"Autumn Day"
Rilke
Trans. Stephen Mitchell
Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander on the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.
Sonnet (ish) for B.
The ultraviolet gloom of bluebells
veiling the empty lots and medians
along the walk between our houses
reminds me (always) of cigarettes.
You know, when the poor man In Howard’s End
walks all night for beauty with nothing
but tobacco to feed on, and wins only
well-meaning sex and money, bad advice
and (spoilers) death. Much more difficult
to hand over beauty. Here, take these awful
bluebells, their ugly stalks and ghostly
always retreating indigo
Use them to colour in the peeling
lilac porch where we smoked and ate waffles
and promised ourselves to beauty
a long time ago, unless that was someone else
or unless I really meant sex and money.
Anyway, I don’t mean that now.
The way heat persists
In the smell of these cedar
Blocks, about the size
Of a deck of cards,
Meant to keep moths away
Lights, in memoriam,
Gas fixtures in soft cages
And most of a moon.
That was a bad year
Despite the teapot full of gin
And a little tonic --
A cold summer full of strife.
Another year
He put juniper in his mouth
And asked: was that the meaning
Of my life?
The yellow moth wheels
Counterclockwise
The brown moths, whorled
Like wood grain, press
Themselves against the screen
Until it sags
If the taste changes,
If it turns sweet,
The answer is yes.
Running the cuckoo
It is the old new year.
Let’s be fools together –
Drink too much wine
And cross against the lights
At midnight on a Wednesday
When no one cares.
What have you stolen?
What misplaced
Forever? What
Have you borrowed
And ruined?
What broken and hidden?
I, nobody, absolve you.
It is the new year
Of broken dishes.
This year only
The crazed faces
Of shattered pottery
Will be blessed.
How have you bruised, bloodied,
battered yourself
This year, stumbling home
in sorrow and sublime
Wednesdayness?
I, nobody, will receive your muffled
Confessions.
Your lost emeralds,
Your brain tumour,
Your forged translations
Your desperate and your cheerful
Deceptions, your ecstatic missteps
And triumphant catastrophes.
It is a week since
The old new year
And we are still fools
Who cannot read calendars.
Still Wednesday. Good enough.
Salt the sugar bowls
Short-sheet the beds
Stretch saran wrap
under the toilet seat
I will balance
a bucket of water
over the door
It is the old new year
And your face and your hair
Are so clean
Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander along the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.
"My aim is to go to the very essential elements of an emotion or sensation and its plastic display in the mind, and at the same time try to capture the energy of that emotion expressed in breath or movement through rhythm, and to create with both a small cosmos with its particular currents and possibilities and then let it flow."
Divine Speech
Another thing you don't like:
people who try to speak
the unutterable.
You regret telling the story
of the vision
that moved me.
You tell me you're reading
a book about death
but you won't discuss it.
You won't go into my house
or ask me to yours
or eat food from my hands.
You won't talk about art
the last place
I thought we might be able to meet.
You call me up to go for pints
and talk about how good-looking
you used to be. Always
the same ten pounds,
gaining or losing. How
you used to be cruel
to ugly people.
I can't say
I never thought you were handsome.
I loved you
for the stories you told
for the vision
you wish you hadn't shared
the arc of your body illuminated
like a burning wire
by the infinite rivers
of divine speech.
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inlandsea said that being afraid that no one would like me was not a good reason not to do it.
Story of Our House
We will have light in the morning
curtains of dust twisting as they fall
the unripe sun
the wakeful noise of birds
the cold feet of the cat
crossing the linoleum floor
We will have light in the afternoon
light burred in the drowsy cat's fur
light on the oak table, on the bread brown as oak
on the melting butter, on the grapes and cherries
lit up like planets made of glass
Our house will always have chocolate and halvah and tea
we will contemplate the wind as it explodes the dandilions
and drink salt out of the air
the cat will jump into the fireplace
and strut out with dirty paws
And twilight
the air in the house will turn smoke-blue
like glass over a flame
the cat will look up, crossing through the dry grass in the yard
his gold-leaf eyes suddenly illuminated
We will have darkness in our house
and the smell of evening
last cups of tea in the arch of the door
bare feet nesting in the carpet
Panes of darkness to enclose us into our beds
into the dark rooms of our sleeping minds
and the cat will move restlessly between sleep at your feet
and stalking the night highway
traced out by stars like distance signs
the marks of his paws soft and sooty
disrupting and rearranging the sky
