A Springtime poem for Vladislav
A baleful sign- the chimes prelude the owl and at daybreak-
such a melancholy rose for the mouth of Spring,
Her petals, salved with the memories of reborn men
perform the lover’s cup yet again
for the stage has been garlanded, burned and rebuilt
between the mirror and the storm, a kind of pool
reflecting a weird radiance Narcissus never knew-
that beauty is easier to forget than truth,
that only words suffer and that the kiss
is nothing more- ever- than an echo of youth.
Alas, another season of mistshrouded dawns slips through the library.
The bindings fray. Shakespeare disappears (the ghost),
Shelley flies, Byron drowns
and Rilke cuts his finger on a thorn.
We could name freedom now,
if we were real poets-
but the coffee is not made and I have yet to tune the lyre.
How long will these fools continue to write about fear?
For I dare you to believe it is passion they speak of...
their imprisoned theatres gyring down into the margins
of a thousand births in a hundred thousand circles of cities
with names like Alexandria, Jerusalem, St. Petersburg,
Paris, Rome and Nebulacoocoopolis...
She used to hate birds until the Buddhist said,
“Perhaps it’s because they represent freedom,”
She used to take walks to the ocean to think
until the shepherd told her to feed the lilies,
She used to paint her lips with rose petals until
the gambler told her to cultivate her garden
She used to dance in the darkness until the musician told her
to attach herself to drum inside her ear.
I don’t remember if we whispered it in half sleep
before the hour that spent the star,
or, like friends in a dream- unprophetic, naked, h..h..h..human-
some distant marsh was crossed.
Either way, I’ve neglected Eternity,
thrown the four harbors of the great net covering all
into the black holes of bubbles-
like in a boiling pot.
She used to cook for the lonely
until the poet told her to give it up
Non coerceri maximo, contineri minimo, divinum est.
Not to be confined within the greatest, yet to be contained
within the smallest is divine.
The origin that must continue
risks an unfathomable leap
over the danger of that place -on the shores of the imagination,
come to meet the gaze of us...
Perhaps I should bury all my flowers far away from here
then someday, a long time from now,
some lucky devil will dig them up.
He didn’t mean to use the word pleasure
He meant it as a beacon in a sconce, connected to a bridge
such as ‘marooned,’ or ‘moored.’
Calypso’s island is not large- as a matter of fact
it is as tiny as a grain of sand
but icy, shiny, illuminating like an engraver’s metallic dust.
She used to do cartwheels in Heaven until
the painter gave her a pair of high heels.
She used to know many languages
until the translator taught her about the sun.
She used to pretend her heart mattered
until it was surrounded by light-
so she closed her eyes.
The days of the week have decided to wear a disguise-
each a different hue of the wineskin.
So what? He lost his compass-
He knew the distance, he lived the promise
he heard that all islands possess a tendency to sink...
So she took his very real sadness
right between her thighs.
II.
I refuse to question the roots of this.
Stardeath, emptiness, the silver shell of no-man’s cross.
Crack. Crack. Night breaks open
slowly, like any circle should.
Do the chimes bother you?
Remind you of a separate dream?
The one in the desert
where the stones and lions
brought you back to the lonely girl with big black eyes.
Some kind of noon time eclipse; better
that the message got lost.
I don’t believe your reasons half the time but I do believe your stories
because they move toward the crack,
crawling like a wounded lion, flying like a rabid bat
zigzagging, up and up and up...
Suddenly, she wrapped herself in a cloak
and tried to disappear
but instead
gave birth to tragedy.
And named it music
for the rest of the vast universe, at that very moment
became wasted, vain and frail.
I can see the written words when you hand me a blank stare.
Pages and pages of springtime bouquets
and one bird calling out, “who? who?”
We might ask for form now
or save it for a later date,
there’s always Europe, anyway.
I’ll take the lighthouse, you take the shore
and after supper, we can compare our measurements of the sea.
Diaspora- we’ll save for the candlelight beyond the crème brûlée.
You didn’t answer me about the chimes
I mean the bells I mean the chimes I mean the tower.
But my eyes are brown like dirt
not black, like history.
Neither of us really needs the sky.
I’ll say it again,
“The rare woman waits
for the reborn man.”
You toy with my prowess, assuming I value mimesis.
You listen to my life as if it belonged to beggar
And make weapons for kings.
I want the miracle. Blow out the candle.
I want the gift that interrupts the sacrifice.
Aged sheep’s cheese and Chateneuf du Pape only make it bearable,
all the while waiting for the dead poets
to clean the goddamn house.
It is not the gambler’s muse who finally answers the owl,
Past, present and future, folded on a thrice-three parallel
like a deck of aces, a pillow book, a bandoneon-
anything to hide the heart from the curiosity of the moon.
Turn around.
Yes.
Yes. Yes,
this way I’m spinning
and my cloak unravels.
III.
First secret: I still have the rose my first lover gave me thirty years ago, pressed in a mediocre copy of the poems of W.D. Snodgrass. It’s a thin book with a red hardbound cover, no jacket, worthless... on all other accounts.
Second secret: Sometimes I think I have been in love.
Third secret: I have been in love.
Fourth secret: I know that secret number one and two are irrelevant.
Fifth secret: Out of the above, secret number one is true.
What happened with the dance between the streets in Buenos Aires
where the men of letters used to walk in white suits
in a moment torn from the falling leaves
of history like a little piece of cloth?
And the women in red, gathering feathers...
What happened on the Nile as you watched
a felucca pass from Aswan to Cairo like a floating castle
or at the corner of Jackson and Hyde Streets last night
around eleven- or in Bordeaux
with all the pretty people.
Did you learn a kind of code, or did they all swear you in?
Stories, stories,
untouched islands in a lagoon,
buoyant treasure troves claimed by pirates
with warm cockles and sensual swords-
to make a bed for stolen maps
that will just become fictions and then get old.
She used to know the way
until the re-born man told her to stay
under 21.
haven’t we passed enough mirrors?
yes I am going to rome just to stand before the tombstone of the blue-eyed
romantic and weep with la pieta behind glass third time round.
“I can’t get up from that mountain and I can’t climb down from that cloud,”
It’s what the Olympians used to say to themselves
when they didn’t have bus fare.
It’s our turn to plant the oar,
re-write the prophesies and praise the misfit cartographers-
right where it belongs... Ithaka. Heaven. hell.
Did I tell you how every moment since the day we met
goes beyond Art or Nature-
beyond the child and the death, the Grecian Urn, the salvaged drama-
as if the invisible sides of words like truth and beauty become evident;
suddenly, ecstatically in each other, seriously moment after moment like
a sun surrounded by a sun surrounded by a sun.
Have you put your lips close to the moly, the mandrake?
They speak in quotes; one does Rimbaud, the other- Shakespeare.
I no longer care if the sweetest kisses are followed by shadows.
A pebbled beach and a white stone parapet with a view
of Ionian blue should subdue
the darkness lurking behind next winter.
Getting along with you is as easy and worthwhile as an epic poem,
I shall freely kiss your wounds.
“See that light on the water?” Said Aeschylus one summer afternoon, “It is the laughter of the sea.”
And so the sunbeams smile like the enlightened ones who have learned how to breathe for centuries beneath the most lonesome tree.
I never wish anymore. I move.
And there you are again, stopping the world from spinning.
At first I thought that was a careless command, really-
but now I am positive it is absolutely profound.
Shall we take the ferry or the little plane?
Don’t even ask, I mean c’mon- I’m half Irish, you’re from the Ukraine and Icarus was a fool.
Yet everyone loves him. Because he died young.
Correction- I did have a wish once, but it’s too late for that one.
This is not the kind of poem that could use a word like ‘nasturtium’-
‘silence’ is prettier.
O, that was so real.
It was an accident.
But you’re eyes that first night
across the pseudo-Parisian tables
where we’d all come to adore each other
with some pretense of selves;
No, your gaze alone was proud, reflective, severe
in a soft way- like a rocky coastline-
your island, your silent island.
What was so real?
Your arms around the arch
and the wood beams and the breeze
and the sigh
of your angel
trying to die in my wings.
It must have been planned, our separate camps
and unremitting road block like a big, lighted bridge.
thymos/thumos/noos/nous/psyche/psuche/soma
A nerve named passion
or the difference between time and space
being sucked into the traveler’s dream
like a river through a straw.
In two thousand years I shall hand you an envelope. Inside it, there shall be a hand written letter. It will speak of lust and doves, wrath and sympathy, rain and places that no longer exist; yet it will rise in meter, rhythm and rhyme until there is a flood of words belonging to a feeling- forgotten, lost, and apparently meaningless. And still, a corner of your youth shall re-awaken and be brightened and all the things that once caused tenderness inside you shall regain their strength, as your spirit plunges into the satisfaction of making the heroic return
to the veil of dawn lifting her rose red fingers
from the safe shadows of death.
And as she rises from the anchored bed
her grace will make you smile
at the pain of the lover’s disappearance,
at the knowledge of seasonal bliss
and at the glistening
body of blue water
right outside your window.
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