In honor of the Argentine holiday of May Day Revolution, we present this work by one of Argentina’s most delightfully subversive poets.
Humberto Costantini Argentine 1924 – 1987
Dear boss,
I’m writing to inform you that,
having now completed 20 years of continuous work in this office,
it is imperative, if I am to proceed with this task,
that you send me, at your very earliest convenience,
the items I list below:
A grey sky, some low clouds and an autumn day, if possible.
And a lot of very old trees…
casuarinas, as dark as time.
Would it be too much to ask for some poplars as well?
And dampness,
a slow drizzle – and earth,
definitely earth,
and the smell of earth and autumn and trees.
You could perhaps omit dry leaves,
but not the heart on fire,
nor the blood full of birdsong;
and don’t leave out vertigo either
or the blond girl at my side with all her tenderness,
or the blood filling with birds…
The first tree I ever made love to
Took me in its branches with tender care
It hugged me until I could hardly breathe
– Your mother’s milke was not so sweet –
It said in a low rustle after we had finished
I woke up astonished at the clarity of my thought
Exhilarated by a strange feeling of relief
The tree had become a woman
Standing at the foot of my bed
Leafing me with gentle strokes
Pushing her roots over my body
Help Help I cried unable to move as in a nightmare
And then she fell over me
Trying to suck the blood out of my breast
Trying to lap up my body out of a tin plate
Placed in front of a dog’s kennel
I swam desperately trying to get out of reach
Her tongue was getting closer and closer
When a strong breath blew me off the ledge of the plate
I started to fall towards the ground
Which turned out to be her lips
While layers and layers of flesh went past me
And I could read their different shades of meaning
As if they had been the lines of a text
It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.
John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.
It’s no go the Yogi-man, it’s no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.
Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It’s no go your maidenheads, it’s no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tire and the devil mend the puncture.
The Laird o’ Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs. Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife “Take it away; I’m through with overproduction.”
It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby.
Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn’t count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish,
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.
It’s no go the Herring Board, it’s no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.
It’s no go the picture palace, it’s no go the stadium,
It’s no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums,
It’s no go the Government grants, it’s no go the elections,
Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.
It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall forever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.
This is the Wiggledywasticus,
Very remarkable beast.
Nose to tail an eighth of a mile;
Took him an acre or two to smile;
Took him a quarter ‘f an hour to wink;
Swallowed a pond for his morning drink
Oh! would it had been vouchsafed to us
Upon the Wiggledywasticus
Our wondering eyes to feast!
This is the Ptoodlecumtumpsydyl,
Rather unusual bird.
Hand a mouth before and behind;
Ate whichever way he’d a mind;
Spoiled his digestion, so they say,
Pindled and dwindled quite away,
Or else he might have been living still,
The singular Ptoodlecumtumpsydyl.
A pity, upon my word!
This is the Ichthyosnortoryx,
Truly astonishing fish.
Used to snort in a terrible way;
Scared the lobsters to death, they say;
Had a nose like a tea-kettle spout;
Broke it snorting, and so died out.
Sad! if he had n’t got into this fix,
We might have made of the ‘Snortoryx
A very acceptable dish.
The dark fires shall burn in many rooms;
will they sometimes miss me with my tangled hair—
still girls in dark uniforms
crouching in winter with their cold hands trembling,
still voices echoing as our voices echoed
and the faded frumped-up form
of a mistress teaching French?
Does she remember us or do we pass
only like dreams of dark figures,
some with different hair or deep voices,
or merely countless hats hanging on pegs,
countless columns of moving massed black legs?
Our minds are sprawled on unforbidden lawns,
our voices lie like queer leaves in the clipped grass,
as we believe so we shall pass.
Cool glass, when leaning forehead against window.
Late-night lights go out, leaving us even lonelier.
Spiderwebs woven by wires over rooftops.
Hollow trot of passing nags touches us for no reason.
What does the howl of these cats in heat call to mind,
and what can the scraps of paper be plotting
as they slither onto empty patios?
The time of night when old furniture seizes the chance to shed its lies,
when pipes make strangulated cries, as though suffocating inside the walls.
Now and then we think, when flipping the electric light switch,
of the fright the shadows must feel, and we’d like to warn them
so they have time to curl up in the corners.
And now and then there is something sinister
about the telephone-pole crosses over the rooftops,
and one wants to slink along the walls like a cat or a thief.
Nights when we wish for a hand to caress our lower back,
when we suddenly realize that no tenderness compares
to stroking something as it sleeps.
Silence!—voiceless cricket that hops in our ear.
Leaky faucet song!—the only cricket that fits the city.
On the road over head,
To the passers-by,
‘Listen,’ she said,
‘Inside this cliff are the dead.
They cry
Because they are dead.’
‘You hear,’ said I,
‘The cry
Of the wind in the hollow face
of the cliff:
Within the cliff
There is only earth.’
‘And what,’ she said,
‘Are the dead
But earth?’
I have cursed you enough
in the lines of my poems
& between them,
in the silences which fall
like ash-flakes
on the watertank
from a smog-bound sky.
I have cursed you
because I remember
the smell of Joy
on a sealskin coat
& because I feel
more abandoned than a baby seal
on an ice floe red
with it’s mother’s blood.
I have cursed you
as I walked & prayed
on a concrete terrace
high above the street
because whatever I pulled down
with my bruised hand
from the bruising sky,
whatever lovely plum
came to my mouth
you envied
& spat out.
Because you saw me in your image,
because you favored me,
you punished me.
It was only a form of you
my poems were seeking.
Neither of us knew.
For years
we lived together in a single skin.
We shared fur coats.
We hated each other
as the soul hates the body
for being weak,
as the mind hates the stomach
for needing food,
as one lover hates the other.
I kicked
in the pouch of your theories
like a baby kangaroo.
I believed you
on Marx, on Darwin,
on Tolstoy & Shaw.
I said I loved Pushkin
(you loved him).
I vowed Monet
was better than Bosch.
Who cared?
I would have said nonsense
to please you
& frequently did.
This took the form,
of course,
of fighting you.
We fought so gorgeously!
We fought like one boxer
& his punching bag.
We fought like mismatched twins.
We fought like the secret sharer
& his shade.
Now we’re apart.
Time doesn’t heal
the baby to the womb.
Separateness is real
& keeps on growing.
One by one the mothers
drop away,
the lovers leave,
the babies outgrow clothes.
Some get insomnia –
the poet’s disease –
& sit up nights
nursing
at the nipples
of their pens.
I have made hot milk
& kissed you where you are.
I have cursed my curses.
I have cleared the air.
& now I sit here writing,
breathing you.
Poets Corner 