Chillen Get Shoes
Hush little Lily,
Don’t you cry;
You’ll get your silver slippers
Bye and bye.
Moll wears silver slippers
With red heels,
And men come to see her
In automobiles.
Lily walks wretched,
Dragging her doll,
Worshipping stealthily
Good-time Moll;
Envying bitterly
Moll’s fine clothes,
And her plump legs clad
In openwork hose.
Don’t worry, Lily,
Don’t you cry;
You’ll be like Moll, too,
Bye and bye.
1932
Source of the text - Sterling A. Brown, The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, edited by Michael S. Harper. Evanston, Ill. : TriQuarterly Books, 1996.
TJB: Floozy shots. In this family tragedy clothed in nursery rhyme, the poet comforts a young girl on a trajectory to join the oldest profession.
Monday, November 30, 2015
"Mariana Trench" by Joanna Klink
MARIANA TRENCH
35,827 feet
Palpable, principal, unearthly, is alive. Marianas, a
stillness gathering
in the unrecognizable deep, cumulative, pressured, like
pleasure again and
again ripped from a body. A look you give me, broken
understanding,
and you know it will take hours, networks of words to begin
again,
kettle and tray, pull of the pupil as it takes in my
protests, hopes,
span of shoulders, the gauze of heat and oil on these arms,
birds grazing
sheets of surface burning over the trench, as if to trespass
for seconds into
the blackness below, an endless inwardness beneath the
bright explosions
of their wings, now gliding in some far sense of air, a
limit bathed in dusk
leaning beachward, some trust in coast at the end of day
when the sweater
pulled over skin still pulses with sun, flowers set in sills
to gather light
as a hand passes over the serrated stems, bending and diving
in the summery breeze, sorting through conflict or simply
given to motion,
my body shut in your arms, refusing conclusion, feeling the
bones spread
beneath skin, an apology forming near the boundary, tense,
lost, veins
full of salt-vapor, the story undisclosed, descending in the
blue-grays
of your eyes, the slow spread of depth toward some unfelt
soundless
sediment, and unraveling toward sea, in need, in everything
we can spare.
Author’s note: The Mariana Trench is the deepest spot on
earth. “Of all the worlds the abyss
alone remains unaltered. It is the one
place on the planet where conditions remain as they have been since the
beginning, where the five-mile pressures have not altered, where no suns have
ever shone, where the cold is the same at the poles as at the equator, where
the seasons are unchanging, where there is no wind and no wave . . . This is
the sole world on the planet that we can enter only by a great act of the
imagination.”—Loren Eiseley, “The Great Deeps,” The Immense Journey
Source of the text – Joanna Klink, Circadian. New York: Penguin
Poets, 2007, p. 25 and 67.
TJB: Abyssopelagic lyric. The poet uses a famous trench as metaphor for the me-myself under thousands of feet of superego, gestures, words, etc.
"Little Book 138 Pedro April 30 79" by Hannah Weiner
Source of the text - Hannah Weiner, Little Books / Indians. Originally published by Roof Books, 1980. Published online by /ubu editions, 2002.
TJB: Righter’s block. Does it force us to confront our biases about the murders & Peltier’s trial; or hear speech as politicized & constructed?
"Introduction" by Hannah Weiner
Source of the text - Hannah Weiner, Little Books / Indians. Originally published by Roof Books, 1980. Published online by /ubu editions, 2002.
TJB: Reader as redactor. The clairvoyant poet gives us fragments as if spoken and fragments with the potential to become many finished products.
from "The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy" by Edward Kamau Brathwaite
from The Arrivants: A
New World Trilogy
from Islands, Part IV: Possession
III
Ancestors
I
Every
Friday morning my grandfather
left his
farm of canefields, chickens, cows,
and rattled
in his trap down to the harbour town
to sell his
meat. He was a butcher.
Six-foot-three
and very neat: high collar,
winged, a
grey cravat, a waistcoat, watch-
chain just
above the belt, thin narrow-
bottomed
trousers, and the shoes his wife
would
polish every night. He drove the trap
himself: slap
of the leather reins
along the
horse’s back and he’d be off
with a
top-hearted homburg on his head:
black
English country gentleman.
Now he is
dead. The meat shop burned,
his
property divided. A doctor bought
the horse.
His mad Alsatians killed it.
The wooden
trap was chipped and chopped
by friends
and neighbours and used to stop-
gap fences
and for firewood. One yellow
wheel was
rolled across the former cowpen gate.
Only his
hat is left. I ‘borrowed’ it.
I used to
try it on and hear the night wind
man go
battering through the canes, cocks waking up and thinking
it was dawn
throughout the clinking country night.
Great
caterpillar tractors clatter down
the broken
highway now; a diesel engine grunts
where pigs
once hunted garbage.
A thin
asthmatic cow shares the untrashed garage.
1969
Source of the text – Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
TJB: Après moi le déluge: the poet elegizes the utter dismantling of his grandpa’s world—hard, rural, colorful—replaced by progress or whatever.
"King Alfred's Epilogue to the Pastoral Care of Gregory the Great," translated by Maurice Riordan
Metrical Epilogue to
the Pastoral Care
[Original text in
Anglo-Saxon]
ðis is nu se wæterscipe
ðe us wereda god
to frofre gehet
foldbuendum.
He cwæð ðæt he wolde ðæt on worulde forð
of ðæm innoðum
a libbendu
wætru fleowen,
ðe wel on hine
gelifden under lyfte. Is hit lytel tweo
ðæt ðæs wæterscipes welsprynge is
on hefonrice, ðæt is halig gæst.
ðonan hine hlodan halge and gecorene,
siððan hine gierdon
ða ðe gode herdon
ðurh halga bec hider on eorðan
geond manna mod missenlice.
Sume hine weriað on gewitlocan,
wisdomes stream, welerum gehæftað,
ðæt he on unnyt ut ne tofloweð.
Ac se wæl wunað on weres breostum
ðurh dryhtnes giefe diop and stille.
Sume hine lætað ofer landscare
riðum torinnan; nis ðæt rædlic ðing,
gif swa hlutor wæter, hlud and undiop,
tofloweð æfter feldum oð hit to fenne
werð.
Ac hladað iow nu drincan, nu iow dryhten
geaf
ðæt iow Gregorius gegiered hafað
to durum iowrum dryhtnes welle.
Fylle nu his fætels, se ðe fæstne hider
kylle brohte, cume eft hræðe.
Gif her ðegna hwelc ðyrelne kylle
brohte to ðys burnan, bete hine georne,
ðy læs he forsceade scirost wætra,
oððe him lifes drync forloren weorðe.
[Translation into
modern English by Maurice Riordan]
King Alfred’s
Epilogue to the Pastoral Care
of Gregory the Great
Here is the water
which the Lord of all
Pledged for the
well-being of His people.
He said it was His
wish that water
Should flow forever
into this world
Out of the minds of
generous men,
Those who serve Him
beneath the sky.
But none should
doubt the water’s source
In Heaven, the home
of the Holy Ghost.
It is drawn from
there by a chosen few
Who make sacred
books their study.
They seek out the
tidings they contain,
Then spread the word
among mankind.
But some retain it
in their hearts.
They never let it
pass their lips
Lest it should go to
waste in the world.
By this means it
stays pure and clear,
A pool within each
man’s breast.
Others pour it
freely over all the land,
Though care must be
taken lest it flow
Too loud and fast
across the fields,
Transforming them to
bogs and fens.
Gather round now
with your drinking cups,
Gregory has brought
the water to your door.
Fill up, and return
again for refills.
If you have come
with cups that leak
You must hurry to
repair and patch them,
Or else you’ll
squander the rarest gift,
And the drink of
life will be lost to you.
Source
of the text – The
Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation, edited by Greg Delanty and Michael Matto. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011, p. 426-427.
TJB: Instream flow. From a dark age of metaphor, this extended metaphor-parable instructs us to avoid flood irrigation & store it in reservoirs.
TJB: Instream flow. From a dark age of metaphor, this extended metaphor-parable instructs us to avoid flood irrigation & store it in reservoirs.
"The Death of Alfred," translated by Robert Hass
The Death of Alfred
This poem is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1036.
[Original text in Anglo-Saxon]
Her com Ælfred, se
unsceððiga æþeling, Æþelrædes
sunu cinges, hider
inn and wolde to his meder, þe on Win-
cestre sæt, ac hit
him ne geþafode Godwine eorl, ne ec oþre
men þe mycel mihton
wealdan, forðan hit hleoðrode þa
swiðe toward
Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære.
Ac Godwine hine þa
gelette and hine on hæft sette,
and his geferan he
todraf, and sume mislice ofsloh;
sume hi man wið feo
sealde, sume hreowlice acwealde,
sume hi man bende, sume
hi man blende,
sume hamelode, sume
hættode.
Ne wearð dreorlicre
dæd gedon on þison earde,
syþþan Dene comon and her frið namon.
Nu is to gelyfenne to ðan leofan gode,
þæt hi blission bliðe mid Criste
þe wæron butan scylde
swa earmlice acwealde.
Se æþeling lyfode þa
gyt; ælc yfel man him gehet,
oðþæt man gerædde þæt man hine lædde
to Eligbyrig swa gebundenne.
Sona swa he lende, on
scype man hine blende,
and hine swa blindne brohte to ðam munecon,
and he þar wunode ða hwile þe he lyfode.
Syððan hine man
byrigde, swa him wel gebyrede,
ful wurðlice, swa
he wyrðe wæs,
æt þam westende, þam
styple ful gehende,
on þam suðportice; seo
saul is mid Criste.
[Translation into modern English by Robert Hass]
The Death of Alfred
1036. In this year Alfred, innocent prince, son of King Æthelred, came
into the country and
wished to go to his mother who was living at
Winchester, but Godwin
did not permit him to do this, nor the other
barons, because—wrong
as it was—sentiment had swung to Harald.
So Godwin seized the
young prince and put him in prison.
The retinue he
destroyed; he found various ways to kill them:
Some were sold for cash,
some cut down cruelly,
Some put in fetters,
some were blinded,
Some hamstrung, and some of them scalped.
No bloodier deed was
ever done in this land,
Not since the Danes
came and made peace here.
Now it’s to be
believed that the hands of God
Have put them in
bliss with Jesus Christ,
For they were
guiltless and wretchedly slain.
The prince was kept
alive, set about by every evil,
Until, under
advisement, they led him
As they had bound him
to Ely-in-the-Fens.
As soon as he landed,
he was blinded,
Right there on
shipboard, and, blinded,
He was brought to the
good monks
And he dwelled there
as long as he lived
And afterward he was
buried, as befitted him,
Very worthily, for he
was a worthy man,
At the west end of
the chapel, very near the steeple,
Under the church
porch. His soul is with Christ.
Source of the text – The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in
Translation, edited by Greg Delanty and Michael Matto. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011,
p. 118-119.
TJB: Wag hagiography. A biased chronicler turns poet—apposed, part alliterative, part rhymed—to matter-of-factly relate a prince’s wretched end.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
"Juan's Song" by Louise Bogan
Juan’s Song
When beauty breaks
and falls asunder
I feel no grief for
it, but wonder.
When love, like a
frail shell, lies broken,
I keep no chip of it
for token.
I never had a man for
friend
Who did not know that
love must end.
I never had a girl
for lover
Who could discern
when love was over.
What the wise doubt,
the fool believes—
Who is it, then, that
love deceives?
Source of the text – Louise Bogan, The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968.
TJB: Mostly trochaic, somewhat misogynist: epigrams of a sex addict, in the parlance of our times. Answer to the rhetorical question? Everyone.
"Cementerio de Punta Arenas" by Enrique Lihn
[original poem in Spanish]
CEMENTERIO DE PUNTA ARENAS
Ni aun la muerte pudo igualar a estos hombres
que dan su nombre en lápidas distintas
o lo gritan al viento del sol que se los borra:
otro poco de polvo para una nueva ráfaga.
Reina aquí, junto al mar que iguala al mármol,
entre esta doble fila de obsequiosos cipreses
la paz, pero una paz que lucha por trizarse,
romper en mil pedazos los pergaminos fúnebres
para asomar la cara de una antigua soberbia
y reírse del polvo.
Por construirse estaba esta ciudad cuando alzaron
sus hijos primogénitos otra ciudad desierta
y uno a uno ocuparon, a fondo, su lugar
como si aún pudieran disputárselo.
Cada uno en lo suyo para siempre, esperando,
tendidos los manteles, a sus hijos y nietos.
[poem translated into English by David Unger]
CEMETERY IN PUNTA ARENAS
Not even death could make these men alike
who give their names to different gravestones
or shout them into the sun’s wind that rubs them out:
some more dust for a fresh gust of wind.
Here, by the sea that is just like marble,
between this double row of bowing cypresses,
peace rules, a peace struggling to shatter itself,
ripping the burial parchments in a thousand pieces
to reveal the face of an ancient arrogance
and to laugh at the dust.
This city had yet to be built when its first
settlers raised still another empty city
and, one by one, they settled deep into their places
as if anyone would even try taking it away from them.
Each one forever in his own place, waiting,
the tablecloths laid out, for his sons and grandsons.
Source of the text – Enrique Lihn, The Dark Room and other poems.
New York: New Directions, 1978, p. 32-33.
TJB: Uneasy peaces. In this arctic-graveyard lyric-essay, the dead are not alike so much as all frozen in time in different struggles & sorrows.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
"The Grauballe Man" by Seamus Heaney
The Grauballe Man
As if he had been
poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of
himself.
The grain of his
wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the
ridge
and purse of a
mussel,
his spine an eel
arrested
under a glisten of
mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and
toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a
dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his
twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a
forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my
memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and
atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly
compassed
on his shield,
with the actual
weight
of each hooded
victim,
slashed and dumped.
Source of the text – Seamus Heaney, North. London: Faber and
Faber, 1975, p. 28-29.
TJB: Left a goodlooking corpse. After a great 1st sentence,
the poem posits a bog full of gorgeous tragic bodies as a metaphor for the
Troubles.
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2015
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November
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- "Chillen Get Shoes" by Sterling A. Brown
- "Mariana Trench" by Joanna Klink
- "Little Book 138 Pedro April 30 79" by Hannah ...
- "Introduction" by Hannah Weiner
- from "The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy" by Edwar...
- "King Alfred's Epilogue to the Pastoral Care of Gr...
- "The Death of Alfred," translated by Robert Hass
- "Juan's Song" by Louise Bogan
- "Cementerio de Punta Arenas" by Enrique Lihn
- "The Grauballe Man" by Seamus Heaney
- from "Lady Midnight Songs of the Four Seasons" by ...
- from "Act Too . . . The Love of My Life" by The Roots
- "In Battle" by Abu-L-Hasan Ben Al-Qabturnuh
- "Picking up Pinecones" by Mary Ruefle
- "The Moon was but a Chin of Gold" by Emily Dickinson
- "The Bible: 2728 Objects in Order of Appearance" b...
- "Lithium" by Noelle Kocot
- "Dawn" by Federico García Lorca
- "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" by Edward Lear
- "The Fish and the Crocodile" attributed to Mirabai
- from "Testimony: The United States (1885-1890), Re...
- "Shorter American Memory of Indian Wars" by Rosema...
- "The Orange" by Diane Wakoski
- "The Sadness of the Lingua Franca" by Christina Davis
- "Pliny" by Primo Levi
- Funeral Music 2, by Geoffrey Hill
- Funeral Music I, by Geoffrey Hill
- Untitled poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- "To Tirzah" by William Blake
- "Middle-Aged Woman at a Pond" by Alicia Suskin Ost...
- "To William Butler Yeats on Tagore" by Marianne Moore
- "Sonnet 30" by William Shakespeare
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