POETRY 3 sonnets, 15 sonnets *
POSIE É *
LYRIK É *
POESIA 7 poesie
*starts with
English, please scroll down for Italian and French **work in progress
http://www.mariavandaalen.nl/rozenkrans
SEE ALSO:
SEE ALSO:
http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com/poetry/MariavanDaalen.html
SEE ALSO:
http://netherlands.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=13468&x=1
POETRY
A REBTIKO FOR FRANS VAN
HASSELT
this morning I
stood in the empty kitchen
and cleared up
things before I went away
there was half a
bottle of olive oil left and 1 lemon
that is too much
lemon
yorgos the cat
jumped on the sill
and looked at me
with amber-coloured eyes
an odorous fish
head is the sweetest
the colours of
the sky are the colours of the sea
and the rain
vaporizes before meeting the street
I didnÕt finish
the retsina bottle
I didnÕt clean
the knife from Crete
the bouzouki
player sang: where
does love go to when it disappears
and I hummed
along with the soft melody
perhaps tonight
Kim has gone dancing with that young man from the bar
perhaps at full
moon although Greeks donÕt care about that
there was half a
bottle of virgin olive oil left and 1 lemon
that is too much
lemon
where does love go to when
she disappears
the gate does
close the gateway not the look
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2008)
* Rebtiko: Greek
folk song
** Frans van Hasselt is a Dutch journalist, born 1927, living in Athens. Authority on the
rebtiko.
SONG FOR KONSTANDINOS
KOUKIDIS *27 April 1941*
When his land
had shrunk to the size of the flag
-blue as the sky
that reflects in the sea,
white as the
clay houses on the scorched rocks by the sea
-a flag with the
cross of a body bag,
as wide as the
span of his arms-
he took it down,
wrapped himself
into it
and stepped onto
the stronghold.
It is two
hundred metres of depth
and five
thousand years of vista.
É
Two birds of
prey fly daily from Thermopylae to Salamis,
their route
marked by little songbirds flying up,
one after
another, twittering shrilly, a wavy ribbon in the landscape.
No one notices.
The eyes of the
dead glisten,
Xerxes and
Leonidas have been fighting now for three days.
Two birds of
prey are lurking for blood,
higher on the
thermals, smelling resistance,
see below them
paragliders, hang gliders, sailplanes, skydivers
and a Nik on
the Acropolis. She sits, she attaches the wings to her footwear.
She is not
flying yet.
É
When he went to
war, his father said: DonÕt come back.
Turned around,
pointed casually to the knife on the table.
His grandfather used
to cut lambÕs kidney with it.
His mother
didnÕt want to cry and didnÕt want to let go of him,
his two sisters
looked at the ground. Or outside.
He remembers the
eyes of the girl of Samos,
blue with a
tinge of gold
and warm as the
scent of freshly-cut olive wood.
The eyes of the
dead glisten.
I will dribble
some oil on their foreheads,
the route
marked, the pass marked, the land
marked –
albeit only as large as a body bag,
you can always
plant a grape vine or an olive.
É
He is falling
and keeps falling,
in every song I
write, he is falling, the flag clasped around his body
like the last
word in a language thatÕs becoming extinct.
As long as he
doesnÕt come down, in Linear A or B,
what he does is
intelligible. He lives.
I keep him
descending in the blue language
of sea and sky.
É
There are no
angels. On the Acropolis
are butterflies
with powdery-blue eyes
and protrusions
on the wing points
that donÕt even
break the wind.
Iphiclides
podalirius, Segelfalter, folds its wings like sails
close to the wind.
É
He says his name
is Alexis.
HeÕs a blogger
and he loves jazz.
Anger is his
knife with which he cuts out the world.
I see Athens by
night through his eyes,
I walk through
dead silent streets where all iron shutters have been lowered,
the council has
affixed the same old lanterns everywhere
to create a
sense of unity that no tourist will recognize.
I hear that a
father doesnÕt recognize his son.
I hear that a
living father has lost the fight for love.
I hear that IÕm
walking across a rock
that is covered
with polished marble.
The road up is
always also the road down
or was it the
other way round? Herakleitos is laughing scornfully,
turns his back
toward me, goes to watch television with the other old men. Soccer
in Greek.
A man falls from
a balustrade
or was it a
stronghold. Once I was in Venice
without love or
lover,
but with a man
who had chosen me and followed on my footsteps.
The look in his
eyes said death.
I hadnÕt seen
death lately.
Tonight he
didnÕt come.
Along a wall
hangs a flag with a blue cross in it.
You can wrap
exactly one man in it.
I must see to it
that he doesnÕt come down.
As long as I
keep writing, I keep him descending, floating,
a paraglider
with the light of the full moon against the morning sky
like the eyes of
a girl of Samos
who doesnÕt know
she is remembered.
Look,
a man is falling from the Acropolis!
No
way man, that canÕt be, itÕs one of those delta flyers or whatÕs-it-called.
No,
really! HeÕs falling!
Shall
I take a picture?
HeÕs
falling! HeÕs really falling!
You
must call the police.
Why,
so they can come catch him?
The number of
the police in Athens is 100.
You donÕt need
to dial a land code or 210 for the city.
The police donÕt
speak French or English.
They become
impatient when youÕre speaking French or English.
Ah
man, itÕs a stunt. Or an advertisement for a detergent. Blue cross
for
all your blood stains!
I give my cell
phone to a man whoÕs looking with interest at what IÕm doing. He explains to
the police that IÕm not getting any money from the hole-in-the-wall. Must be a
gang, he says. It was on the news.
One centurion
jumps from the Acropolis
while I hear a
hundred-and-twenty voices singing a song of Mikis Theodorakis
in the Odeon of
Herodes Atticus.
A hecatomb of a
hundred white telephones
all calling the
number 100
and singing a
rebtiko into the receiver:
ÔItÕs become
night without moonÕ.
I
must have more voices simultaneously
as
when I said to Arjen: you really should write an opera
and
Kees said Ôbut heÕs already doing thatÕ.
No one takes
away from me my sorrow
or my talent to
mould it.
No one jumps
from the Acropolis
to save the
country
or the language
or even the name
of the flag.
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2009)
*At the foot of the Akropolis is a memory plate for Konstandinos Koukidis
i will make you an epitaph
that everyone will know by heart
within / i go on
up / it is dark / and upstairs is
the heaven of
the church the shore of the sea the beach the ebb
and in the
splendid wet plain lies a water
a bowl a source
an upsurge i kneel and baptize
both of my hands
my flushed face you bring up the fresh water
with calm and
with control it fills my mouth my speech
i bow i wash my
brow i bathe the tears
salt washes in fresh
the ebb flows down my legs i sink a little in the wet wet sand
the sea is
behind me the spume lies at my head a cockle shell is open empty is white
even while
drinking i know that the sea
the sea slowly
returns she regains the metres she sucks and spews
out the flotsam
it lies high the spume rustles at my left right heel
i am still
drinking but the source becomes brackish you take up the theme you play
the fugue / up
on the stairs / and it is dark
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2008)
*for my father Frans Nicolaas de Rooij
(1920-1996)
*in his lifetime church organist and naval
architect
SEA VIEW
He feeds me
salmon as if itÕs fish, breaks the
too thin, too
white toast, and the salty scent of
sea view, beach
catch, somersaulting seagulls hangs
in the wake of
the fisherman, gives me the
bedewed glass of
gold-glowing, sparkling champagne
from the
windowsill. IÕm a young that cries out
and with his
hand he presents me as devout
as ever
eternity. Eat, for you may
need that if you
want to accompany me
on my way. The
road is long, beyond the sea,
we are going to
walk, do you want to wear
my dark blue
coat which is warm and light, I hold
on to your hand,
will you always stay close
to me? When we
two are together weÕre home.
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2008)
THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY (2007)
the day unfolded with the room a battlefield
wineglasses shattered and a toppled-over bottle
the mirror thousandfold, the vase with roses
a direct hit which bleeding between papers
curtains ripped off, and the tv still on
my glasses broken on the floor by the glass table
which, oddly enough, was still intact
swans black, swans pale,
out to fairies isle weÕll sail
fairies isle is closed
the key to it is
oh, look, the verb to scream is broken, sentences in half
trampled deep into the carpet
or written with a finger on the windowpane
I am leaving, do you hear me, and I never will come back
if you donÕt step aside, IÔll smash you, so smash, you smashed
a hole
through which, a long way off I saw the night
in 1942, when my father rode his bike
from Den Haag to Eindhoven, got past the German lines
in order to see his wife
a love for a life that was too short
a quarter-century later he was sitting at her bedside, she was still young, and died
I see their hands, entwined in death,
her life ebbing away beneath his
face
but how he got there in that winterÕs night
during the occupation, captured, beaten
and questioned, never did we find out later
if he was traitor or had been
betrayed
of his resistance group virtually all were shot
a burden which he carried in his body
in vertebrae, smashed to pieces, the same deep breach
that you smashed, that night
the silver chain fell from between my clothes
in a corner of the hall laid the silver pendant
that you had ordered specially at Taurum goldsmiths
the relationship is broken but not love, my child said casually
my love is never broken, for
Ôthe critic loves the poem about the red beech tree
but the poet loves the red beech treeÕ
ask me anything you want, IÕd said
I can give anything away, my whole kingdom half, my body
just not my talent, for that is on loan
then I asked you, where were you, and you screamed for hours
then I asked, but you werenÕt there, you were that night
absent, but night was everywhere
just like blood and sweat and vomit and snot, and more blood
when the situation becomes unbearable
most men fall asleep
in the morning you were lying on the floor
as if the world was turning and in all innocence
you wanted to await the new day dreaming
but dreaming you were not, you slept
then I woke you up and said, go out of me
if I am not safe within my body
all rules of grammar will come disconnected
the conjunction between earth and blood and language will be gone
now leave
give back to me the keys of love and of fear
when I embody breaking, I am whole
and thus
my history is
your history as well
I have been beaten up when you were angry
I have lain on the floor, concussed, for three whole days and Erzulie has looked after me
I have waited wordlessly while you were screaming, and fear, fear, fear I had to
I broke two ribs and I have been raped
and when I was in Sarajevo yesterday
I saw my blood in spatters on the marble
applied in order to commemorate the heroes
I have been marked, been hit, been eaten
and burned in every place where wood grows
my words I saved, I told you nothing
such men know about length, not about space
then I said: an old Haitian proverb says
Bay kou, bliye. Pote mak, sonje.
who hits, forgets, who bears the mark, remembers
who inflicts violence, will lose
who is of violence the recipient
will not be sacrificed, but will receive the power of anger
and will incorporate and carry it
this is the law of conservation of energy
these are the real sciences
I am an inexhaustible source
I am a body, a reservoir of anger
anger has been handed over to me
because I am free and a woman and space
all that anger, it is energy, that you didnÕt know
I, thank you, I have energy for centuries
I can completely redefine the world
in terms of love and of breath
my voice reaches from Diotima to the present
and I
speak here
Ôthe critic loves the poem about the red beech tree
but the poet loves the red beech treeÕ
and then
entered Natasja
the same one who has made
the bronze statues of rapes and carried them
in Groningen, she says, when thereÕs a woman raped
IÕll load one of my statues in my van
to leave it at the place of rape by night
then IÕll keep vigil over it that night, I said
and I will read aloud, all through the night
Natasja carried one of her statues inside
and carefully she placed it on my work top
a Venus of Antwerp, cast from bronze, clad in power
like the Nik of Samothrace
who from AthenaÕs hand flies forward
the Louvre to and fro
and then
a man was sitting on the Pont des Arts with a bottle of Mot&Chandon and two crystal glasses
a man was sitting in front of the temple in Kuala Lumpur, with strings of fragrant jasmine blossoms, and stiff stems of pink lotus
a man, dark as the night, was walking towards me in Iowa Mall, the baby on his arm, his two-year old son, running ahead, saw me and shouted Superman! Superman!
a man was lying asleep on the tarmac beside the highway, head on his worn grey backpack, he didnÕt know the way, his name was Dionysos
once in a while he sends an email from Egypt
a man sits singing in Montreal, he doesnÕt see me, he is singing for the goddess
a man is on the Leidsegracht, in 1968, mysteriously smiling he turns his head toward me
weÕll have a drink when he is with his sailing boat in Heeg
a sniper is on the lookout at Dupont Circle
but wherever I am, I am not coming back
a lot of places I, thanks to the goddess, have forgotten
but the snow is thick in Boston
and the chestnuts are pattering down in Dreuzy
but a man is sitting in the Vismarkt with his head in his hands, long after I will have walked [past
and when Natasja returns
and offers me the same statue in chocolate
lifesize this time
breasts in hand, this chocolate Venus will provide
the world with chocolate nourishment
and when Athena returns
-but goddesses are omnipresent, call me and I am here (I am
here)
and when I come back and will once again live in this poem
the space probe will land on Titan and send its waves through the ether
the mermaids will be swaying in the Gulf of Atjeh till the descending floating bodies dissolve [in pearls and single-celled organisms
the war fires in Baghdad will burn to ashes and be dispersed
and just one single flower will bloom
a daisy
in the spot where I am to be buried
this is my purest joy
pushing up daisies
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2008)
I call you,
passer-by, I call you:
the shining
horizon.
I stretch
out my flowering grasses to you,
I wave to
you with plumes and petals and whirling pollen.
From your
feet to my farness flows a streamlet,
clear and
rippling
it tells
you which way,
where you
can find me.
I am always
there.
I am
wherever it is light
and when it
is dark, I have closed my eyes.
But still
you see me.
I embrace
you.
I wrap my
space around you like a cloak,
I shelter you
against the fear.
You are not
alone.
You are on
your way.
And the way
is always with you.
Translation:
Rene Delhez
In: Poetry Review, ÔDreams of elsewhereÕ, Volume 97, No
3, Autumn 2007
GOSPEL
1
In the
beginning was the word and the word was grass. Bluegrass, from here to the
Dragon Mountains, buoyantly bending like the long rolling waves of the deep
sea. Golden grass, from the Dragon Mountains to Slave Bay, crackling like ripe
corn during the dog days. And from Slave Bay up to here, where I stand, the
ruddy plumes of the rooigras, tall after the rains on the savannah. The cheetah
rests in the rooigras.
2
Hail thee,
beauty,
ebb tide of
love,
neap tide
of the body.
Cool as the
night in an aeroplane,
in and out
breathes the sleep time,
night in
the windows, a blue, swaying
darkness
and the hatches open.
Boeing
sails softly, almost at the bottom
of
shivering sea water, deep reeling fathoms.
A hand
waves along a window
with a ring
of pink polyps and pearl oyster.
Cool is the
journey, the infinite time
and the
night is alive.
Hail thee,
beauty,
burnt,
scattered, dust
along the
roadside.
Warm as the
red colours of the earth,
fiery
fertile with iron and clay,
wood colour
and pine resin, flame,
extinguished
along the dusty roads
a compass
rose lies between two eyes precisely
a bullet
wound flowers.
Hail thee,
beauty,
white and
gold in the bridal room,
cool and
padded like a coffin.
Hail thee,
body in the
rooigras.
3
The other
cheetah / rises from the lair / and approaches.
Translation:
Rene Delhez
In: Poetry Review, ÔDreams of elsewhereÕ, Volume 97, No
3, Autumn 2007
MOTHER
The tumour invades the pericardium. This contains a fair amount of clear fluid. The heart shows no abnormalities.[1]
Your heart was
not affected.
Your love
for me had saved it for a lucid death.
You were
glad to be going.
of gin,
brought it along to stay awake.
C, who has
the right to bless, blessed
all three
of the three glasses.
You faded
away.
I saw your
soul leave your eyes.
Deceasing,
I feel what it means now.
When we got
home, we were really very merry.
and cannot
stop anymore.
[1] Excerpt from autopsy report (1969)
Translation:
Rene Delhez
In: Poetry Review, ÔDreams of elsewhereÕ, Volume 97, No
3, Autumn 2007
Someone
must be the witness
and arise
when the body can no longer take the sorrow.
I arise in
due course,
just like
him, without any effort,
and depart
from my past time
until I
arrive in my body,
my lair,
the bed my soul has selected for itself.
The
battlefield, the captivity,
the merging
which will be marked for death,
so that
what I want to have said will happen to us,
namely,
notably
the love,
the life,
the
singularity, the day-to-day boasting, that I love you
and will
wash up tonight
all the
plates, all the cups
and all
thatÕs all holy.
Thus it
shall be.
The clean
dishes in the cupboard.
The towels
hanging on the radiator.
The world
at my feet,
the dead in
the ground.
And
somewhere, going to seed, blossoming,
a new
garden
and fresh
earth.
Translation:
Rene Delhez
In: Poetry Review, ÔDreams of elsewhereÕ, Volume 97, No
3, Autumn 2007
Would the
king himself ever bite on his tongue,
I think, facing
the mirror, slavering blood
like a
vampire, warm-red, where band-aid cannot
be applied,
my own language: leaves me undone,
from my
other me mute reproaches are flung
which must
remain wordless and canÕt stem the flood.
For a
saviour now, urgently please, oh god
who,
bleeding for me, rights the wrongs I have done
or blesses
them. I want off. As for choosing:
I chose to
keep mum, hold my tongue. Until death,
an
intellectual. ThatÕs great, such self-control
but it
became better and redder, a whole
glass of
wine, no, two or three, sunset blood red
and there
was no more help for me save losing.
Translation:
Rene Delhez (2008)
the mould
on the milk is half an inch thick.
The bread
is green and almost translucent.
against the
radiator.
I am so
dreadfully.
I am so
terribly.
I loved
him.
When he
left, something was torn.
I still
cannot stand the smell of coconut
the way his
hair smelt, melting in my bed
the little
black curls and the stains.
I left,
destination unknown,
until I
also forgot my own name.
And now.
and see the
rust of unused words.
How do I
reopen my book with fire?
When he
left, something was torn.
I looked at
my hands in the washing-up water
and saw the
shards that were not there,
the soap
bubbles that slowly came up and floated away,
the single
empty glass.
Years later
he sends me an email:
Ôtoday
someone wore your perfume,
and for a
full hour looked for you, while knowing
you to be
eight flight hours away.Õ
to describe
my tears as soaking wet.
How on
earth do you want me to cope, beloved?
who was
inside me. There is no other,
you are the
only one. That speaks for itself. You speak. You speak in me
and you say
I and I means
earth.
When he
left something was torn.
From what
was torn it started
to bleed
until it had wings
and with
the quills described the way
from the
depths, de profundis, to the light.
Translation:
Rene Delhez
In: Poetry Review, ÔDreams of elsewhereÕ, Volume 97, No
3, Autumn 2007
Three sonnets for Hotel New York, New York
For Jeanne van
Heeswijk
Published in: Heeswijk, Jeanne van. ÔI am looking
for space and fortuneÕ, voyage through a room -- tales about art. ARTIMO
Foundation, Amsterdam, 2001, pp.173-175.
1
The sirens
called me 24 hours a day
to pay
attention. And I paid. I wrote him
no letters,
I collected quarters, floating
at night
through empty corridors, at the pay-
phone I
dialled endlessly the same voice mail,
ÔM.D.u.j.o.nÕ,
he sings his name to me, quoting
Chinese. It
leaves me senseless. He smote me limb
for limb, I
couldnÕt come. This sorry wailing
that
sometimes rises in my throat. At night when
I was full
of energy, the heat leaking
through the
whitewashed walls, the tip-tap of the mice
setting
parameters for space, in dots. Thrice
I checked
the alarm, carried 8 keys, freaking
not because
of the dark but when the phone rang.
2
I didnÕt
sleep in the other bed. Four
nights
I descended
into the spotlessly white
sheets. My
own Hades unfolded, my desire,
but in the
morning I was hungry again,
I strayed
into the Korean diner when
the dead
meat was delivered, I admired
the ice
crystals turning slowly red. I might
even have
bought some. But I couldnÕt cook, light
a fire,
burn it. So instead I brought home blue
daisies,
sweet smelling sticky pecan cookies,
multicoloured
smarties. I made an altar
in the
window, the Ibeji from afar
clearly
visible, between books and sonnets.
My
obedience, I took it to be true.
3
I couldnÕt
have slept with anybody else.
I mean, I
could. Have. David wanted it. I
didnÕt. It
didnÕt happen. I called Marcus, and Wess,
but that
was later on, for the moment my
conscience
wouldnÕt let me yell the lights down, mess
with
JeanneÕs art and order, which I do hold
as sacred
as my own. So I read speechless
as always
my Agamben, I have been told
that he
loves Leopardi. I looked at two
clocks.
Time ÔRotterdamÕ , and Time ÔNew YorkÕ. Why wait?
I was
feeling Marcus up in Gramercy
while it
was closed. We sneaked in. There was no gate
open and we
couldnÕt get out without a key.
Still, IÕm
sure I could have got hold of the one.
NOTE: ÔIbejiÕ are the Twins. The king-god Shango is their
divine father. Ibeji and Elegba, god of poetry, the one Ôwho opens the doorsÕ,
have a strong relationship. Ibeji gladly accept anything that comes in plenty,
like palmnuts, or cowrie shells. Also sweeties and childrenÕs toys can be put
on an Ibeji altar. Ibeji are abundance. The name ÔIbejiÕ is also given to the
twin dolls, wooden, that embody the souls of [passed away] twins. They act as
intermediaries between the ÔmotherÕ/owner/inheritor and the Mother Goddess. Provenance
of my Ibeji statues: Yoruba, Nigeria.
13 SONNETS FOR A LOST LOVER
publ. in Elektron,
Muon, Tau,
a poetry volume with 84 sonnets (Querido, Amsterdam, 2000)
the first lines
1 My
Love, you have the world cupped in your hands,
2 my
Love, you carry abundance. Beholder,
3 my
Love, of life that comes full circle, Moulder,
4 my
Love, through time revolving, in every sense
5 my
Love and your scent, both renew all, intense
6 my
Love and the embodiment of soul, where,
7 my
Love, your veins pulsate from wrist till shoulder,
8 my
Love, your breathtaking movement nowhere ends.
9 My
Love, the entrance to Paradise and truth,
10 my
Love, is in your name, the one, and only
11 my
Love touches on the line where all love ends,
12 my
Love can approach beauty and be lonely,
13 my
Love enters its abyss, and you, past youth,
- My
Love, You have the world cupped in Your hands.
sonnet 1
The Embrace Sonnet
My love, you have the
world cupped in your hands.
I look, and find it tilted. At an
angle
you spin it with one finger, and
entangle
my thoughts, my longing and the blur
of lands.
In one direction only goes the
globe:
around, and so the depth is what
recurs
and what recurrently itself unfurls
and leaves a rainbow trail of pain
and hope.
So often have I known my bony face
cupped in your hands, and felt the
tender touch
of your strong rosebud lips -- and
you spin round
and you return in one tender embrace
that holds the world and with the
world is found
as its one movement: to love very
much.
sonnet 2
The November Sonnet
My Love, you carry
abundance. Beholder
of breaking kernels that expand in
leaves and
roots: commitment is your name that
leaves the end
unsolved, but brings in wintertime
of colder
loves who leave whithered lives and
carry all their
memories in the wings. I empty
grievance,
I fill the lips with kisses that
will freeze and
vanish. There is no sore weight on a
shoulder
I gently touch. He lies tired on the
bed
and smells the snow, tries to
imagine that smell
but it is empty, while snow itselves
dissolves
and becomes the scent of cold. From
this follows
no new spring. My Love, my friend, I
know this well,
that the still life I can bring you
becomes wet.
sonnet 3
The Fitting Sonnet
My Love of life that
comes full circle, Moulder
who creates the cast that moulds in
every way
lifeÕs boundaries, bouncing surface
of the clay,
born at death into matter, never
older
or it changes into our shape, the
holder
of the experience of touch - if I
may
touch you with the tentative words
that I say
so that the touching on my skin far
colder
becomes than what your cast has made
of my form
in love - I love you, and I love the
loving
lines that hide your form from me
and from the world.
So when in the human morning we are
hurled
from this mould of yours, and we are
hovering
to be: keep us pulsating against the
norm.
sonnet 4
The Bay of Galway Sonnet
My Love, through time
revolving, in every sense
a Wheel of Fortune turns, and turns
me with you
on, there is this strange
recurrency, due
to choice and chance, my thoughts
are emptiness, dense
with not knowing: will you arrive?
In the tense
waiting I stand up, walk enquiringly
to
the reception, she turns to me, ŌIs
it you?Ķ,
and it is, you are calling, my
thoughts are dense
with music. In the bar the girls
laugh and smile
and laugh and keep their heads close
together. ŌSay!Ķ,
but the words achieve no meaning
beyond sound
and I empty another cup of tea,
around
me is much walking, everybody today
seems to be changing places -- same
rhythm, same style.
sonnet 5
The Angel of PerfumesÕ Sonnet
Olivier Messiaen
My Love and your
scent, both renew all, intense
melting together of breaths and of
being
lost in the loosing of vision and
seeing
into my eyes, and into your blurred
sixth sense
of smouldering touch that involves
skin and hands
in a lost play of digits -- fiction,
fleeing
structure, feeling up significance,
keying
up thickness of smell in the air,
moist and dense
is the truth, that you are in my
lap, in my
womb, in the basin that holds you to
open
up odours of sanctity -- love, you
are mine
in the wholeness of oozing an ocean,
brine
and sweetness of sea that rocks you,
to open
eternal incense, with the perfume of
I.
sonnet 6
The Sonnet in which the Glass Slipper is found,
and doesnÕt fit
My Love and the
embodiment of soul, where
half my life is lived and half will
fall apart
among the ashes, divine spark, from
the start
you scorched the inside of my body,
and there
you branded me, in every cell the
holder
of your eclipse, I cannot escape, my
heart
even is yours to the core, and now
my art
has to acknowledge its resistance,
told their
futile escapes in form how adverbs
have done
away with intimacy, I wish for a
fitting
noun, a name, as the cutting of
ÔknifeÕ draws blood,
but the dancing feet of Cinderella
stood
motionless at the appointed time,
within
eternity, still dark. We have not
begun.
sonnet 7
The Sonnet of the Cryonic Second
My Love, your veins
pulsate from wrist till shoulder
and carry all my thoughts inward to
your heart
and to your mindÕs loneliness, where
from the start
from when I met you, Other, so much
older
than you, you did weave my longing, and
told there-
of, balance, and movement of which I
am part.
How infinite is potentiality, art
and nature unfolding in waves of
bolder
design and art, that art itself can
hold, thus
do I mourn as strong as blood moves
pulse and rhythm
dilates, contracts. Only your syntax
knows why
surging aorta and lust leaves me be
ÔIÕ,
how infinite in you, in me, and
fitting
for such as ever were, oneness but
not us.
sonnet 8
The Sonnet for the Portrait, a Birthday Present
My Love, your
breathtaking movement nowhere ends
its curves, its fluency -- you move
and caress
endlessly my lines, I finish
writing, rest
a bony head in my hands, I stare, it
bends
my self toward memory, all night it
spends
myself in seven red candles that
burn less
and less, the light of dawn in July
can stress
the syllables you whisper, my body
blends
into the words you forgot, that move
and lie
now at the inside of my thighs,
stretch my skin
taut over bones, will thaw in my
empty throat,
not yet swallowed, of all kisses
eaten float
the scents on my breath, a trail,
and thin
soft pencil traces this ice of your
goodbye.
sonnet 9
The Serpent Sonnet
My love, the entrance
to Paradise and truth
is lost in winding lines, and the
remaining
embrace of nouns and verbs can but
contain the
faintest remembrance of your scent,
your youth.
How many words I taste, and softly
say
over and over, for the joy of
naming,
and name again - a poisonous
refrain, the
searching itself becomes the hidden
way
in which to search: kissing and
kissing you
again, lips barely touching curve
and skin,
I grow the supple bends and folds -
a sonnet
that molds around your limbs and
still it cannot
contain your name, your movement.
Hissing, you
slip beyond language: you are
without sin.
sonnet 10
The Stained Sonnet *on my way from Seattle to Tokyo, Nov14/15, 1996
My love is in your
name, the one and only
love through which I travel to a
distant shore.
I gain my first glimpse of the
horizon, more
smoothness, of an oceanÕs rim, and
the stony
awareness of steep hills. So far, so
lonely
without your love, I am climbing in
a sky
wherein language freezes to a single
wry
remark, a breaking sound in both my
bony
hands that hold a fountainpen,
leaking its black
writing on my skin, staining me so
deeply
that no detergent can remove this
tattoo
of dark and salt depths, this line
that moves with me
around the world, and is horizonÕs
thin track
around me - where I am, I know you
are too.
sonnet 11
The Palmistry Sonnet
My Love touches on the
line where all love ends,
the crossroads in your hands, the
hidden drawing
that draws upon your life. It does,
at morning,
open up in your palms, to tell of
events
that have occurred to you. Cuts.
This etching blends
itself into your skin, traces of
mourning
and pain and time -- your right hand
shows a warning,
your left was born with you and
shares your talents.
No one can step outside his long
bloodline.
Any choice is final, for some time.
My Love,
I walk alone the ways of a
borderland
on which no meaning is exposed but
wet sand
shows footprints and stones. A
crossing. Hide, my love,
in both my hands, the direction will
be mine.
sonnet 12
The Coyote Sonnet
My Love can approach
beauty and be lonely,
like a coyote running along the
grounds
halts without a sound - I stopped
breathing - wolfhound
turns and looks back, eyes fixed,
the shadow only
seems to move, wavers now like a
shrill tone. He
disappears in the same curve: to
look around
and to be the swift, ochre killer -
it daunts
me, the vanishing chills me to the
bone. Me
and my love, we are one but
separated
in even the need to surrender. Never
can the law of being human be broken
although it can be surpassed by the
token
groans and the fewest drops of
liquid ever
running in between. Mixture. We have
mated.
sonnet 13
The Lotus Sonnet
My love enters its
abyss, and you, past youth,
you enter me with all the easiness
and
grace of bending and of a first
thirst lessened
by bending me with ease and turning
my truth
into my depth. My love, I gasp and
deeper
inside I open up for your recurrent
urge, the soft walls widen, here
comes a torrent
of melting underneath my 'I' and
deeper
down sweeps all my love into its
overflow
and fulfilment. I watch your eyes
and notice
how their dark hazel changes to a
golden
green, wherein I read despair and I
do know
how the Ruler, the Lord who holds
the lotus
is one in one with all women and all
men.
sonnet -
The Bruce Nauman Sonnet
My Love, You have the world
cupped in Your hands,
a world that moves consistently, is
turning
around itself, that focuses the
yearning
toward a goal, toward a common good.
Strands
of shivering white cloud hover above
lands
and seas, in streaming ribbons. My
world, learning
is to continue movement, and your
burning
inside should keep by steady rhythm
its balance.
So often have I known my mind, my
restless
search for truth, to have an empty
core, and yet
you touched and youch it, and with
tender fingers
kindle desire. My Love, this light
now lingers
silent in its centre, where you are,
is set
to bring the shadows out, a dance. Caress.
POSIE
BIENVENUE
Je tÕappelle, passant, je tÕappelle:
moi, horizon radieux.
Je tends vers toi mes herbes fleuries,
te fais signe de mes ramages, de mes feuilles miniatures, de mes pollens
virevoltants.
De tes pieds jusquÕ ma distance, coule un courant minuscule
limpide et rid
il tÕinspire la direction,
te dit o tu me trouveras.
Je suis toujours l.
Partout o la lumire se trouve
et lorsque vient lÕobscurit, cÕest que jÕai ferm les yeux.
Tu mÕentrevois nanmoins.
Je tÕenlace.
TÕenveloppe dans mon espace-mien, comme un manteau,
te protge de la peur
toi que jÕescorte.
Tu es en route.
Le chemin, toujours tÕaccompagne.
Translation:
Pierre Noreau (2009)
...
LYRIK
...
POESIA
(1992)
POESIA
Uno deve
darsi per intero
e far
pulsare il sangue in ogni gesto.
Mi stendo
nel solco
avvolto
nella poesia come in un sudario
e attendo
di essere sepolto.
Disteso nel
fondo ascolto
il lavorio
del terreno
che rode la
carne e lento arriva al midollo.
Allora uno
deve dire: ŌterraĶ.
Uno siede
sul margine
e cerca fra
tutte le parole.
Ronzando
come un ricordo remoto
la lingua
sÕattacca alla carne.
Ma, fin
quando lÕerba non fiorisce nella testa,
e lÕorso
non balla nella gola
cercando un
poÕ pi in alto il miele,
Fin quando
le ossa subiscono il peso
e liberate
dalla pietra scordano,
non si
secca la fonte delle lacrime,
le api non
lasciano il cranio.
Uno deve
dire: ŌterraĶ
e il corpo
si disfa sul confine del nome
che
resiste, che viene pronunciando - lingua
che si
muove fra respiro e io.
(Trad. Elio Pecora)
MOVIMENTO I
Ti saluto,
movimento
che ritorni
portando licheni
sul corpo
dellÕaltare.
Gli scanni dei
preti consumati,
il marmo
bianco indecifrabile.
Venti
gradini, chi li conta ancora?
E ci
rinchiude lÕedera
descrive
ombre, di colpo sbocciano
sopra le
orme i bulbi
dei
ciclamini rosso-vino.
Tutte le
volte che vedo il tuo nome
si
dischiude il corpo, il tuo, il mio,
ma il
bambino che tengo per mano
ha raccolto
una pietra, adesso ride.
Un serpente dorme nel vaso
fra le pigne
o fruscia
dietro di me
vicino al
segno del mio tallone inerme:
violentemente
cominciano a cadere
gocce,
toccano la terra
schizzano,
rosse con la polvere.
(Trad. Stefano Dal Bianco)
MOVIMENTO II
Per
conoscere il nome del fuoco
assaporo la
cenere e il respiro.
Quando
sulle mie labbra brucia
per aprire
una bocca io dico
la sua
voce, mi ustiona
in quello che
mi bacia: io sono
leggerezza,
e cavit.
Chi
comincia con niente
altro che
lÕamore?
Restituisco
il tuo tocco
di nuovo,
avvinta, in ogni
parte
vibrante.
Una canna
per cui la pi leggera
brezza
passa
e mi
disegna? Ma chi indirizza
il vento
dove voglio?
Cos
riempita io ti svuoto,
accolgo il
tuo peso nella bocca, giocando io
soffio il
tuo marchio dalle labbra.
(Trad. Stefano Dal Bianco)
.M.
Un bambino
uno scudo dalla morte.
Si culla
nellÕacqua.
Porta gi
le sue spine
scalcia contro
i suoni.
Sempre pi
pieno nel mio corpo il corpo alza
me verso la terra e pi profondo
si rintana delle mie
linee del sangue.
Sotto il mio latte il silenzio,
cresce nel mio respiro un solo
bombo, di terra, e su se stesso
gira
nellÕaperto.
Il mio
corpo uno scudo dalla morte
fin che la
morte sar io stessa.
Sempre: se
mi disarmo
il vuoto
nel mio scudo combattuto.
(Trad. Stefano Dal Bianco)
TRITONE
Alla mia
bocca avvicina le dita e si china:
la mia voce
il primo
movimento che
resiste, lei avanza di dentro
lungo le
mie spirali verso lÕalto
verso il
cavo della mano.
Le labbra
apro verso il mare
quando mi
cerca il suo respiro e mi bagna
intonando:
si alza e mi assaggia
pi dolce
della schiuma.
(Trad. Stefano Dal Bianco)
(1994)
PER STRADA
In questo
tatto io sono
viva. Di
notte vago per i miei perduti
acquedotti,
conto i focolai, le morte
fonti. Sono
dove sta la sua orma.
Polvere
gira lÕangolo, odore
di
escrementi pietrificati.
Slitta
oltre la terra, pi veloce
della mia ombra.
Arretro nei suoi occhi,
nella mano
che graffia, che mi fa stare aperta.
Quando mi
alzo e mi libro sul mare
vinoso come
una voglia,
prendo
quota in me cadendo
fra gli
scogli: pelle,
corallo
rosso mi lacera. Animali vengono
e mi assaggiano,
depongono uova
nelle mani
sciolte, carne che si dispiega, nubi
intorno a
una scapola, lÕodore
di me che
una goccia spande nellÕacqua.
Un corpo
che tu osservi riempie
pulsando
una doppia conchiglia.
Approdo
nelle tue mani.
Di continuo
scompare la mia prima orma
cangiante e
luminosa
quando
avanzo sulla sabbia umida.
Esco dalla
conchiglia,
me scotto
con la spuma
e dietro
crocchiano le alghe.
Ci sono
luoghi dolci che sfondano una pelle
sfiorata
qualche volta.
Posa le
mani sotto il centro
e completa
il fianco inondato
dove
papaveri fioriscono e appassiscono.
Una latte
sgorga dopo la pressione.
ÔDarai via
la mia carne, tu, Ricordato,
se i semi
hanno radici nel mio stomaco,
e mi perdo
in una vita strisciante
e
dappertutto sboccio?
Mi faccio
pi tenera quando al tua bocca riconosca
nella prima
notte; la mia bocca
dischiude
il teschio che sono, uomo
nel fondo
della terra. Se mi apro, nuova
alle
carezze che portano al di fuori,
tutte,
finch il corpo non dimentica la carne
e si
corrompe: dammi via.Õ
Un
passaggio nella sabbia che scorre
porta alla
luce la pi piccola palma,
ma un
limone rinchiuso conosce la sua pianta
se si apre,
verde fin dal seme.
Per questo
lÕannuncio si fatto pi pressante:
io sono la
parola.
La stanza
risuona se un angelo rapido giunge.
Ma i
microfoni sono stati
provati, le
casse spostate.
La luce
irrompe
con la
velocit di un pensiero
strappato
alle nebulose.
Ancora
ruotando ogni altro movimento
in uno si
compie.
Scintilla e
colma il fiume il fiume
e esita la
goccia tra le gocce che,
dove una
pietra ostinata per conservare il suo posto
si oppone
alla corrente,
ritornano
contro il flusso.
I colori
svariando dovrebbero dare il bianco
o sono nero
come il latte di un morto?
Intendo la
resistenza come un andare, passo dopo passo
spezzando
ci che nel piede entra.
Perci
canto il mio corpo separato.
Quando
danza si ferisce i piedi
tra le
schegge che genero.
Rimasugli
di eterno
difendono
la lucentezza dello specchio pi sottile
e lei non muore, non muore, siede
sulla morte
come una regina.
Quando
danza si ferisce i piedi.
Arrossendo
la tradisco sempre
nel punto
in cui si alzata.
congedo
Principe,
Corona di bianco,
Un
pipistrello non pi vicino di un cigno.
Si
separano, lÕuno per morire
lÕaltro per
morire cantando.
Cos, se
vedo le tue mani,
come
tendono al tatto, al contatto,
io so che
tu mi abiti.
Non cÕ
animale che io non sia.
Ora che
lÕuccello chiaro vola via,
ora che
scotta la ciliegia rossa trasparente sulla bocca.
(Versione di Stefano Dal Bianco su traduzione di servizio
dal neerlandese di Sabrina Corbelli)
(1996)
TETRAGRAMMATON - ARIA
Al sud si spande il profumo del limone
quando lei del nome fa lettera,
quando battezza il suo dito nella polvere e scrive.
La prima lettera portata in braccio,
la seconda lettera stella polare della sua roteante corona,
la terza e quarta si alternano come giorno e notte.
Nel nome diventiamo luce ardente.
Violacee bruciano le nostre mani tastando
il numero tatuato sulla pelle.
Le bruciature non sono ancora finite;
anche i corpi vivi entrarono urlando nei forni;
nemmeno quello che dico mi ha preservato.
Ma il nome che noi siamo si pronuncia nel tempo.
Le lettere del nome sono di cenere, soffiaci via,
noi siamo la polvere sulla bocca del messia.
Lei lo raccoglie con la scopa, argilla, e ci d forma.
Perch la sua orma condensa unidit,
acqua ribolle nellÕimpronta del suo calcagno.
Cos il mio corpo fradicio del suo contatto
e tutto sussiste nel sostantivo,
nome, corpo senza articolo.
(Versione diÉ.)