools! |
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Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women! and let women among themselves talk and think obscenely of men! |
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Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our lives! let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses! |
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Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth! |
40 |
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention’d the name of God! |
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Let there be no God! |
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Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor, dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief! |
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Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put in prison! let those that were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?) |
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Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves! |
45 |
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands! |
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Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed against the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good will! |
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Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn’d and derided off from the earth! |
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Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—let growing mint, spinach, onions, tomatoes—let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission! |
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Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what they choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey! |
50 |
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals! |
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Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single poet, savior, knower, lover! |
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Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away! |
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If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him! |
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Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding faith! |
55 |
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts! (O seeming! seeming! seeming!) |
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Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught! |
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Let insanity still have charge of sanity! |
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Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds! |
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Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes! |
60 |
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself! |
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Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons! |
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Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden under heel, after all?) |
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Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! let the things themselves still continue unstudied! |
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Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself! |
65 |
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself! |
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(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?) |
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Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you suppose death will do, then?)
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Download Original text by James Agee
(lyrical in itself)
(considerably less lyrical)
(music & voice restore the poetry)
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Every once and a while
I force myself to read
a truly great poem
before I go to bed
where I will lie awake
all night and dream.
"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas, text and reading
WRITTEN IN PENCIL IN THE SEALED RAILWAY-CAR
here in this carload
i am eve
with abel my son
if you see my other son
cain son of man
tell him that i
-- Dan Pagis
"Cholera", as you ask questions of it, becomes progressively more terrifying. Rita also reads three other poems of great note: "Canary," "Teach Us to Number Our Days," and "The Spring Cricket Considers the Question of Negritude."
America
by Henry Dumas
If an eagle be imprisoned
On the back of a coin
And the coin is tossed into the sky,
That coin will spin,
That coin will flutter,
But the eagle will never fly.
Download Lacrima borealis (restored)
Lacrima Borealis
Blue, light blue like the top of the sky. Black real black not brown not green ink green black. Inside, in the circle but really on top but really on bottom. And they implore. Staring into the whirling milk of forgetful coffee; cataracts. A ladder, silver – the spiderweb chain of a tender necklace – perched at the edge of the deep coffee bowl. Green soldiers, yes the soldiers from the box the shoebox size 8 under the bed, clamber mechanically up and dive into the rich lagoon and they are followed by the pretty shorthaired girls -coquettes. She teeters on her toes grip the smooth edge of the bowl and asks me a question, sorry what was the question? A plane flies by, I lose my balance and am plunged into sleepy coffee. Fight the fatigue. Remember. The swirling current draws me to a storm to la tempete du jour ferie. Un coup de foudre directement au milieu d’une pluie sous sédation et la enfin je suis arrivée a ressentir. La dernière fois, c’était cette nuit équivoque and the cup ran overflowing with tears.
(Rebecca lives in Albuquerque, NM)
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon—his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple yet not understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
The knowledge of reality is always in some measure a secret knowledge. It is a kind of death.
-- Yeats, Autobiographies, p. 482
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
Anonyme
Les biches de l'amour ont pleuré jusqu'à l'aube
les bêtes de ma vie ont toutes les yeux faux
Et toi — tête de gel qui sanglotte dans la flamme
sans pouvoir redevenir le nuage
visage étonné des étincelles du silence
calciné par l'odeur des cuivres emmêlés
et les chevaux du rire impatients
de mordre la chair des astres ennuyés
et les femmes de verre qui se brisent quand on ne pense plus à elle
et celui qui se décompose en souriant
au fond de la glace miroitante
et sa jambe lépreuse de soleil
et son sexe couvert de rosée
et le ventre de cette femme tout parsemé d'hirondelles évanouies
qui vont et viennent et passent à travers les anneaux de diamant comme
si le diamant ne pouvait se faire comprendre
sans le secours des oiseaux du ciel
- -
Parle nuit plus douce que les amandiers de sa bouche
qui neigent sur ma langue quand l'heure se couche
Parle, fantôme étonné du silence.
* * * * *
Nameless
Until dawn the does of love cried
all animals in my life have phony eyes
And you—frozen head sobbing in the flame
unable to be cloud again
your face baffled by the sparks of silence
charred by the smell of tangled brasses
and the horses of laughter eager to bite
the bored stars’ flesh
and the glass women breaking through oblivion
and the one who is smiling as he rots away
at the bottom of the shimmering ice
and his leg under the dappling sun
and his sex covered in dew
and that woman’s belly dotted all over with unconscious swallows
going in and out of the diamond rings as if
the diamond could not be grasped
without the help of the birds in the sky
_ _
Speak up night, softer than the almond trees in her mouth
falling like snow onto my tongue when the time retires at night
Speak to me, ghost amazed by the silence.
-- English Translation, © Leonora; all rights reserved.
André de Richaud's "Anonyme" originally appeared in Transition: A Quarterly Review, No. 26, 1937.
Background: Transition: A Quarterly Review
If you want to praise acceptably, be very precise. Inattentive praise is almost an insult.
-- Eva Brann, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects: Reflections on World and Soul, p. 423
I hope whatever you’re doing,
you’re stopping now and then
and
not doing it at all.
--- James Fadiman, quoted in Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, p. 282
"Una Corbata para Nicanor" by Pablo Neruda, translation by Suzanna Geisel-Zamora
Download Una corbata parra Nicanor- Spanish:English
Saranguaco N. Parra Hodgepodge
Es de noche, no piensa ser de noche It’s night, it doesn’t think to be night
Es de día, no piensa ser de día. It’s day, it doesn’t think to be day.
Cómo va a ser de noche si es de día How is it going to be night if it is day
Cómo va a ser de día si es de noche How is it going to be day if it is night
¿Creen que están hablando con un loco? Do you believe you are talking with a crazy man?
Ojalá fuera realmente de día. Hopefully it is really daytime.
Hace frío pero yo tengo calor It’s cold but I am hot
Hace calor pero yo me muero de frío. It’s hot but I am freezing to death.
Dije que hacía frío pero miento I said it was cold but I am lying
Hace un calor que derrite las piedras It is so hot the rocks are melting
Eso lo veo con mis propios ojos: I see this with my own eyes:
¡Falso! ¡No veo nada! Lie! I can’t see anything!
¡Tengo los ojos herméticamente cerrados! I have my eyes hermetically sealed!
Lo que sucede es que me siento mal The thing is I feel bad
Ese dolor de estómago de siempre That constant stomach pain
La sensación de vértigo no cesa. The dizziness never stops.
Cómo que mal: ¡me siento perfectamente! What do you mean bad: I feel fine!
¡En mi vida me he sentido mejor! I’ve never felt better!
¡Ojalá me sintiera desdichado! If only I could feel unhappy!
Observen bien y verán Watch closely and you’ll see
Que estoy riéndome a carcajadas. That I am roaring with laughter.
Translation by Suzanna Geisel-Zamora
Cambios de Nombre Name Changes
A los amantes de las bellas letras To the lovers of belles-lettres
Hago llegar mis mejores deseos I extend my best wishes
Voy a cambiar de nombre a algunas cosas. I am going to change the names of a few things.
Mi posición es ésta: My position is this:
El poeta no cumple su palabra The poet does not fulfill his word
Si no cambia los nombres de las cosas. Unless he changes the names of things.
¿Con qué razón el sol For what reason has the sun
Ha de seguir llamándose sol? Always been called the sun?
¡Pido que se llame Micifuz I say call it Pussy Cat
El de las botas de cuarenta leguas! The one with forty league boots!
¿Mis zapatos parecen ataúdes? My shoes look like coffins?
Sepan que desde hoy en adelante From here on out
Los zapatos se llaman ataúdes. Shoes are going to be called coffins.
Comuníquese, anótese y publíquese Communicate it, note it down, and publish it
Que los zapatos han cambiado de nombre: That shoes have changed name:
Desde ahora se llaman ataúdes. From now on they will be called coffins.
Bueno, la noche es larga Well, the night is long
Todo poeta que se estime a sí mismo Every poet who considers himself such
Debe tener su propio diccionario Should have their own dictionary
Y antes que se me olvide And before I forget
Al propio dios hay que cambiarle nombre God himself has to change names
Que cada cual lo llame como quiera: That every individual names him what they want:
Ese es un problema personal. That is a personal problem.
Translation by Suzanna Geisel-Zamora
"In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones
and nine orfices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept
spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is
torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took
to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making
it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times
when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit,
or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain
victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has
never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and
another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a
court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying
to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable
love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing
poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly."
(Introductory paragraph from The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel, from
a translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa).
In his many years of living in Ithaca, he’d made a hobby of drafting simple sketches of its most distinguished buildings and trees—the Masonic Temple, State Theater, and Clinton Hall; the white oaks, striped maples, and shagbark hickories—and making crabbed black notes in a small black journal he’d kept for the purpose in his oilskin vest. With no regard for chronology, and with the occasional prompting from his journal itself, licking a finger to turn the wrinkled pages, he’d told me about the once-thriving Tutelo Indian village of Coreorgonel, destroyed by Washington’s troops in his war against the Iroquois, and about Ithaca’s largely unsung role in the Underground Railroad, even taking me into his house one day to show me the cupboard behind which a half a dozen runaway slaves had once been ingeniously, luxuriously, concealed.
Such was the illusion of Ithaca, he’d insisted to me, on more than one occasion, the town I knew, the town I saw with my eyes each day, but a fraction of some larger, more numinous whole. “Take the lake down there,” he’d remarked to me one day, directing my attention to the wintry sliver of gray through the trees. Did I know that there were caverns deep beneath it, a dazzling netherworld of tunnels and chambers more than 18,000 acres in size? Of course I’d had no idea, had never even heard of the Lansing salt mine in which he’d served as foreman for nearly twenty years, though I remember the delight I’d expressed at the thought of that ghastly, Stygian realm. It was a reaction, however innocent, that had only angered the man, furrowing his normally placid brow.
“No, no!” he’d exclaimed, swatting the air with impatience, only to cock his head at me, as if appraising me anew. “It’s nothing like that, no, nothing dreadful at all.” And there he’d faltered, so that for a moment his lips had quivered mutely where he’d stood. “It’s like…it’s like nothing you could know,” he’d stammered at last. “The darkness, the light… the deep thrumming silence down there—so ancient, so lonely, it sits upon your chest like a billion tons of rock. And then there’s the air,” he’d whispered, amazed, snuffling abruptly through his thick, bullish nostrils, “like a baby just born—that greedy, gobbling breath…”
In our frequent encounters he’d often talked that way, circling round some mysterious core, which he’d never seemed willing or able to name.
Parsimony, 24-25
Comment: Mr. Rabinovich arrives at that profound confusion (amazement!) out of which all true poetic utterance arises. Thus, when he tries to tell David about the air in the caverns, he expresses it in poetic analogy,“like a baby just born—that greedy, gobbling breath . . .” It is from such 'profound confusion' that all true poetic utterance arises, the rest being but decorative verse.
Yo, que tantos hombres he sido, no he sido nunca
aquel en cuyo abrazo desfallecía Matilde Urbach.
GASPAR CAMERARIUS, en Deliciae Poetarum Borussiae, VII, 16.
The Regret of Heraclitus
I, who have been so many men, have never been
The one in whose embrace Matilde Urbach swooned.
There is misinformation roundabout that Matilde Urbach is a character in William Joyce Cowen's Man With Four Lives. There is no such character in that novel. Fool that I am, I bought and read the book.
The author, Catharine Roache, has chosen not to capitalize any of the words in the title of her short book of poems and photographs of the very old folks she writes about. This choice may express her sense of helplessness. The poems are simple and without any of the usual verbal play that is characteristic of poetry. They come unadorned, straight from the heart and the anguish of her experience. Here is one of the poems:
as children hurt
eyes
old tired eyes cover me and speak more
than words in any tongue can say
of what it is to hurt
hurt
as a child hurts
over little things
but what is little when you are old?
when you spend your days
lying, sitting, thinking, waiting
is it a little thing for someone to speak
without a hint of care?
when friends are far
and sick and moving and you fear they will forget
is it a little thing for one to die
and leave you more alone?
when night comes
and dark will give you peace and rest and quiet
is it a little thing to hear someone weeping
far down some hallow hollow hall?
when you lie in hate
and despair of life, remembering good times, bad times
is it a little thing for your mouth to dry
into a yellow crust?
the world
tells me war is big
and profits and space and the price of gold
and I think about these things
but today
the cup of water seemed the world
and all those little things became
the only big.
old children of god was published by 'hermosa publishers' in 1973 and revised in 1978.
Background: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/27/ted-hughes-lover-night-sylvia-plath-died-biography-claims
“Last Letter” by Ted Hughes
What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
that history is an event
that life is
that I am event
ually to go do something
the metaphor for god.
eventuality.
activity.
what happens to be.
what happens to me.
god. history. action.
the Lakota word for it is:
whatmovesmoves.
they don’t call god
“what moves something,”
not “prime mover”
"first mover" or
“who moves everything or nothing;”
not “action.” “lights.” “movement.”
not “where” or “what” or “how”
but
event. GOD
is what happens, is:
movesmoves.
riding a mare
eventuality.
out of the corral into morning
taking her saddled and bridled
air thick with breath movesmoves
horsebreath, mybreath, earthbreath
skybreathing air ing.
breathesbreathes movesmoves
in the cold. winterspringfall.
corral. ing. horse and breath.
air. through the gate moveswe.
lift we the wooden crossbar
movesmoves unlocks movesbreathes
lifebreath of winter soul
swings wide sweet corral gate
happens to be frozenstiff in place
happens to be cold. so I and mare
wear clothes that move in event
of frozen. shaggy hair dressers for the air
breathes breathe we: flows: movesmoves:
god it’s cold.
no other place but movesmoves
horse me gate hinge air bright frost lungs
swing gate out far morning winter rides
movesmovingmoves Lakota words: god.
what we do.
(Harper's Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry, 1987)
Note on Taku SkanSkan: http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/pla/sdo/sdo51.htm
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
Even if you do not know French, the audiofile below of Aube by Paul A. Mankin will deepen your appreciation of the poem. There are no translations of his poem that convey its beauty.
AUBE from Illuminations (1875)
J'ai embrassé l'aube d'été.
Rien ne bougeait encore au front des palais. L'eau était mortre. Les camps d'ombres ne quittaient pas la route du bois. J'ai marché, réveillant les haleines vives et tièdes; et les pierries regardèrent, et les ailes se levèrent sans bruit.
La première enterprise fut, dans le sentier déjà empli de frais et blêmes éclats, une fleur qui me dit son nom.
Je ris au wasserfall blond qui s'échevela à travers les sapins: à la cime argentée je reconnus la déesse.
Alors je levai un à les voiles. Dans l'allée, en agitant les bras. Par la plaine, où je l'ai dénoncée au coq. A la grand'ville elle fuyait parmi les clochers et les dômes, et, courant comme un mendiant sur les quais de marbre, je la chassais.
En haut de la route, près d'un bois de lauriers. Je l'ai entourée avec ses voiles amassés, et j'ai senti un peu son immense corps. L'aube et l'enfant tombèrent au bas du bois.
Au réveil, il était midi.
**************************************************
DAWN from Illuminations (1875)
I embraced the summer dawn.
Nothing stirred on the face of the palaces. The water was still. Crowds of shadows lingered on the road to the woods. I walked, dreaming the warm, brisk winds, and precious stones looked on, and wings soared in silence.
The first venture, on the path already full of fresh and pale glitterings, was a flower who told me her name.
I laughed at the white waterfall dishevelled through the pine trees: at its silvery summit I recognized the goddess.
Then, one by one, I lifted her veils. In the pathway, waving my arms. In the open field, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the city she fled amid the steeples and the domes, and running like a beggar on the marble piers, I chased her.
At the top of the road, near a wood of laurels, I wrapped her in her mass of veils, and felt a little of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell at the edge of the woods.
When I awoke it was noon.
---Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com
— Above version based on the following translations:
— Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations
translated by Bertrand Mathieu
Boa Editions, Brockport, NY, 1979, pp. 32-33
— Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations
translated by Daniel Sloate
Guernica, Montreal, Canada, 1990, pp. 78-79
— Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and Illuminations
translated by Mark Treharne
J.M. Dent, London, 1998 (no page #)
nonsun blob a
cold to
skylessness
sticking fire
my are your
are birds our all
and one gone
away the they
leaf of ghosts some
few creep there
here or on
unearth
At the end of the tribute above is an astounding piece of performance art.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
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Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard |
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(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992) |
Speak earth and bless me with what is richest
make sky flow honey out of my hips
rigid as mountains
spread over a valley
carved out by the mouth of rain.
And I knew when I entered her I was
high wind in her forests hollow
fingers whispering sound
honey flowed
from the split cup
impaled on a lance of tongues
on the tips of her breasts on her navel
and my breath
howling into her entrances
through lungs of pain.
Greedy as herring-gulls
Or a child
I swing out over the earth
over and over
again.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/08/09/lost-tribes-tierra-fuego/?printpage=true
Chapter 10 of The Voyage of the Beagle: http://www.bartleby.com/29/10.html
Jeremy Button waving farewell. The ship is the HMS Beagle. Painting by Conrad Martens.
Huike, the Second Patriarch, said to Bodhidharma, "My mind is not yet at rest, Master, I implore you, set my mind to rest."
The master replied, "Bring your mind here and I'll set it to rest for you."
Huike said, "I've searched for my mind, but am unable to find it."
"There," said the master, "I've set your mind to rest."
Case 1, Entangling Vines, Thomas Yuho KIrchnerm, Wisdom Publications, Inc. 2011
Genie
Il est l'affection et le présent, puisqu'il a fait la maison ouverte à l'hiver écumeux et à la rumeur de l'été, - lui qui a purifié les boissons et les aliments - lui qui est le charme des lieux fuyants et le délice surhumain des stations. Il est l'affection et l'avenir, la force et l'amour que nous, debout dans les rages et les ennuis, nous voyons passer dans le ciel de tempête et les drapeaux d'extase.
Il est l'amour, mesure parfaite et réinventée, raison merveilleuse et imprévue, et l'éternité : machine aimée des qualités fatales. Nous avons tous eu l'épouvante de sa concession et de la nôtre : ô jouissance de notre santé, élan de nos facultés, affection égoïste et passion pour lui, lui qui nous aime pour sa vie infinie...
Et nous nous le rappelons, et il voyage... Et si l'Adoration s'en va, sonne, sa promesse sonne : "Arrière ces superstitions, ces anciens corps, ces ménages et ces âges. C'est cette époque-ci qui a sombré !"
Il ne s'en ira pas, il ne redescendra pas d'un ciel, il n'accomplira pas la rédemption des colères de femmes et des gaîtés des hommes et de tout ce péché : car c'est fait, lui étant, et étant aimé.
O ses souffles, ses têtes, ses courses ; la terrible célérité de la perfection des formes et de l'action.
O fécondité de l'esprit et immensité de l'univers.
Son corps ! Le dégagement rêvé, le brisement de la grâce croisée de violence nouvelle !
Sa vue, sa vue ! tous les agenouillages anciens et les peines relevés à sa suite.
Son jour ! l'abolition de toutes souffrances sonores et mouvantes dans la musique plus intense.
Son pas ! les migrations plus énormes que les anciennes invasions.
O lui et nous ! l'orgueil plus bienveillant que les charités perdues.
O monde ! et le chant clair des malheurs nouveaux !
Il nous a connus tous et nous a tous aimés. Sachons, cette nuit d'hiver, de cap en cap, du pôle tumultueux au château, de la foule à la plage, de regards en regards, forces et sentiments las, le héler et le voir, et le renvoyer, et sous les marées et au haut des déserts de neige, suivre ses vues, ses souffles, son corps, son jour.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JOHN ASHBERY
He is affection and the present since he opened the house to foaming winter and the hum of summer, he who purified drink and food, he who is the charm of fleeting places and the superhuman deliciousness of staying still. He is affection and the future, strength and love that we, standing amid rage and troubles, see passing in the storm-rent sky and on banners of ecstasy.
He is love, perfect and reinvented measurement, wonderful and unforeseen reason, and eternity: machine beloved for its fatal qualities. We have all experienced the terror of his yielding and of our own: O enjoyment of our health, surge of our faculties, egoistic affection and passion for him, he who loves us for his infinite life
And we remember him and he travels. . . And if the Adoration goes away, resounds, its promise resounds: “Away with those superstitions, those old bodies, those couples and those ages. It’s this age that has sunk!”
He won’t go away, nor descend from a heaven again, he won’t accomplish the redemption of women’s anger and the gaiety of men and of all that sin: for it is now accomplished, with him being, and being loved.
O his breaths, his heads, his racing; the terrible swiftness of the perfection of forms and of action.
O fecundity of the spirit and immensity of the universe!
His body! The dreamed-of release, the shattering of grace crossed with new violence!
The sight, the sight of him! all the ancient kneeling and suffering lifted in his wake.
His day! the abolition of all resonant and surging suffering in more intense music.
His footstep! migrations more vast than ancient invasions.
O him and us! pride more benevolent than wasted charities.
O world! and the clear song of new misfortunes!
He has known us all and loved us all. Let us, on this winter night, from cape to cape, from the tumultuous pole to the castle, from the crowd to the beach, from glance to glance, our strengths and feelings numb, learn to hail him and see him, and send him back, and under the tides and at the summit of snowy deserts, follow his seeing, his breathing, his body, his day.
what bothers me most about
the idea of having to die
(sooner or later) is that
the collection of junk I
have made in my head will
presumably be dissipated
not that there isn't more
and better junk in other
heads & always will be but
I have become so fond of
my own head's collection.