Fear of the Blind
The blind tap their way from stone to stone feel from shadow to shadow, suncaressed between the plane-trees. I listen with closed eyes to the dry autumnal sound of their searching. Whom the tree grows in, whom clouds compel, green enter, red, blue of a bell of a ringing sky; whom wings delight or waving weed on frayed sleeves of the sea, I fear the blind: they cannot share my world but stop its spinning with their heavy shadows. Paris, 1947
Early Poems
The Innocent
by Denise Levertov
BIOGRAPHY
The cat has his sport
and the mouse suffers
but the cat
is innocent
having no image of pain in him
an angel
dancing with his prey
carries it, frees it, leaps again
with joy upon his darling plaything
a dance, a prayer!
How cruel the cat is to our guilty eyes
Interim
for K.S.A black page of night flutters: dream on or waken, words will spring from darkness now, gold-bright, to fill the hollow mind laid still to hear them, as an iron cup laid on the window-ledge, would fill with rain. Not more alone waking than sleeping, in darkness than in light, yet it is now we can assume an attitude more listening than longing, extend invisible antennae towards some intimation, echo, emanation falling slowly like a destined feather that lights at last before the feet of hesitating fear. Not less alone in city than in solitude, at least this time--an hour or minute?--left between dreaming and action, where the only glitter is the soft gleam of words, affording intimacy with each submerged regret, awakes a new lucidity in pain, so that with day we meet familiar angels that were lately tears and smile to know them only fears transformed. London, 1946
Early Poems
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| Le trani episode, 1972 Bronce Louise Bourgeois Palacio de Bellas Artes, México DF, 2013 Photo by Triunfo Arciniegas |
The Earthwoman and the Waterwomanby Denise Levertov
BIOGRAPHY
The earthwoman by her oven
tends her cakes of good grain.
The waterwoman’s children
are spindle thin.
The earthwoman
has oaktree arms. Her children
full of blood and milk
stamp through the woods shouting.
The waterwoman
sings gay songs in a sad voice
with her moonshine children.
When the earthwoman
has had her fill of the good day
she curls to sleep in her warm hut
a dark fruitcake sleep
but the waterwoman
goes dancing in the misty lit-up town
in dragonfly dresses and blue shoes.
The Dreamers
The sleeping sensual head lies nearer than her hand, but secret and remote, an impenetrable land. Each, in the hardening crystal a prisoner of pride, abstractedly caresses the stranger at his side, duality’s abyss unspanned by desire, reason’s cold salamander scatheless in the fire. She hears the sound of midnight that breaks like a sea, and leans above the sleeper as secretive as he.
There are never any suicides in the quarter among people one knows
No successful suicides.
A Chinese boy kills himself and is dead.
(they continue to place his mail in the letter rack at the Dome)
A Norwegian boy kills himself and is dead.
(no one knows where the other Norwegian boy has gone)
They find a model dead
alone in bed and very dead.
(it made almost unbearable trouble for the concierge)
Sweet oil, the white of eggs, mustard and water, soap suds
and stomach pumps rescue the people one knows.
Every afternoon the people one knows can be found at the café.
| Three Poems by Juliana Leslie  |
Everything inside of everything else fox and sparrow crocus and plumage you make hibiscus who is also rose of Sharon though you are nothing compared to chrysanthemum who travels 5,000 miles and then some “For you” “I have never felt so alive” Tell me more about crayons, contingency and winter fruit polyamorous structural locations we know aren’t always the best for human hands anyway Tell me she is all worn out from work and thinking the ghostly opposite or optimistic messenger a perpetual shoe shine or softer more brilliant orange I embrace wherein love lies like a human anatomy lesson More palpable and more more Tell me we need more rigor more strings, more disclosure, more collapsed lungs, crooked teeth, broken capillaries, tell me we need more of what happens to bodies when bodies decide to say what they want more of More love in the vernacular for example More words like longing, appetite, hunger more bodies to willfully embrace in summer kitchens Tell me you want more sublimation of history by palpable whim and fancy More French in brunette more four inside five more singular features to render clean of muscle, more muscle More of that feeling that accompanies an unsettled state of being More of the condition of being naturally disposed to several different feelings and tell me more about these words turbulent, euphoria, indiscreet If such a thought were in me to provide movement at the level of writing I would ride this train all over California I would and I would hum I would sleep in both CONJUNCTIONS:48, Spring 2007 http://www.conjunctions.com/preview.htm  |
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| Photo by Watson |
