Archives:


xoxo Hey, E-Mail Me! xoxo
ManY PoETiKaL HaTs LisT:

Holly's Pirate-girl Hat, chrismurray in a straw hat, Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern NOLA Fedora. Duchamp's Rrose Selavy's flirting hat. Max Ernst's Hats of The Hat Makes the Man. Jordan Davis' The Hat! poetry. hks' smelly head baseball cap. Samuel Beckett's Lucky's Black bowler hat, giving his oration on what's questionable in mankind, in *Waiting for 'God-ot'*. my friend John Phillips's 1969 dove gray fedora w/ wild feather. Bob Dylan's mystery lover's Panama Hat. Bob Creeley's Black Mountain Felt Boater Hat. Duke Ellington's Satin Top Hat. Acorn Hats of Tree. Freud's 1950 City Fedora. Joseph Brodsky's Sailor Cap. Harry K Stammer's Copper Hat Hell. Lewis LaCook's bowler hat(s). Tom Beckett's Bad Hair Day Furry Pimp Hat. Daughter Holly's black beret. harry k stammer's fez. Cat in the Hat's Hat & best hat, Googling Texfiles: crocheted hat with flames. Harry K Stammer's tinseled berets. Tex's 10 gallon Gary Cooper felt Stetson cowboy hat. Jordan Davis's fedora. Dali's High-heel Shoe Hat. Harry K Stammer's en-blog LAPD Hat & aluminum baseball cap. cap'n caps. NY-Yankees caps. the HKS-in-person-caps are blue or green no logos nor captions. Ma Skanky Possum 10's nighttime cap. moose antler hat. propeller beenie hat. doo rag. knit face mask hat. Bob Dylan's & photographer Laziz Hamani's panama hats. Mark Weiss's Publisher's Hat. Rebecca Loudon's Seattle-TX-Hats'n'boots.

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ultimate: Stephanie Young's First Well Nourished Moon
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Cori Copp's Littleshirleybean
Jordan Davis: Million Poems
Eileen Tabios: Corpsepoetics [see Chatelaine above]
YaY! Liz's Thirdwish
Ultra Linking
Henry Gould's HG Poetics

---

chris at 7:24 PM |

 

from Anny Ballardini, Texfiles Poet of the Week, beginning on Valentine's Day :

A Very Warm Welcome to Anny!

Here is some biographical information followed by section 3 of Anny's poem, Ten (sections 1 & 2 were posted earlier today, so scroll down for them) :

Anny Ballardini is an interpreter and translator (English Italian--and a rusted French) with a double citizenship (American-Italian). She has lived in Bozen, South Tyrol, Italy, for the last eight years. Curator of the Poets' Corner: Fiera Lingue, a page supported by the local Pedagogical Institute, her work has appeared on the following sites: Muse Apprentice Guild, Art Sanitorium, Nycbigcitylit.com, Poiein, Niederngasse, Unesco, Poetrybay, Poetix.net, Colloquium.upol.cz, among others. Re.: her translations, to be mentioned is "Swimming through water," by George Wallace, of which she is also the curator; "On the trail of words," a book for children by Larry Jaffe, of which she is also the illustrator; "Notebook of Positano" (brief poetic fragments) and "The Renaissance of the Self" (essay) by Arturo Onofri; "Smokestacks Allegro" by Rita Cominolli; and Henry Gould's "In_RI". At the moment she is an English teacher at the European Linguistic Lyceum Marcelline, and works as a free-lance journalist.


* * *

from Ten (section 3)

... & kangaroos in Australia were as important to Me as elegant quick vipers sneaking away from the scorching hot rock of a sun-blest summer day all day its rays hit the harsh flatness of its surface you could scramble eggs on it & the viper was there half dozing amazing it was to let warmth enter through its hard scaly skin the surrounding sunset burning skies in surging splinters of incandescence
outside reality/inside reflection oscillate & develop day-by-day night-by-night/consideration after consideration followed by original statements to be potentially vanquished the length of further nights & days and measured mental ways inside an hypothetical almost tangible division necessary to slowly pace, out of the rooted need to know who and what we are therefore restricted in two distinct worlds: mental and physical, wo/men allow for this gratifying peaceful divisionary space/gap to be why should you pull out further lies -lies everywhere they flicker through the many-leveled nights of un/consciousness our battles ...

* * *


oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo copyright of Anny Ballardini xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

chris at 5:38 PM |

 

from Found :

Heart in the Forest of Glass

              for DTM



Heart in the wind, the winter fog heart on a sidewalk seam
a melt a more red sugar stream in a dense fog & you
translucent neon tube heart in the forest of glass
upstairs membrane swaying in tree a seat a swing rocking back forth
or a Grimm hunter abandoning his word with a box
gushing of the hart's heart slipping between more & careful
licking of the heart on over-much cinnamon, the drop heart

fingers I cannot name you so I name you my no
heart no respite heart--heart of hearts--heart beating in the twist
of rib & heart cage heart sinew & skin muscle heart reciprocity
segue with knee or elbow beloved arm & lung a film a centenary

art heart body-isinglass-story or from heart a modern
window a 30 light bulb neon heart
a heat now on today that kind of stark
no frill cafe checkered curtain window over no
for your excess heart every
lost heart-heart on its second wanton a hard
wood floor balcony stairway doorway & guitar
heart or paper heart of green tear splash from the muddy ground
& your heart afire like a wheel in between licks
or scuffs on anonymous pavement
consistent follow up responsible regular O Doctor Heart
of Hearts

or lighthouse heart: heart full of boats!
coming & going passing in nights ship heart,
sail boat heart, skiff & motor boat heart
O thatÂ’s it! beacon red beating striped heart like a tongue
damn bloody heart anyways of the bleating
waves, the white caps! ours the body of love maintenance
not love but love anyway heart of New England
behoveliness in live-love in live video stream feed
says heart & abject as old testament psalms sweet

heart of Whitman gathering bundling embracing all hearts
& beacons & bleats over death heat
of sacral 3 & your 3 a.m. dearth of will
wonder here will you press
to me so like a thumb that fond pressure of your one heart
ever & again ever & again & oh my again?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ o~o\ ~~~~~~~~~~copyright of chris murray~~~~~~~~~~~~

chris at 5:26 PM |

 

This Fabulous Poetry Rave of Snow, Ocean of snows... we move among bright elisions...

This fabulous poetry rave of snow in honor of the fact that it snowed blankets here in north Texas last night!

& this fabulous poetry rave of snow in honor of what is good, beautiful, & therefore, anti-negatational, a sustenance or a wild affirmational existence (are we still allowed such currency or to name anything as such?) in the face of all manner of glib, unself-recognized bougie and upper bougie erosion leading to self-mockery of the ability to think, act, and say critically, which seems to me simultaneously both beyond and including the effects of war outright, perhaps the most damaging rhetorical and cultural effect of our current western moment.

& this fabulous poetry rave of snow, simply, as promised, & which is noted--with many thanks to Mark Woods!--on one of my fav sites, Wood's Lot :

& this fabulous poetry, continuing here, with the serial excerpt of Saint-John Perse, as translated by William Rees:


Neiges IV Snows IV
[Texfiles section 2; scroll down to 13 Feb 9:03 p.m. for Texfiles section 1]

Ainsi l'homme mi-nu sur l'Ocean des neiges, rompant soudain l'immense libration, poursuit un singulier dessein ou les mots n'ont plus prise. Epouse du monde ma presence, epouse du monde ma prudence! ... Et du cote des eaux premierees me retournant avec le jour, comme le voyageur, a la neomenie, dont la conduite est incertaine et la demarche est aberrante, voici que j'ai dessein d' errer parmi les plus vielles couches du langage, parmi les plus hautes tranches phonetiques: jusqu'a des langues tres lointaines, jusqu'a des langues tres entieres et tres parcimomieuses, comme ces langues dravidiennes qui n'eurent pas de mots distincts pour 'hier' et pour 'demain' ... Venez et nous suivez.
qui n'avons mots a dire: nous remontons ce pur delice sans graphic ou court l'antique phrase humaine; nous nous mouvons parmi de claires elisions, des residus d'anciens prefixes ayant perdu leur initiale, et devancant les beaux travaux de linguistique, nous nous frayons nos voies nouvelles jusqu'a ces locutions inouies, ou l'aspiration recule au dela des voyelles et la modulation du souffle se propage, au gre de telles labiales mi-sonores, en quete de pures finales vocaliques.
[YaY!! more French without accents!]



Thus man half-naked on the Ocean of the snows, fracturing suddently the vast libration, pursues a singular purpose in which words have no more hold. Spouse of the world my presense, spouse of the world my caution! ... And turning with the day towards the primeval waters, like the traveller, at new moon, whose course is uncertain and whose step is aberrant, now it is my design to wander among the oldest layers of language, among the most elevated phonetic strata: as far as very distant languages, as far as very complete and very parsimmonious languages, like those Dravidian languages which had no distinct words for 'yesterday' and for 'tomorrow' ... Come and follow us, who have no words to say: we are ascending that pure unwritten delight where runs the ancient human phrase; we move among bright elisions, residues of old prefixes that have lost their initial, and preceding the fine works of linguistics, we carve out our new roads to those unprecedented locutions where aspiration withdraws beyond vowels and the modulation of the breath is diffused at the will of certain half-sounded labials, in search of pure vocalic finals.

chris at 5:01 PM |

 

This, per a note from Kent Johnson, a warm welcome from Texfiles to Canary River Review poetry editor, Anthony Robinson, who has a new blog: Geneva Convention (Hi, Anthony!--So nice to see you out here : )

chris at 1:42 PM |

 

My Very UnDonne-3-personed-Valentine to All :

2 Texfiles Poets of the Week simultaneously: the latest addition, Anny Ballardini !
& the continuing, Wendy Taylor Carlisle.
Then, coming up later this evening:
a new cm poem from "Found."

Enjoy!

chris at 1:23 PM |

 

Special for Valentine's Day: Announcing another fine Texfiles Poet of the Week :

a very warm welcome to Anny Ballardini !


I will be posting from Anny's prose poem, Ten, over the next several days. Here are the first 2 sections (scroll up for section 3 also posted today, with Anny's detailed bio) :

* * *

the in/evitable necessity of borders as limit of things thoughts entities, protection and distinction of the being in its in/finite dual un/changeable & circular thinking



ten - 10 - ten

there is a one and a zero tied but separate
distinct as per delineation in a form thus united in the meaning of a composed number
the function of limit, man-woman, same human cosmic spiritual entity,
different outside and inside structure, why should we be the same if we are not, borders separate but they are anyhow bound to join
out of the friction of diversity
sexual intercourse goes deeper than any idealized thought
brought forth in uneasy riots against an historical sequence
which has unequivocally recognized the ultimate distinction/alikeness of wo/man illuminated by a superior force
if confinement is looked for it is to follow unseen the movement of our beloved


no distances or physical traits or talents or colors of the aura/skin or aspirations/selfish
disappointments ideals/argumentative contradictions idioms in the a-/religious objectiveness
are integrated as a fundamental element
starting from that lukewarm uterus water to go through by suffocating knots - stage by stage - as if propelled out of necessity to reach
until nothing will be ultimately & humanly said
mirrored scattered light still confounds the rational while tracing the Borders of Austria with France
Argentina with China
when with the spreading of diseases or of nuclear destructive clouds/wars & yes you Irish, Japanese are my bro?

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of Anny Ballardini~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

chris at 1:18 PM |

 

from Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Texfiles Poet of the Week :


Tragos *


They say about goats,
they’ll eat anything.
But that’s not entirely true
since there are
whole food groups
they avoid: hubcaps,
munitions,
Molly Hatchet 8 Tracks.
You can listen
for a goat hymn
in the clatter of rocks,
in the sighs of a woman,
buried to her neck
in Nigerian sand.
And sighing in the long vowels
of her name,
a goat chorus that urges us
to a dusty field, tells us
we can lie down
and the song
will enter us like a stone.


* [tragos: goat song]


~ ~ ~


The Flesh Is That Prime Location


His sister found him barefoot, a poured-out
Jack Daniels at his elbow. She said, the life of
meat ends in hopeful annihilation. I said,
He gave me the best smooch I ever had.
He personally abhorred the cheek-brush, the air-kiss,
loved to press his real naked belly to my back.
I have the photograph of him, looking over his shoulder
across the airport tarmac, and another leaning,
like he always did, against a satiny fender that just screamed,
California! As if I’d leave, he once mocked me,
or might have but the fact was he lugged that real estate,
those places, that map from border to border
although it turned out at last he was the one with the paper
heart, one chamber crumpling into the next and
blood filling his lungs, a Puget Sound.
The Rockies, Monument Valley—he shared certain
facts with me about the Oklahoma State line,
taught me to expand across an Arizona horizon
during those first provisional months when
my actual size, my narrowness, didn’t come into it.
Then he turned off, on his way
to the other Carolina, his face puffed up
with passion he wanted to feel later. He never
meant to go for good while
I hunkered outside in the southern summer.
He always meant to open the door.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~copyright of Wendy T. Carlisle~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

chris at 12:47 PM |

 

Texfiles: Where Everyone's Everyone's Lover !

One Time Only for Happy Valentines Day: Plural poetry works :
coinciding Texfiles Poets of the Week : YaY!!

& Saturday afternoon here brings the announcement of yet another, fine, Texfiles Poet of the Week, and the posting of new poems.

& The posting of more new poems from Texfiles Poet of the Week, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, who will be calling in an audblog reading of some of her work this weekend.

& A new cm poem from the Found series.

Happy Valentines Day, Y'All--

Enjoy!

chris at 3:45 AM |

 

Wow. So much the rarity:
right now it is

* * snowing * *

right here in Dallas, Texas.

chris at 3:41 AM |

Friday, February 13, 2004

 

from the Dalai Lama :

"Although anger and hatred, like compassion and love, are part of our mind, still I believe the dominant force of our mind is compassion and human affection."

"I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence."

"All pleasure and pain basically derive from the mind."

"If there is a tree in your courtyard, it creates around it an atmosphere of natural beauty and serenity."

chris at 9:44 PM |

 

from St. John Perse * :

Neiges IV


Seul a faire le compte, du haut de cette chambre d'angle qu'environne un Ocean de neiges. -- Hote precaire de l'instant, homme sans preuve ni temoin, detacherai-je mon lit bas comme une pirogue de sa crique? ... Ceux qui campent chaque jour plus loin du lieu de leur naissance, ceux qui tirent chaque jour le cours des choses illisibles; et remontant les fleuves vers leur source, entre les vertes apparences, ils sont gaghnes soudain de cet eclet severe ou toute langue perd ses armes. **

[as translated by William Rees] :

I, lone accountant, from the height of this corner room encompassed in an Ocean of snows... Precarious guest of the moment, man without evidence or witness, shall I unmoor my low bed like a dug-out canoe from its cove? ... Those who pitch camp farther each day from their birthplace, those who haul in their boat each day on other banks, know better each day the course of illegible things; and going upstream towards the rivers' source, amid the green appearances they are seized suddenly in that harsh glare where all language loses its weapons.

(650)


* Saint John Perse, "Neiges IV," in The Penguin Book of French Poetry. William Rees, Ed., Transl. London: Penguin, 1992.
[note: I'll be posting this long prose poem in sections over the next few days. cm]

** YaY!! French on a page without accents!--pending a text-French translator tool... : )

chris at 9:03 PM |

Thursday, February 12, 2004

 

from Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Texfiles Poet of the Week :


The Other Story


Nobody thought it was a dream
and it wasn't.
That year's bumper crops were jilted lovers and Cochins,
Twelve months and nothing but
tears and feathers. That year George
paddled into the bayou to drown himself
and didn't.
He kept his fortune and
his cook stove.
That year the waitress took off for Memphis.
That year Margie ate
alone at Furr's Cafeteria. Nobody
wrote a will or a last testament.
No one sent a letter home.


* * *


Honey

Stones came at her like bees to candy/ And sweet redheaded harlot that she was/ She screamed out, "I never, I never."--Anne Sexton


The redhead thinks about losing
what she never had: his hands, those
curious bears, thinks of the invisible
inverse, a cooler universe, where
he could love her and bless desire.
He never--
She craves the ravaged plane of his chest, his skin
its pores and wrinkles, the beehive of its shivering,
its strange, familiar smells. The redhead runs
counter to public opinion, turns for comfort
to nature, to honey, to river stone,
moves away from the village to escape--
over her shoulder, the first rock. She picks it up--
I never. We never. Never



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!copyright of Wendy T. Carlisle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

chris at 4:25 AM |

 

I'm honored! Anny Ballardini has included me on her beautiful poetry site,

Fiera Lingue

Many Thanks to you gracious Anny!

chris at 3:38 AM |

 

Ben's got it goin' on with the quizzes, yAWp. . .

and I've been enjoying reading what Eileen's reading trip to NYC was like

chris at 3:08 AM |

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

 

My students are writing sestinas for next week. This should be good stuff. One model they're reading is Ashbery's "Farm Implements...," a standard for that assignment, of course. I can't wait to see what they do with this one!

& Hey, Students: if interested in Ashbery, check out this interesting dialectics of an Ashbery reading, where 2 members of the 'audience'... a collective noun," *give differing responses to a recent reading at the New School (via Shanna Compton's Brand New Insects blog: thanks, Shanna, for this interesting, alternative take on poetry readings).

* Note added Sat. 14 Feb: I just realized that I got the quote above wrong (um... sorry!--at times it happens here, hopefully no harm done except semantically this time... ). It should read : "... 'audience' is a mass noun..." not a _collective_ "noun," as I put it above. Quite a difference. Not that anyone complained, just that it should of course be accurately put.

chris at 4:10 PM |

 

This, too : rockin' what poor Petrarch could not soul nor say...

chris at 4:06 PM |

 

Wonderful! A section of one of the poems from kari's recent readings in Philadelphia and NYC. Thanks for this, kari--this poem rocks!

chris at 3:54 PM |

 

Sujet-To-Change-To-Subject-To-Change-To-Changing the Sujet

I just opened Texfiles for the first time in twelve hours and realized that one of the most visible terms up top was misspelled. Damn, I say: Where's your sense of propriety in language, Chris? Heck, "iridescence" sur sunds lik it shd hv too r's, dozen't it? La la la...

And you know, everybody's got an opinion about spelling? I do like things to be spelled right, sure, wherever possible and most desirable. And everyone's got an opinion about most of the "rules," which have never been stable or fixed, but always subject to change. English language in it's everyday uses has proven to be incredibly flexible in that and in every other conceivable way. Here's what I think of spelling and typo "errors" : shit happens, yah kno?--Oh well. I mean yeah, give it yr best, but if somethin didn't get its special cross on its special t, or if you ended up somehow with one more r than the dictionary says you should have, then, don't sweat it. Ya said somethin' meaningfully, somehow, right? When you get to it, you go ahead and make it fit yr time's givens and conventions of usage, which are, anyway, supported and constructed mostly by people with beautiful degrees in things or areas that the rest of the folks cannot, unfortunately, even begin to take seriously, which in any case are rules that are never stable or fixed, but endlessly subject to change according to many variables: if it's my blog, well, that's a playground, who really cares if the slide has some rain drops on it? Now if it's my student's recommendation letter to Harvard Biz-Buzz Skhoul, well, really that's reason to run the machine's SuperAutoSpellCheckSpectacularBells&WhistlesBangUpCarWashWithJetSpraySudsSwirlingBrushiesAndAll

yah kno?

Just in case you were wondering how I am about that...

:)

chris at 12:40 AM |

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

 

Yes: the iridescence !

chris at 12:24 PM |

 

Coming up this evening: a report on Shin Yu Pai's excellent reading and presentation of photography last Saturday night here at University of TX, Arlington (gosh, we really had a great time!--Shin Yu rocks... see/hear this poet as soon as you can!) with a post of one of her beautiful poems from the new book, * Equivalence * (la alameda, 2003)

chris at 12:19 PM |

 

Hey! Thanks, folks :

Many Thanks to Hannah Craig
for her generous good words about Wendy's poems.

and

Many Thanks to Michael Snider for noting and offering such good words yesterday on Jim Bratone's sonnet from my current poetry course.

chris at 12:07 PM |

 

from Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Texfiles Poet of the Week:


The OED


Praise wonderful words.
Praise ardent (obsolete) as that which burns like vitriol,
as the heart scalds. Praise ardent
as combustible, as a heart that bursts to flame.
Praise the music of imbroglio, in which the vocal or instrumental
parts are made to sing against each other like blood.
Praise also the great confusion of imbroglio,
the heart of chaos.
Bless, moreover, transitory: in Law, as an action
in which the venue may be laid in any country, in such a case,
the heart fails for a time,
before the swamp takes it back.
Praise, above all, the fleeting, brief, transitory,
as in Glanville, our life. .


[from the Come-to-Jesus, Crowd-Pleaser Sonnets]

* * *


I Swan


Everyone makes much of it, but truth to tell
the honor could have had more physical appeal.
Trumpeters have limited romantic skills
and lack imagination,
not to mention lips.
During the act, I must admit,
I entertained some questions of a theologic nature.

The poets say he overwhelmed me on that bank—
the sudden blow, the storm of wings.
Why do they reckon I gave in?
Inquisitive? You bet. And let me say that even mediocre sex
can’t take the edge off having done it with a God.

As for the kids, around the neighborhood my alibi is this:
they came from eggs. Don’t blame me if they didn’t turn out good.

* * *

I want to add this news to Wendy's bio:
She has a new chapbook, After Happily Ever After, in the 2River Chapbook series, at 2Riverand she's working on a new book, Nine Parts Water.

chris at 11:52 AM |

Monday, February 09, 2004

 

I'm very pleased to be able to post this sonnet from Jim Bratone, one of the students in my poetry course. Jim's a Dallas artist, a sculptor, and lately has also been doing some fine work with poetry writing.

Feeding the Cat


It's not the food he wants. His eyes' flame strafes
the ceiling's water stain. I spoon mere sole
to the battered mirror of the dish he sniffs
and leaves untouched. A mendicant with bowl
in hand, I follow through the grease-dark kitchen.
He bleats into the den where breezes blow
the torn screen door. He pours out and in again,
then arcs his spine to fill my hand's hollow.
I can't provide what he wants, or say just where
our circling leads or why we stare through that space
in the kitchen ceiling as through an aperture.
I laugh. As we await a shutter's release,
the bowl returns my own meagre reflection.
He prints his negative hungers on mine.


************************* o~o/ *******copyright of Jim Bratone**

chris at 2:41 AM |

Sunday, February 08, 2004

 

More on that Faculty Person of the Year Award:

With Kent's award (scroll down some to Friday's announcement), he may be traveling to Austin in May to represent his college at the teacher's conference that selects the national College Teacher of the Year award, for which he is eligible. Keep on Teachin'!--Go Kent!

chris at 4:45 PM |

 

Definitely in the Real Mix:

For poetry, is there meaningful life after brazenly mixing with politics?

Halvard Johnson's poetry in "Centcom Briefings Sonnets," proves it is so: everyday life, poetry, politics...

Thanks, Hal: These poems--and that brazen Newtopia Magazine--rock!

chris at 3:44 PM |

 

from Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Texfiles Poet of the Week :


Winter Blues


The birds fly out,
the wind begins, the wind flies out,
the birds begin and moonlight
sings in your mean white mouth.
Geese move, the rain leans in-
to snowfall, blowing

behind the window glass and all
up on the ridge the outside
worries to be let in,
cats go to the fox, and the carpenter
with the ruined ankles
grieves all our losses. Chapter and verse,

catch and release, he says it’s just
the same. You know,
the moon goes dark. The moon
flies out, you know.
The broken-legged wind goes
flat, the cold and dark begin.


* * *


I Ain’t Gonna Find No Heaven Here,
Whatever Place On Earth I Go.


Vagrant Mr. Bones
leans into the coffin
the scent of her neck
soft tufts of moss
where they lay
the oil stain
on a garage floor
her familiar mouth,
melancholy as
a TV detective
a bare park bench.
“Sorry for your loss.”;
“Anything at all…”
Words, a mean lyric,
the wrong end
of a minstrel song.
all words now
buck and wing
as if they could

from Lightnin’ Hopkins


copyrightWendyTaylorCarlislecopyrightWendyTaylorCarlislecopyrightWendyTaylorCarlisle /o~o/cm

chris at 2:54 PM |

 

from Joseph Brodsky * :


Seven Strophes


I was but what you'd brush
with your palm, what your leaning
brow would hunch to in evening's
raven-black hush

I was but what your gaze
in that dark could distinguish:
a dim shape to begin with,
later--features, a face.

It was you, on my right,
on my left, with your heated
sighs, who molded my helix,
whispering at my side.

It was you by that black
window's trembling tulle pattern
who laid in my raw cavern
a voice calling you back.

I was practically blind.
You, appearing, then hiding,
gave me my sight and heightened
it. Thus some leave behind

a trace. Thus they make worlds.
Thus having done so, at random
wastefully they abandon
their work to its whirls.

Thus, prey to speeds
of light, heat, cold, or darkness,
a sphere in space without markers
spins and spins.

(286-287)



* Joseph Brodsky, Collected Poems in English. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000.

chris at 1:55 PM |

 

Congratulations!-- to Hoa Nguyen and Dale Smith,

who have each been

nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

: )

chris at 3:48 AM |