. . . . . Walter Never Spoke

PASTORAL BANDWIDTH

Walter never spoke
Never moved from his bed
A stretched out farmer
Dying in an 1820’s farmhouse

Was it a stroke? 
Was he tired down to the ground?
Did he believe his dying room held already
the words that would fit?

91, In Hospice

91, In Hospice

Awake, she ate with unexpected haste

Hands flying over the tray spilling nothing

Coffee is stone cold, she said to the room

Ignoring the gloved hand, caressing her hair

Source: 

91, In Hospice,

That's What I'm Talking About, Collected Essays and Reviews (Nativa, LLC, 2008) p. 44 - Available at Amazon.com and elsewhere

The Lightening Bug is not the Beacon

A poetic sensibility ought not be mistaken for a lens through which life may be understood. 

The insight of the poet is akin to the light of the firefly, seen across the lawn. Beautiful, fleeting, personally and therefore irrationally reassuring, a sound poem provides this flash, this arresting but momentary and faint illumination. 

But you are likely to trip over the lawn furniture if you guide yourself by the light of the firefly.

Thoughts which occur on the second and third reading of Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox. 

Berlin identifies Tolstoy's "deeply skeptical and pessimistic view of the strength of the non-rational in human behavior, which at once dominate human beings and deceive them about themselves." 

Tolstoy harbored a deep suspicion of the romantic notion that "true knowledge cannot be obtained by the use of reason but only by a kind of imaginative self-identification with the central principle of the universe - the soul of the world - such as do artists and thinkers in moments of divine inspiration."

For David Urias - Murdered in El Salvador June 29 2012

El dió con senderos conocidos

Mostraba confianza su paso

Ilusiones real no presumidos

Varonil su aspecto leve acaso

Dió David con camino familiar

Bajaba en parada habitual

Jamás piensa en sangre bautizar

Ir a hogar humilde y natal

Proyectos bien de paz y comunal

Guardaba en su mente inocente 

Camina alegre pero el Mal

lo rodea atrás y en el frente

Lastimaron al muchacho sin perdón

Y también sin razón a perdonar

Libre de actos malos, fue el don

a todos; pues su reta fue amar

David! Quitarte todo! Bien feo!

al comienzo de tu mero apogeo

*************   translation   **************

He followed well worn paths
His foot fall confident
His dreams modest not presumptuous
His a masculine essence yet gentle

David chose the familiar route
Getting off at the usual bus stop
Never imagining a baptism in blood
Headed for his mother’s humble home

Full of notions of communal harmony
Were his innocent ideas
He walked joyfully but Evil
fully had surrounded him

Mercilessly they wounded this boy
a child needing no show of mercy
Free of evil in himself, he was a gift
to all - his striving: learn to love

Oh David! They took everything from you!
Just as you had begun your ascent

IS FREE VERSE TRUE VERSE FOR BEING FREE? CASE IN POINT

A snippet from William Carlos Williams'  "It Is a Small Plant"

It is a small plant
delicately branched and
tapering conically
to a point, each branch
and the peak a wire for
green pods, blind lanterns
starting upward from
the stalk each way to
a pair of prickly edged blue
flowerets: it is her regard,
a little plant without leaves,
a finished thing guarding
its secret.

My question, raised before, why is this a poem and not simply a well done paragraph, broken up so as to fly the flag of verse?

Here is the same "sentence" but laid out without line breaks. What is lost and what is gained by breaking up the sentence into arbitrary (?) bits, as Williams did?

It is a small plant delicately branched and tapering conically to a point, each branch and the peak a wire for green pods, blind lanterns starting upward from the stalk each way to a pair of prickly edged blue flowerets: it is her regard, a little plant without leaves, a finished thing guarding its secret.


Source & Background:


Poets.org - Happy Birthday June 10, 2012

On the "Imagist Movement" you can visit:

Poets.org A Brief Guide to Imagism

JUNE 5 - POEMS HAVE BEEN RECOVERED, HIS BODY? NO . . .

JUNE 5 - Birthday of Federico Garcia Lorca (1898), poet, dramatist and artist, who was murdered on Aug 19, 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His works were banned in Franco's Spain. G L's body has never been recovered. His poetry and plays have been. Here's a cutting from the poem, with my translation following:

Arbolé, arbolé,
seco y verdí.

La niña del bello rostro
está cogiendo aceituna.
el viento, galán de torres,
la prende por la cintura.
Pasaron cuatro jinetes
sobre jacas andaluzas,
con trajes de azul y verde,
con largas capas oscuras.
'Vente a Córdoba, muchacha.'
La niña no los escucha.
[. . .]

Stemma O Stemma
both dry and green

A lovely girl
out picking olives.
The wind, rigid lover,
grabs at her waist.
As four riders passed
on Andalusian ponies,
wearing outfits of blue and green
and long dark capes,
they said 'Come to Cordoba, little lady.'
She paid no attention to them.
[. . .]







(Translation by RBC)

The Restless Simulacra

The restless simulacra in my mind,
The piquant and horrific mix and meet.
Kaleidoscopic images unwind,
Make loves of losses, victories defeat.

With slight adjustments, just the merest twist,

My brain creates the past I would review.

The sum of spent events comes down to this:

What’s said and done I constantly renew.

Kaleidoscopic colors can enchant,

The reds, the greens, the yellows do enthrall.

More somber hues, though true, I can recant,

Since truth is true if willingly recalled.

The present from the past - a common view.

Our memories we invent - more likely true.

______

This poem was first published on-line in Syndic #6, where a reading by the writer may also be found:

Three by RBC