The Forest of Deceptions

In honor of Moroccan Independence Day, we offer this work by one of today’s most independent Morrocan poets.

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

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.

The Russian God

Do you need an explanation
what the Russian God can be?
Here’s a rough approximation
as the thing appears to me.

God of snowstorms, God of potholes,
every wretched road you’ve trod,
coach inns, cockroach haunts, and ratholes –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of frostbite, God of famine,
beggars, cripples by the yard,
farms with no crops to examine –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of breasts and… all sagging,
swollen legs in bast shoes shod,
curds gone curdled, faces dragging –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of brandy, pickle vendors,
those who pawn what serfs they’ve got,
of old women of both genders –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of medals and of millions,
God of yard sweepers unshod,
lords in sleighs with two postilions –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

Fools win grace, wise men be wary,
there he never spares the rod,
God of everything contrary –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of all that gets shipped in here,
unbecoming, senseless, odd,
God of mustard on your dinner –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of foreigners, whenever
they set foot on Russian sod,
God of Germans, now and ever –
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

I Have a White Rose to Tend

I have a white rose to tend
In July as in January;
I give it to the true friend
Who offers his frank hand to me.
And for the cruel one whose blows
Break the heart by which I live,
Thistle nor thorn do I give:
For him, too, I have a white rose.

The Solitary Woodsman

Charles G.D. Roberts
Canadian
1860 – 1943

When the grey lake-water rushes
Past the dripping alder-bushes,
And the bodeful autumn wind
In the fir-tree weeps and hushes, —
When the air is sharply damp
Round the solitary camp,
And the moose-bush in the thicket
Glimmers like a scarlet lamp, —
When the birches twinkle yellow,
And the cornel bunches mellow,
And the owl across the twilight
Trumpets to his downy fellow, —

When the nut-fed chipmunks romp
Through the maples’ crimson pomp,
And the slim viburnum flushes
In the darkness of the swamp, —

When the blueberries are dead,
When the rowan clusters red,
And the shy bear, summer-sleekened,
In the bracken makes his bed, —

On a day there comes once more
To the latched and lonely door,
Down the wood-road striding silent,
One who has been here before.

Green spruce branches for his head,
Here he makes his simple bed,
Crouching with the sun, and rising
When the dawn is frosty red.

All day long he wanders wide
With the grey moss for his guide,
And his lonely axe-stroke startles
The expectant forest-side.

Toward the quiet close of day
Back to camp he takes his way,
And about his sober footsteps
Unafraid the squirrels play.

On his roof the red leaf falls,
At his door the bluejay calls,
And he hears the wood-mice hurry
Up and down his rough log walls;

Hears the laughter of the loon
Thrill the dying afternoon;
Hears the calling of the moose
Echo to the early moon.

And he hears the partridge drumming,
The belated hornet humming, —
All the faint, prophetic sounds
That foretell the winter’s coming.

And the wind about his eaves
Through the chilly night-wet grieves,
And the earth’s dumb patience fills him,
Fellow to the falling leaves.

The Dawn

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 205th birthday.

I can but pity him, the one
Who lingers in dull Slumber’s thralls,
While on his roof, unnoticed, fall
The effulgence of the rising sun.

Is there a purer, rarer treat
Than to leap off the wrinkled bed,
And, in the country, lightly tread
Of dewy grass the carpet neat?

I say the country, for I ween
Sweet Morning loses half her smile
Without there be soft winds the while,
And much of blue, and much of green.

These are not had in town, where gray,
And cold and damp, the misty gloom,
As in a suffocating tomb,
Shuts out the morning smile of day.

And then, those rows of houses tall,
With their grim faces, rigid, even,
Weary the soul: the light of heaven
By fragments seems on them to fall.

No! I must stray with footsteps free,
In some delightful rustic place
Without a blur the virgin face
Of life-restoring Morn to see.

To see her in her robe of light,
Far in the crimson Orient shine, —
Like a pure maid, whose smile divine
Elates the soul with chaste delight.

Oh! is there one so poor of thought,
And with a heart so dead and cold,
Who can at the break of day behold
Sweet Nature’s charms, and love her not?

See her with life and beauty new
Roll with the ever murm’ring river;
With the lithe branches dance and quiver;
Sparkle in the resplendent dew.

Low in the reptile on the ground;
Erect and nimble in the brute;
Delicious in the hanging fruit;
Smiling in all the flowers around!

Ah me! I do remember well
When but a simple, beardless boy,
How oft, and with what eager joy,
Came I upon such scenes to dwell!

Now would a butterfly’s light wings
Entrance me with their gaudy hues;
Then would I set myself to muse
Upon a rose, — and dream such things!

And always gay! ‘Twas natural:
Care had not yet impress’d its furrow
Upon my brow, nor had of sorrow
Tasted my lips the bitter gall!

Those days of boyhood vanish’d soon;
Anon, I felt Love’s burning sting;
And then I deemed a foolish thing
To doat on hill, and sun, and moon.

Ungrateful that I was! But how
Severely, Nature, did I pay
For my neglect! She who for aye
Had vowed to love, — forgot her vow!

Most bitterly I wept, and yearned
For her dear presence; and my strength
I fear’d me would have failed… At length
Peace to my shatter’d heart returned.

Oh! what an anguish most sublime
‘Tis to forget! But ah! at last
The iron chain that bound me fast
Fell ‘neath the steady strokes of Time.

Time! Who with hand unseen and noiseless
Pours on our raven locks his snow;
Quenches the light in eyes that glow,
And Beauty’s lips makes pale and voiceless!

And now, once more, I love to stroll
And view sweet Nature at this hour;
For, then, her freshness has the pow’r
To soothe the fever of my soul.

But still I feel deep in my breast
The old wounds bleeding, and I sigh
Whene’er I happen to pass by,
Hand clasp’ed in hand, two lovers blest.

And even sometimes, if I hear
The tender whisp’rings, fraught with meaning,
Of two palms to each other leaning,
I feel a loneliness most dreer!…

If, on a bough, I see, alone,
Two birds exchange delightful lays;
If two stars blend their am’rous rays;
If two waves rolling into one;

If two clouds in the heavens glide,
And on their way their shadows mingle;
If two paths, meeting, form a single;
If two hills standing side by side;

I linger; and with gloomy mood
Remember that I’m loved by none;
That while so many a mated one
There be, I weep in solitude!

The Mermaid’s Gift of Prophecy

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.

The Deluded

hope fails us often
grief never.
that’s why some think
that known grief is better
than unknown grief.
they believe that hope is an illusion.
they are deluded by grief.

The 51st Highland Division’s Farewell to Sicily

We present this work in honor of Veterans Day.

The pipie is dozie, the pipie is fey,
He winna come roon’ for his vino the day.
The sky ow’r Messina is unco an’ grey,
An ’a’ the bricht chaulmers are eerie.

Then fare weel ye banks o’ Sicily,
Fare ye weel ye valley and shaw.
There’s nae Jock will mourn the kyles o’ ye,
Puir bliddy swaddies are wearie.

Fare weel, ye banks o’ Sicily,
Fare ye weel, ye valley and shaw.
There’s nae hame can smoor the wiles o’ ye,
Puir bliddy swaddies are wearie.

Then doon the stair and line the waterside,
Wait your turn, the ferry’s awa’.
Then doon the stair and line the waterside,
A’ the bricht chaulmers are eerie.

The drummie is polisht, the drummie is braw
He cannae be seen for his webbin’ ava.
He’s beezed himsel’ up for a photy an a’
Tae leave wi’ his Lola, his dearie.

Sae fare weel, ye dives o’ Sicily
(Fare ye weel, ye shieling an’ ha’),
We’ll a’ mind shebeens and bothies
Whaur kind signorinas were cheerie.

Fare weel, ye banks o’ Sicily
(Fare ye weel, ye shielings an’ ha’);
We’ll a’ mind shebeens and bothies
Whaur Jock made a date wi’ his dearie.

Then tune the pipes and drub the tenor drum
(Leave your kit this side o’ the wa’).
Then tune the pipes and drub the tenor drum
A’ the bricht chaulmers are eerie.

All Pervading Consciousness

In honor of the Prophet’s Birthday, we present this work by one of Persia’s greatest Muslim poets.

And as His Essence all the world pervades
Naught in Creation is, save this alone.
Upon the waters has He fixed His Throne,
This earth suspended in the starry space,
Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,
Did He not permeate them, were but names;
Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

And yet, alas! by how few is He seen,
Blind are men’s eyes, though all resplendent shines
The world by Deity’s own light illumined,
O Thou whom man perceiveth not, although
To him Thou deignest to make known Thyself;
Thou all Creation art, all we behold, but Thou,
The soul within the body lies concealed,
And Thou dost hide Thyself within the soul,
O soul in soul! Myst’ry in myst’ry hid!
Before all wert Thou, and are more than all!

Light

Did you say it’s made of waves?
Yes, that’s it.
I wonder what the waves are made of.
Oh, waves are made of waves.
Waves are what they are,
Shimmeringness,
Oscillation,
Rhythmical movement which is the inherent essence of all things.
Ultimately, there’s only movement,
Nothing else.
The movement that light is
Comes out of the sun
And it’s so gorgeous a thing
That nothing else is ever anything unless lit by it.

Poets Corner

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