Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Never here the risk of
the missed catch, the lost
‘bus, the possibility of the
bottom falling out of the
lotus-market; the certainty that
the face we love will be no longer
there; that one day all this Noddy stuff will dissolve
and Andy Pandy suffocate in his dream-box.
On this island the sun casts no
shadows; amaranth survives without
rain; no fly in the
appointments, chloramine in the
water; no valley in our
alley.
And therefore no
pungent hush as the shower comes down
to rescue the fifth
Test; no final poignant kiss
on the cold cheek of the
dead; just the usual boring
immortelles, the assurance of
helichrysum, the illimitable Tithonus dawns.
In honor of Dia de Andalucia, we present this work by one of the greatest poets of Andalusian Spain.
My tears bare my secrets in a river of apparent charm.
Rivers touring gardens and gardens touring rivers.
And among the gazelles is a joydoe who’s palmed my heart and unsleeped my eyes.
And when she unpins her hair you see the moon in a dark horizon, as though the dawn has lost a brother and worn his mourning dress.
I dreamt of a Poet last night
with gentle touch announcing:
“Let your FROST be warmed by my sun
it will liquefy, leaving your grasses
and your webs bejeweled
for it is water that defines your land
let a moisture laden air
be caught by muscular mountains
to be cooled, as it rises,
dropping its rain down your slopes
lush with ferns and mosses
that sprout ephemeral waterfalls
let the first drops snake around my trees:
your streams dipping beneath toppled trunks
kissing the forest floor in twisting threads
running along a rich carpet of greens
let me find at your sacred place — especially
your extravagance of greens…
let me pick my way
along your shore of boulders
to pluck them from the mountains
in ribbons, the waters shall find
the gateways to fertile land
let the mighty glacier busy himself
hollowing out a bed for your lake
and surrender… for across this lake
the clouds shall dance like gauzy curtains
hiding, then revealing the wonder and power
of your land’s coastlines”
[And I did. I surrendered]
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 50th birthday.
From the end of the bed, I pull
the sheets back into place.
An old man paints a large sun striped
by clouds of seven blues.
Across the yellow centre each
blue is precisely itself and yet,
at the point it meets another,
the eye cannot detect a change.
The air shifts, he says,
and the colours.
When you touched me in a dream,
your skin an hour ago did not end
where it joined mine. My body continued
the movement of yours. Something flowed
between us like birds in a flock.
In a solitude larger than our two bodies
the hardening light parted us again
But under the covering the impress
of our bodies is a single, warm hollow.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 140th birthday.
Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
Around her countless treasures were spread;
Her chamber walls were richly inlaid
With agate, porphory, onyx and jade;
The tissues that veiled her delicate breast,
Glowed with the hues of a lapwing’s crest;
But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
King Feroz bent from his ebony seat:
“Is thy least desire unfulfilled, O Sweet?
“Let thy mouth speak and my life be spent
To clear the sky of thy discontent.”
“I tire of my beauty, I tire of this
Empty splendour and shadowless bliss;
“With none to envy and none gainsay,
No savour or salt hath my dream or day.”
Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose:
“Give me a rival, O King Feroz.”
II
King Feroz spoke to his Chief Vizier:
“Lo! ere to-morrow’s dawn be here,
“Send forth my messengers over the sea,
To seek seven beautiful brides for me;
“Radiant of feature and regal of mien,
Seven handmaids meet for the Persian Queen.”
. . . . .
Seven new moon tides at the Vesper call,
King Feroz led to Queen Gulnaar’s hall
A young queen eyed like the morning star:
“I bring thee a rival, O Queen Gulnaar.”
But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
Seven queens shone round her ivory bed,
Like seven soft gems on a silken thread,
Like seven fair lamps in a royal tower,
Like seven bright petals of Beauty’s flower
Queen Gulnaar sighed like a murmuring rose
“Where is my rival, O King Feroz?”
III
When spring winds wakened the mountain floods,
And kindled the flame of the tulip buds,
When bees grew loud and the days grew long,
And the peach groves thrilled to the oriole’s song,
Queen Gulnaar sat on her ivory bed,
Decking with jewels her exquisite head;
And still she gazed in her mirror and sighed:
“O King, my heart is unsatisfied.”
Queen Gulnsar’s daughter two spring times old,
In blue robes bordered with tassels of gold,
Ran to her knee like a wildwood fay,
And plucked from her hand the mirror away.
Quickly she set on her own light curls
Her mother’s fillet with fringes of pearls;
Quickly she turned with a child’s caprice
And pressed on the mirror a swift, glad kiss.
Queen Gulnaar laughed like a tremulous rose:
“Here is my rival, O King Feroz.”
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
I spend my nights asleep
Upon your face.
In the steppe of your body
I plant cedar and almond trees.
Tirelessly I search your chest
For Pharao’s golden pleasures.
But your lips are heavy, and
My miracles cannot deliver them.
Please lift your snowy skies
Off my soul –
Your diamond dreams
Slice through my veins.
I am Joseph, I wear a sweet belt
Around my many-colored skin.
The frightened thunder in my shells
Is bliss to you.
But your heart is closed to oceans.
Oh you!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
I have a friend
who is turning gray,
not just her hair,
and I do not know
why this is so.
Is it a lack of vitamin E
pantothenic acid, or B-12?
Or is it from being frantic
and alone?
‘How long does it take you to love someone?’
I ask her.
‘A hot second,’ she replies.
‘And how long do you love them?’
‘Oh, anywhere up to several months.’
‘And how long does it take you
to get over loving them?’
‘Three weeks,’ she said, ‘tops.’
Did I mention I am also
turning gray?
It is because I *adore* this woman
who thinks of love
in this way.
More than through skin, more than through sex
Unease is something that becomes clear through language
Something that makes me particular
There were no accentual modulations in that language
Surrounded by accentless speakers
I couldn’t carry on a conversation
I was illiterate too
I abhorred written language
Their accentless addresses frightened me
Didn’t feel directed toward me
If I answered, my language
Sounded ugly, sounded deformed
I could not erase that
When I catch the delicate nuances of accent
In the language he learned in a land far away
I wanted to wash it all away
Language spoken aloud is all mine
Knowledge
Emotions
Time, things we eat
Even if under the influence of others
Even if under the control of others
Even if the language he writes is understood only by others far away
The language that enters my ears, comes out my mouth
And disappears is all my own
Something I want to claim
Even if wet with my saliva
As I scrub him late at night
I imagine washing all that accentless language
From his skin of his freckled back
Dee suiiteshita retoru omen (the sweetest little woman)
He taught me this once
De suiiteshita meen (the sweetest man)
I imitated him
Parroted language
One breath, then another
He was a strange frog, a cricket
Pronouncing with ease
But first he taught me
Nashite mounen (nasty morning)
Next ae habu eten purente (I have eaten plenty)
Next ae an nata hangure (I am not hungry)
Next yu aara nata hangure (you are not hungry)
I touched his language that day for the first time
When I did
I was jealous of language
With it he is connected to the world outside
He writes, people read, that remains
But just then, he spoke to me in his language that remains
Just like my language
His is voiced then disappears
Even if relationships disappear there
Even if memory disappears there
This language, voiced and disappearing, is suiito
I wanted to study and understand his language
Even if only like those boys
It makes me sigh with regret
Still, the words I spoke made him crazy
He said he thought about them for ages
My language threatened
The freckles on his back
They moved, they squirmed
For his thick arms, how light
I must have been, like an imp or fairy
My language percolated through his voice then became free
Taking on the heat and scent of his body
It coiled around me then disappeared
Through language
He dug into me
Searched for me
So heavy from the imps and fairies settled there
Searching out
And finding
My skin
My lips
Poets Corner 