Horton Foote, who passed away today, was perhaps the most under-appreciated playwright of the American stage. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta, Foote was best known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird. His screenplay for Tender Mercies won the Best Original Screenplay award the following year. While Foote was the author of nearly 50 plays, several of them adapted for film, his truest work was the nine-play Orphans' Home Cycle, which chronicled rural Texas in the early part of the 20th century.
Longtime contributor Andrew Haley interviewed Horton Foote in 1995.
AH: It has been said that there are three plays in every play – the play that is written, the play that is interpreted, and the play that is performed. You work personally with all three of these areas of your plays. Where does the writer stand in the production of his script?
HORTON FOOTE: It depends on the writer. Some writers are not very interested in the process. Having been an actor and director, I find it extremely interesting and am there as much as possible.
AH: With the increased convenience to find entertainment in the living room, via cable, satellite dishes, the internet; and an anti-aesthetical Congress in power, the outlook of the future of theatre is hazy. Do you foresee the decline of the state of American theatre in the next century?
HORTON FOOTE: I think all obstacles you mention are just new challenges. In theatre it seems there are always things impossible to overcome. Somehow, we stick to it and get the work done and I trust and hope this will always be so.
AH: You write your first drafts by hand. Hemingway wrote by hand as well, with the exception of his dialogue, which he wrote by typewriter. Are there identifiable characteristics in dialogue written by hand, by typewriter, and by computer?
HORTON FOOTE: I write by hand because it makes me feel that much closer to my work. I feel that a typewriter is impersonal and the computer horrifies me!
AH: Poets, short story writers, and novelists all have dozens of magazines and publishing houses to print their work. For playwrights, the venues are not as clear. As a major figure in the present world of theatre and film, what is your advice to young playwrights on how to climb the ladder of stage writing success?
HORTON FOOTE: This has to be the most difficult question to answer. It has never been easy for a playwright to get established. I wish I could answer this with some measure of sense. All I can say is if one has to write plays one will and somehow persevere.
miércoles, marzo 04, 2009
jueves, febrero 12, 2009
New Poems From Peter Golub
In the Library
my love
everything is circumstance
for instance the onerous hippy in the corner
just dropped his cigarettes
the waitress picked them up
causing the men eating chili at the table next to mine
to turn their heads
in unison
like hounds following a scent or sound
they are talking
about how they don't feel global warming
one guys says,
"well, it seems like a whole lot
of people have been convinced."
another nods putting a cracker in his mouth,
"yeah well, America is pretty resilient"
I turn with them
and see the waitress's ass
and remember yours
naked and white
in the dim light of the library
where the long mirror stands over the fireplace
I could see myself in it
there were two of me
one watching you
the other watching me
it is this description
of my desire watching me
and you the object of my desire
wading in a pool of yellow light
that is the occasion for this poem
on my walk home
the winter trees tumescent and black with fog
a memory of you walks with me
turning the houses, trees, and weather
into our acolytes
this morning
I stood before a classroom of young men and women
some of them bored
some wide eyed some sitting methodical as at a play
and I often feel like I am a one man act
performing some ancient picture
written before the Aristotelian dichotomy
…but yes some of them methodical, some bored
txting on their phones
and all of them with the same anticipation
whether bored or wide eyed
they are expecting something
looking into the future with pictures in their eyes
in this class
acting before them
their eyes full of pictures
I imagined my reflection
in the library
and you standing naked
reading in the light
Salt Lake City Fragments
for Andy
you are behind once again
the truth is cheap smarty pants
and people are stupid
and the markets crash
against the levees
while you and I pray
we pray for what we've nearly forgotten
with these stale words
we make new cries
like children in the fields
playing at being sheep
we eat hay
and sculpt mud pies
we scream and yank each other's genitals
in sweaty nylon tents
with writing on the walls
flapping in the tremendous wind
you yell to me
from across the dark
across the hudson
across the jordan river
in salt lake
the salty sea
that never freezes over
and giant birds roost in the desert
the promontories
hanging over head
you scream to me
from across the world
inside your tiny emails
and sad jokes
you scream
that it's like camping in space
that the children are made of microwave parts
that they run around with buttons for eyes
video game equipment for ears
heads like broken BMW's from the flood
o lordy lordy lordy
House Keys
In the book we are always writing
I stand naked in the shower
Watching a red spider crawl up the slippery light blue tile
As you stand in your small shower
Thinking of Elvis and hockey
Outside the pigeons huddle in the roofs of old houses
Snow blows into the basement
Of a drunk heart sailing on a row boat
The music we write for the novel is simple but complex
Ridiculous as an autistic dirge with pretensions of sublime proportions
In the final scene which we write and rewrite
Sometimes I am standing on the shores of a warm tropical island
And you hand me a shell with a dead crab
Sometimes you are pale in these pastiches at other times
A roaring red with blood squirting out your eyes
It is all quite stupid and extraordinary
Drawing small plastic swords like straws
Throwing fishcakes out of the fourth floor window
Drunk and happy we begin anew heading into the next absurd sorrow
Wailing nearly mad
Writing the Poem about Love
After writing the poem about love
Where I use words like “boat” “snow” and “wailing”
I hear Andrew practicing French in the adjacent room
And Anna watching the television in another adjacent room
A house is made of adjacent rooms
The way a poem is made of adjacent words
Each word is full of its own events
Trying to enjoy itself without waking the neighbors
After writing the poem about love
I send it to Anastasia
Which is how I learn it is a poem about love
I rarely know what I am writing about
And lately have had a hard time thinking
Of appropriate titles
My cousin suggests getting rid of the title
I take away the title and the ending
After writing the poem about love
And taking away the title and the ending
I let it sit inside the computer screen
It looks naked and a little scared
The way a family looks at the doctor in charge of a sick relative
The doctor remembers his own family
The dog waiting under the table and his two daughters playing
Inside a grove of tall poplars
After writing the poem about love
I consider the argument that all poems are love poems
And a series of other clichés come to mind
Poems are prayers, poems are the dead
The title must stand like a French man inside a Portuguese play
A heart is the size of the ocean
The mountain speaks in snow
…
Peter Golub is guest editor at Jacket.
my love
everything is circumstance
for instance the onerous hippy in the corner
just dropped his cigarettes
the waitress picked them up
causing the men eating chili at the table next to mine
to turn their heads
in unison
like hounds following a scent or sound
they are talking
about how they don't feel global warming
one guys says,
"well, it seems like a whole lot
of people have been convinced."
another nods putting a cracker in his mouth,
"yeah well, America is pretty resilient"
I turn with them
and see the waitress's ass
and remember yours
naked and white
in the dim light of the library
where the long mirror stands over the fireplace
I could see myself in it
there were two of me
one watching you
the other watching me
it is this description
of my desire watching me
and you the object of my desire
wading in a pool of yellow light
that is the occasion for this poem
on my walk home
the winter trees tumescent and black with fog
a memory of you walks with me
turning the houses, trees, and weather
into our acolytes
this morning
I stood before a classroom of young men and women
some of them bored
some wide eyed some sitting methodical as at a play
and I often feel like I am a one man act
performing some ancient picture
written before the Aristotelian dichotomy
…but yes some of them methodical, some bored
txting on their phones
and all of them with the same anticipation
whether bored or wide eyed
they are expecting something
looking into the future with pictures in their eyes
in this class
acting before them
their eyes full of pictures
I imagined my reflection
in the library
and you standing naked
reading in the light
Salt Lake City Fragments
for Andy
you are behind once again
the truth is cheap smarty pants
and people are stupid
and the markets crash
against the levees
while you and I pray
we pray for what we've nearly forgotten
with these stale words
we make new cries
like children in the fields
playing at being sheep
we eat hay
and sculpt mud pies
we scream and yank each other's genitals
in sweaty nylon tents
with writing on the walls
flapping in the tremendous wind
you yell to me
from across the dark
across the hudson
across the jordan river
in salt lake
the salty sea
that never freezes over
and giant birds roost in the desert
the promontories
hanging over head
you scream to me
from across the world
inside your tiny emails
and sad jokes
you scream
that it's like camping in space
that the children are made of microwave parts
that they run around with buttons for eyes
video game equipment for ears
heads like broken BMW's from the flood
o lordy lordy lordy
House Keys
In the book we are always writing
I stand naked in the shower
Watching a red spider crawl up the slippery light blue tile
As you stand in your small shower
Thinking of Elvis and hockey
Outside the pigeons huddle in the roofs of old houses
Snow blows into the basement
Of a drunk heart sailing on a row boat
The music we write for the novel is simple but complex
Ridiculous as an autistic dirge with pretensions of sublime proportions
In the final scene which we write and rewrite
Sometimes I am standing on the shores of a warm tropical island
And you hand me a shell with a dead crab
Sometimes you are pale in these pastiches at other times
A roaring red with blood squirting out your eyes
It is all quite stupid and extraordinary
Drawing small plastic swords like straws
Throwing fishcakes out of the fourth floor window
Drunk and happy we begin anew heading into the next absurd sorrow
Wailing nearly mad
Writing the Poem about Love
After writing the poem about love
Where I use words like “boat” “snow” and “wailing”
I hear Andrew practicing French in the adjacent room
And Anna watching the television in another adjacent room
A house is made of adjacent rooms
The way a poem is made of adjacent words
Each word is full of its own events
Trying to enjoy itself without waking the neighbors
After writing the poem about love
I send it to Anastasia
Which is how I learn it is a poem about love
I rarely know what I am writing about
And lately have had a hard time thinking
Of appropriate titles
My cousin suggests getting rid of the title
I take away the title and the ending
After writing the poem about love
And taking away the title and the ending
I let it sit inside the computer screen
It looks naked and a little scared
The way a family looks at the doctor in charge of a sick relative
The doctor remembers his own family
The dog waiting under the table and his two daughters playing
Inside a grove of tall poplars
After writing the poem about love
I consider the argument that all poems are love poems
And a series of other clichés come to mind
Poems are prayers, poems are the dead
The title must stand like a French man inside a Portuguese play
A heart is the size of the ocean
The mountain speaks in snow
…
Peter Golub is guest editor at Jacket.
martes, enero 27, 2009
viernes, enero 23, 2009
New Poetry From Andrew Dotson
Scumboy
Too many times I’ve lied
Lied to you, to myself
On your futon sprawled like an open sparrow
That moment you saw me at the back of the bus
Hunched into line
Expecting nothing
You remarked about my gold watch
And I winced.
You were far apart
Yet so near
To me at the terminal
Where we debussed
Rambling in aimless effort
Entering a cool bistro amid a sweltering wave
You couldn’t afford to foot my terms
So we left to find a better plane.
It was there that things began
At that mahogany table
In the Hotel Congress
Wared through the ages
Serving countless customers
Through flappers, to corporates
To vagrants – you
Offering me a chance to get better acquainted
Sucking marijuana smoke through a tube.
The ultimate resolution
I didn’t go with you that first day
Up to your greasy flat filled with cans
To loll some and let the seriousness fade.
I kept firm, played hard to get
So hard when you called me I went to relent
The next time you spotted me
Sitting in the courtyard
I agreed.
It lasted, then ended
All else my departure
I wanted so much for it
But what?
You to seize me
You to please?
But that was too much to ask for.
Too many times I’ve lied
Lied to you, to myself
Reclined on my spine
In wait for the unexpected to come at last
My comic book geek, my scumboy
That trance…
Andrew Dotson is a 19 year-old poet, songwriter and student currently residing in Arizona. His poetry has appeared previously in Zone.
jueves, enero 08, 2009
Three Poems From RC Miller
MOTION LOTION
This is a rock from the earth.
We will curse it warm.
This is how we train ourselves.
On overdose rumors
Let us continue having lungs.
O my puddle.
O my smoked person.
O my puddle of briers.
Mimicking the muzzle of gizzard bags
We must turn back
Toward the two-headed mermaid's shifty lagoon.
We must reach back
For the one-footed crow.
We must be swept back
Into a collection of shingles
Falling from the one-footed pigeon's stubby deliverance.
O my puddle.
O my smoked person.
O my profession of briers.
O shit say word.
Innate surrender makes known what really is,
From where,
From how what is came to be.
The transcendence of the sickle
Speculating an event unborn.
Our kindle of excessive kingdoms
Amazing as a beauty without risk.
Within its multiple nature
The approaching world humiliates another womb
Innately liberating our authentic hypnosis.
On a scale not worshipped before
Derivative outbreaks reject the broth of delusion
Foraging multiple lumps
Obsessed with yet another zipper not graphic enough,
Another reflector
Masquerading omens from our earliest interior.
O my wolves.
O my acid saliva wolves.
O our dignified collapse.
If in this twilight oven
The bitter dragon rain
Holds its saddle tightly,
Let glory praise the unborn
Fighting to mimic our seed.
Let glory praise
The highest pawnbrokers face to face,
Mounting bald microwaves on cruel meteors
Sweeping dizzy ash
Aroused to impress patches of disaster.
My black origins filter out
The tumbled crease of deceased husk.
My decay quiets
Like the wrinkled design of our sedation.
O we receive the black.
O we premiere the blank.
We disappear from window ledges
With black vomit on our rugs.
Our pious haze evasively submerged in jagged petal bodies.
Shadows ooze from the prophet's pores.
Halls are dedicated to green oil boiled in clay.
Octopus blood sits down
Snorting spooky bacon crowns.
Cargo of wood beyond the rock
Mirrors an innovation beyond our matter.
O my shit.
O my words.
O I stay
Below the itchy crucifix,
A space shaved by immense and anonymous smirks.
A needy enigma combing extra spasms,
Receiving the blank,
Premiering our black,
O there is no turning back.
CHEST OF BITCHES
The child toasts his wheel and winks.
I drink and work
As do indefinite feats.
The monks they peg a natural slave within reach.
You start your paws upon the threshold of another's flesh.
A buff Bin Laden moodswing
Pumps wastebaskets into the dicey rags.
Your shoulders are such spare orchards
Hoagie hopping the crunk and elusive mess.
Nihilism is my shuffling issue.
There I relapse
Manila prongs of recurring stink.
We cannot die.
We die.
My dark
I no longer borrow
A youth starved you.
On the run
I use your cleavage to masturbate
In seasons mocking
A certain damp snuff of tantrum.
Intimately we shuffle our issues.
What is imagined appears as reason.
We die with so much shock left to buy.
We cannot die no matter how chunk I dry.
From airline to flatline
I take disaster to give relief.
I pray our purpose remains a comedy
Starving those tamed at last.
From habitat to fracture
I flay in chalk to get relief.
Your shoulders soon weep their spares
Purring like rented glitches of me.
We've always died
Striving for the single string and curved branch
Made aware if they are carried.
It's too sad our tourniquets
Ebb when recovery moats
Arrange all flesh aflame.
My dark
I begin again where once was pride.
THE STORY SO FAR
Brains get chummy once the master conveys a torrid illusion
Called get lucky.
Brains a million and drumming up roses
Once placebos kill the downpour passing before we fall.
Everything's illusion.
The downpour's sequential, a manner for brains.
Our collars get lucky as they're mastered,
And everything's illusion and passing us dolls.
Ideas of the sacred, too old to derive sense from my youth.
I'm pigs sitting at desks.
I'm pigs watching their watches watch.
I'm pigs with points of view.
By day I want anything.
I want anything, but still
I'm an awful pill to get cummed on.
And as you grow the sun I taste the matter where we live.
A lonely when comes after night.
Though blindness is fun, another waits.
The plumber next door was busted by cops then buried alive.
My neighbor's rooftop is the best place to smoke weed.
Be it your breathmint or milkbone, I always make room for strangers.
All is sorrow.
There is sorrow.
The cause of sorrow.
The removal of sorrow.
The way to the removal of sorrow.
All is sorrow.
Born 1974 in Parkersburg, West Virgina, RC Miller is a poet and photographer currently living in New York City. He blogs sporadically at Vision Blues.
jueves, diciembre 25, 2008
lunes, diciembre 08, 2008
Three Poems From Ayn Frances dela Cruz
Highway
At the what I look at
That becomes
The space between strands
Of hair
O the never-ending fungus
Between my toes
Stand clear
I on an island
You on a highway
Roads out
All stars melancholy
As that sweet eyelash
Failing to fall on pupils.
I guess at the distance between stars,
Between Holy Ghosts,
Imagining blackness to be
A blank space
The nothing
That was nothing before
Which is now your heart
Beating
On this far-out space
This interstellar road
That calls all stars
Out with a mere wink,
Forget the bypasses,
I am the hand
That forges fingerprints
That smudges
That never lets go
That never ends
Pyramus and Thisbe
Sweet wall that runs the length of this house, you
Hide my love from me, show me only parts.
One hand at a time, one eye at a time.
How does my kiss translate from my lips to
His, how soft the wall seems sometimes, from wall
To lips, I breathe in moss and moisture in
The space of one breath, one finger at a
Time, I touch those lips, that insipid breath.
One word at a time you whisper a word
One breath at a time you watch me breathing
This wall is your cheek I press mine against
I love the wall with my own fierce loving
Surrender myself to its cold, hard, touch
You, on the other side, look for a door.
Territory
Every inch of skin that belongs to me
Now also belongs to you.
Burning, I, Incense-bearer worship whose God?
With what Heart, with whose hands do we leave nirvana?
How many times must a hand be reborn as air?
Then am I only kissing winds?
Ayn Frances dela Cruz, 23, is a teacher at Mapúa Institute of Technology. This is her third year in the graduate program of Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines. She attended the 7th University of Santo Tomas National Writers Workshop as a fellow for English poetry. Some of her work has been published in Philippine Graphic, Paliparan, The Argotist Online, The Flask Review, Kritya and previously in Zone.
jueves, noviembre 13, 2008
Three Poems From Enrique Molina
Drifters
We never had house patience a blank slate
But a little farther nearer nothing
The lanterns
Tremble softly
Yellow always broken neck hotels
And your crude china for suicide or melancholy
–Oh the errant squawking from the gambrel!
We slept at random with mountains huts
Below the high destruction of heaven soon to burn with untenable fire
Joined to the passing tree gone farther
Often leaning out of ruined windows
Of balconies in flames or ashes
In those country beds
The rain is equal to kisses you undressed
Turning sweetly in the darkness with the rotation of the earth
Unpunished beauty beauty senseless
But only once once only
Love rolls its fate's thief's dice
If you lose you can savor the pride
Of contemplating your future in a fistful of sand.
So many abandoned faces!
So many doors of travel opening its cry!
So many girls the light drowns
Let loose their hair from the indelible region kissed by the wind
With immobile birds perched forever in their gaze
With the whistle of the train slowly pulling up its iron roots
With the battle of total abandon and total hope
With great markets teeming with numbers insults vegetables and souls
closed above their black sacks of seeds
And the platforms dissolved into an iron foam
–Rambled time and consummation–
Tomb of decrepit days
Pretty as desire in earthly veins
Their fire is nostalgia
The tropics' lattice behind which are spiders tattered curtains and an
old Victrola with the same unending song
But the lovers demand torments and frustrations
More subtle dangers:
Their past is incomprehensible and is lost like the beggar
Left behind at the last stormy stop
Amantes Vagabundos
Nunca tuvimos casa ni paciencia ni olvido
Pero un poco más lejos hacia nada
Están las lámparas de viaje
Temblando suavemente
Los hoteles de garganta amarilla siempre rota
Y sus toscas vajillas para el suicidio o la melancolía
-¡Oh el errante graznido sobre la cumbrera!
Dormíamos al azar con montañas o chozas
Bajo las altas destrucciones del cielo prontas a arder con un fuego inasible
Junto al árbol de paso que se aleja
A menudo asomados a ventanas en ruinas
A balcones en llamas o cenizas
En esos lechos de comarca
La lluvia es igual a los besos te desnudabas
Girando dulcemente en la oscuridad con la rotación de la tierra
Belleza impune belleza insensata
Pero sólo una vez sólo una vez
Juega el amor sus dados de ladrón del destino:
Si pierdes puedes saborear el orgullo
De contemplar tu porvenir en un puñado de arena.
¡Cuántos rostros abandonados!
¡Cuántas puertas de viaje entreabriendo su llanto!
Cuantas mujeres que la luz ahoga
Sueltan sus cabelleras de región indeleble besada por el viento
Con aves inmóviles posadas para siempre en su mirada
Con el silvo de un tren que arranca lentamente sus raíces de hierro
Con la lucha de todo abandono y de toda esperanza
Con los grande mercados donde pululan cifras injurias legumbres y almas
cerradas sobre sus negros sacos de semillas
Y los andenes disueltos en una espuma férrea
—Desvarío tiempo y consumación—
Tumba de viejos días
Bella como el deseo en la venas terrestres
Su fuego es la nostalgia
La celosía del trópico tras la cual hay arañas cortinas en jirones y
una vieja victrola con la misma canción inacabable
Pero los amantes exigen frustraciones tormentos
Peligros más sutiles:
Su pasado es incomprensible y se pierde como el mendigo
Dejado atrás en el paradero borrascoso
Secret Hotels
The nomad shining of the world
like the soul's ember a jewel of time
opens itself in solitude to the passing of certain storming deeds
swept by the current
to the stairs cut by the sea
in certain dens of lechery with shadowed rims
peopled with statues of kings
barely recognizable in the scintillation of the torches whose light
is ivy covering the walls
Oh proud proud heart!
surrender to the phantom stationed in the door
Now that I know you so well
with no other thirst than your memory
melancholy creature touching my soul from afar
invoke in bedrooms the ecstasy and terror
the slow indomitable language of the passion for hell
and the venom of adventure with its crimes
Oh invoke once more the gusts of yesteryear
in these stone rooms entwined around your lover
wrapped together in the canvas of lost days like a corpse in the sea
they rapidly vanish in instantaneous pyres
above beds of mysterious metal that shines in the darkness beneath clawed
candelabras
and the choir of lascivious birds furiously turning in the room sealed
with the iron of other nights
Such solemn dens covered with carnivorous flowers
with marbles rotting in the shadow of opulent women
they balance carvings pompously from the gate to the cupola
like the ship anchored above the abyss
slowly shifting its mirrors to put the girl to sleep
she's nude between hangmen burning the heart of the night
and the warren where rain is crossed by frustration
the comrades with faces rotted by the stink of flowers
accumulated in infinite corridors
the sound of suffocated sighs
kisses woven in saddest mother-of-pearl
the nameless herb in which its guests are sinking
repeating once more in the shadows
the legend of love that never dies
Los Hoteles Secretos
El brillo nómade del mundo
como un ascua en el alma una joya del tiempo
se abre tan sólo al paso de ciertos hechos tormentosos
arrastrados por la corriente
hasta las escaleras cortadas por el mar
en ciertos antros de lujuria de bordes sombríos
poblados por estatuas de reyes
casi irreconocibles entre el reverberar de las antorchas cuya luz
es la hiedra que cubre los muros
¡Oh corazón corazón orgulloso!
entrégate al fantasma apostado en la puerta
Ahora que tan bien te conozco
sin otra sed que tu memoria
criatura melancólica que tocas mi alma de tan lejos
invoca en las alcobas el éxtasis y el terror
el lento idioma indomable de la pasión por el infierno
y el veneno de la aventura con sus crímenes
¡Oh! invoca una vez más el gran soplo de antaño
en estas cámaras de piedra enlazada a tu amante
y ambos envueltos en la lona de los días perdidos como el muerto en el mar
y prontos a deshacerse en las hogueras instantáneas
sobre lechos de un metal misterioso que brilla en las tinieblas bajo la
zarpa de los candelabros
y el coro de pájaros lascivos girando con furia en las habitaciones
selladas por el hierro de otras noches
Pues tales antros solemnes cubiertos de flores carnívoras
con mánnoles que se pudren a la sombra de cabelleras opulentas
se balancean labrados pomposamente desde el portal hasta la cúpula
como la nave anclada sobre el abismo
agitando con lentitud sus espejos para adormecer a la mujer
desnuda entre los verdugos que incineran el corazón de la noche
y el zaguán donde se cruzan la lluvia y la frustración
los camareros con el rostro podrido por el tufo de las flores
acumuladas en los pasillos infinitos
el rumor de los suspiros sofocados
los besos entretejidos en nácar tristísimo
la hierba sin nombre en que se hunden sus huéspedes
repiten una vez más entre la sombra
la leyenda del amor que nunca muere
Poetic Works
The distant braying of the night whose green shell opens like a fish
The infancy of rain with errant greenhouse cheeks pledged by the vapor
of plants
The loosened bonds that leave invisible scars
The music of bodies chosen by love for statues of fire raised on an
infinite plain
Or in the harbor's shadow chased by a silver claw
With nails illuminated like the windows of distant homes in which one sees
a poor girl preparing a meal for the beasts of her dreams
The palmettos' red candelabras where exile is whistling
The needles of live blood the birds to the end the clouds the suits of
sequined sailors
And the heavy footsteps on the strange planet called Earth
Make us taste the days' lichen
The insatiable patience of men
Winter's drowning coughed up on the coast by the wind
Now I see the country of great wings
Limited tear by tear by all that which will never return
Crossed by the migration of souls towing their heavy buckets of blood and
tools of passion and anger
Rooms invaded by giant ferns in which waits the fierce gray air of
forgotten girls
Clutching a smile in their silken paws
But the loner caresses the lady from the distance covered in shining
feathers and shuddering at the horror of nothingness
In the reverberation of singing and streetlights at dawn in the unknown
station tortured by travelers
Streetlights that shine with a venomous charm
Like the serpent of eternal longing whose shadowy cage
Exhales an odor of butterflies decomposing inside a box of mysterious
velvet covered in flames
An attic of ashes
A man advancing with his phantasm against the gust of dreams
Against these whirlwinds of feathers set in certain dead bird's rings
Oh the old days!
The earthy liquor:
A little cold meat on bread after a sip of soup
Spring's mummy in its coffin of gilded ice
A scorpion beside the key of light in a tropical hotel
The wooden chalice and idleness offered to the monkeys by a little
vapor on a tropical stream
In these braids loosened on the breasts of love in the indescribable
birds seen from the height of a caress
Oh the clanging of strange plates on which certain very sad girls ate
pierced by a groan or a novel's breath
And nude still under the navy's curse
Oh the old days!
Passions misery and pride
An antique store looted by the bird of prey and scattered in the sun
And in which only time's pallid money is ever good
With tiny dirty gods rustling beneath your leaves
Until the instant they surprise those sleepless dives where apparitions hide
With nights in whose depths one sees girls in flames
Or the nurse sitting under the light of the banana tree
Covered in plaster and dark magnolias on her high cruel throne that carved
the shattering
But more beautiful than all spring and all the world's victory
The great wing of immortal feathers born in everything destined to die!
Clothes and faces and alleys undressed by a same whisper of desperate
goodbye
The never again amazes you
An embrace a throat a woman's sob that doesn't allude to these buried pyres
Reclaiming the same shadowed jewels for the same splendor:
The great halo of the far
And these enigmas of age dragging the heavy insoluble shards of a false and
mysterious existence
With those whose eternal heartbeat pulses in the darkness
Unattainable as every human happiness
And transformed into the gleaming of things that once brushed against
possessed or dreamed
In flesh and blood
Between the blazing of the earth
Los Trabajos de la Poesía
El lejano bramido de una noche cuya verde coraza se abre como un pescado
La infancia de la lluvia con mejillas de invernáculo errante empeñado por el
vapor de las plantas
Las ligaduras sueltas que dejan cicatrices invisibles
La música de dos cuerpos escogidos por el amor para estatuas del fuego
levantadas en una llanura infinita
O en la sombra de un puerto perseguida por una garra de plata
Con las uñas iluminadas como ventanas de hogares distantes en los que
se ve a una pobre muchacha preparando el alimento para las bestias
del sueño
Los rojos candelabros de palmeras donde silba el exilio
Las agujas de sangre viva los pájaros hacia el fin las nubes los trajes de
lentejuelas marinas
Y el golpe de las pisadas en el extraño planeta llamado Tierra
Hacen el gusto a liquen de los días
La paciencia insaciable de los hombres
La ahogada del invierno arrojada a otra costa por el viento
Ahora veo el país de grandes alas
Limitado lágrima a lágrima por todo aquello que no vuelve jamás
Atravesado por la emigración de las almas arrastrando sus pesados cubos de
sangre y sus utensilios de pasión y de cólera
Habitaciones invadidas por helechos gigantescos en las que acecha la fiera
de aire gris de las mujeres olvidadas
Posando sus zarpas de seda en una sonrisa
Pero el solitario acaricia la cabellera de la distancia cubierta de plumas
centelleantes y estremecida por el horror al vacío
En un reverbero de canciones y faroles en el amanecer de una estación
desconocida torturada por los viajeros
Faroles que brillan con un hechizo venenoso
Como la serpiente de las añoranzas eternas cuyo estuche sombrío
Exhala un olor a mariposas descompuestas dentro de una caja de terciopelo
misterioso envuelta en llamas
Un desván de cenizas
Un hombre avanzando con su fantasma contra la bocanada del sueño
Contra esos torbellinos de plumas engastados en ciertos anillos de pájaro
muerto
¡Oh son los antiguos días!
Los alcoholes terrestres:
Un poco de alimentos fríos en un pan tras un trago de sopa
La momia primaveral en su ataúd de hielo dorado
Un escorpión junto a la llave de la luz en un hotel del trópico
El cáliz de madera y ocio ofrecido a los monos por un pequeño vapor en un
río del trópico
Y esas trenzas abiertas sobre los senos del amor en los parajes indescriptibles
vistos desde lo alto de una caricia
O el tañido de platos extranjeros de los cuales se alimentan algunas mujeres
muy tristes atravesadas por un gemido o un soplo de novela
Y aún desnudas bajo la maldición marina
¡Oh son los antiguos días!
Pasiones miseria y orgullo
Una tienda de antigüedades saqueada por el pájaro de presa y esparcida
al sol
Y en la que sólo vale el oro lívido del tiempo
Con diosecillos tenebrosos crujiendo bajo tus plantas
Hasta el instante de sorprender esos antros de insomnio donde se guardan las apariciones
Con noches en cuyo fondo se ven niñas en llamas
O la enferma sentada bajo la luz del plátano
Cubierta de yeso y de magnolias sombrías sobre su alto trono de tortura que
ha labrado el fracaso
Pero más bella que toda primavera y que toda victoria sobre el mundo
¡La gran ala de plumas inmortales que nace en todo aquello destinado
a la muerte!
Vestidos y rostros y callejuelas anudadas por un mismo suspiro de adiós
desesperado
Para que nunca más te maraville
Un abrazo una garganta o un sollozo de mujer que no aluda a esas hogueras
enterradas
Reclamando las mismas joyas tenebrosas para el mismo esplendor:
La gran aureola de la lejanía
Y esos enigmas de la edad arrastrando pesados trozos insolubles de una
existencia falsa y misteriosa
Con personajes de pulso eterno que laten en la oscuridad
Inalcanzables como toda dicha humana
Y convertidos en el resplandor de las cosas que rozaron poseyeron
o soñaron alguna vez
En carne y hueso
Entre la llamarada de la tierra
Translated by Andrew Haley
Enrique Molina, born in Buenos Aires, November 2, 1910, traveled extensively in Europe and the Caribbean as a merchant marine before his first book of poetry Las Cosas y El Delirio (Things and Delirium) appeared in 1941. The author of nine books of poetry and one novel, Una Sombra Donde Suena Camila O'Gorman (A Shadow Where Camila O'Gorman Dreams), Molina co-founded the surrealist journal A Partir de Cero (Starting From Zero) with poet Aldo Pellegrini in Buenos Aires in 1952. A painter as well as man of letters, he died November 13, 1997 in Buenos Aires.
Enrique Molina, nacido en Buenos Aires el 2 de noviembre de 1910, viajó al Caribe y a Europa como tripulante de barcos mercantiles antes de que su primero libro de poesía Las Cosas y El Delirio fue publicado en 1941. Autor de nueve libros de poesía y la novela Una Sombra Donde Suena Camila O'Gorman, en 1952 Molina fundó junto con el poeta Aldo Pellegrini la revista surrealista A Partir de Cero en Buenos Aires. Pintor y hombre de letras, falleció en Buenos Aires el 13 de noviembre de 1997.
We never had house patience a blank slate
But a little farther nearer nothing
The lanterns
Tremble softly
Yellow always broken neck hotels
And your crude china for suicide or melancholy
–Oh the errant squawking from the gambrel!
We slept at random with mountains huts
Below the high destruction of heaven soon to burn with untenable fire
Joined to the passing tree gone farther
Often leaning out of ruined windows
Of balconies in flames or ashes
In those country beds
The rain is equal to kisses you undressed
Turning sweetly in the darkness with the rotation of the earth
Unpunished beauty beauty senseless
But only once once only
Love rolls its fate's thief's dice
If you lose you can savor the pride
Of contemplating your future in a fistful of sand.
So many abandoned faces!
So many doors of travel opening its cry!
So many girls the light drowns
Let loose their hair from the indelible region kissed by the wind
With immobile birds perched forever in their gaze
With the whistle of the train slowly pulling up its iron roots
With the battle of total abandon and total hope
With great markets teeming with numbers insults vegetables and souls
closed above their black sacks of seeds
And the platforms dissolved into an iron foam
–Rambled time and consummation–
Tomb of decrepit days
Pretty as desire in earthly veins
Their fire is nostalgia
The tropics' lattice behind which are spiders tattered curtains and an
old Victrola with the same unending song
But the lovers demand torments and frustrations
More subtle dangers:
Their past is incomprehensible and is lost like the beggar
Left behind at the last stormy stop
Amantes Vagabundos
Nunca tuvimos casa ni paciencia ni olvido
Pero un poco más lejos hacia nada
Están las lámparas de viaje
Temblando suavemente
Los hoteles de garganta amarilla siempre rota
Y sus toscas vajillas para el suicidio o la melancolía
-¡Oh el errante graznido sobre la cumbrera!
Dormíamos al azar con montañas o chozas
Bajo las altas destrucciones del cielo prontas a arder con un fuego inasible
Junto al árbol de paso que se aleja
A menudo asomados a ventanas en ruinas
A balcones en llamas o cenizas
En esos lechos de comarca
La lluvia es igual a los besos te desnudabas
Girando dulcemente en la oscuridad con la rotación de la tierra
Belleza impune belleza insensata
Pero sólo una vez sólo una vez
Juega el amor sus dados de ladrón del destino:
Si pierdes puedes saborear el orgullo
De contemplar tu porvenir en un puñado de arena.
¡Cuántos rostros abandonados!
¡Cuántas puertas de viaje entreabriendo su llanto!
Cuantas mujeres que la luz ahoga
Sueltan sus cabelleras de región indeleble besada por el viento
Con aves inmóviles posadas para siempre en su mirada
Con el silvo de un tren que arranca lentamente sus raíces de hierro
Con la lucha de todo abandono y de toda esperanza
Con los grande mercados donde pululan cifras injurias legumbres y almas
cerradas sobre sus negros sacos de semillas
Y los andenes disueltos en una espuma férrea
—Desvarío tiempo y consumación—
Tumba de viejos días
Bella como el deseo en la venas terrestres
Su fuego es la nostalgia
La celosía del trópico tras la cual hay arañas cortinas en jirones y
una vieja victrola con la misma canción inacabable
Pero los amantes exigen frustraciones tormentos
Peligros más sutiles:
Su pasado es incomprensible y se pierde como el mendigo
Dejado atrás en el paradero borrascoso
Secret Hotels
The nomad shining of the world
like the soul's ember a jewel of time
opens itself in solitude to the passing of certain storming deeds
swept by the current
to the stairs cut by the sea
in certain dens of lechery with shadowed rims
peopled with statues of kings
barely recognizable in the scintillation of the torches whose light
is ivy covering the walls
Oh proud proud heart!
surrender to the phantom stationed in the door
Now that I know you so well
with no other thirst than your memory
melancholy creature touching my soul from afar
invoke in bedrooms the ecstasy and terror
the slow indomitable language of the passion for hell
and the venom of adventure with its crimes
Oh invoke once more the gusts of yesteryear
in these stone rooms entwined around your lover
wrapped together in the canvas of lost days like a corpse in the sea
they rapidly vanish in instantaneous pyres
above beds of mysterious metal that shines in the darkness beneath clawed
candelabras
and the choir of lascivious birds furiously turning in the room sealed
with the iron of other nights
Such solemn dens covered with carnivorous flowers
with marbles rotting in the shadow of opulent women
they balance carvings pompously from the gate to the cupola
like the ship anchored above the abyss
slowly shifting its mirrors to put the girl to sleep
she's nude between hangmen burning the heart of the night
and the warren where rain is crossed by frustration
the comrades with faces rotted by the stink of flowers
accumulated in infinite corridors
the sound of suffocated sighs
kisses woven in saddest mother-of-pearl
the nameless herb in which its guests are sinking
repeating once more in the shadows
the legend of love that never dies
Los Hoteles Secretos
El brillo nómade del mundo
como un ascua en el alma una joya del tiempo
se abre tan sólo al paso de ciertos hechos tormentosos
arrastrados por la corriente
hasta las escaleras cortadas por el mar
en ciertos antros de lujuria de bordes sombríos
poblados por estatuas de reyes
casi irreconocibles entre el reverberar de las antorchas cuya luz
es la hiedra que cubre los muros
¡Oh corazón corazón orgulloso!
entrégate al fantasma apostado en la puerta
Ahora que tan bien te conozco
sin otra sed que tu memoria
criatura melancólica que tocas mi alma de tan lejos
invoca en las alcobas el éxtasis y el terror
el lento idioma indomable de la pasión por el infierno
y el veneno de la aventura con sus crímenes
¡Oh! invoca una vez más el gran soplo de antaño
en estas cámaras de piedra enlazada a tu amante
y ambos envueltos en la lona de los días perdidos como el muerto en el mar
y prontos a deshacerse en las hogueras instantáneas
sobre lechos de un metal misterioso que brilla en las tinieblas bajo la
zarpa de los candelabros
y el coro de pájaros lascivos girando con furia en las habitaciones
selladas por el hierro de otras noches
Pues tales antros solemnes cubiertos de flores carnívoras
con mánnoles que se pudren a la sombra de cabelleras opulentas
se balancean labrados pomposamente desde el portal hasta la cúpula
como la nave anclada sobre el abismo
agitando con lentitud sus espejos para adormecer a la mujer
desnuda entre los verdugos que incineran el corazón de la noche
y el zaguán donde se cruzan la lluvia y la frustración
los camareros con el rostro podrido por el tufo de las flores
acumuladas en los pasillos infinitos
el rumor de los suspiros sofocados
los besos entretejidos en nácar tristísimo
la hierba sin nombre en que se hunden sus huéspedes
repiten una vez más entre la sombra
la leyenda del amor que nunca muere
Poetic Works
The distant braying of the night whose green shell opens like a fish
The infancy of rain with errant greenhouse cheeks pledged by the vapor
of plants
The loosened bonds that leave invisible scars
The music of bodies chosen by love for statues of fire raised on an
infinite plain
Or in the harbor's shadow chased by a silver claw
With nails illuminated like the windows of distant homes in which one sees
a poor girl preparing a meal for the beasts of her dreams
The palmettos' red candelabras where exile is whistling
The needles of live blood the birds to the end the clouds the suits of
sequined sailors
And the heavy footsteps on the strange planet called Earth
Make us taste the days' lichen
The insatiable patience of men
Winter's drowning coughed up on the coast by the wind
Now I see the country of great wings
Limited tear by tear by all that which will never return
Crossed by the migration of souls towing their heavy buckets of blood and
tools of passion and anger
Rooms invaded by giant ferns in which waits the fierce gray air of
forgotten girls
Clutching a smile in their silken paws
But the loner caresses the lady from the distance covered in shining
feathers and shuddering at the horror of nothingness
In the reverberation of singing and streetlights at dawn in the unknown
station tortured by travelers
Streetlights that shine with a venomous charm
Like the serpent of eternal longing whose shadowy cage
Exhales an odor of butterflies decomposing inside a box of mysterious
velvet covered in flames
An attic of ashes
A man advancing with his phantasm against the gust of dreams
Against these whirlwinds of feathers set in certain dead bird's rings
Oh the old days!
The earthy liquor:
A little cold meat on bread after a sip of soup
Spring's mummy in its coffin of gilded ice
A scorpion beside the key of light in a tropical hotel
The wooden chalice and idleness offered to the monkeys by a little
vapor on a tropical stream
In these braids loosened on the breasts of love in the indescribable
birds seen from the height of a caress
Oh the clanging of strange plates on which certain very sad girls ate
pierced by a groan or a novel's breath
And nude still under the navy's curse
Oh the old days!
Passions misery and pride
An antique store looted by the bird of prey and scattered in the sun
And in which only time's pallid money is ever good
With tiny dirty gods rustling beneath your leaves
Until the instant they surprise those sleepless dives where apparitions hide
With nights in whose depths one sees girls in flames
Or the nurse sitting under the light of the banana tree
Covered in plaster and dark magnolias on her high cruel throne that carved
the shattering
But more beautiful than all spring and all the world's victory
The great wing of immortal feathers born in everything destined to die!
Clothes and faces and alleys undressed by a same whisper of desperate
goodbye
The never again amazes you
An embrace a throat a woman's sob that doesn't allude to these buried pyres
Reclaiming the same shadowed jewels for the same splendor:
The great halo of the far
And these enigmas of age dragging the heavy insoluble shards of a false and
mysterious existence
With those whose eternal heartbeat pulses in the darkness
Unattainable as every human happiness
And transformed into the gleaming of things that once brushed against
possessed or dreamed
In flesh and blood
Between the blazing of the earth
Los Trabajos de la Poesía
El lejano bramido de una noche cuya verde coraza se abre como un pescado
La infancia de la lluvia con mejillas de invernáculo errante empeñado por el
vapor de las plantas
Las ligaduras sueltas que dejan cicatrices invisibles
La música de dos cuerpos escogidos por el amor para estatuas del fuego
levantadas en una llanura infinita
O en la sombra de un puerto perseguida por una garra de plata
Con las uñas iluminadas como ventanas de hogares distantes en los que
se ve a una pobre muchacha preparando el alimento para las bestias
del sueño
Los rojos candelabros de palmeras donde silba el exilio
Las agujas de sangre viva los pájaros hacia el fin las nubes los trajes de
lentejuelas marinas
Y el golpe de las pisadas en el extraño planeta llamado Tierra
Hacen el gusto a liquen de los días
La paciencia insaciable de los hombres
La ahogada del invierno arrojada a otra costa por el viento
Ahora veo el país de grandes alas
Limitado lágrima a lágrima por todo aquello que no vuelve jamás
Atravesado por la emigración de las almas arrastrando sus pesados cubos de
sangre y sus utensilios de pasión y de cólera
Habitaciones invadidas por helechos gigantescos en las que acecha la fiera
de aire gris de las mujeres olvidadas
Posando sus zarpas de seda en una sonrisa
Pero el solitario acaricia la cabellera de la distancia cubierta de plumas
centelleantes y estremecida por el horror al vacío
En un reverbero de canciones y faroles en el amanecer de una estación
desconocida torturada por los viajeros
Faroles que brillan con un hechizo venenoso
Como la serpiente de las añoranzas eternas cuyo estuche sombrío
Exhala un olor a mariposas descompuestas dentro de una caja de terciopelo
misterioso envuelta en llamas
Un desván de cenizas
Un hombre avanzando con su fantasma contra la bocanada del sueño
Contra esos torbellinos de plumas engastados en ciertos anillos de pájaro
muerto
¡Oh son los antiguos días!
Los alcoholes terrestres:
Un poco de alimentos fríos en un pan tras un trago de sopa
La momia primaveral en su ataúd de hielo dorado
Un escorpión junto a la llave de la luz en un hotel del trópico
El cáliz de madera y ocio ofrecido a los monos por un pequeño vapor en un
río del trópico
Y esas trenzas abiertas sobre los senos del amor en los parajes indescriptibles
vistos desde lo alto de una caricia
O el tañido de platos extranjeros de los cuales se alimentan algunas mujeres
muy tristes atravesadas por un gemido o un soplo de novela
Y aún desnudas bajo la maldición marina
¡Oh son los antiguos días!
Pasiones miseria y orgullo
Una tienda de antigüedades saqueada por el pájaro de presa y esparcida
al sol
Y en la que sólo vale el oro lívido del tiempo
Con diosecillos tenebrosos crujiendo bajo tus plantas
Hasta el instante de sorprender esos antros de insomnio donde se guardan las apariciones
Con noches en cuyo fondo se ven niñas en llamas
O la enferma sentada bajo la luz del plátano
Cubierta de yeso y de magnolias sombrías sobre su alto trono de tortura que
ha labrado el fracaso
Pero más bella que toda primavera y que toda victoria sobre el mundo
¡La gran ala de plumas inmortales que nace en todo aquello destinado
a la muerte!
Vestidos y rostros y callejuelas anudadas por un mismo suspiro de adiós
desesperado
Para que nunca más te maraville
Un abrazo una garganta o un sollozo de mujer que no aluda a esas hogueras
enterradas
Reclamando las mismas joyas tenebrosas para el mismo esplendor:
La gran aureola de la lejanía
Y esos enigmas de la edad arrastrando pesados trozos insolubles de una
existencia falsa y misteriosa
Con personajes de pulso eterno que laten en la oscuridad
Inalcanzables como toda dicha humana
Y convertidos en el resplandor de las cosas que rozaron poseyeron
o soñaron alguna vez
En carne y hueso
Entre la llamarada de la tierra
Translated by Andrew Haley
Enrique Molina, born in Buenos Aires, November 2, 1910, traveled extensively in Europe and the Caribbean as a merchant marine before his first book of poetry Las Cosas y El Delirio (Things and Delirium) appeared in 1941. The author of nine books of poetry and one novel, Una Sombra Donde Suena Camila O'Gorman (A Shadow Where Camila O'Gorman Dreams), Molina co-founded the surrealist journal A Partir de Cero (Starting From Zero) with poet Aldo Pellegrini in Buenos Aires in 1952. A painter as well as man of letters, he died November 13, 1997 in Buenos Aires.
Enrique Molina, nacido en Buenos Aires el 2 de noviembre de 1910, viajó al Caribe y a Europa como tripulante de barcos mercantiles antes de que su primero libro de poesía Las Cosas y El Delirio fue publicado en 1941. Autor de nueve libros de poesía y la novela Una Sombra Donde Suena Camila O'Gorman, en 1952 Molina fundó junto con el poeta Aldo Pellegrini la revista surrealista A Partir de Cero en Buenos Aires. Pintor y hombre de letras, falleció en Buenos Aires el 13 de noviembre de 1997.
miércoles, octubre 01, 2008
New Poetry From c.a. leibow
Machina Ad Hominem
“What do I see? Hats and coats that cover ghosts or simulated human beings which move by springs.”
(i.)
“…by its very nature clockwork is the antithesis of our mortal
selves. " Jaquet-Droz
The Watchmaker Machines time.
Dentist of brass teeth. Revolutions. Masticated movements.
(Mapping the linear_____ geography of a Flat
Earth.)
Mechanical Cockcrow sequencing.
The interpreter of flesh clocks.
An object unto itself. Out of time.
A counter of Ether - measuring Zero
Cyclopeds chase one another in the figure eight cyclodrome dome of heaven.
The gods lost to history cheer with Click(s)
The customer wants (“the minutes
the watch has lost?”) because of the leak the gold case.
the red ink spent .
Bent over. Eye glass. The Watchmaker
is a Trapper tightening springs.
Hour by hour.
(ii.)
“Without Vaucanson’s shitting duck, there would be nothing to remind us of the glory of France.” Voltaire
Immodest marriage of science and art.
Gold plated copper. Articulation of wing
fulfilling each their Office
{Of Omoplat, Scapula, Cubitius, Humerus & Ginglymus}.
Tendons of wound wire
spring movement of ball bearing and socket.
Just imitation of duck.
Throat.
Stomach.
Circumvolution of pipes.
Inefficiency of efficiency. Projection. Identification.
Muddling water.
Quack, Rise, Gulp. Consumes.
Artifice. Delineation of life.
Interloper into divine prerogative.
Metal duck. Golem.
Inculcation of man as machine.
From meandering pipes to
the lowly anus.
Golden creature.
One act play- Title: Uncertainty ?
Final Scene:
Out of golden tail- efflux of excrement.
[ A standing (Ovation).]
(iii.)
Exquisite machine: Silver tongue hypothesis.
Who stole the statue sculpted by Coysevox?
TELEGRAM-------{URGENT}----------------------------------TELEGRAM
To: The Inquisition Re: Automaton Flute Player
“In room 11 (STOP), Be advised (STOP)…….bothersome breathing..(STOP).”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Wood fingers cannot play a metal flute the way a man or woman can..”
Journal Entry, Vaucanson. Aug, 17th 1737
(See Fig.1,2 &3)
____________________________________________________________________
fig 1., Apply skin to wood. (Credit of Corpses ).
____________________________________________________________________
fig 2., Side View: Screws, Pivots, Barrels, Bars, Heart; connected to gates of heaven.
____________________________________________________________________
fig 3. Exploded View: Nine bellows, three pipes under the garden into the Temple of Music.
Trachea. Six pulleys. Four levers to modify wind. {The Four Winds of The Apocalypse}.
“I found a metronome in the chest of a Starling .”
Journal Entry., Vaucanson. Jan, 23rd 1736
All the women (Paris Februarys 11th 1738 ) would gather in their complicated dresses.
A repertoire of twelve {Apostles, Tribes, Constellations.} Flute Numbers.
Their parasols twirling. Flywheel, Windmill, Crank & Counterweight.
Inquisitors on tip toes try to see
through dark windows that face the alley. {of Hotel De Albertus Magnus and the Cathedral of Aquinas .}
(iv.)
“Shall not one be cast down by the sight of him? None is so fierce that that dare stir him up.” Job 42:9-10
Mechanical leviathans built by
royal Clockmakers.
run on tracks at the edge
of a flat earth.
Prefabricated elucidation
of the artisan’s pencil- charcoal detritus from
fire to fire. Wayward sailors
pray {recurring nightmares of flailing }.
The lone wake signifies dismay
Stygian darkness of fathoms, split bone terrors.
Supplicating saints and gods and superstitions.
Two men stoke the fires.
Pneumatic obligation of steam.
Of concentration, direction
and release. Transmission of energy to purpose.
The mad dash of sail.
Indentured men dream of falling
where the cartographer sketches
gaping mouths.
(v.)
“ What a shame the mechanician stopped so soon, when he could have gone ahead and given his machine a soul!” Condorcet
Oh daughter,
daughter flesh of my frenzied longing.
Work of my hands clank and whir of my affections.
The blasphemy of my want. Iron ram caught in the thicket
I lay you on the altar {of the sea floor.} My imprudence.
In darkness - rocking on tides.
Pendulum.
Pendulum.
Pendulum.
Oh pendulum.
(vi.)
“Man is a self-winding machine, a living representation of perpetual motion.” La Mettrie
Innocent machines. Faithful objects. Geared mythologies.
In which mechanical archangels grant dispensations from time -
Theirs is an eschatology of revolutions.
Inherent: The Circle.
c.a. leibow's poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Interim, Juked.com, Poetry Motel, Stray Dog Review and other journals. He graduated from Antioch with a Masters Degree in Poetry. To fund his poetry, leibow has worked as a dishwasher, a shoes salesman, a driver, a security guard, a bouncer, a mental institution orderly, a file clerk, a shipping clerk, and corporate trainer.
“What do I see? Hats and coats that cover ghosts or simulated human beings which move by springs.”
Descartes
(i.)
“…by its very nature clockwork is the antithesis of our mortal
selves. " Jaquet-Droz
The Watchmaker Machines time.
Dentist of brass teeth. Revolutions. Masticated movements.
(Mapping the linear_____ geography of a Flat
Earth.)
Mechanical Cockcrow sequencing.
The interpreter of flesh clocks.
An object unto itself. Out of time.
A counter of Ether - measuring Zero
Cyclopeds chase one another in the figure eight cyclodrome dome of heaven.
The gods lost to history cheer with Click(s)
The customer wants (“the minutes
the watch has lost?”) because of the leak the gold case.
the red ink spent .
Bent over. Eye glass. The Watchmaker
is a Trapper tightening springs.
Hour by hour.
(ii.)
“Without Vaucanson’s shitting duck, there would be nothing to remind us of the glory of France.” Voltaire
Immodest marriage of science and art.
Gold plated copper. Articulation of wing
fulfilling each their Office
{Of Omoplat, Scapula, Cubitius, Humerus & Ginglymus}.
Tendons of wound wire
spring movement of ball bearing and socket.
Just imitation of duck.
Throat.
Stomach.
Circumvolution of pipes.
Inefficiency of efficiency. Projection. Identification.
Muddling water.
Quack, Rise, Gulp. Consumes.
Artifice. Delineation of life.
Interloper into divine prerogative.
Metal duck. Golem.
Inculcation of man as machine.
From meandering pipes to
the lowly anus.
Golden creature.
One act play- Title: Uncertainty ?
Final Scene:
Out of golden tail- efflux of excrement.
[ A standing (Ovation).]
(iii.)
Exquisite machine: Silver tongue hypothesis.
Who stole the statue sculpted by Coysevox?
TELEGRAM-------{URGENT}----------------------------------TELEGRAM
To: The Inquisition Re: Automaton Flute Player
“In room 11 (STOP), Be advised (STOP)…….bothersome breathing..(STOP).”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Wood fingers cannot play a metal flute the way a man or woman can..”
Journal Entry, Vaucanson. Aug, 17th 1737
(See Fig.1,2 &3)
____________________________________________________________________
fig 1., Apply skin to wood. (Credit of Corpses ).
____________________________________________________________________
fig 2., Side View: Screws, Pivots, Barrels, Bars, Heart; connected to gates of heaven.
____________________________________________________________________
fig 3. Exploded View: Nine bellows, three pipes under the garden into the Temple of Music.
Trachea. Six pulleys. Four levers to modify wind. {The Four Winds of The Apocalypse}.
“I found a metronome in the chest of a Starling .”
Journal Entry., Vaucanson. Jan, 23rd 1736
All the women (Paris Februarys 11th 1738 ) would gather in their complicated dresses.
A repertoire of twelve {Apostles, Tribes, Constellations.} Flute Numbers.
Their parasols twirling. Flywheel, Windmill, Crank & Counterweight.
Inquisitors on tip toes try to see
through dark windows that face the alley. {of Hotel De Albertus Magnus and the Cathedral of Aquinas .}
(iv.)
“Shall not one be cast down by the sight of him? None is so fierce that that dare stir him up.” Job 42:9-10
Mechanical leviathans built by
royal Clockmakers.
run on tracks at the edge
of a flat earth.
Prefabricated elucidation
of the artisan’s pencil- charcoal detritus from
fire to fire. Wayward sailors
pray {recurring nightmares of flailing }.
The lone wake signifies dismay
Stygian darkness of fathoms, split bone terrors.
Supplicating saints and gods and superstitions.
Two men stoke the fires.
Pneumatic obligation of steam.
Of concentration, direction
and release. Transmission of energy to purpose.
The mad dash of sail.
Indentured men dream of falling
where the cartographer sketches
gaping mouths.
(v.)
“ What a shame the mechanician stopped so soon, when he could have gone ahead and given his machine a soul!” Condorcet
Oh daughter,
daughter flesh of my frenzied longing.
Work of my hands clank and whir of my affections.
The blasphemy of my want. Iron ram caught in the thicket
I lay you on the altar {of the sea floor.} My imprudence.
In darkness - rocking on tides.
Pendulum.
Pendulum.
Pendulum.
Oh pendulum.
(vi.)
“Man is a self-winding machine, a living representation of perpetual motion.” La Mettrie
Innocent machines. Faithful objects. Geared mythologies.
In which mechanical archangels grant dispensations from time -
Theirs is an eschatology of revolutions.
Inherent: The Circle.
c.a. leibow's poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Interim, Juked.com, Poetry Motel, Stray Dog Review and other journals. He graduated from Antioch with a Masters Degree in Poetry. To fund his poetry, leibow has worked as a dishwasher, a shoes salesman, a driver, a security guard, a bouncer, a mental institution orderly, a file clerk, a shipping clerk, and corporate trainer.
lunes, septiembre 29, 2008
viernes, septiembre 12, 2008
martes, agosto 12, 2008
Four Poems From Clint Frakes
A Moving Life
I give myself permission to lull the savage flower
like a phoneme from the infamous waves.
Today I saw a calyx atop every roof –
pollens, inverted hyacinths,
stunted euphorias at the mini-mart:
fluttering glassy wrappers in the Trade Winds—
like how the old poetess crept beneath the myth
in her wrinkled skirt & shrugged
loose from the pavement
a radical new altar of sound.
The chorus ejaculated in antistrophe:
The earth has a taste!
The problem is you’ve been dialing the wrong deity,
cigarettes burning on the table—
& you forgot how to use them.
A Brief History of Summer
for Harry Smith
After the longest day of the year
independence was only fitting.
Some ruffians blew up the sky;
the Romans let the dogs out,
forsaking 13 moons & the innermost
juice of memory.
We gained only the dim
profile of an inbred king.
Then the chokecherries ripened
in the unfolding corolla of
long northern light,
filling our freshly opened eyes.
We ate dog,
rubbed its fat on our heads.
The elders say it cures all.
Desire #4
What is Thanksgiving to a born-again-Lakota-Celt from Detroit
alone in Polynesia?
An excuse to hit the titty bar--
& gratitude is elusive as Maverick does the splits in a pink felt hat;
Chastity works her lollipop,
dropping her Catholic skirt;
then comes Eclipse, hugging a beach ball
painted like the globe.
Her booty shorts say Total.
What are the chances a Pine Ridge
girl would glide on stage 2400 miles from Turtle Island?
The zealous MC introduces her with incongruent hype:
“Come and see Wi!”
Wi means woman.
A dream catcher burned to her sacrum with the four sacred colors:
red north of lowest lumbar
white disappearing south at the cleft of coccyx
yellow & black along the impossible axis
of pelvic east/west
its promise of the Seventh Generation.
She’s surprised for the first time all week when I
greet her in her grandparents’ tongue—
“Toniktuka hwo?”
She stumbles slightly at her spinning pole
garter drawn almost inelegantly for a bill.
“Lakota?” she asks, bending toward me.
Her tongue has a silver bolt through it.
She spills buckets of hair across my face
cooler than midnight water &
from under this tent I remember
sage prairie, buffalo and wasna
wild turnip & wojapi,
black chokecherries.
I tuck an Andrew Jackson in the
ankle strap of her shiny stiletto:
the biggest Indian killer of all time,
his face long and freakish in the glint
of rhinestones & strobelight.
But we should sing in sage beds under cottonwood
& morning star, skinny-dip in the shallow
limey creeks at Grass Mountain
lollop in the Paha Sapa--
its primrose elk trails
on citrine-belted hillsides,
eating raspberries & rosehips,
passing secrets mouth to mouth,
belly to belly.
But her belly has a bolt through it too:
Custer just a tumbleweed in a wintercount there;
Crazy Horse himself a faint, curious melody;
calendars of Jehovah wan & forgotten
amid the roar of the Wind Cave,
the song of all our beginning.
No, the lolloping won’t happen;
but I am her favorite at the bar,
getting twice the shine as the suits
from whom she plucks bills perfunctorily
& eases back my way in some esoteric reward
for a few words brought across the ocean from her native plain
where I carried the Living Tree with ninety warriors
to the Sun Dance grounds,
laid red earth
on the half moon altar
believing there was a center to everything.
Desire #28
a Valentine, 2004, Honolulu
Dear Sonya, It’s 1:51 a.m. & I’m drunk,
rebuking the ruse of St.Valentine,
glued to yellowing books on a balmy night
like a raft on the Danube,
bristling calm, eying an opulent shore.
It isn’t easy to meet Orion’s gaze:
his bullets & arrows
sheening over my tininess.
Then a final sip of whiskey on the koa stump,
thinking of old chums I thought would never forsake me.
I turn pages of Arthur Sze & find a lottery ticket
my long-gone wife played in ’92.
Wabi-sabi floods the evening & I hope
she probed the Arizona Republic
for numbers the next day, expected
a miracle one autumn,
even if our egg was fried.
No patience for entropy these days,
nor joy in the curve of the moon--
on this, Edgar Poe’s birthday!
Nouns gang up on me at Foodland
among the walking dead (now 3 a.m.) --
the machinery of lips & Whitmanic glances
studying varieties of relish.
I think of your Betty Page bangs & how you made
cigarettes taste like chocolate the night
I slid into second base on the abandoned diamond
by Anna Banana’s, sure I’d never do this again.
One must be sick before one is brave
& the palms bow softly & for good reason.
Clint Frakes currently lives in Sedona, AZ. He has recently received the James Vaughan Award for Poetry and the Peggy Ferris Memorial Award for Poetry. He is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School at the Naropa Institute and Northern Arizona University writing programs and received his doctorate with emphasis in Creative Writing from the University of Hawaii in 2006. He is currently working on his second full book of poetry, entitled Citizen Poems. He has work forthcoming in Decanto, Orange Room Review, Otoliths, Horse Less and Best Poem. He is the former chief editor of Hawaii Review and Big Rain and currently works as a free lance writer and editor.
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