Here’s the mould of a musical bird long passed from light,
Which over the earth before man came was winging;
There’s a contralto voice I heard last night,
That lodges in me still with its sweet singing.
II
Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird
Has perished not, but is blent, or will be blending
Mid visionless wilds of space with the voice that I heard,
In the full-fugued song of the universe unending.
There used to be fairies in Germany—
I know, for I’ve seen them there
In a great cool wood where the tall trees stood
With their heads high up in the air;
They scrambled about in the forest
And nobody seemed to mind;
They were dear little things (tho’ they didn’t have wings)
And they smiled and their eyes were kind.
What, and oh what were they doing
To let things like this?
How could it be? And didn’t they see
That folk were going amiss?
Were they too busy playing,
Or can they perhaps have slept,
That never they heard an ominous word
That stealthily crept and crept?
There used to be fairies in Germany—
The children will look for them still;
They will search all about till the sunlight slips out
And the trees stand frowning and chill.
“The flowers,” they will say, “have all vanished,
And where can the fairies be fled
That played in the fern?”—The flowers will return,
But I fear that the fairies are dead.
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Nelly Sachs German 1891 – 1970
If only I knew,
what your last look rested on.
Was it a stone that had already drunk
many last looks, until they fell in blindness
on the blind?
Or was it dirt,
earth enough to fill a shoe,
and already turned black
from so many good-byes
and from causing so much death?
Or was it your last road,
That brought you the farewell from all roads
You had walked on?
A puddle, a piece of mirroring metal,
the belt buckle of your enemy, perhaps,
or any other small fortune-teller
of heaven?
Or did this Earth, that doesn’t allow
anyone to depart from here unloved
send a bird-sign through the air,
reminding your soul so that it flinched
in its body burned with anguish?
Four neighborhoods recount the soul of the city. Utopian melody in four/four time; the birth cry of the disadvantaged, waking in an unattractive body. Reaction of libidinal chastity and the race of life’s routine. Outside these four neighborhoods there are only nests of straw to shelter the old eagles at the summit of the mountains, only bramble reeds to nourish the stray goats in the plains. Evasion assures the survival of chaos. (No plenitude escapes emptiness.) What will the hanging gardens say when their rotations are paralyzed, when water no longer flows under the norias, and under the grindstones of the mills.? Energy will be in a state of absolute grace. The wind yielding before the capricious pressure of the spheres. Blowing against the wishes of sailboats no longer.
II
The taste of the city is strange. A mix of kif, tobacco and mint. Only these drugs can braid the strands of insomnia. Time passes inexplicably. The wax of candles illuminating only their own circles. Logics crack under the weight of heretical slander. The militias of grammarians, of lawyers and illustrious engineers sharpen their theoretical arms. Ancestors in intensive care (revived, we imagine, with cooking gas mixed with fish manure).
III
At dawn the alleys and footpaths of the
Kingdom are deserted. The red of daybreak
No longer infects the ruins’
facades, receiving only a mute
Light from this red. (We fly over history
With red wings) Taken with fire, a thief
Has taught the phoenix to fill
The attics with onions, garlic, coconut,
Dry figs, black pepper
And raisins. (This dosage an
Effective remedy for unrequited
Love.) Reviving the burnt
ashes, the same thief demands
that the genealogical tree blessed by the
City drug itself only with its own
Unripe fruits.
Who dares hope for the withering of this
Tree? Who dares refute the crime
Of its secular age.
From closed to open,
The shutters of the door
Reaffirm the nostalgia of two beings separated.
Reaffirm that return is nothing but union.
Reaffirm that leaving is nothing but divorce.
We carry our dreams to the next sleep
Where the bed, inert and shivering with cold,
Hides its insomnia under the sheets.
My mother, who hates thunder storms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,
And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can’t confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear:
An autumn more appropriate.
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we present this work by one of modern Mexico’s most heartfelt poets.
Margarita Michelena Mexican 1917 – 1998
for Efrain Huerta
You run through the night like a blind fountain,
Like a rich vein of sleeping music.
Your skin—simple forest of touch and dew—
Is the clear reef that limits your dream,
The place where the blood of tumultuous crests
Is met softly by the waiting shore.
—That lovely blood of yours, high and resplendent,
Wearing its necklace of music and sound
Through the hoisted rosebush of your veins.
Singing in the thirsty caverns of your pulse
Its elastic and burning score—.
In you, sleeping man, the world goes breathing,
The dawn is readied, and roses are invented.
Your children are raised up, imminent and beautiful.
They shine beneath your flesh, which asleep,
Is like a great transparent silence.
If you could see yourself on the summit of your dream…
You are not yourself certainly. You are more: a mirror
Of your deepest life, of the great hidden life
Which blind and powerful carries you
In your smallest gestures without anyone seeing it,
In the things you do when walking down the street
With your cruel suit and your eyes open.
Lost among resounding arrows of daylight
You are only a slight seed in the nothingness,
A weak despairing light
Which shines a moment
Between two infinite solitudes and runs toward death.
You feel how collapse already works in your bones.
Installing its irremediable darkness.
Behind the two gloomy vaults of your eyes.
You are always taking leave
Of the fleeting wonder of your flesh,
Looking at its devoured beauty,
Knowing your death grows and grows
Inside you, like an enclosed garden,
Like a dark apple, hanging,
From the tragic and beautiful
Branches of your veins.
And so you go, alone, alone, despairingly abandoned,
Like an infinite widower of your own body.
But when asleep you open like a rose
That is going to die, but that carries within,
In its cloister of active and blind love,
A sweet galaxy of beauty,
A close daughter of its perfume
Which at the same time its mother dies
Repeats her in color and architecture.
In dream your flesh disembarks
As upon an invulnerable continent.
There you can watch those unknown faces
Those that nightly model themselves in you,
That construct their dance and beauty,
The future column of their voices,
The desolate tower of their tears
And the loving snow of their teeth.
What eternity, what mysterious force
Inhabits you when you sleep,
While you are a quiet island
Lost in the ocean of your bed,
And in which musics and bonfires grow,
The infinite fingers of grass
And noisy armies of children
That demand your love and their disaster.
You are what declines, but also the eternal:
The seed in its place, separating itself,
The mystic darkness of the blood.
And there you are, victorious and defeated,
Burned by oils of mystery,
Possessed, undone, carried
By innumerable and future feet,
Your forehead crowned by dark angels,
Your hero’s shoulders wasted on the world
And your body filled with love and moans.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 60th birthday.
May Ayim German 1960 – 1996
i no longer wait
for the better times
midnight blue sky above us
silver stars upon it
hand in hand with you
along the river
trees right and left
desire in their branches
hope in my heart
i straighten up my room
i light a candle
i paint a poem
i no longer kiss my way
down your body
through your navel
into your dreams
my love in your mouth
your fire in my lap
pearls of sweat on my skin
i dress myself warmly
i paint my lips red
i talk to the flowers
i no longer listen
for a sign from you
take out your letters
look at your pictures
conversation with you
till midnight
visions between us
children smiling at us
i open the window wide
i tie my shoes tight
i get my hat
I no longer dream
in lonely hours
your face into time
your shadow is only
a cold figure
i pack the memories up
i blow the candle out
i open the door
i no longer wait
for the better times
i go out into the street
scent of flowers on my skin
umbrella in my hand
along the river
midnight blue sky above me
silver stars upon it
trees
left and right
desire in their branches
hope in my heart
Poets Corner 