Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
In honor of Moroccan Independence Day, we offer this work by one of today’s most independent Morrocan poets.
1
There were countless deceptions in the notebook of life:
A radio transmits news of war while a hand raises the white flag
Dead people issue from dreams
Blood oozes out of the body of desire…
A distant house that you climb to from an angle watched over by the river… Deceptive it is
A reception room with a table in the middle, on which drunken poems sleep… Deceptive they are
A white curtain, from which light creeps in and assaults love’s posture… Deceptive light
A kitchen, from which you cross to the hugging space within the books’ view… Deceptive books
A bedroom, with sensual butterflies keeping vigil on every side pleasure… Deceptive vigil
A pair of pillows, a pair of witnesses, bawdy, reporting news of orgasms to the bedsheets which are jealous… Deceptive orgasms
A lamp, that lights up only when the body is extinguished… Deceptive it is
An undesirable morning… coming speedy and reminding of ablution rites… A deceptive morning
Deceptions… deceptions
2
Even shoes in the wardrobe spotted countless deceptions
Cockroaches wandering in the bathroom hall reported news of deception on the phone
On the T-shirt
On the blanket
In the jacket pocket
Deceptions without smell but suffocating
Deceptions on walls
On paint
On paper napkins
On the necktie
Deceptions in the window crack, from which emerges an eye flirting with another eye on the other side
Deceptions in greetings
Deceptions under the shower
In entreaties
In high-walled separation
In cities
In monasteries
In the waiting rooms of Heaven and Hell
Deceptions all along the difficult path
Towering deceptions
Wild
Reckless
Pervading the city, the neighborhood, the building gate, apartments, ghosts that that haunt apartments
Deceptions leaking from gas pipes
From balconies overlooking roses, wheat, cactus, oleander flowers and black plastic bags
Leaking from palliative medicine boxes
Night clubs, matchboxes, tomato cans, packets of cigarettes and black boxes in booby-trapped planes
Deceptions skating on ice
Dancing on the heart stage
Demonstrating out in the street, and running for presidential elections
Raising slogans with the unemployed, although they hold the highest offices
Voracious deceptions, chewing the destinies of lovers and the weak
And crushing chickpeas and roasted almonds with their teeth in the love street
Deceptions trampling heart after heart
Suppressing passion after passion
And spreading in all parts of the mind fomenting more treachery… more discord…
And I upon the rubble of deceptions
Waving a scythe and a sword
A wound and a hemorrhage
Songs and music
I will deceive:
My face in the mirror
My body on the death bed
My time woven with error threads
I’ll deceive my joy and laugh loudly out of excessive pain
I’ll deceive the faces of those I loved with a slap of forgetting
I’ll deceive those who loved me by adding them to the list of the Mughal war victims
Those who betrayed me by dropping them into an electric wheat mill
Those who suffocated me with love palpitations, by dragging them into an abyss over there
I’ll deceive the world with a hard shoe blow on the head, till blood gushes as from a geyser… the blood of the world
I’ll deceive life with her lover death
I’ll deceive myself with anxiety
I’ll deceive the sky by breaking through the ozone hole
I’ll deceive monsters in the jungle of my imagination with poetry angels
I’ll deceive my step with a backward step
I’ll deceive the back with the front
I’ll deceive the front with the invisible
I’ll deceive the invisible with indifference
And laugh
Laugh
And join the Forest… in my full elegance
And at the gate – the forest gate –
I’ll wear my high heels
So as not to disturb sparrows:
The foremost deceivers.
1.There’s some idea at the back of her mind she just can’t put into words. ‘That young fellow out there—I don’t seem to be able to recall his name—he’s—he’s— (a small break here while her hand shakes) he’s in a dark place.’
2. Who does she mean? My son? My husband? Or some other member of the family? Or is she, at some other level, referring to herself?
3. She was always deep.
But now she seems to be talking up to us
from a bottomless well.
In honor of the Chilean holiday, Reformation Day, we present this work by one of modern Chile’s most visionary authors.
After Elizabeth Bishop
A farewell to a dear friend is never enough.
We must bring him flowers, songs with
spinning words and good wishes.
We must bring a shadowy thought
of love that make us both happy.
We must convince the ghost that dances
around his grave to be kind to our friend.
He did so much.
He did plant a tree and had a son.
He did in part save his country.
The worst time, I thought, was to leave
one of the friends behind,
there in the dried mountain
his heart was destroyed, his eyes open.
How can we write poems after that?
The friends I loved and left made signs
with their fingers in the fading skies.
They left me here in a brown earth
so I can weep a red spot that leads
to a hollow moon faced to the sky.
In honor of Diwali, we present this work by one of contemporary India’s most visionary poets.
People say that
I excel in making wine.
I can turn the wine
which is brewed today
a hundred years old.
It can make people frenzied and wild
wine that I brew, drinking
I too am constantly intoxicated.
My fleshy breasts
Now sleeps like a dead river.
Intoxicated.
I now can turn this river into a sharp weapon.
The wine I brew
knows how to make
songs from stone, songs from ashes.
People despair to discover my mystery,
they smash their heads
against walls, iron pillars.
They scream, Ah! What is this boon
the heavens bestow upon her path.
How do I say
the way I have brewed
this mellow wine?
I have lain fainted
In the dark hall of sorrow!
In agony
I have whipped my own flesh
and have drunk my own blood.
I couldn’t
take off my clothes
in front of my lovers.
And I had a hundred lovers.
yet, I remained a virgin.
The women from the other
Bank of the river, scream
You are a sinner
You will earn a leper’s death!
My body, which is like
the supple bodies of barali-fish
that dance with the waves of the Red River!
My breasts—the Saramati Peak
in the Tuensang valley.
My mekhela is like
those branches of Rhododendron
which bloom in the Satoi Ranges!
The women from the
other bank of the river –
spit their venom
Oh hunted woman! Let your body
become a feast for
worms!
The Ladies with white hair
from the other bank of the river
Cry out with many voices!
Oh women, don’t gouge at her flesh!
Who knows, those men who
remain like your immediate shadow
would have tried the silky
skin of their own daughters!
Who knows, who knows!
Wise men say, whores are the generals
of the Wars!
Like rivers they lay their traps
Like mountains they protect
the innocent souls!
Oh women, abide by the
Songs of the monk!
Don’t gouge at the flesh of whores!
They know unknown
travelers and murky hunters!
Yes, wise men say, that whores are
the weary generals of the Wars!
My body turned into a skeleton;
my skin swung
loosely on the bones
like the hide of a beast
strung up by a butcher
on a long post
to dry!
The demon of misery
and sorrow
looking for my heart
raked my body with its nails!
Suddenly, I discovered the art of
making wine.
I could ford this
river of separation
which flows in the
guise of human life!
which has kept in its bosom
those ancient maps
of the kingdoms burnt into ashes.
Came floating the golden pitcher from the pages of Samhitas
and from the wombs of the Upanishadas
a heavenly voice cries out
Oh Lady, with the heavy breasts
Open! Open the Lid!…
Many days and many nights
I brewed wine—to open the lids of the golden pitcher
which came from the womb of the Upanishads
Alas, I failed!
drinking made me wild,
only failures drink like a fish!
Suddenly, the lid
opened.
Standing on the other side of
the river—
I saw the glittering
shards of my wine glasses
scattered in a thousand pieces.
Love at Eighty?
Admit it: it’s bizarre.
Ancient Eve is, once again
offering apples:
red lips and golden tresses.
Beautiful,
but not divine.
If my face has color
it’s just makeup, a deceit.
But in my chest a heart
beats its wings wild with desire,
every seventy of its heartbeats
multiplied by two.
Love and shame and my body
warm with lust. I burn
with fever, a fever
past any physician’s cure.
But at my side is bliss,
my lover
kind and faithful
and as long as he is here
I dwell in heaven.
I can’t breathe a word;
my mouth’s sealed
shut with your kisses,
their tongues of flame.
Oh, my thirsty lover!
Look at my happy fortune:
You, I, us tonight.
with a wine so delightful
where’s the room for restraint?
Adam! Come see the spectacle.
Leave behind your denial and conceits
and watch as the Eve of eighty
rivals the twenty-year-old she.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
Here is the city—
its worn-down mountains,
its grass and iron,
its smoky coast
seen from the high roads
on the Wicklow side.
From Dalkey Island
to the North Wall,
to the blue distance seizing its perimeter,
its old divisions are deep within it.
And in me also.
And always will be.
Out of my mouth they come:
The spurred and booted garrisons.
The men and women
they dispossessed.
What is a colony
if not the brutal truth
that when we speak
the graves open.
And the dead walk?
We present this work in honor of Nine-Eleven.
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name —
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner —
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
The first decade – I learnt to wipe my nose
Wipe my feet before entering the house
After a walk in the rain or on snow
The second decade – I learned to put on lipstick
Look in the mirror before
Leaving the house
Look at a boy without letting him know
I was looking
Look like a lady without letting Mama know
I felt all womanish inside
The third decade – I learned to wipe other people’s noses
And love it
I learned to put another’s interest before mine
Love and duty were but two sides of the same coin
Complain?
Me?
What did I have to complain about?
I was fulfilled! Grown up, married, with children and all,
A roof over my head. A boiling pot on the stove
And a man who told me, at least twice a day,
He worshipped the ground I walked on!
Yes, sometimes, very late at night, he reminded me
How much he loved me –
Very, very, very late at night; when the children were
Fast asleep.
When all the dishes were sparkling clean
When the floor was swept free of all toys,
Dusted, and wiped free of meddlesome footprints
Yes, sometimes, late at night, he reminded me
For the third time that day, how much
He loved me.
The fourth decade – I watched my own children,
My daughters, make goo-goo eyes at boys
When they thought my eyes were closed
My ears deaf as stone
They whispered tingly secrets; made subtly suggestive
Gestures. Amused, I watched it all – thought, inside,
I sighed; amused to see the pattern repeat itself. Oh, my
God!
Embarrassed, I remembered my own naïve assumption of
My mother’s blindness
The fifth decade – there was no denying it – my children
Were grown. Yes, they were my children; but they,
Definitely, were no longer children!
Did this mean I was old?
How could it be – when had that happened?
I was just discovering my essence!
Discovering joyful living sans fear of pregnancy,
Sin or ridicule! It was in such ecstatic sensuousness
I entered
The sixth decade – let no one misguide you,
The fifties are for fleshly fulfillment, sinful
Delight, and sprightly goings on. Now, at last,
I knew all there was to know about life.
I’d even made it, from scratch, myself
Gave it flesh, blood, and bone
Knit and bled it into being,
Nurtured it to healthy maturity.
The seventh decade – I learned to live with loss
A huge hole came to live in my heart
But I learned to understand this:
The loss is as big as the love. I suffer
Greatly for I have greatly loved
I am grateful for the love that was mine.
I suffer, but I could not have asked for less.
The eighth decade – I learned to live with
Fewer and fewer friends
Fewer and fewer visits from my children
As their own lives grew fuller and fuller
I love the four walls I call home
I love the skin that houses the bones I call my body
I love the people who, a long time ago,
Were my children
I look at their clean noses and know
I have lived a good life. Look. Just look!
How they truly no longer need me!
The ninth decade – I will learn the meaning of hours
For time is short, each hour more precious, therefore!
The journey is definitely longer behind me
The road ahead lifts with joy as I see
Footsteps painted a bright and
Joyful gold!
Without a doubt, I know, those are the footsteps
Love has made.
Mine has been a long life – rich in experience.
But now, looking back, I see all those brilliant
Moments in my life are moments of loving,
Of giving to others. These are moments
When I transcended the self and its
Imperious demands. When I was for
Another – whatever it was they needed
To go one step forward: wife, friend;
Mother; neighbour; daughter; sister ; or
Stranger!
Yes, I can see: I have been a good citizen, a decent
Human being.
Now, I am eighty years old – I hope I still have
Time enough to catch up!
Pass me that damn bottle of wine, will you?
1.
I grow time, beans, the colour gray
And stitch the shadows of a dying day
They make a woman, rather a girl
Lost in the ocean like a grain of pearl
The swans of Coole fly over me
Will they rest for a while by me!
Maybe it’s my turn now.
Deep in the frost where my eyes shall never go
The leopard will print his paw
And with a sudden leap break free
All the chimes of poetry
Maybe it’s my turn now.
The rough beast was never born
Though we devised a cage for his morn
Maybe it’s my turn now.
I have a tale to tell I shall also ring the bell
When you start believing
When you start hearing
Maybe it’s my turn now.
2.
These days I don’t think of you
But after the soot covers me
I begin to wonder where those
Evenings have gone, those wanderings
In the spacious lawns of enchantment
That smacked of no design, though
We were bent on making a sense
The early birds get their worms
I lie in the tireless ticking of my old watch
Counting the bits of frozen blood,
Listening to the worms
That are in all of us
Then I begin to crawl towards the womb
That threw me off a long way back
And look for the dark, the black hole
To suck me up.
3.
I was nice to him
He was nice to me
Only
Our doors, our windows
Kept closed
Lest we smell each other.
Poets Corner 