fragments of contemporary poetry

Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings

....................

Relieved of soul, the dropping-back of dust,
Their usage, pride, admitted within doors;
At home, under caved chantries, set in trust,
With well-dressed alabaster and proved spurs
They lie; they lie; secure in the decay
Of blood, blood-marks, crowns hacked and coveted,
Before the scouring fires of trial-day
Alight on men; before sleeked groin, gored head,
Budge through the clay and gravel, and the sea
Across daubed rock evacuates its dead.
{excerpt}

SURELY YOU REMEMBER

This one applies to you, quasimodo1? I can imagine even when everyone leaves, if that is possible, you will be here reading poems.

MAN CURSING THE SEA

This one is brilliant! I will curse the sea when I get mad and surely my anger will be drowned in the vast sea. Then I will pat my shoulders with job well-done.

THE CITY
I agree with Sapphire. Memory lingers on in many different forms and ties us down…

IN THE RING OF TWENTY SIGNS
I wonder, if the poem parallels our lives with the rings, which ring I am in. Maybe the fourteenth.

Here is a very famous Korean poem most Korean people grew up with. It is a heart-breaking poem but the translation does not do the justice and I modified some lines at the end.

Poet: Han Yong-un (1879~1944)

“A devoted Buddhist monk since his youth, he became one of the 33 patriots who in 1919 signed the historical document declaring Korea independent of Japan…Love in his poems subsumes his love of the country and of humanity in general as well as his personal love.”

Translator: Jaihiun Joyce Kim

LOVE’S SILENCE

Love is gone, gone indeed is my love.
Tearing himself away from me, he has gone
One a narrow path that breaks through the brightness
of the green hill toward an autumn-tinted maple grove.
Our oath, shining and enduring
like a gold mosaicked flower, has turned to cold dust,
blown away in the breath of wind.
The memory of the first poignant kiss, though faded,
Has worked a complete change in the course of my fate
and withdrawn into forgetfulness.
Your fair looks have turned me blind.
Since it’s human to love, I feared with caution
a parting to come when we first met.
But the parting’s come, so unexpected,
it breaks my heart with renewed sorrow.
Yet I know parting can only undo love
if it causes idle tears to fall.
…
A love-song, unable to control its tunes,
lingers over the silence of love.

-1926

My own modification to deliver the meaning better:
Line 1: Love is gone, ah ah my loving love is gone. (The rhyming is missing.)
Line 2: Tearing, with lingering regret, himself away from me (Not going voluntarily and he is forced to go away from his love)
Line 7: blown away in a breath of breeze. (light wind not strong wind)
Line 10: disappeared with backward steps into forgetfulness. (It is not just withdrawing. It is walking backward still looking and fading)
Line 11: Your fragrant voice has turned me deaf and your flowery face has turned me blind.
Line 15: My heart bursts open with renewed sorrow.
Last line: twirls and surrounds the silence of love.

THE RIVER

{translated from the Vietnamese by the author and Martha Collins}

We wake from our dream with no time to button our shirts,
To tie back our hair, to leave word with our families.
We run together from two distant places
Through fields of trembling grass.

Dewdrops are thrown in the air like stars;
The grass-spider, startled, runs to the end of its line.
Grasshoppers, toads are thrown in the air,
Seeds of yellow grass are thrown in the air and ring like bells.

We run from two directions and kneel on two banks;
The river’s a moving horizon between us.
The clouds are sails discolored by wind,
Unhappy sails that tear and mend themselves.

The gobies are golden keys to the door
Of the water world where our house is waiting.
No time to button our shirts, to tie back our hair—
The rattle of keys echoes, rushing along the banks.

Why don’t we keep running? Why have we stopped?
Why don’t we crawl in the river like brown turtles?
We’re perch that climbed the falls, deceived by tiny inlets;
We’re two cornflowers thrown on the floor of dusk.

We run through many fields, we run and look back.
Why not run into the river? Why do we kneel on the banks?
We turn our faces up to the sky like frogs,
Summoning not the rain, but each other’s hair.

We run through many fields, through seasons of plowing and

sowing

We run, dreaming we’re running from sky rebels.
Why do we come back to the banks of the river and cry?
And why do the ferryboats sink themselves before dawn?

We run through many fields, through seasons of wild grass;
Fresh grass-seeds roll in a pocket of your shirt. ......

{excerpt}




Nguyen Quang Thieu has published four books of poems in Vietnam, as well as fiction and translations. His most recent collections are The Insomnia of Fire (1992), which won the Writers’ Association National Award for poetry in 1993, and The Women Carry River Water (1995). A bilingual collection of his poems, translated with Martha Collins, will be published by the University of Massachusetts in early 1997. (1996)

Martha Collins’s second book of poems, The Arrangement of Space, will be published this fall. Her manuscript-in-progress, A History of Small Life on a Windy Planet, won the PSA’s di Castagnola Award. (1991)

{Russia, b. 1948}

ELEGIES ON THE CARDINAL POINTS
{for M. Sh.}

I North

Down the winding lanes of Moscow, down its hopeless
convolutions
Someone's shadow flew past in sweet desperation.
On a pool she kissed an emerald duck,
Pressed some crusted leaves against her eyeballs,
Shrieking with laughter dodged a tramcar-bull
And warmed herself up on a tramwire spark.

At night-- come to the picture show, they pleaded,
"Bergman films!" Moments from your life repeated
Hundreds of times. Who knew that nightly cinemas are hired by
hell?
That strapped into their seats the dead sit in the hall
Gazing with tilted heads into the past?
Escorted there like soldiers to the baths?
"Waiting. Love. Your Marat." -- for Charlotte, a telegram.

I've cast off seven skins, eight souls, all my clothes,
And in my breast I've tracked a ninth soul down,
A gentle mole, it trembled in my hand,
Pale-blue iceborn snow-wife with a broomstick,
I poked two little eyes in and she died.

Look-- the vault of heaven's bestrewn and snowing wings and
feathers,
No sweeping them up in a week, stay buried in them forever.
Look-- under the moon fly Lion and Eagle and Bull,
And you sleep, you lie back in your body's serpentine coils.
Where's the angel? -- you ask, and I will most surely respond:
Where there's gloom-- there's a radiance, all the world is maimed,
The angel twined in gloom like a tenacious plant.
Steer for black point, for desolation and gloom,
Steer for darkness, for dark, for the rocks, the muddle, the pit.
The angel plays hide-and-seek? -- but he's there! -- in earth
underfoot.
He's no worm. Don't try to dig for him in a field.
See-- towards winter shining birds fly to the pole?

She gave a glance, began to groan
And stumbling on crenellations flew all night,
Her bloodspots dripping on hospitals, boulevards, mills. . . .
Don't worry! Your death is the birth of an angel of light.

{Martinique, b. 1913}

ON THE ISLANDS OF ALL WINDS

lands which leap very high
not high enough however to keep their feet from remaining caught
by the peculium of the sea
booming its assault of irremediable faces

hunger of man heard by the mosquitoes and his thirst
for they are loaves laid out for a bird feast
sand saved against all hope or arms bent
to gather to one's breast all that lingers of
the out of season heat

O justice noon of reason too slow it does not matter
that nameless to the resinous torch of tongues
they do not know that their dirt offering
is in this too distant song recklessly achieved

the morning in the unbeknown of my voice will unveil
the bird which it nevertheless carries and Noon
why my voice remained encrusted with the blood of my panting
throat

from the islands from all of them you will say
that according to the heart a supernumerary of vertiginous birds

for a long long time seeking between sheets of sand
the wound at the coveted crossroad of the undermining sea
you found through the hiccup
the pit of the insult included in the bitter blood
that finally exulting in the wounded kine of the stars .....
{excerpt}

{translated from the French by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith}

WALT WHITMAN'S BRAIN DROPPED ON LABORATORY FLOOR

At his request, after death, his brain removed
for science, phrenology, to study, and,
as the mortuary assistant carried it
(I suppose in a jar but I hope cupped
in his hands) across the lab’s stone floor he dropped it.

...........................................
of the skull’s outer ridges, valleys, would afford
particular insight. So Walt believed.
He had already scored high (between 6 and 7) for Ego.
And as if we couldn’t guess from his verses, he scored
high again (a 6 and a 7—7 the highest possible!) in Amativeness

(sexual love) and Adhesiveness (friendship,
brotherly love) when before his death
his head was read. He earned only 5 for Poetic Faculties
but that 5, pulled and pushed by his other numbers,
allowed our father of poesie to lay down some words

in the proper order on the page. That our nation
does not care does not matter, much.
That his modest federal job was taken from him,
and thus his pension, does not matter at all.
And that his brain was dropped and shattered, a cosmos,
on the floor, matters even less.



{excerpt}

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/bo...1&8bu&emc=bua2 --- On Poetry, The Edge of Night a review by David Orr --- May 22, 2009 "Many poets have been acquainted with the night; some have been intimate with it; and a handful have been so haunted and intoxicated by the darker side of existence that it can be hard to pick them out from the murk that surrounds them. As POEMS 1959-2009 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $40) demonstrates, Frederick Seidel has spent the last half-century being that darkest and strangest sort of poet. He is, it’s widely agreed, one of poetry’s few truly scary characters. This is a reputation of which he’s plainly aware and by which he’s obviously amused, at least to judge from the nervy title of his 2006 book, “Ooga-Booga.” This perception also colors the praise his collections typically receive — to pick one example from many, Calvin Bedient admiringly describes him as “the most frightening American poet ever,” which is a bit like calling someone “history’s most bloodthirsty clockmaker.” What is it about Seidel that bothers and excites everyone so much?" ...

THE SCRIPT


So the wars went on for another century.
Under heaven roads sprang up, unconnected,
from three to eight feet wide,
impossible for vehicles to travel;
money also ran wild in form—
precious stones, shells, silk, bones;
scholars were busy inventing bizarre words
while people followed their own tongues
writing scripts of Worm,
of Vine, of Fish, of Cloud, of Bird.

As soon as the First Emperor conquered
the other kingdoms, he set standards
for coinage, roads, weights and measures.
His ministers advised him to fix
written words, which they argued
formed a foundation for the Empire
because a disordered official script
would cloud meanings, causing chaos.

The High Minister designed a script called
the Clerk Style, whose characters looked
august and simple, so his dictionary
of thirty-three thousand words
were carved on stone tablets while
all the other scripts were banned. ......... {excerpt}






Ha Jin has published several books of poetry and fiction. His most recent novel, Waiting (Pantheon, 1999) won the National Book Award. This coming fall he will publish a book of poems, Wreckage (Hanging Loose Press), and a book of short stories, The Bridegroom (Pantheon). (2000)

Sin Sok-Cho (1909-1976)
THE GONG DANCE
*A Buddhist ritual dance performed by a monk or nun while striking a brass
gong set up on the floor.

Against my life-long wish to live
Like an immaculate petal
what shall I do
with the doleful spring
that gushes out
from the deep woods of my heart?

Perchance it’s like the sound of a bell
bonging from a remote temple in the green hill.
The bright moon is beaming in vain
on the empty temple;
a sleepless Philomel weeps so sadly,
on a spray in the back yard.
Woe is me. What shall I do?
How I’ve been dreaming
of the Nirvana
of matchless joy
that I can keep to myself!
Nevertheless,
dizzying dust has gathered unawares
on the clean mirror of my mind.

Flesh is sad.
A faulty-ridden body of this temporal world.
The maddening passion of the world
Grips my body like a beast.
O this form, in such beauty.
In my treasure woods there’s a path
Running forever split between mind
And its enthralling body
Where a hidden serpent wriggles.
Like a drifting cloud
Quietly flows a stream
On which ripple down fallen petals.
How the rolling waters break into jewels!
What can ever stay the mighty flowing
Before the stream empties into the blue sea?
How I envy that stream which flows freely at will!
Plum-blossoms blossoming white
Under the moon,
I lay me down alone
in nun’s quarters
but I can hardly get to sleep
as if laden with cares.

O dizzying concerns of this world.
What resignation for show!
Are the eight commandments and hymns for nothing?
O fruits of illusion born of human fate!
…..
lies the sad abyss of soul
I dream of.
…..
Is it this very suffering flesh
That is only real?
This very self that exists for a brief period,
this frame that flows flooded with use of life,
a mere flower-bud that burns with pure desire,
an illusory butterfly worn with cares.

….
In the dead of the night
in the quite of my upper room
I hear nothing but the dinning sound of water.
No other soul in sight but a lone candle-light
by which my neck band and my long-sleeved robe
are shed to ripple into a long-drawn sigh.
Like a dancing moth drawn to a flame
I chase a dream, sweet and endless.

Alas! Does solitude sire
a sinful serpent of thought?
….

On the myriad-folded ranges of mountains
arrow-roots, twined and tangled,
run wild and free to wrap tightly
around an alder, slim and straight.
Are men also born to live tangled
and free like that?
For me
I have no wish nor attachment left in me
for I am a mere flower that blossoms by nature.
This frame of mine that has grown big
charmed by the full-blown blossoms,
a sheer mass of roses.
Behold the hill where peach and plum blossoms
swirl in midair.

O seeds of evil chained to the eight phases of being.
How hard to cut off stubborn affinity
clinging to the three worlds*!
I wish to wander madly in the dream woods
assigned to me for a living
but I do not know whither to go
like a sailor beaten unconscious by the storm.

….
*The world of desire-driven beings, the world of beings with form, and the world of beings without form.

to jinjang: Most elegant selection, appreciated it immensely. q1

I am very happy to find one you appreciate. It is 9 pages long and much like a Buddhist monk chant. Pleasant day!

DON'T BARE YOUR SOUL!


for Coleen Grissom


Don’t bare your soul to anyone, however gentle,
solicitous, seductive, or wise!
Don’t do it! Don’t
make that mistake!
Don’t bare your soul, and leave it to be scarified
like a Formica-topped table!
Greasy and wrinkled like an old dollar bill!
Blown like dirty confetti along the pavement!

.........................................

And the long dreamy talk you once had, hand folded
into hand, feet clasping feet for warmth, pulse-
beats in equilibrium as, at dusk, as dusk deepens,
the interior darkness expands to meet the exterior,
and there is a breathless moment when both are equal—
that came to nothing in the end—as you should
have known!

So don’t bare your soul in intimacy, still less
in company!
Don’t do it! Don’t
make that mistake!
Don’t bless while being cursed!
Remember that Hell is memory with no power of alteration;
remorse that is one-sided merely; shame a mirror
showing only your face.
Don’t bare your soul to anyone, no matter who invites it!
No matter who whispers, I will love you forever—tell me
all your secrets!
Don’t do it!
And if you do it, don’t talk about it!
Not even to yourself!
And don’t write about it!
Especially not that!



{excerpt}

PAY PER VIEW



Don’t knock my dish.
I hold it dear, unincidental

at the household’s entryway: there is
intelligence in its half-

cocked concavity. No fixity of
whereabouts: and no direction but the shifting one

from whose beyond the next
known jolt could come.

Not homeless, just never at home,
just always out to lunch, just always in the head.

Soon enough I’ll have to see
real soil, real sand, real loam, real loess, real lee—earth’s ditch at large

{excerpt}

VERMONT WATER






“Vermont water tastes like sherry wine.”
*** —Trad.
{For Seamus Heaney}
We’ve had our soft days
hems of rain sashaying
across the roof . . . muffled paradiddle . . .
the big pine’s brush lifted
flung down scattered dots
and the mist seen,
the air alive, but unheard.
Rain beads on the cattle bar,
not here, but in Wicklow
where you pointed out the droplets
poised and falling, beautiful.
Water is your sign. What pours
forth from jug and drain, voluble
life-giver, free to do as it pleases
until it pleases. Here water goes
underground to be dowsed by those
whose forked sticks spring downwards.
{excerpt}

{India, b. 1928}

SANSKRIT

Awaken them; they are knobs of sound
that seem to melt and crumple up
like some jellyfish of tropical seas,
torn from sleep with a hand lined by prophecies.
Listen hard; their male, gaunt world sprawls the page
like rows of tree trunks reeking in the smoke
of ages, the branches glazed and dead;
as though longing to make up with the sky,
but having lost touch with themselves
were unable to fin d themselves, hold meaning.

And yet, down the steps into the water at Varanasi,
where the lifeless bodies seem to grow human,
the shaggy heads of word-buds move back and forth
between the harsh castanets of the rain
and the noiseless feathers of summer--
{excerpt}