The One Oval Window The One Oval Window
The surface of this street is sweet enough to lick. There is usually a fee for sacrifice, ladies, and mine is a store for rent. Terrace danger cannot be traded for river danger or danger danger. In this light, the clouds.
Mar 26, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Kronovet
Longing of the Accords Longing of the Accords
"life's white machine" Geoffrey G. O'Brien and Jeff Clark We're all tenants, of one kind or another: lodgers, proprietors, houseguests. So what matters is what matters for most of us. We shrink in silken alarm in the corridor--someone is coming? But boa-clad ushers receive us. We were told we were on message, were the subject, or topic. In fact it made a little difference but not enough to disturb or quiet us. Concluding, perhaps rightly, we were of the one or other sort, you signed off. It was OK to take everything, though not to want it.
Mar 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery
That This That This
That this book is a history of a shadow that is a shadow of me mystically one in another Another another to subserve __ Day is a type when visible objects change then put on form but the anti-type That thing not shadowed __ Is light anything like this stray pencil commonplace copy as to one aberrant onward-gliding mystery __ A secular arrietta variation Grass angels perish in this harmonic collision because non-being cannot be "this" __ Not spirit not space finite Not infinite to those fixed-- That this millstone as such Quiet which side on which-- __ That a solitary person bears witness to law in the ark to an altar of snow and every age or century for a day is __ Is one mind put into another in us unknown to ourselves by going about among trees and fields in moonlight or in a garden to ease distance to fetch home spiritual things __
Feb 25, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Susan Howe
Four-Syllable Lines (Monody) Four-Syllable Lines (Monody)
Sweet unrest still Wood harsh dismal Slope of a hill Darkening air She's the target Force-drift and thrown Dismissed rash tear I would, can, did Slip in a hole Now stab butt out Doting body Been thrown below She's the it girl Her epic dust
Feb 18, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Julie Carr
Poem Poem
(circa 1185) I love the jubilance of springtime When leaves and flowers burgeon forth, And I exult in the mirth of bird songs Resounding through the woods; And I relish seeing the meadows Adorned with tents and pavilions; And great is my happiness When the fields are packed With armored knights and horses. And I thrill at the sight of scouts Forcing men and women to flee with their belongings; And gladness fills me when they are chased By a dense throng of armed men; And my heart soars When I behold mighty castles under siege As their ramparts crumble and collapse With troops massed at the edge of the moat And strong, solid barriers Hemming in the target on all sides. And I am likewise overjoyed When a baron leads the assault, Mounted on his horse, armed and unafraid, Thus giving strength to his men Through his courage and valor. And once the battle has begun Each of them should be prepared To follow him readily, For no man can be a man Until he has delivered and received Blow upon blow. In the thick of combat we will see Maces, swords, shields, and many-colored helmets Split and shattered, And hordes of vassals striking in all directions As the horses of the dead and wounded Wander aimlessly around the field. And once the fighting starts Let every well-born man think only of breaking Heads and arms, for better to be dead Than alive and defeated. I tell you that eating, drinking, and sleeping Give me less pleasure than hearing the shout Of "Charge!" from both sides, and hearing Cries of "Help! Help!," and seeing The great and the ungreat fall together On the grass and in the ditches, and seeing Corpses with the tips of broken, streamered lances Jutting from their sides. Barons, better to pawn Your castles, towns, and cities Than to give up making war. (Translated from the Provençal by Paul Auster)
Feb 18, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Bertran de Born
Three Poems Three Poems
These three poems from Blackbird and Wolf are published with permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Homosexuality First I saw the round bill, like a bud; then the sooty crested head, with avernal eyes flickering, distressed, then the peculiar long neck wrapping and unwrapping itself, like pity or love, when I removed the stovepipe cover of the bedroom chimney to free what was there and a duck crashed into the room (I am here in this fallen state), hitting her face, bending her throat back (my love, my inborn turbid wanting, at large all night), backing away, gnawing at her own wing linings (the poison of my life, the beast, the wolf), leaping out the window, which I held open (now clear, sane, serene), before climbing back naked into bed with you. Poppies Waking from comalike sleep, I saw the poppies, with their limp necks and unregimented beauty. Pause, I thought, say something true: It was night, I wanted to kiss your lips, which remained supple, but all the water in them had been replaced with embalming compound. So I was angry. I loved the poppies, with their wide-open faces, how they carried themselves, beckoning to me instead of pushing away. The way in and the way out are the same, essentially: emotions disrupting thought, proximity to God, the pain of separation. I loved the poppies, with their effortless existence, like grief and fate, but tempered and formalized. Your hair was black and curly; I combed it. Beach Walk I found a baby shark on the beach. Seagulls had eaten his eyes. His throat was bleeding. Lying on shell and sand, he looked smaller than he was. The ocean had scraped his insides clean. When I poked his stomach, darkness rose up in him, like black water. Later, I saw a boy, aroused and elated, beckoning from a dune. Like me, he was alone. Something tumbled between us-- not quite emotion. I could see the pink interior flesh of his eyes. "I got lost. Where am I?" he asked, like a debt owed to death. I was pressing my face to its spear-hafts. We fall, we fell, we are falling. Nothing mitigates it. The dark embryo bares its teeth and we move on.
Feb 12, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Henri Cole
Dust in a Word Dust in a Word
We go in and out of doors that's who we are next question? What rules? I never understood just what or what not The plan is the mind whose hand how far And so more than you know than you'll ever
Feb 4, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Clark Coolidge
Clair de Lune Clair de Lune
We revolt ourselves; we disgust and annoy us. The way we look at us lately chills us to the core. We become like those who seek to destroy us. We push ourselves into small tasks that employ us unrewardingly on purpose. We tire, we bore. We revolt ourselves; we disgust and annoy us. We rent ourselves to what force will enjoy us into oblivion: wind, drink, sleep. We pimp, we whore. We become like those who seek to destroy us. We cat-and-mouse, roughhouse, inflatable-toy us in our heads' red maze, in its den, on its shore. We revolt ourselves; we disgust and annoy us. We take offense at our being; we plot, we deploy us against us and flummox; we wallow, we war. We become like those who seek to destroy us. If in triumph, our defeat; in torture, our joy is. Some confusion so deep I can't fathom anymore. We appall ourselves; we disgust and annoy us into those we become we who seek to destroy us.
Jan 21, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Timothy Donnelly
Black Sun Black Sun
Inferno happened when Dante explained to us how he functions sexually. Before then, it did not exist. And Petrarch. Who like a green dog on four wet, dark-green legs sniffs Vaucluse and touches his clothes. He thinks about the books his father burnt, not about Laura. It has to do with the race. Who is faster. God with his sand or we with our tongue. Sand is the tongue of fire. Tongue is the fire of sand. Fire is the sand of God. I'm falling. I fall like an oak doomed to die, and also women want to be more than metaphor. With their moist, round, soft skin, with their drunken scent of warm mushrooms they drive me insane. Walls of hell, why do you stagger. I miss the smell of burnt flesh. Nature makes me tired. It tires me so terribly that I sink in a cave. Stars move apart. I am the Sun. With no air. Fake fire falls upon the children's black hair, advancing into their hearts so they burst like buckles. Their mouths yawn open as if they were mummies. They rave in benediction, they gargle my name as I get dressed. When I adjust my collar in front of him--the mirror-- everything is already late. (Translated from the Slovenian by Peter Richards and Ana Jelnikar)
Jan 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Tomaž Šalamun
Caveat Caveat
There's a caveat on the living trees, but don't chop up the dead wood: especially not the trunks stretched hollow, homes of snakes and echidnas. When it rains hard they drum a bold message, and when the wind stirs through these sacred woodlands they pipe like great church organs. That's your patois. Understand. Understand.
Jan 7, 2009 / Books & the Arts / John Kinsella