Telephone Conversation

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. “Madam”, I warned,
“I hate a wasted journey – I am African.”
Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
“HOW DARK?”…I had not misheard…“ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?” Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar.
It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis—
“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT” Revelation came
“You mean – like plain or milk chocolate?”
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted
I chose. “West African sepia” — and as afterthought.
“Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness chaged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.”
“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?”
“Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet.
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused –
Foolishly madam – by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black- One moment madam! – sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears—“Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?”

The Cashier

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.

The dumb herd scowled:
“You’ve short-changed us,” they howled.
Pennies like medals stuck in the crust
Of sawdust.

The cashier flew into a rage—
“Nonsense! Be off with you! Go!”—
And rose like dough
From her glass cage.

Over counters where they sell
Cheese cakes and melons was blown
A sudden smell
Of tears and ozone.

Loud was the smell of tears
Among that lowing crowd:
The hands of one dumb pair
Howled in the air.

Clutching bacon, somebody swore,
Or so I imagined: at least, he
Gave a Beethovenish roar,
Earthy and shaggy.

Drumming of knuckle and palm
On the glass plate;
So bellowed the psalm
Of my dumb fate.

With a knowing leer
The cashier
Peered at a bill she held up to the light
To see if Lenin’s profile looked all right.

But Lenin wasn’t there any more:
The bill was counterfeit.
It was a grocery store
Where people and farces meet.

Translation by W.H. Auden

The Prayer of the Mouse

In honor of V-E Day, we present this work by one of 20th century France’s most devout poets.

Carmen Bermos de Gasztold
French
1919 – 1995

I am so little and grey,
dear God,
how can you keep me in mind?
Always spied upon,
always chased.
Nobody ever gives me anything,
and I nibble meagerly at life.
Why do they reproach me with being a mouse?
Who made me but You?
I can only ask to stay hidden.
Give me my hunger’s pittance
safe from the claws of that devil with green eyes.
Amen.

Translation by Rumer Godden

Whenever I am Melancholy

We present this work in honor of the 40th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Whenever I am melancholy I go out to watch the sea
Heading home from a used bookstore I go out to watch the sea

Whenever you are sick in bed I go out to watch the sea
On mornings my soul is wearing thin I go out to watch the sea

Oh, the sea!
Large shoulders and broad chest!

However cruel the morning, however brutal the night
It will come to an end

All life will someday end
Only the sea will remain

Whenever I am melancholy I go out to watch the sea

On the loneliest of nights I go out to watch the sea

Translation by Alex Fyffe

The Alternative

We present this work in honor of the 35th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Had thought of going somewhere
But I didn’t.
The closed windows suddenly shake
In an abrupt wind.

Let them shake, at least I am at home
Sifting through thoughts for signs of rot.
When it gets to be too much
I swat at flies.
One thing I know,
One wants no more. if one shuts their eyes,

I have learnt to follow the sun
And grow in that direction,
Reaching for any dreams within hooking distance,
Or let them go, blaming their substance.
Who cares what I do, so long as I feed my soul?

For what was never to be, I no longer cry!
Come, let’s talk of what ifs and how I wonder why.

Translation by Ruma Chakravarti

At the Lowest Point

We present this work in honor of the 20th anniversary of the poet’s death.

go on into the flames
with a clamor of insects
an indiscernible dust
a shape through blazing

with an enigma that makes you
gesture beneath the barren voice
and going on catch fire
immobile on a ridge

take your place for the vigil
and leave at night in a flood
or in blood like an outcry
beyond the reach of words

Translation by Carol Lettieri and Paul Vangelisti

The Bend

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

Who could say for sure?
You see it as you pass by: eyes sinking
into a broken, red dirt road;
to the side, some painters’ shacks:
tender blue doorways, smoky
roof: the green runs
to the back, lively as a hen,
pecking at the wash, losing itself
among blue distances.

No one lingers
to look it over. You find it only
when you leave for another place, when
there’s no time.

Then
you’ll not find it again.

It’s paradise.

Translation by Katherine M. Hedeen and Janet McAdams

Lover

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.

What I do not want
is to give you the words of day dreams.
Not to spread the image with my lips
on your face, nor with my kiss.
I take the tip of your finger
with pink nail, for my gesture,
and, in this manner of airs,
I give it back to you.
From the grace and the lightsomeness of your pillow.
And the heat of your exotic eyes.
And the light of your secret
breasts.
Like the moon in the spring
a window
gives us yellow light, and a heart
beat
seems to flow back from you to me.
It’s not that. Nor will it be. Your true sense
has already given me the peace,
the beautiful secret,
the charming dimple,
the lovely corner of your mouth
and the weary
morning.

Translation by Tanzan Kopra

The Listeners

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest’s ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:–
“Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,” he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

To My Brothers and Sisters

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.

We were not so far apart you and I
When the thunder broke from the blackened sky
We were not so far apart

And when the echo rolled away
Deep down in the slanting day
We dreamed. Or when the lightning struck
Behind the drawn blind

Not I alone rushed heaven-wards
In the wake it left behind
No, we were not so far apart, we
When the waters rushed with mad glee
Down the garden path

Mine was not the only dream
Washed beyond the pantry window
Like some desire in a far off flooded stream

Poets Corner

Celebrating a world of written and spoken verse

20th Century Poems