the day falls into step and props itself up on columns of flies. tripping, ebbing tail-lashes and arm movements. the draught animals unyoked and unharnessed. free time: to drink one’s fill at the pipe. grass talk aslant, wind-winged, intoxicating evening cool from the feed wagon. landsberger mixture, three in one between the rungs, laid on with the fork. from the open half-door the clattering of milk-cans, jingling cow-chains. the centrifuge hums. milk picking-up time, the people with their jugs make a queue before the women ladling out. your grandfather drowned in buttermilk, I hear the farm women mock. o blue lyre milk! the tuning of the flowing-away sunset in the highest tones, far as a cricket.
the lights going up for the end of day. a single shrill burst from the meadows and field verges. the world spirit rears up and beats his breast, the lavender coloured current draws stealthily back, soft as cat’s paws. the calligraphic house wall, from which the weathered warmth reverberates, broad-sided, breathes like an exhausted animal resting in the shade, gathering new strength. the crumbs of clay trickle down from the daub filling between beams. earth to earth. visible face and pushing into position go in the reflected light towards the night. holy sack of straw, the earth floor in the lower room. suited to its station. dark lantern, superstitious moon, mate and drinking partner. to-wit to-woo.
Wulf Kirsten (1982), translated from the German by Andrew Duncan
Honey
My father died at the age of eighty. One of the last things he did in his life was to call his fifty-eight-year-old son-in-law ‘honey.’ One afternoon in the early 1930’s, when I bloodied my head by pitching over a wall at the bottom of a hill and believed that the mere sight of my own blood was the tragic meaning of life, I heard my father offer to murder his future son-in-law. His son-in-law is my brother-in-law, whose name is Paul. These two grown men rose above me and knew that a human life is murder. They weren’t fighting about Paul’s love for my sister. They were fighting with each other because one strong man, a factory worker, was laid off from his work, and the other strong man, the driver of a coal truck, was laid off from his work. They were both determined to live their lives, and so they glared at each other and said they were going to live, come hell or high water. High water is not trite in southern Ohio. Nothing is trite along a river. My father died a good death. To die a good death means to live one’s life. I don’t say a good life.
I say a life.
James Wright (1982)
A Vernacular Tale
I did some washing yesterday. I got my old washing machine out and decided to wash the red blanket. I used to be scared of the washing machine. My wife was always hinting it was dangerous to use, the same time berating me for not using it. When she left she left me the usual parting letter plus three pages of crabbed notes labelled Instructions for Operating Washing Machine. It took me a long time to pluck up the courage. Anyway, I did the blanket and lots of hairs came off. There were long brown ones, my own; long red henna’d ones, my wife’s; and some long blonde hairs that belonged to an Irish girl called Ann. They all got twisted together. I should have changed the water before doing the normal weekly load, but I didn’t. When I took the rest of the stuff out I realised I’d left a paper handkerchief in one of the pockets. It got shredded up by the paddle and everything was covered in bits. I was also doing some washing for my lodger and I didn’t think she’d appreciate this. Shelagh, I said, they’ve come out clean but you’ll have to spend some time tomorrow picking these bits off your nice white blouse. Let’s have a look, she said. What, you mean these short brown hairs that’ve collected on my collar? What? I said. Let’s have a look. Oh, no, those are off the dog. We used to have this dog. It was always jumping on the bed.
Peter Didsbury (1982)
The Colonel
What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.
May 1978
Carolyn Forché (1981)
Meeting Ezra Pound
I don’t know what came first, poets or festivals.
Nevertheless, it was a festival that caused me to meet Ezra Pound.
They seated him in a chair on a square in Spoleto and pushed me towards him. He took the hand I extended and looked with those light blue eyes right through my head, way off into the distance. That was all. He didn’t move after that. He didn’t let go of my hand, he forgot the eyes. It was a lasting grip, like a gesture of a statue. His hand was icy and stony. It was impossible to get away.
I said something. The sparrows chirruped. A spider was crawling on the wall, tasting the stone with its forelegs. A spider understanding the language of a stone.
A freight train was passing through the tunnel of my head. A flagman in blue overalls waved gloomily from the last car.
It is interesting how long it takes for a freight train like that to pass by.
Then they parted us.
My hand was cold too, as if I’d touched the Milky Way.
So that a freight train without a schedule exists. So that a spider on a stone exists. So that a hand alone and a hand per se exists. So that a meeting without meeting exists and a person without a person. So that a tunnel exists – a whole network of tunnels, empty and dark, interconnecting the living matter which is called poetry at festivals.
So that I may have met Ezra Pound, only I sort of did not exist in that moment.
Miroslav Holub (1980), translated from the Czech by Dana Hábova and Stuart Friebert
Goodtime Jesus
Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it? A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn’t afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How ’bout some coffee? Don’t mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.
James Tate (1979)
Vanity, Wisconsin
Firemen wax their mustaches at an alarm; walls with mirrors are habitually saved. At the grocery women in line polish their shopping carts. Children too will learn that one buys meat the color of one’s hair, vegetables to complement the eyes. There is no crime in Vanity, Wisconsin. Shoplifters are too proud to admit a need. Punishment, the dismemberment of a favorite snapshot, has never been practiced in modern times. The old are of no use, and once a year at their ‘debut,’ they’re asked to join their reflections in Lake Lablanc. Cheerfully they dive in, vanity teaching them not to float. A visitor is not embarrassed to sparkle here or stand on his hotel balcony, taking pictures of his pictures.
Maxine Chernoff (1979)
Gay F
ull Story
for Gerard Rizza
Gay full story is authentic verve fabulous jay gull stork. And grow when torn is matters on foot died out also crow wren tern. Connect all the life force afloat blank bullet holes. Change one letter in each essential vivacity missing word to spell a times taking place defunct bird’s name. Let’s see. Magic Names. Use a piece of current vitalization melted away paper about 6 × 3 occurring doing lost inches and tear it breathing spirit fabulous jagged into three ideal indeed inherence pieces … Ask someone subsistent subsistence shadowy to write his missing extant name on one of the backbone no more slips. Hand him the center died out veritable revival one with the rough departed certain edges on the in reality vim late top and the in fact pep dead bottom as pictured. Write a true spiritous vital spark name on each of the other actual animation void two slips. Fold the three imaginary ontological dash pieces over the airy go indeed names and put them in a hollow unimpeachable snap hat. Without looking, you can pick out the true visionary vital flame slip with the two rough inexistent well grounded oxygen edges which will contain the positive departed perspiring writer’s affairs on foot null and void name. (Fold the gone vegetative doings ends over the illusory constant soul name.) Then later shade in all the twenty-five the times tenuous true-blue triangles shown above. Then you could match the uninhabitable heart at home designs below with those in the above lively flying Dutchman dash code … Print in the tenantless haunted core letters and read them across to find out where these indwelling mathematical minus children are going to spend their man in the moon essential essence vacation. Now connect the vaporous vivifying vim dots. Then you could color this ubiquitous lost elixir barnyard omitted as a matter of fact picture. First complete the deserted walking the earth oxygen puzzle. Cut out on the broken simon-pure null and void vital spark lines. Paste it on great sea serpent unromantic snap paper. Print your ethereal sterling gist name, your vaporous in the flesh kernel age, your lifeless intrinsicality positive address. Color the whimsical seeing the light breath of life pictures. Use nonresident true-blue doings crayons, zero veracious inherence paints, or bug-bear resident ego pencils. Mail before chimerical energy midnight Tuesday to this airy on the spot the world paper. Castle in Spain substantial go entries become ours. Intellectual veritable intrinsicality neatness, missing moored matters accuracy, and nowhere in the flesh immanence presentation count. Decision of the wanting authentic vim judges is final. Winners are nothing at all. You get a yam, a rail, a tag, a charm, a set, a bet, a man, a bed, a rub, a run, twenty-four in default of on the spot matters matchbox models all metal made in faithful omitted respiration England, an absent at anchor pitch barrel of vaporous vegetating vitalization monkeys, thirty free exact extinct existence toys, three blank blind essential animation mice, new gauge in fact ideal activity realistic train sets, growing Sally the sterling bereft of life heart doll that grows, six vacuous unromantic dash power-pack snap-track sets of dead verve trains, twenty-five free zero pure revival boxes of color veracious no more matters pencils in twelve current melted away oxygen colors, and twenty-four nightmare undisguised gist figures in four boxed unborn well founded snap sets of elsewhere absolute heart and soul British soldiers; all from the fictitious in reality the world world’s leading creation of the brain on the spot indwelling puzzlemaker.
Bernadette Mayer (1976)
from Logbook
Logbook page 106
would have explained it. But asymptosy seems destined to leave it to Vespucci. The two styles fight even for my handwriting. Their chemicals, even, produce nothing more than wax in the ears and an amazing thirst. That seems to ‘even’ things, for those who regard it as a balance, or think the wind blows one way. The third day of our voyage was perilous. Multitudinous seas incarnadine. But the small craft that came out to meet us contained us and went sailing into the sunset, carrying only ten pages of my logbook (106, 291, 298, 301, 345, 356, 372, 399, 444 and 453), slightly charred by the slow still silent instant. And it was in that same instant (as everything is) that we recognised that in addition to our normal crew we had a stowaway – the author of The Incredible Max who, alone and unaided had, on a long string, hauled the dingy Automatic Writing (out from Deus ex Machinette) – or how else could he be explained? The eloquence of his moustache (you will understand) bulged neatly over & under his belt. He spoke of himself as ceaselessly sweeping up the leaves that fall from the trees. We tried to tell him about the other seasons – ‘Fall DOWN : Spring UP!’ we made him repeat. ‘Fall DOWN : Sweep UP!’ he
Logbook page 291
beepbada beep beep. Or the pages. Or the faces in the trees’ silhouettes at night. Around us was the countryside of Whimsy where, huddled around leaping orange fires, the natives let their cigarettes dangle unlit in their mouths, thinking only petrol or butane could light them. Stripping bark from each native to reveal our track we followed one string of dulcimer notes after another. Nothing is lost, or confused, in this country – not the PENGUIN ENGLISH DICTIONARY, nor the RED PEN, nor the YELLOW PEN WITH GREEN INK (Patent Applied For). At night in the forest we slept, listening to the creak of our future oars. ‘Let us,’ said one of the natives whose language we could speak, but imperfectly, ‘build from these trees a thing which we call a “ship” – from the wood remaining I will show you how to make “paper” – on this “paper” (once we set sail) I shall show you how to “write” (with a charred twig from the same tree) – and if your grandmother is with you, here’s how we suck eggs.’ From the shore we watched the ‘ship’ approach us. We set sail in small craft to meet the strangers, pausing only to write pages 106, 291, 298, 301, 345, 356, 372, 399, 444 & 453 of the logbook, charring
Logbook page 298
a fair day. Afraid I think only in words: that is to say I am unable to say ‘that is one of the things we have no word for.’ And when our journey takes us into the dark (en una NOche osCUra … roll up … roll up!) I am quite able, by touch, to say to myself ‘this is another of the things we have no word for that I’ve never felt before.’ And so, pausing nly to drop an ‘o’, flick cigarette ash into the waste paper basket – ash which lands in the exact top right hand corner of the only piece of paper in the basket, which I now have beside me, reading on the reverse (hidden in the basket, but the grey pattern of type through paper attracted my eyes) ‘THE CHANGING CRICKET BAT – a clever sleight of hand trick which will mystify your audience.’ – and look through the window at a man in a white suit turning the corner, I reach the end of my sentence. At the same moment the record changes. I type in time to the snare drum ‘every branch blows a different way.’ Ash fills my fingerprints making a soft cushing sound as I type on, pausing only this time to watch my fingers move, have a pain in my stomach, pay close attention to three words in the lyric. Now it is almost time for
Logbook page 453
I’m not going to make it to the lift in time, nor change my name, and the dialogue echoes off the walls of the set. It’s the front room, and the queen’s picture flickers into a limp book called Jimi Hendrix because all books are dead & we live where the edges overlap. The material is transparent, but the seam is already ripping down from Orion. And I am busily sweeping up the last few words in a country without an ear, whose artists are busy filling in the colours they’ve been allocated in the giant painting-by-numbers picture of themselves, because they think an interview with the man (now a physicist in Moscow) who was the boy on the Odessa Steps makes a connection. Full moon. High tide. Because it’s all gesture, and nobody ever talked in words.
Tom Raworth (1976)
The Colors of Night
1. White
An old man’s son was killed far away in the Staked Plains. When the old man heard of it he went there and gathered up the bones. Thereafter, wherever the old man ventured, he led a dark hunting horse which bore the bones of his son on its back. And the old man said to whomever he saw: ‘You see how it is that now my son consists in his bones, that his bones are polished and so gleam like g
lass in the light of the sun and moon, that he is very beautiful.’
The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem Page 15
