We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
what should the last words be
fare-well see you again
sometime somewhere?
what should the last deeds be
a last letter a phone call
a soft song?
what should the last wish be
forgive me
forget me not
I love you?
what should the last thought be
thank you?
thank you
They said: Your sweetheart has been bitten!
I said: By the scorpion of his temple-curl
or the snake of his hair?
No, they said, by the vipers of the earth!
Oh but how, I replied, could the earthly vipers
have ascended to the moon?
We present this work in honor of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s death.
A cave, with stalactites and stalagmites,
all white, like the index finger of the morning.
A tapestry, blood-spattered, repetitive,
my slipper but one seed in the watermelon.
Every eye doubles itself in the little mirrors of my toe-nails;
my arms fall, lift themselves, and fall again through autumn.
The word becomes a butterfly of the night,
bats its wings, stops, opens itself to unforeseen pearls —
catches at an echo that rolls slowly
away, dividing and dividing again, and chases after its own flight
like the mane of a comet as it dissolves.
We present this work in honor of the 115th anniversary of the poet’s death.
The withered leaves of Autumn, in golden whirlpools light,
Were dancing in the sunshine of Summer’s dying day,
And yet their dancing seemed to me their agonizing flight
From darkness and oblivion, and mouldering decay.
The hag that sweeps the pavement, with ruthless broom unkind,
Swept up the joyful dancers, and, muttering at their play,
She caught the helpless beings, as many as she could find,
And, mingled with the dust and filth, she swept them all away.
The guillotine is the masterpiece of plastic art
Its click
Creates perpetual motion
Everyone knows about Christopher Columbus’ egg
Which was a flat egg, a fixed egg, the egg of an inventor
Archipenko’s sculpture is the first ovoidal egg
Held in intense equilibrium
Like an immobile top
On its animated point
Speed
It throws off
Multicolored waves
Color zones
And turns in depth
Nude.
New.
Total.
Insects and dust. A leaden atmosphere
Where loud the clappings of the thunder sound.
Like swans in mud, pure white against a ground
Of ashes, clouds immaculate appear.
The sea has paralyzed its waves, their clear
Green rush is still; above that bosom round
Lightning, within a frame of peace profound,
Lets forth a swift and sudden crimson spear.
Dreamily nods the lazy tree its head;
Deep calm, unbalanced, reels before attack,
And rapid sea gulls rend the air amain.
Across the spacious vault a bolt is sped,
And then upon the earth’s great smoking back
Sharply descend the crackling drops of rain.
The spring has passed
And the summer come again
For the silk-white robes
So they say, are spread to dry
On Mount Kaguyama
In honor of the Canadian holiday, Civic Day, we present this work by one of Canada’s most heartfelt poets.
She was a massive ship, hewn in heavy gold,
with masts that fingered heaven on seas unknown.
Under redundant sun, with scattered hair,
was prowed outspread Venus, bare;
but then one night she hit the huge reef
in waters where the Sirens sing,
and this ghastly shipwreck tilted its keel
to the depths of the chasm, that immutable
tomb. She was a ship of gold, but her diaphanous
flanks showed treasures over which the blasphemous
sailors Psychosis, Spite and Nausea clashed.
So, what has survived this flash of storm?
What about my heart, abandoned ship?
…O, still it sinks, deep in Dream’s abyss.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Sun’s rain on the sea
Red sun yellow sun
White noon sun
Blue sun on the sea
Melded water and fire
At noon.
Deep swell I go down
Blue sea green sea
Red agate
Blue green
Depth I go down
From the bed of receded waters
Surging to the surface
Like a daylong bubble
Silver fish
Are on the back on the belly
Riddled with gold shafts
Coming up at leisure
With well-wrought traps
Calm sluices
Eel-nets
To seize the sun
In my soaked fingers.
We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Over the wide cold leaves of time you arrive, stained
by the fleeting sun of the rainy seasons on the plains.
You come lukewarm in color and shivering, and my heart
feels the bliss, holds it, from a word
unspoken, and the murmuring steps on the grass cover
the ennui, the glow,
of an essence withheld, drowned and remote.
You gather a robe around you—proper, singular—,
folding it around you
around you, curved to fit the bone.
How much of the soul, what depths of the soul you want
to enter you, to touch you lightly in passing! Yes:
even as air
enters the mouth, claustral and flaring.
You go with the ocean tides and the watery brilliance of
the slow, final skies, which go
veiled toward the south where the great red bustard flies
and nests, and the night
turns back and calls full of anguish under the flowering
darknesses,
nostalgic and scattered.
Poets Corner 