Category: Art and Observation

Internet Suite: Duet

There was a rain storm yesterday and across the street
It rained rose petals from the climbers in the garden above.
The wet asphalt was drenched with these pink drops
licking the stern obscurity of letters not still white
S T O P.

******

I am immersed in a Japan that isn’t.
Google and FB know.

To the side has just appeared an ad for an opera singer
Japanese,
Whose voice “goes down like the smoothest of alcoholic beverages”
Which is not really how I like my opera.

Do they have a singer whose voice:
“scalds like strong, hot coffee first thing in the morning?”
“is as transcendent as a great orgasm?”
“who evokes an abyss of guilt and sadness comparable only to leaving your sobbing child as you walk away from the school?”

If yes, I’ll buy.

Answer Inside a Question

we all bumble through
our stumbling ‘now’
our answers to the same question(s).
“Well now – not for the first time!”*

the think of marvelous awe
and best proof that i’ve ever found
that there is some shimmering “YES!”
in those vibrating strings:
of Lyre
of Voice
of the collapse and expand of cosmos’ breath:
organizing it into the chaos of a collapsing star,
is that we ask.

we ask

and the answer is in that question
those questions we’re all asking in unison
unified (perhaps not) only in this theoretical field
full of stars
collapsing
and bursting into being.

*(see Anne Carson’s second note on translating Sappho in “if not winter”)

Paroles Vides (pour Jaques Prévert)

PAROLES VIDES (pour Jaques Prévert)

Savoir faire, sauveur, sauge…
sauvage:
Creuse RUE DE SEINE
Le sein s’élargit sous les pierres
avec un souffle scintillant
á dix heurs e demie:
“dis-moi la vérité…”
Pierre.
Savoir faire dire
la vérité est vide:
Remplirons
avec nos paroles
aussi vides
aussi belles e sauvages.
Sauge / Saveur.
Savoir / Sauveur.
Sa voix faire…

EMPTY WORDS (for Jaques Prévert)

Know how, saviour, sage…
savage:
Excavate RUE DE SEINE
The breast expands under stones
with a glinting sigh
at ten thirty:
“tell me the truth…”
Stone.
Know how to say
the truth is empty:
Let’s fill it
with our words
also empty
also full of savage beauty.
Sage / Savor.
Knowing / Saviour.
Her voice knows…

Loveliest of trees….

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman (1859–1936)

 

Very seldom do I post something so well known, but I saw a cherry in resplendent bloom this morning and this poem by Housman (one of the few I’ve ever memorized) sang so loud I thought I’d see if you heard it…

Lombard Spring / Rondeau á Lago Maggiore

 

 

The Spring won’t come. A dun bird shifts
his leaden wing and preens the quick
unplanished sky. The rain holds back
above the glacier’s mirrored lac.
Sheet pinned to sheet clouds sullen drift,

Mountain’s iron foot shores the split,
Dis’ black horses elude the bit.
In white re-dressed the peak sounds back:
The Spring won’t come!

Persephone irons out her shift,
Twists off her leaden ring and quick
folds up famine’s sheet; sighs, turns back
to Somnus’ smile ingrained with lack
of sleep pinned to sleep, beauty drifts,
the Spring won’t come.

by Bonnie Mcclellan copyright 2011

listen to this poem here: 

Real-time webcam view of Lago Maggiore from Cerro

Alchimie

Le fou
(lui-même)
allume mon briquet
avec la tête
d’une allumette illustré
avec le schématique
du feu
designee
en d’or
mir(acle)
alchimie


The fool
(himself)
lights my Bic
with the head
of a match illustrated
with the schematic
of Fire
designated
in gold
mir (Acle)

sleeping
alchemy

by Bonnie McClellan

ecoutez ce poem ici…listen to this poem below:


IPM 2MXI…Where have all the poems gone?

“We’re all trying: poets to give you, the reader, the gift of an image that cannot be offered in any better way, that cracks you a bit and frees something; you, readers, are giving us the gift of your searching, your curiosity, your attention…”

That’s what I wrote on the 31st. of January when I inaugurated International Poetry Month 2011 and now, on the 2nd of March I say, with joy, it happened…the exchange of gifts between poets and readers.

Now what?

International Poetry Month 2011 is closed. The marauding hordes have left the library ablaze, the flood has washed away the ashes, the caravan carrying the last copy of the precious poetry collection has vanished in the desert; at least that’s what it feels like to me as I hit the delete key and erase the written versions of the poems.

What remains is the oral tradition; I have made audio files of each poem available where the poem used to be posted.  Anyone who is on my e-mail list has a ‘fragment’ of each work. Perhaps, like the poems of Sappho, this is all that will remain.

I would like to extend my profound thanks to the following guest poets for their contributions:

Anonymous 2oth Cent. Poet

Cesare Bedognè

Gilles-Marie Chenot

Chris Fillebrown

Brad Frederiksen

Giacomo Gusmeroli

Michelle Lee Houghton

Christian Stokbro Karlsen

Tom McClellan

Angel Raiter

Adina Richman

Liliane Richman

Jere Schaefer

Octavio Solis

Edin Suljic

Some of these poets have blogs or websites where intriguing writing and images may be encountered. I encourage anyone suffering from poetry withdrawal to visit these sites by clicking on any of the names that appear in bold. Others are tantalizingly unavailable, if you want to see more of their work you’ll have to hope that they come back next year. Of course my work that is or has been posted throughout the rest of the year is still here.

Thanks as well to everyone who has stopped by to read and comment on the poems either here or at podbean*. It has been a real joy to present so much fine poetry again this year. Now I have to start thinking about next year and get back to writing.

A presto!

*podbean ate my audio! All mp3’s can now be found posted with the poem.

Winter Ebbs: by Anonymous

This poem has disappeared from the site, if you’re wondering why, click HERE.

To listen to or download a podcast of this poem, click 

To read more poetry by Anonymous 20th Cent. Poet, click HERE.