Ishmael Reed / Beware: Do Not Read This Poem

Beware: Do Not Read This Poem

by Ishmael Reed

tonite, thriller was
abt an ol woman, so vain she
surrounded her self w/
    many mirrors
It got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her
whole life became the
    mirrors

one day the villagers broke
into her house, but she was too
swift for them. she disappeared
    into a mirror
each tenant who bought the house
after that lost a loved one to
    the ol woman in the mirror:
    first a little girl
    then a young woman
    then the young woman/s husband
the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs
back off from this poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem. from
    the waist down
nobody can hear you can they?
this poem has had you up to here
    belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w/ this poem
move & roll on to this poem

    do not resist this poem
    this poem has yr eyes
    this poem has his head
    this poem has his arms
    this poem has his fingers
    this poem has his fingertips
this poem is the reader & the
    reader this poem

statistic: the us bureau of missing persons reports
    that in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared
    leaving no solid clues
        nor trace only
    a space     in the lives of their friends

Thomas Lynch / Liberty

Thomas Lynch

LIBERTY

by Thomas Lynch

Some nights I go out and piss on the front lawn
as a form of freedom—liberty from
porcelain and plumbing and the Great Beyond
beyond the toilet and the sewage works.
Here is the statement I am trying to make:
to say I am from a fierce bloodline of men
who made their water in the old way, under stars
that overarched the North Atlantic where
the River Shannon empties into sea.
The ex-wife used to say, “Why can’t you pee
in concert with the most of humankind
who do their business tidily indoors?”
It was gentility or envy, I suppose,
because I could do it anywhere, and do
whenever I begin to feel encumbered.
Still, there is nothing, here in the suburbs,
as dense as the darkness in West Clare
nor any equivalent to the nightlong wind
that rattles in the hedgerow of whitethorn there
on the east side of the cottage yard in Moveen.
It was market day in Kilrush, years ago:
my great-great-grandfather bargained with tinkers
who claimed it was whitethorn that Christ’s crown was made rom.
So he gave them two and six and brought them home—
mere saplings then—as a gift for the missus,
who planted them between the house and garden.
For years now, men have slipped out the back door
during wakes or wedding feasts or nights of song
to pay their homage to the holy trees
and, looking up into that vast firmament,
consider liberty in that last townland where
they have no crowns, no crappers and no ex-wives.

José Antonio Ramos Sucre / The Infallible Man

The Infallible Blind Man

by José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Translated by Guillermo Parra

     The indifferent page proclaims from a raft the countryside cereals. He negotiates the narrowness and vortex of the sedentary river. A rice paper hat defends his smooth, sculptural person.

     An old man with empty eyes executes a desolate music on his bamboo shepherd’s flute. He lives off alms at the entrance of my lacquer and porcelain trinkets store. At one point he refers to his captivity in the hideout of some highway robbers embittered by his sight, distrustful of his practice of the terrain.

     I exercise the even business of a shopkeeper in a withered city. I attain no amusement save the death of a beggar on the street and the cremation of his cadaver amidst a racket of scamps or otherwise the torture of a parricide sagaciously crushed and quartered by the executioner. 

     The page owes me his rearing. I saved him from succumbing amid some ruins, during a war with the pirates of Europe. The invader’s arms devastated the marble bridge of a metropolis and printed the dye of charcoal and soot on the effigies of some decorative lions. I discovered the infant in a wicker basket, abandoned by his servers in an orchard of camellias and hydrangeas. The smoke from the battle was offending the lofty wisteria, of aerial garland, with a blue flower.

     The old man with the empty eyes encourages my hope in the effects of good and promises me fortune’s grace. He ignores my diligence in defending a privileged child.

     I have followed the conduct of a fisherman in an honest episode and I imagine the visit of a princess with an ivory semblance, afflicted by the loss of a son. Her faculties should rescue me from penury.

El cielo de esmalte (1929)

http://venepoetics.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-08-09T15:35:00-04:00

José Antonio Ramos Sucre

EL CIEGO INFALIBLE

    El doncel indiferente pregona desde una balsa los cereales de la campiña. Sortea la angostura y el vórtice del río sedentario. Un sombrero de paja de arroz defiende su persona lisa, escultural.

   Un anciano de ojos vacíos ejecuta una música desoladora en su caramillo de bambú. Vive de limosna a la puerta de mi tienda de abalorios de laca y de porcelana. Refiere alguna vez su cautiverio en el escondite de unos salteadores encarnizados con su vista, recelosos de su práctica del terreno.

  

   Ejercito el menester igual de comerciante en una ciudad mustia. No alcanzo ningún esparcimiento sino la muerte de un mendigo en la vía pública y la cremación de su cadáver en medio de una algazara de pilletes o bien el suplicio de un parricida estrujado y desarticulado sagazmente por el verdugo.

   

     El doncel me debe su crianza. Yo lo salvé de sucumbir en medio de unas ruinas, durante una guerra con los piratas de Europa. Las armas del invasor devastaron el puente de mármol de una metrópoli e imprimieron el tinte del carbón y del hollín sobre las efigies de unos leones decorativos. Yo descubrí al instante en una cesta de mimbre, abandonado de sus servidores en un vergel de camelias y hortensias. El humo de la batalla ofendía la glicina rozagante, de guirnalda aérea, de flor azul.

   El anciano de los ojos vacíos alienta mi esperanza en los efectos del bien y me promete una gracia de la fortuna. Ignora mi diligencia en defender a un niño privilegiado.

   

  He seguido la conducta de un pescador en un episodio honesto e imagino la visita de una princesa de semblante de marfil, atribulada con el extravío de un hijo. Sus dones deben de rescatarme de la penuria.

El cielo de esmalte, 1929

José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Obra poética

Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2001, p. 374

José Antonio Ramos Sucre / The Herectics

The Heretics

by José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Translated by Guillermo Parra

     The maiden leans out to see the fields, to interrogate a tremulous distance. Her mind suffers the vision of the riders of extermination, described in the pages of Revelation and in a commentary of black stamps. 

     The popular voice decants the rain of blood and the eclipse and warns of the similitude with marvels of years past, contemporary to King Lear. 

     A captain, surly and insolent with his king, fixes the campaign tent, of crimson silk, amidst the ruins. The soldiers, the devils of war, reveal the soot from the fire or from hell on their arid complexion and red hair. A schemer, usurper of the Harlequin suit, persuades them to licentiousness and supplies them with pinchbeck and paper coins.

     The maiden moves the crowds away from the enemies, spending her nights in prayer. They retreat in front of an indelible undergrowth, after vainly exhausting themselves in the aperture of a trail. The blow of their irons could find no seat and was lost in the emptiness.

El cielo de esmalte (1929)
http://venepoetics.blogspot.com/

José Antonio Ramos Sucre

LOS HEREJES

  

 La doncella se asoma a ver el campo, a interrogar una lontananza trémula. Su mente padece la visión de los jinetes del exterminio, descrita en las páginas del Apocalipsis y en un comentario de estampas negras.

    La voz popular decanta la lluvia de sangre y el eclipse y advierte la similitud con las maravillas de antaño, contemporáneas del rey Lear.

    Un capitán, desabrido e insolente con su rey, fija la tienda de campaña, de seda carmesí, en medio de las ruinas. Los soldados, los diablos de la guerra, dejan ver el tizne del incendio o del infierno en la tez árida y su roja pelambre. Un arbitrista, usurpador del traje de Arlequín, los persuade a la licencia y los abastece de monedas de similor y de papel.

    La doncella aleja la muchedumbre de los enemigos, prodigando las noches de oración. Se retiran delante de una maleza indeleble, después de fatigarse vanamente en la apertura de un camino. El golpe de sus hierros no encontraba asiento y se perdía en el vacío.

El cielo de esmalte, 1929

José Antonio Ramos Sucre
Obra poética
Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2001, p. 352

José Antonio Ramos Sucre / The Vengeance of the God

The Vengeance of the God

by José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Translated by Guillermo Parra

     The excess of the inhabitants marred the fame of that pleasant land, dressed in flowers, broken by wild fountains, loved by the gauzy cloud and the paternal sun. It had a weird stone’s name and the sea as tributary in pearls.

     The God watched over the men’s crimes in the undeserving country, and hoped for the birth of a messenger of health and concordance, far from them, in the most umbrous jungle. He is born one night from the breast of a flower, by the lightning flash that paints a luminous stigma on his face. He’s raised under the care of the birds and the trees and by the kindness of the beasts.

     Those men receive the mission of virtue with daring actions and excesses and they pay the envoy with a trance of ignominious death. The God punishes them making the wealth of the land they sully bigger. He nourishes it with fatal treasures that are the unfolding of the sleeplessness of greed, who divide the people into angered bands of rich and poor. The new gifts infest with vengeful hatreds and populate with expiatory bones.

La torre de Timón (1925)
http://venepoetics.blogspot.com/

José Antonio Ramos Sucre

LA VENGANZA DEL DIOS

    El desafuero de los habitantes afeaba la fama de aquella tierra amena, vestida de flores, rota por manantiales ariscos, amada por la nube de gasa y el sol paternal. Tenía el nombre de una piedra rara y al mar de tributario en perlas.

    El Dios velaba el crimen de los hombres en el inmerecido país, y quiso el nacimiento de un mensajero de salud y concordia, lejos de ellos, en la más umbría selva. Nace una noche del seno de una flor, a la luz de un relámpago que pinta en su frente luminoso estigma. Crece al cuidado de las aves y de los árboles y al apego de las fieras.

    Aquellos hombres reciben la misión de virtud con atrevimientos y excesos y pagan al enviado con trance de muerte ignominiosa. El Dios los castiga engrandeciendo la riqueza de la tierra que mancillan. La nutre de tesoros fatales que son desvelo de la codicia, que dividen al pueblo en airados bandos de ricos y de pobres. Los nuevos dones infestan de odios vengativos y pueblan con huesos expiatorios.

La torre del timón, 1925

José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Obra poética

Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2001, p. 58

Raymond Carver / All Her Life

Raymond Carver in the summer of 1969
Photo by Gordon Lish

All Her Life

by Raymond Carver
BIOGRAPHY

I lay down for a nap. But everytime I closed my eyes,
mares' tails passed slowly over the Strait
toward Canada. And the waves. They rolled up on the beach
and then back again. You know I don’t dream.
But last night I dreamt we were watching
a burial at sea. At first I was astonished.
And then filled with regret. But you
touched my arm and said, "No, it's all right.
She was very old, and he'd loved her all her life."

Raymond Carver / My Crow and other poems

Raymond Carver / Your Dog Dies

Raymond Carver / Happiness

Raymond Carver / All Her Life

Raymond Carver / Fear

Raymond Carver / Poems

Raymond Carver / Late Fragment

Robert Bly / Three Poems

Robert Bly

THREE POEMS

by Robert Bly

Watering the Horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse's mane!

For Donald Hall

Have you heard about the boy who walked by
The black water? I won't say much more.
Let's wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.
Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand
Reaches out and pulls him in.

There was no
Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed
Calcium, bones would do. What happened then?

It was a little like the night wind, which is soft,
And moves slowly, sighing like an old woman
In her kitchen late at night, moving pans
About, lighting a fire, making some food for the cat.

Living at the End of Time

There is so much sweetness in children’s voices,
And so much discontent at the end of day,
And so much satisfaction when a train goes by.

I don’t know why the rooster keeps crying,
Nor why elephants keep raising their trunks,
Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night.

A handsome child is a gift from God,
And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand,
And a wound is an inheritance from the wind.

Some say we are living at the end of time,
But I believe a thousand pagan ministers
Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind.

There’s nothing we need to do about John. The Baptist
Has been laying his hands on earth for so long
That the well water is sweet for a hundred miles.

It’s all right if we don’t know what the rooster
Is saying in the middle of the night, nor why we feel
So much satisfaction when a train goes by.