El llanto
(Frederico Garcia Lorca)









He cerrado mi balcón
porque no quiero oír el llanto
pero por detrás de los grises muros
no se oye otra cosa pero el llanto.

Hay muy pocos ángeles que canten,
hay muy pocos perros que ladren,
mil violines caben en la palma de mi mano.

Pero el llanto es un perro inmenso,
el llanto es un ángel inmenso,
el llanto es un violín inmenso,
las lágrimas amordazan al viento,
y no se oye otra cosa que el llanto.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I close my window.
I do not want to hear the weeping.
But behind these grey walls
Nothing is heard
For the weeping.

It dampens the voices of angels;
it dampens the barking of dogs.
A thousand violins rest
in the palm of my hand,
their song muted by the weeping.

The weeping is an immense dog,
the weeping is a disgraced angel,
an untuned violin,
a flood of tears that drowns the wind.
Nothing is heard but the weeping.

(Trans. Hoffman)

(Image: Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman, 1937)

Qoheleth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc


"The thing that has been,
Is that which will be
And that which is done
Is that which will be done
There is no new thing Under the sun--"

So speaks the son of David but
at midnight the moon rises on Rommel in Africa,
basking in the sandy cool, painting his camel’s nails blue.
The camel for his part is grateful--
a feeling acknowledged
in the act of turning its head to spit.

The dreamer wakes at four/wanders the house
sore back/ creaky ankles--condition
not greatly improved when he trips
on his copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Back to bed

While over in Africa
Rommel’s camel investigates the turret
of a captured Model E.
The gunner mismeasures the weight of the moment,
unloads his arsenal---
bubble gum.
Gentleman Rommel cleans the stickum
from his camel’s whiskers,
reaches up, adjusts its hat,
having always subscribed to the notion
that a man’s tale is told in
the demeanor of his camel.
And so the night hours pass on the pair
as they sit in subdued silence
meditating on the stickiness and meaning
to be found in a popped bubble.

(Image: Rene Magritte, The Age of Enlightenment)

The Siege








On the day we accepted
your declaration of war,
Helen threw flowers
into the arena--
blood red poppies,
anemones of palest yellow,
one white rose,
flawless save for a slight tinge

of decay impinging

at petal’s edge.
You had already drawn your bow
awaiting the order to fire at will,
never once questioning
whose will held the power
to negate your own,
never once questioning
until Helen threw flowers.

(Image: Almond Blossoms; Van Gogh, 1890)

The last time I saw him......

(for Bolano and the others)







Night falls in silence
in a stillness of shadows
and muffled fumblings
overhead the faintest light
sets sail in a sea of ink.

Night falls on the neighbors in 2B
on loud recriminations
and batterings followed by
guilt-laden love
Night falls on the sound of a door slammed shut
and an ancient Ford misfiring.

Night falls on sirens
and barking dogs
broken down doors
shattered glass
untrue confessions elicited
in blood stained basements
the very words a knife of ice
interrogación de la policía.

Night falls on the cry of an owl
having realized that
wisdom is illusion
Night falls and
overhead
even the brightest light
is all too quickly
Extinguished.

Rescued

Come, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built
with bricks and sand we built,
by the waters of Babylon
we built a gateway to the gods.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built
with stones from the river
ground and glued,
by the waters of Babylon
we gloried in the power
of blood, veins, viscera
we gloried in human strength, size
and in our deep despising
of the gods.

By the waters of Babylon
barehanded we built--
three and forty years of
unending struggle
earnest grasping toward the upper world,
by the waters of Babylon
we built until we reached the stars
and were called home

by a fist swaddled
in lambswool.

(Image: Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel)

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.
Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
----Psalm 137

Adrift

By the waters of Babylon we wept.
For the deaths of our daughters,
for the impotence of sons,
By the waters of Babylon we wept.
We wept the coal seared lips of the prophets,
the silent harps hanging in trees.

Sitting on the riverbank

Bereft bereft

we wept the very dust of Sion.

In remembrance remembrance
Bereft in remembrance
By the waters of Babylon
We wept.

Eos











Dark is the morning
we cannot see,
fingers search disturb

dead air;
a blind man seeks
any portal,
any blessed
ray of light.

Dawn wakes to clatter,
to boot heels and cannon,
her pale hair rent

by rockets' red fire;
Dawn wakes to shattered dreams of silence,
the sound of a swan in the distance

weeping the demise of her mate.

Dark is the mourning

we do not hope to see,

the blind man seeks

the deepest portal

reaches for even a cursed

ray of light.

(Image: Dawn, BK Levi)