I love poetry. It is in the oxygen I breathe, and in the blood that courses through me. We have so many means now, with which to create, express and share, that our poetry can cross any boundary.
I don't want you to go, pain, last form of love. I live when I do not hurt you, nor here, further: in the Earth, in the year where you come from you, in love with her and everything was. In this reality collapsed, which denies itself and insists that never existed, that it was only a pretext for a living. If I don't I stayed, pain, incontrovertible, I believe; but I keep you. Whether you're really gives me confidence that nothing was a lie. And until I hear, thou shalt be for me, pain, evidence of another life, in which I affliggevi. The great test, at a distance, that existed, which exists, which I loved, Yes, I still love her.
Facebook offered this Bing translation of the poem by Pedro Salinas, which I posted in `Love Song of Pedro Salinas (1), and I was curious about it...
I don't want you to go – pain, last form of love.
I live when I do not hurt you, nor here, further: in the Earth,
in the year where you come from you, in love with her and everything was.
In this reality collapsed, which denies itself – and insists – that never existed, that it was only a pretext for a living.
If I don't I stayed – pain, incontrovertible, I believe; but I keep you.
Whether you're really gives me confidence that nothing was a lie. And until I hear, thou shalt be for me, pain, evidence of another life, in which I affliggevi.
The great test, at a distance – that existed, which exists, which I loved – Yes, I still love her.
Non voglio che tu te ne vada,
dolore, ultima forma di amare.
Mi sento vivere quando mi fai del male
non in te, né qui, più lontano:
nella terra, nell’anno da dove vieni tu,
nell’amore con lei e tutto ciò che fu.
In questa realtà
sprofondata,
che si nega a se stessa e si ostina
che mai è esistita,
che fu solo un mio pretesto per vivere.
Se non mi rimanessi tu,
dolore, incontrastabile, io lo crederei;
però mi rimani tu.
Che tu sia realtà mi da la sicurezza
che niente fu menzogna.
E fin quando io ti sento,
tu sarai per me, dolore,
la prova di un’altra vita,
in cui non mi affliggevi.
La grande prova, a distanza,
che esistette, che esiste,
che mi amò, sì,
che ancora la amo.
`Reading Shakespeare in Bernadeth's status update (part 3)
Juliet
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Romeo
It was the lark, the herald of the morn;
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
`Reading Shakespeare in Bernadeth's status update (part 2)
Oh, Father, dear protector of our home –
Your temper flares at moments that I wish
Were quick to pass like the flit of a gnome.
Our servants scurry with dish after dish
Of delicacies, far and near, and still
There is dissatisfaction on your brow.
Oh, Father, know that your will is my will –
Your shoulders, arms and hands, my childhood bough.
You see how happiness accompanies
My movements now, and you are happy for
The daughter whose indebtedness will please
Your kindler heart, like hardly once before – For you will hear the things you want to hear And not the things I think are also dear.
The angel soft
And holy light
Are side by side
The sinister
Of shadow and
Its flaming doors.
There is no step
To take outside,
No saving grace
That we may turn
For miracles.
The miracles
Shall come as they
Are wont to do,
Without our wish
Or prayer or hope.
For this is of
Another realm –
The pivotal
And fierce face-off
Which we have seen
Only in art
Is going on
This moment now.
The threshold of
The open door
Is where they stand
Like sentinels
Alert and poised
To shut the door.
This painting of
It all and more
Illuminates –
So we at least
May understand
The mysteries
And guarded stance
Of good and bad,
So we at least
May know they’re there
And who is whom,
When rooms are dark
And daylight blinds.
After spending a few days figuring out how to write this poem, then a few hours writing the first two parts of it – and struggling a bit – The Coda came pouring out of me, as if from nowhere that I can imagine. I honestly don’t know where this came from, except from some divine intervention that tapped its hand on my forehead. There is no classic poetic structure I draw from, except that it’s in iambic di-meter. It falls under the umbrella of ‘blank verse’ – non-rhyming metered verse.
The Coda is, of course, about good and evil. We don’t really see these, except through our choices and actions and those of others. It is art, I believe, that helps us best to understand these – that illuminates the ‘fierce face-off’ between the two. If you, my dear friends, can subscribe to the idea that I’ve just written a musical score here – hence, the terms ‘prelude,’ ‘symphony’ and ‘coda’ – then another musical process comes to mind, i.e., ‘crescendo.’ Everything builds up to this last part – The Coda!
The genesis of dream is in the day
Before, the stuff we know as residue.
For Freud was never inattentive to
The casual phrase, the gems of the mundane
(Such as receipts I turned to poetry)
Where life is mostly lived and dream is found.
The doors as ‘invites’ to what may be found –
These stretch into infinities of day.
The dream has opened them like poetry
Which says so much more than its residue
Of words – the ghostly, timid and mundane
Have wondered long when we were coming to.
The irony – the ghost itself seeks to
Escape the room, inside of which it’s found
Itself becoming pale, as if mundane
Were its eternal, unforgiving day.
It is personifying residue.
It is the life that gives us poetry.
It is another brand of poetry –
The sex and the aggression leaning to
The secret wind inside the residue.
Oh, how we know they will in time be found.
They have a way of making night of day.
Their consummation is in the mundane.
The dream is quite a genius with mundane –
The Freudian trio can be poetry
Of battle worn and sadly, tattered day.
The unacceptable is walking to
The door and banking on the symbols found
Acceptable as common residue.
But victory of dream in residue
Is never fully won, despite mundane
And ingenuity and goodness found.
Sometimes we dream of florid poetry –
There is no metaphor for dropping to
And burning from the torrid red of day.
Still, residue emerges from mundane.
The dream is found and known in poetry.
There is a turning to – and from – the day.
The Sestina Symphony is my poetic treatise on dreams. I draw on Freudian theory, because the insights that came out of his seminal study “The Interpretation of Dreams” is nothing short of tectonic. But besides this, it is Sylvia’s painting that holds compelling meaning. I use my psychological insight and poetic license to draw it all out as best as I can.
A sestina is a wonderfully complex structure. It was invented by Arnaut Daniel, a French troubadour, in the late 12th century. There is no rhyming here, but, as you see, the same six words that end each line are repeated from stanza to stanza. They are repeated in a very specific order, which is what’s challenging – but, you know, I love a challenge! As I began to write this part, I knew fairly quickly that it had to be written in a sestina to mirror the complexity of this subject.
I live inside this painting of a dream.
I live its metaphors for vibrancy,
As far away from quite the usual stream
Of all that is the left-brain tyranny.
For much of life I live is in this red –
The raw of breath and pulse, of move and still,
Of try to look away, because the dread
Is never so removed from where I will
Come face-to-face with it for sure in time.
For Hamlet came to life, like night to dawn,
When providence exposed the uncle’s crime
And then the act to which it spurred him on.
There is a prompting for the dream I’m in.
There is a readiness now to begin.
The Prelude captures my first reactions on seeing Sylvia’s painting. It took a little longer than usual for me to get started with this poem, as I was sorting out what it meant for me to ‘live in the red’ – one metaphor I use to represent non-rational thinking (i.e., right-brain thinking). This is where, I believe, life can be lived vibrantly. This is where I live.
The form is a classic Shakespearean sonnet – its rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, and progression. The first line is a ‘take off’ from the first line of the Michael Franks’ song A Walk in the Rain – “I lived in a painting by Renoir.”
I moved to Dubai in August 2006, and one of the first things my friends told me, on my first Ramadan that year, was to be careful when driving home in the afternoon. Muslims may be so hungry that they feel sluggish or irritable on the road. Apparently there is an uptick of accidents during the holiday.
Two drivers jostle with their speeding cars –
One is apparently not happy with
The other's purposeful refusal to
Shift to the slower lanes and, what is more,
His dangerous tap on the brakes, forcing
The first as well to slam the brakes into
A screech as loud as his increasing rage.
The other driver speeds away, perhaps
Smug in his momentary satisfaction.
The first gives chase, and does his payback bit –
They weave from lane to lane, into the distance
Faster and smaller than the rest of us.
A few kilometers away, there is
An accident – thank God, the drivers look
To be just fine, and the police is there.
These two are not the drivers whom I saw
Before – so then I pray their tempers cool.
I pray, should any accident occur,
That God keep it a minor incident.
Muslims around the world celebrate Ramadan, which is a very sacred, yearly holiday that lasts about 30 days. Each day, from sunrise to sundown, they are not allowed to consume anything: no food, no water, no smoking etc. Iftar is the breaking of the fast at sundown.
The man is wearing a red cap and shirt,
With yellow for his collar, and black pants.
He squats beside a bucket of the red
He wears, and carefully prepares for Iftar.
The tray upon the graveled ground is large,
Fit for a group of men ready to break
Their fast. For everything about him here –
The color of his clothes, the things he does – Reflects the bounty of banana cut
For grateful bites and watermelon sliced
Meant for the tray and picked up with two hands.
The tray and his positioning let him
Be cradled in the bosom of the earth.
I discovered this poignant short film on a friend's timeline on Facebook. It's by Michaël Dudok de Wit, a Dutch animator, director and illustrator, and it won an Academy Award in 2000. I was so moved by it that I wrote an inspired poem:
Against the sturdiness of trees is where
She leans her wish to never say ‘goodbye.’
The same roadway without a single car
Pays homage to the goings-on of life –
As simple and enduring as the grass,
Yet as evolving as that life itself.
That sameness of locale is anchoring
For hope, eternal as a girl who looks
– And always stops to look, despite the rain,
The snow, the wind, the calendar of loss –
For any sign of him, the sanctity
That proves that humankind is purposeful.
The shimmer from a sheet of melted snow.
The stiff headwind that tangle whips her hair.
The cold made meaningless by people whose
Lives go on, undeterred and simplified
As bicycles and overcoats and games.
The dry seabed is metaphor for skin.
The walk at dusk on sand is not tireless.
The boat marooned, part sunk into seabed,
Is welcoming when she becomes so tired
That she can only seek a dreamless sleep.
To fall atop the hill, then fall again.
In the interiors of enduring love,
She finds reversals of her age and loss –
Her heart jumps, startles to such countless beats.
His, too. She pauses, as he waits. She runs,
As seconds are an odd of fast and slow –
More like a scurry – to his inch – then stop.
That they will now believe the truth in this –
That they, whom circumstance may separate,
Are never separated for too long.
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be. But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that so much of earth and water wrought I must attend time's leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
These rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
A storm and so a gift. Its swift approach lifts gravel from the road. A fence is flattened in the course of the storm’s worse attempt at language — thunder’s umbrage. A tree is torn apart, blown upward through a bedroom window. A boy winnows through the pile of shards for the sharpest parts from the blown-apart glass. He has a bag that holds found edges jagged as a stag’s horns or smooth as a single pane smashed into smaller panes that he sticks his hand into to make blood web across his ache-less skin flexing like fish gills O-lipped for a scream it cannot make. He wants to feel what his friends have felt, the slant of fear on their faces he could never recreate, his body configured without pain. When his skin’s pouting welts don’t rake a whimper from his mouth, he runs outside, arms up for the storm, aluminum baseball bat held out to the sky until lightning with an electric tongue makes his viscera luminescent; the boy’s first word for pain is the light’s new word for home.
I stumbled onto this poem on Google+, and was not only moved but also piqued. So I Googled the poet's name. The fact that I had difficult finding out anything about her was the first tipoff that something was wrong with this picture. I did manage to find this, though:
I was reading the Gene Wilder autobio (don't ask) and this poem is in it.. but I can't find out anything more.. I'm not even sure it may just be shit, but obviously it touched something.. does anyone know anything about her?
My mother gave me a beuatiful poems many years ago, but the author is not noted. The poem is titled...Comes The Dawn....
Most search engines have brought about reqest for the author, but not a title or word reference. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you
To which someone replied quickly:
Veronica A. Shoffstall
from 1971
the title is After a while
I got this email from Veronica, years ago,
who was kind enough to answer me,
as I wanted to know whether the title was 'Comes dawn'-
as quote often it is quoted as such :
Hi Ilza,
I never titled it "Comes the Dawn" -
- that was something it picked up along the way.
I never WOULD have given it such a pretentious, flatulent title.
In fact, I never titled it at all,
but because I had to for registration purposes
( and also to combat all the bogus titles it has been given by others:
"Comes the Dawn", "Endurance", I can't even remember them all),
I call it "After a While".
But titles are not copyrighted,
so I can't really prevent people from calling it whatever they like,
and since it was published in the Ann Landers column as
"Comes the Dawn",
it's hard to get people to stop calling it that.
Ronnie
Ronnie is a nickname for Veronica.
Uno aprende
Después de un tiempo, uno aprende la sutil diferencia
entre sostener una mano y encadenar un alma;
Y uno aprende que el amor no significa acostarse
y que la compañía no significa seguridad;
Y uno empieza a aprender que los besos no son contratos
y los regalos no son promesas;
Y uno empieza a aceptar sus derrotas con la cabeza alta y los ojos abiertos;
Y uno aprende a construir todos sus caminos en el hoy,
porque el terreno de mañana es demasiado incierto para planes
y los futuros tienen una forma de caerse en la mitad.
Y después de un tiempo uno aprende que si es demasiado
hasta el calorcito del sol quema.
Así que uno planta su propio jardín y decora su propia alma,
en lugar de esperar a que alguien le traiga flores.
Y uno aprende que realmente uno puede aguantar,
que uno realmente es fuerte,
que uno realmente vale,
y uno aprende y aprende…
y con cada día uno aprende.
Uno Apprende (literally, One Learns) is the poem by Jorge Luis Borjes, the Argentine writer, poet and translator. From what Spanish I know, the poem I found on Google+ and on Ann Landers looks to be a really good translation.
I found this translation of You Learn, attributed to Borjes, in a blog called dissections.
Then I discovered this wonderful little homage to Borjes in an intriguing site called Rebelle Society. Writer Andrea Balt speaks endearingly and lyrically about this poem:
I used to read more Borges in college. He was fond of libraries and cafés, so I am pretty sure I’ve met him at some point in a forgotten corner of Buenos Aires, buried in the smell of old, thick volumes of typewritten life… Considering, of course, that he died around the same time I was born.
This is the type of poetry that the least cryptic and most enjoyable side of Borges whispers to me—not from the depths of a century-old library but from inside an even older, universal heart of sad joy.
When I first read this poem, I was married. I didn't understand it,
nor did I like it. In fact, I really didn't like it.
It had no relevance to me. I was supposedly happily married at the time.
After my divorce, I began to understand it's meaning.
I came to realize that it is about inner strength, and learning that women
have to learn not to depend on a man, or anyone else, for their happiness
and fulfillment. I learned that in everyone's life there are good-byes
of one kind or another. We are always saying good-bye.
Spouses let us down; spouses disappoint us; spouses don't keep promises.
Spouses and other loved ones die.
Friends move away; friendships cool, and children grow up and leave home.
They begin their own lives and aren't so much a part of ours anymore.
Some stay close to us, live close to us; some don't.
Parents do the best they can, but most of us have some scars and issues from childhood.
Eventually, these scars leave us, also.
So,
we have to build our own world, plan our own lives, and learn not to
depend on anyone else except God. Most of all, we realize that we can survive
if we are strong. Then, anything that comes along share our lives
or to make us happier is icing on the cake.
Who really wrote "Comes the Dawn"???
It is an ongoing dispute.
I had first credited this poem it to Veronica Shofftall. I received an e-mail from someone telling me that Veronica wrote it. There have been several versions of this poem. Usually it is attributed to "Unknown" because there is no official copyright owned by anyone.
Before you write to tell me that this poem was written by Veronica Shofftall, please read an e-mail that I got from Judith Evans in September of 2004. Pay close attention to the wording and spelling.
"Just thought you'd like to know, Comes the Dawn (sometimes called "After a While", or "You Learn") was written by ME a loooong time ago. decades and decades! You see it in many forms, usually attributed to someone, often a "Veronica Shofftall" and supposedly even copyrighted by her. (She even included it in a self e-published collection called "Mirrors and Other Insults", which she then had to remove from the internet because. like, it's not written by her!) There are several "renditions". No doubt, someone picked it up and wanted to put there own spin on it. Odd. This is probably one of the most plagiarized poems in the world! And I didn't make a DIME off it!
This is the real rendition (as you can see, it actually has the phrase "comes the dawn" which V. S. didn't bother to include in her spin)"I was young and stupid. I let it get out in the public sector and kick myself in the behind every time I see it, or a rewritten version of it, being claimed by this person, that person or attributed to "Author Unknown". I don't know who Veronica Shofftall is (or any of the other people that may lay claim to it) but I have gotten tired of seeing her name (or theirs) all over my work. She needs to go write her own poem.
Not that it makes any difference now. I just wanted to let you know, for the record,
because it was on your site."
Judith B. Evans
Now, before you believe that Judith Evans wrote it, read on.
Most recently I got an e-mail from a man named Lorenzo saying that Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), who was an Argentine writer and considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century, wrote a poem titled "Y Uno Aprende" which he says was translated by the others who claim it.
On August 30, 2007, I got another e-mail saying Borges wrote it.
Personally, when I find that more than one person claims authorship,
I know that one of them is lying, so I don't credit anyone.
It amazes me that people can be such liars.
The mystery deepens. Since there is no proof, I say the author is Unknown and Unproven.
2012 - Update
Unbelievably, in October of 2012 I received another letter from Judith Evans,
and I quote verbatim:
"Not all Plagiarism is intentional. I was shocked to find Luis Jorges poem and spent a few weeks scratching my head and trying to figure out where I had been exposed to it and never could figure it out. I can only assume that I read it or was other wise exposed when I was young and just didn’t remember where the words came from But I want you to know that I contacted as many people as I could remember or find to correct the information. because I was NOT the originator of that poem. I honestly thought I was. It had such a familiar sound. But then, truly gifted poems to speak to the soul in each of us. I am sorry I mislead you. It wasn’t intentional. I feel sad for Mr. Borges that this - Quite possibly one of the most beloved poems in the world – somehow became so detached From his name. What a person writes he/she should get credit for."
Actually, the only thing that matters is that the poem has been meaningful to hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and that should be enough credit for the real author.
Moral: If you write something prophetic, get it copyrighted.
I suppose if one could ever discern how prophetic his or her poetry truly is, that is, from the get-go, then one could get it copyrighted. That said, I marvel at how a poem can go viral, and be meaningful to hundreds of thousands of people.
How, in addition, the best and the worst of people can show itself along the way. Maybe Shoffstall did translate the Borjes poem, and laid rightfully claim to the translation. Maybe Evans wrote honestly about what she believed in her claim and then disclaimer.
What if the poetic has left the poem in the same way that Elvis has left the building? Long after the limo pulled away, the audience was still in the arena screaming for more, but poetry escaped out the backdoor and onto the Internet, where it is taking on new forms that look nothing like poetry. Poetry as we know it—sonnets or free verse on a printed page—feels akin to throwing pottery or weaving quilts, activities that continue in spite of their cultural marginality. But the Internet, with its swift proliferation of memes, is producing more extreme forms of modernism than modernism ever dreamed of.
I was schooled in poetry as something you read in a book and something you wrote on a printed page. Until just a few years ago, I wrote poetry in a notebook, that is, hand-wrote it. It wasn't difficult, though, to word-process my poems, as Microsoft Word set up a white blank page for me to type on. At the end of the day, it was still old school.
Four years ago, two colleagues introduced me to kinetic poetry: The first video above is an example. I was duly intrigued. It was too costly to arrange for someone to do that for my poetry, so I shelved the idea. I did begin to upload my poetry onto Facebook, but found its formatting limited and archaic. The fact that I couldn't even indent or italicize annoyed me.
Then, two years ago I began to create videos of me reciting mine and others' poetry. I navigated this transition well enough, but in truth I was reluctant to lose the integrity of poetry on the printed page, especially format and font. Gladly, though, I accepted the need to re-imagine poetry. If I were in fact going to present it in multimedia, then I needed to let my creativity, and the exigency of the medium, evolve how I presented it.
The second video prompts a collaboration between poetry and animation. In the third video, you see how I navigate the print of my poem on PowerPoint and Movie Maker, and more importantly how René Magritte paintings, and René Magritte himself, were integral to my poem's creative evolution.
In the article I referenced, Goldsmith asks, How has the internet altered poetry?
Explore the answer. Be creative in your evolution.
Today you find yourself guilty as the rim you split an egg against You press charges You spell out your name like the letters are medals for good conduct in a bad war The night moves in with you into your room until even your sleep is not your own Through the window the grass tells you to give up and you are trying but on the other hand things keep you: the moon, the cars, cars You undress yourself more deeply down like this is the way to get to the future You let the darkness medically examine you So much can’t be put back together To burn the house down to burn the house up It’s the same problem in any direction You’re matter You turn on the light
Growing a bear — a midnight occupation,
the need for which you perhaps first realized
when you saw the wrong kind of shadow
under your chin — a convex when you expected
concave, so now it’s clear
you’re getting older. Your wife was in the shower
and you wanted to step inside
and soap her up like you did in college when she said
“I’ll shower with you, but I’m leaving
my underwear on,” and you enjoyed her
in every way you could enjoy a person with soap.
You didn’t join your wife in the shower.
She’s gotten funny about letting you see her
shave her legs or wash herself anywhere.
You think she read it somewhere —
that letting your husband see you pluck anything,
trim anything, apply medicine to anything,
will make him feel like he’s furniture.
It’s exactly on cold nights like these that the basement
is not as forbidding as it should be, despite the fact
that you have to put gloves on
in what is part of your own home.
Downstairs, a large bathtub, kept, for some reason,
after remodeling. It is there that your bear will be grown,
by you, though you have no idea how. Probably wishing
is most of it; fertilizer, chunks of raw stew meat,
handfuls of blackberries, two metal rakes, and a thick rug
make up the rest. Then water.
You get an e-mail from a friend late at night
saying he can’t sleep. You write back
“I hope you feel sleepy soon” and think how childish
the word “sleepy” is. And you’re a man,
older than most of the people you see on television.
You haven’t even considered how your wife will feel
when you have finished growing your bear. You could
write a letter to her tonight, explaining how your life
was just so lacking in bear:
“Janet, it’s nothing you’ve done —
clearly you have no possible way of supplying me with a bear
or any of the activities I might be able to enjoy
after acquiring the bear.”
It might just be best
to keep the two worlds separate.
Janet clearly prefers things to be comfortable
and unchallenging. Janet soaps herself up. Janet puts herself
to bed, and you just happen to be next to her.
You go on your weekly bike ride with Mark and tell him
that you’ve been growing a bear. An eighteen-wheeler
flies by and he doesn’t seem to hear you —
plus he’s focused on the hill.
You think about how not all friends know
what each other sounds like when struggling and
breathing heavy. Past the age of college athletics,
most friends don’t even know what each others’ bodies
look like, flushed, tired, showering, cold.
It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.
I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days. Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back, In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)
Brock writes a very well-crafted sonnet - Shakespearean, in fact. This is the marvel of meter: Note how the rhymes in the first stanza are the same words, as if to convey that the speaker and his lover mirror one another perfectly.
As reality sets in: Note how the rhymes are suddenly off-track in the second stanza. Which is to say that the perfectly mirrored rhymes in the first stanza are simply in his wistful imagination. He may see the two of them together again, but in actually he is simply looking at himself in the mirror.
The final couplet is also noteworthy. There is severe enjambment in the penultimate line: you (meaning the speaker) dangles in space, abruptly removed from its verb and object. Still, there is saving grace in poetry, especially with such a venerable form as a sonnet: The couplet is not a mirrored rhyme, but simply a familiar, solid one.
Lastly, the way Brock enunciates (I do.) in the video sounds like adieu. Which makes it an even more brilliant sonnet, truly!
I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.
Elsewhere we are as sitting in a place where sunlight
Filters down, a little at a time,
Waiting for someone to come. Harsh words are spoken,
As the sun yellows the green of the maple tree.
So this was all, but obscurely
I felt the stirrings of new breath in the pages
Which all winter long had smelled like an old catalog.
New sentences were starting up. But the summer
Was well along, not yet past the mid-point
But full and dark with the promise of that fullness,
That time when one can no longer wander away
And even the least attentive fall silent
To watch the thing that is prepared to happen.
A look of glass stops you
And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?
Did they notice me, this time, as I am,
Or is it postponed again? The children
Still at their games, clouds that arise with a swift
Impatience in the afternoon sky, then dissipate
As limpid, dense twilight comes.
Only in that tooting of a horn
Down there, for a moment, I thought
The great, formal affair was beginning, orchestrated,
Its colors concentrated in a glance, a ballade
That takes in the whole world, now, but lightly,
Still lightly, but with wide authority and tact.
The prevalence of those gray flakes falling?
They are sun motes. You have slept in the sun
Longer than the sphinx, and are none the wiser for it.
Come in. And I thought a shadow fell across the door
But it was only her come to ask once more
If I was coming in, and not to hurry in case I wasn't.
The night sheen takes over. A moon of Cistercian pallor
Has climbed to the center of heaven, installed,
Finally involved with the business of darkness.
And a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,
The books, the papers, the old garters and union-suit buttons
Kept in a white cardboard box somewhere, and all the lower
Versions of cities flattened under the equalizing night.
The summer demands and takes away too much,
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.
The highest peak scrapes the sky blue ;
It extends from hills to the sea.
When I look back , clouds shut the view ;
When I come near , no mist I see.
Peaks vary in north and south side ;
Vales differ in sunshine or shade.
Seeking a lodge where to abide ,
I ask a woodman when I wade.
Silent friend of many distances, feel
how space dilates with each breath of yours.
Among the rafters of dark belfries peal
your own sweet tones. Your predators
will grow strong upon such fare.
Know transformation in its varied sign.
Which experience produces most despair?
If drinking offend, transform yourself to wine.
Be, in this immensity of night,
the magic force at your sense’s crossroad;
the purpose of their mysterious plan.
And though you fade from earthly sight,
declare to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water say: I am.
Xia Yu does a fine job of dramatizing the poems, but Keanu Reeves may simply be unaccustomed to poetry readings. Chang Jing adds sweet music to the readings via a string instrument. This staging is part of what I envision with Poetry in Multimedia: cross art collaboration, using different media.
Here is Rilke's sonnet in German:
Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen, fühle,
wie dein Atem noch den Raum vermehrt.
Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle
laß dich läuten. Das, was an dir zehrt,
wird ein Starkes über dieser Nahrung.
Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein.
Was ist deine leidenste Erfahrung?
Ist dir Trinken bitter, werde Wein.
Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn.
Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß,
zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne.
Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin.
Plus Howard Landman's translation:
Still friend of many distances, feel how
your breath increases space even now.
In the timber-frames of shadowy bell towers
let yourself ring. That which saps your powers
grows ever stronger from this sustenance.
Through transformation, cross the borderline.
What's your most sorrowful experience?
If drinking you is bitter, turn to wine.
Be, in this night of extravagances,
magics at the crossroads of your senses,
the sense they oddly all cohere.
And when the world no longer knows
you, to the still earth say: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I'm here.
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