Bodies made solid by weights succumb
to illness. Years of focused practice
lost in that afternoon of neglect.
What we are felt after the fact--
walls with his name graffitied on them,
late night actors who could've been
his double. Dolls left in a drawer
unopened for years like those boxes
of books in the attic that became
our inheritance. The things loved least
loved at last. Weather vanes renewed
by wind. But the former tenants are gone.
Our words a bridge. Just as my kiss
once sealed the tomb of his empty mouth.
Timothy Liu
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Poem from Dana
The Saddest Poem
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
On a night like this, I held her in my arms
As time takes us to another dimension
I kissed her lips as though it would be my last
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me
I cannot define or describe true love
But I know it because I felt it
Searching for the truth, I erased the blur
She loved me, and sometimes I loved her
On a night like this, she smiled and laughed
As I performed my idiotic dance craft
Two separate souls became one
On a night like this…
I had fallen in love time and time again
Always with the same person
The same night each other were discovered
We who were, we are now no longer
I no longer love her, but how much I loved her
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear
On a night like this, she’s held in the arms
In the arms of someone else’s
She’d now made true someone’s wishes
As she once belonged to my own kisses
I no longer love her, but perhaps I still love her
because on a night like this, next to me she lied
On a night like this, I still miss her voice
I still miss her touch, on a night like this
Although this may be the last pain she causes me
And this may be the last poem I write for her
Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
On a night like this, I held her in my arms
As time takes us to another dimension
I kissed her lips as though it would be my last
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me
I cannot define or describe true love
But I know it because I felt it
Searching for the truth, I erased the blur
She loved me, and sometimes I loved her
On a night like this, she smiled and laughed
As I performed my idiotic dance craft
Two separate souls became one
On a night like this…
I had fallen in love time and time again
Always with the same person
The same night each other were discovered
We who were, we are now no longer
I no longer love her, but how much I loved her
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear
On a night like this, she’s held in the arms
In the arms of someone else’s
She’d now made true someone’s wishes
As she once belonged to my own kisses
I no longer love her, but perhaps I still love her
because on a night like this, next to me she lied
On a night like this, I still miss her voice
I still miss her touch, on a night like this
Although this may be the last pain she causes me
And this may be the last poem I write for her
Pablo Neruda
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Learning
1.
She went to a blog,
read a poem
he'd written
about a girl
he saw, whom he'd thought to
jump over the bar top for.
(She read this
a hundred years
after her departure,
a thousand years
before her return.)
Yet she sank into herself,
warm with the glory of his words,
chilled by the distance
of his world
and hers.
The growing
parting seas
between them.
A single ship that
never made its return.
2.
Today, she is separating laundry.
Today, she notices the burn scars
on the ironing board.
Today, she accepts the irony
of casual casualties between lovers.
Yesterday, she threw the whites
in with the colors.
3.
She will trace his body as memory with her
chalk-white fingertips
against the blue-grey asphalt
trying to recall
the difference between
murder
and
suicide.
She went to a blog,
read a poem
he'd written
about a girl
he saw, whom he'd thought to
jump over the bar top for.
(She read this
a hundred years
after her departure,
a thousand years
before her return.)
Yet she sank into herself,
warm with the glory of his words,
chilled by the distance
of his world
and hers.
The growing
parting seas
between them.
A single ship that
never made its return.
2.
Today, she is separating laundry.
Today, she notices the burn scars
on the ironing board.
Today, she accepts the irony
of casual casualties between lovers.
Yesterday, she threw the whites
in with the colors.
3.
She will trace his body as memory with her
chalk-white fingertips
against the blue-grey asphalt
trying to recall
the difference between
murder
and
suicide.
Do Not Accept
Do not accept these rains that come too late.
Better to linger. Make your pain
An image of the desert. Say it's said
And do not look to the west. Refuse
To surrender. Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
From tears. And do not learn from
Experience. Take as an example my youth,
My return late at night, what has been written
In the rain of yesteryear. It makes no difference
Now. See your events as my events.
Everything will be as before: Abraham will again
Be Abram. Sarah will be Sarah.
Yehuda Amichai
Translated by Benjamin & Barbara Harshav
Better to linger. Make your pain
An image of the desert. Say it's said
And do not look to the west. Refuse
To surrender. Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
From tears. And do not learn from
Experience. Take as an example my youth,
My return late at night, what has been written
In the rain of yesteryear. It makes no difference
Now. See your events as my events.
Everything will be as before: Abraham will again
Be Abram. Sarah will be Sarah.
Yehuda Amichai
Translated by Benjamin & Barbara Harshav
A Precise Woman
A precise woman with a short haircut brings order
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.
A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)
Translated by Chana Bloch
Yehuda Amichai
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.
A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)
Translated by Chana Bloch
Yehuda Amichai
사막의 사랑
사랑을 하는 일도
사랑을 받는 일만큼 힘이 듭니다.
간밤에는 바람이 불고 후드득 빗소리가 들리더니
이 새벽길은 나무며 지불들이
모두가 촉촉이 젖어 있습니다.
마음이란 깃털보다 가벼워서
당신의 숨소리 하나에도
이렇게 연기처럼 흔들립니다.
오늘은 당신의 목소리조차 볼 수가 없으므로
나는 사막으로 밀려가야 합니다.
모래의 오르막을 오르고
모래의 내리막을 내리고
모래의 끝없는 벌판을 지나 나는 갑니다.
우리 일용할 빵 하나의 모양으로 떠 있는 태양 아래
내 몸이 소금처럼 하얗게 바래질 때
그때,
멀리 떠오르는 당신.
그 신기루처럼 투명한 그리움.
홍영철
사랑을 받는 일만큼 힘이 듭니다.
간밤에는 바람이 불고 후드득 빗소리가 들리더니
이 새벽길은 나무며 지불들이
모두가 촉촉이 젖어 있습니다.
마음이란 깃털보다 가벼워서
당신의 숨소리 하나에도
이렇게 연기처럼 흔들립니다.
오늘은 당신의 목소리조차 볼 수가 없으므로
나는 사막으로 밀려가야 합니다.
모래의 오르막을 오르고
모래의 내리막을 내리고
모래의 끝없는 벌판을 지나 나는 갑니다.
우리 일용할 빵 하나의 모양으로 떠 있는 태양 아래
내 몸이 소금처럼 하얗게 바래질 때
그때,
멀리 떠오르는 당신.
그 신기루처럼 투명한 그리움.
홍영철
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