From behind the moon boys’ graves
bleed endlessly; from photograph
to browning photograph they blacken
headlines, stranded outside of time
at the story’s frigid edge.
Though they are long buried
in French soil, we are still speaking
of trenches, of who rose, who fell,
who merely hung on. The morning drills
secretly, like an element that absorbs.
We are right back where we were
before the world turned over,
the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone
are all that Sunday means. Their North
was not ‘The North that never was’.
Artemis, protector of virgins, shovels up
fresh pain with the newly-wed
long-stemmed roses, pressing two worlds
like a wedding kiss upon another Margaret:
lip-Irish and an old family ring.
It’s like asking for grey
when that colour is not recognised,
or changes colour from friend to friend.
I track the muse through subwoods, curse
the roads, but cannot write the kiss.
If I forgive and ignore your coldness,
How can I be free of the memory of you.
Your gaze is dear. The heart has no price.
Tell me to forget, have pity on me,
Or tell me to come.
Come drink this glass with me.
Snow and silence rest on the coast
The waves are motionless on the sand
And the wind – an unmanned boat.
Remnants of an oar
And a spider.
Who can ignite joy in my eyes?
Who can awaken the giant?
Who dies?
The smell of death in the garden
Mocks the seasons
And you, my girlfriend,
A choke and a tear in the virgin’s eye.
Sounds of footsteps on the debris
Search for the truth
For a dagger, for a protective arm.
Deep down in my wounds
The eagle’s feathers were
A voice and a silence
That yearn for the beats of drums
For a shower of rain
To water its palate,
And the (wrestling) ring
Is a soft cloud
That hovers around the horses’ missteps.
Go back with my remains
My blood did not anticipate its course.
Who awaits the dawn and is impatient to arrive?
Who has clung to the rock of my speculations?
Who has stretched his beak out
Towards my eyes?
Oh robber of the torch
There is clamour in silence.
Pick up the daisies of light
In tenacious obscurity.
We sought silence in caves
For impurities cannot be purged by words
Let’s dive beneath waves and rocks.
Surely there is a flicker of light at the bottom
Turn it into a spark
That rescues the wind
From the chains of silence
And teaches humanity how to die!
In honor of Ugadi, we present this work by one of the great 19th century Indian poets.
Michael Madhususdan Dutt Indian 1824 – 1873
I am not rich, nay, nor the future heir
To sparkling gold or silver heaped on store;
There is no marble blushing on my floor
With thousand varied dies:—no gilded chair,
No cushions, carpets that by riches are
Brought from the Persian land, or Turkish shore;
There is no menial waiting at my door
Attentive to the knell: and all things rare,
Born in remotest regions, that shine in
And grace the rich-man’s hall, are wanting here.
These are not things that by blind Fate have been
Allotted ever to the poor man’s share:
These are not things, these eyes have ever seen,
Tho’ their proud names have sounded in this ear!
I was annoyed with myself for
Saying I loved her, because
What I wanted, then, was
Less, or more.
And it was no fun
Putting her head in a whirl;
She was such a quiet girl;
It’s not done.
Anyhow, I didn’t do it;
I just kissed her, and then
Tried not to see her again,
Feeling rather a brute.
Perhaps I should have gone
Through with it; she’d have had
One sin, when she was old and sad,
To congratulate herself on.
But I remember, I thought at the time:
You’d better not;
They hang on to what they’ve got
Like birdlime.
You eat the fruit and sing;
When you’ve had enough,
They talk all about love,
And you’re caught there, twittering;
Afraid to look her in the face,
Afraid of what people may say,
Afraid of her relations all day,
And at night, of an imagined disgrace;
Or you have her tagged on to you
For the term of your natural life,
And have to say, “This is my wife;
This is the best I could do”;
And somehow in the end you find
She sits like an over-ripe tomato,
Or walks like a scarecrow,
Because of her beautiful mind:
Like something or other; like a red crystal
Dropped into the pellucid cup
Of a man’s life; time melts it up,
And the lying purple permeates all.
I have seen how many a match
Has gone this way; how an honest man
With a clear mind, can
Turn slowly to a lovely purple patch.
Sometimes I wish I could myself; but
I should not easily come to heel,
I feel, and I feel
I should feel I was getting into a rut.
So perhaps it’s all in the best. interest
Of girls in general; for their part
They take heart;
Indeed, they seem singularly unimpressed
While I sit wearily in my sitting room
And watch the virtuous hands of the clock
Turning the afternoon into a lock
On shadows coinciding with my gloom.
It’s the way I’m made,
Probably. God knows.
As the twig’s bent, it grows,
I’m afraid.
In honor of the Ching Ming Festival, we present this work by one of the great poets of ancient China.
Bao Junhui Chinese 798 – ?
Risen high — the moon of fall
Glows north on a Liaoyang barricade
The border is far — the moon gleams farther
Ice-bows flash as winds invade
Soldiers gaze back — home beats at the heart
And war-steeds balk at the beat of a drum
The north wind grieves in the frontier grass
And barbarous sands hide hordes to come
Frost freezes the swordblade into the sheath
Wind wears their banner to bits on the plain
Oh someday— someday —to bow near the palace
And never hear camp-gongs clang again
Poets Corner 