Friday, December 10, 2010

Santa Maria Maggiore, p. 92 - (Jim Krull)‏

(after an illustration in "Grieben Bildband 202 a  ROM")


Populated rooves of angels       men,
Above the convexed scene is plain
       Unadorned spaces-between and windows,
Curve after dot, thin and fat
       The color some is light and others darker,
Largest sign and symbol in contrasts;
       Of the right-most light shines through.




                                         110910

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Translation from Les Fleurs du Mal (Eliot Cardinaux)

  La Beauté  (Beauty) 
          Charles Beaudelaire


I am beautiful, o mortals! Like a dream of stone,
And my breast, where each one bruises himself in turn,
Is made to inspire love, in the poet,
Eternal and mute as matter.

I am throned in the azure like a sphinx, misunderstood;
I level the heart of snow with the whiteness of swans;
hate the movement which displaces lines,
And I never cry, I never laugh.

The poets, before my grand attitudes,
Borrowed from the proudest monuments,
Consume their days in studious austerity;

Since I have, to fascinate these docile lovers,
Pure mirrors that make all things more beautiful:
My eyes, my large eyes of eternal clarity!


                                                        Translated by EC

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Variation on “Wilted Rose” (Sean Ali)

Burgeoning bud,
            the fleshy hand
Clean of the mud,
            clean of the sand
No form, no shape,
            No wine of the grape
A brewing storm
            from touch of the nape
In sand we sift,
            with fleshy hand
                        for gold
                                    we grip

The burgeoning bud
            is laughing a laugh
                        while the shepherd holds
                                    his rickety staff

How art thou staid,
            O soul of mine?
When the body is frayed
            by ravaging time
Without the shape, without the form
            it stood erect
                        although forlorn
Without the shape, without the form
            it stood still
                        amidst the storm

How art thou staid,
            O, soul of mine?
Whither hast flown
            this vanishing line?

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

A Fragment from "The Aim", Pt. 3; l. 60-125 - (Jim Krull)

He who merits whatever                                                                    60
            "And this, writes Jeremiah, is the answer
he received: 'Say not, I am a child :
for thou shalt go to all that I shall
send thee, and whatsoever I command
thee thou shalt speak."
All goes quiet, for alien is not around
Nor monsters from the deep sewer,
Marine entering
              lower of the first levels; Each
              has more than enough to pile                                               70
              most of the scaly enemy.


Tell me how to put this tower of sand
          as neatly all completed rows
Seed the errand of comparison
          filled by drops and the crook'd line crown

                                    Out of the window-draws
                                    feet,                                                            80
                                    inaudible and green ---
                     Blindless, cloth-less  ---
The repetition seen naked in the night against
                     shows a costume-less dance.


Each of these could bind the tear and tide.
Round and from afar
(with the urged eye)
                     placed into words                                                        90
from actions, then back (in)to words
the one section does not nullify

One error in set
Makes the others forfeit.

only makes the first (action-image) stronger.
In the present circumstances
refrain encourages farther distances,
the numbers...1,3,1...are forward;                                                      100

Bonds are once mechanically altered,
The filed extension of the - closest - tower

Hooks and gone-lid signs
are the game of bird's
quick playful movement

Everyone marked
this song-lit thread                                                                            110
joined parts far motion,
the water comes upward to the sound.

The approach of something new
...of the newly visioned
Where in lacking strength of sight
Show of visible process
Where the before unseen hue
Without long roar-less night.
                                                                                                       120
Those who rest in the deepened
Whole halls of memory, that after spring
                 It is heavy, gives weight impression
to the hands, the floating spectre
intention fools miss.

Invocation (Sean Ali)

Invocation

Walking mistrust
The knife in the heart
The smart kiss lust
Persuasion her art
You,
            my angel,
                        pure light
            and devoid of will
While that one with fall
Knocked from a great height
Laps up the metallic blood spill
Makes the promise of death to forestall

Sauntering disinterest
And a trust that’s been missed
Your trust has been placed in the mist
And you dead ones
            lying under faded stone:
What wine have you tasted?
On what crags were you tossed and left alone?
What women have you kissed?
What tryst of dawn left you afire in ossified bone?
From what perils have you hasted,
Where the heart as a sculpture stood
When all the rest had abandoned the good?
What end did you meet in that shadow of a standstill?
By what mysterious force, what unknowable will?

Two New Poems For Today from Mark Ge

Cocktail

Counterfeit or real?
Like simulated isolation
a quarter, fifty cents for say half an hour
shredding coffee beans in the mid morning
just having gotten out of bed
the break ins unbearable
all the smoke in the air
the television sound on in the other room
as incense flows
terracotta buildings
puddles of water
an ice cream cone
and then the memories fade
and I'm still here in Massachusetts
...without a dime

Medicine Transcripts

My old movies unreturned, weeks late
banana peels on my table
medicine before defecation in the morning
makes me wonder if I am doing it right
like drinking coffee while pissing

Walked to the store today
to listen to the traffic