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Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

When does the hunger abate;

This entry is part 19 of 63 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

and in the woods, the downward flight of leaves, when does that cease? Even in dreams we move from window to window, waiting for morning, for the light-tipped crowbar to break the seal. We’ve eaten the bread, we’ve spooned the soup, we’ve burrowed into the bedclothes stripped of all but last night’s crumpled wings. Oh tender moths brushing against our sleep, even the gravel on the walk has multiplied. Harder than rain, I’ve prayed to the wish-granting gods though you see my lips forming only words like yolk or honey or dust, coin or sparrow or coal.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Lorelei


Watch on Vimeo

I hadn’t expected to be so impressed by Blackwater Falls. The West Virginia state park was just a place to camp, conveniently located close to two microbreweries in the towns of Thomas and Davis, not to mention a portion of the Monongahela National Forest which my hiking buddy Lucy and I planned to explore the next day. But we dutifully went down to look at the falls after pitching our tents, and were blown away (see the photo in my postcard). The tannic color of the falls (whence its name) was striking, and the location in a wooded gorge couldn’t have been more picturesque.

I made an audio recording of the falls, then switched to the video camera. At a certain point, Lucy — who has an excellent eye — drew my attention to the water spraying off a large boulder at the foot of the falls and suggested that might make a good film “for a poem by you or Nic S..” I saw immediately what she was talking about.

After several more days of relishing the unparalleled silence, breathtaking scenery and wilderness quality of the “Mon,” we made our way back to Central Pennsylvania, and I discovered to my shock that Via Negativa and all its associated sites had been down for two and a half days (sorry about that). But my gloom at the unreliability of my webhost was soon cancelled out by my excitement at seeing what other, more diligent online poets had been doing during my absence. Luisa had continued to write daily poems for publication on Via Negativa even without the benefit of access to The Morning Porch archives for prompts, which is especialy impressive considering all her other commitments. And Nic S., who had recently decided to close submissions to Whale Sound, her online audio archive of contemporary poetry, had just launched a new audio project called Pizzicati of Hosanna, featuring her readings of work by dead poets in English, French, Spanish and Italian. One poem, Neruda’s “Fábula de la sirena y los borrachos,” seemed like it might make a good fit for my waterfall footage.

I whipped up a fairly literal translation — good enough for subtitling, I thought. But finding the right soundtrack consumed quite a few hours more, using various search terms at Jamendo, ccMixter and Soundcloud. Part of the problem was I couldn’t decide on the mood I wanted to establish. But once it became clear it should be elegiac (rather than, say, angry or dissonant), I quickly found something I thought might work. I shared the result at a private Facebook group where a few of us aspiring videopoets critique each other’s work, and was encouraged by their positive reactions. Brenda Clews suggested I increase the sound of the falls after the poem ends. I decided to go a little further and include waterfall sound throughout the title and credits, using the higher-quality audio from my portable recorder rather than what was on the video.

Here’s my translation, for those with dial-up connections who don’t feel inclined to wait for the video to load:

Fable of the Siren and the Drunks
by Pablo Neruda

All those gentlemen were there inside
when she came in completely naked
they’d been drinking and they began spitting on her
fresh from the river she didn’t understand anything
she was a siren who’d gotten lost
insults streamed down over her smooth flesh
filth drenched her golden breasts
she didn’t know how to cry so she didn’t cry
she didn’t know how to put clothes on so she didn’t put clothes on
they branded her with cigarettes and charred corks
and laughed until they fell down on the bar room floor
she didn’t speak because she didn’t know how to speak
her eyes were the color of distant love
her arms were made of twin topazes
her lips were cut from coral light
and she went out that door as suddenly as she came
no sooner had she entered the river than she was clean
she shone like a white stone in the rain
and without looking back she swam anew
swam toward never again swam toward death

Listen to Neruda himself reading the poem at Palabra Virtual.

Incidentally, speaking of Brenda Clews, she’s just launched a weekly series of blog posts reviewing videopoems, “videopoem Fridays.” Here’s the first installment.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

How I Came to Writing

This entry is part 18 of 63 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

In a faraway city in the mountains, monsoon
rains descend and it is soft typewriter sounds

on the roof all day and all night, rain
and fog all month; not a sliver of sun

returned, in a carriage or otherwise. Dark
pink bougainvillea blossoms give up

and plaster themselves closer to the wall.
Crevices flourish with signatures of moss.

They might not know it, but even they
have stories to tell. All is elegy,

departing or gone; incessant rain,
language the earth understands.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Landscape, with a Glimpse of the Soul as it Leaves the Body

This entry is part 17 of 63 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

My girlfriend, telling of her mother’s
last moments, describes the gaunt
frame they prop on pillows in the living

room, windows they slide open to a view
of mountains behind a curtain of gold leaves.
The cancer has chiseled her features close

to bone, but still she struggles to listen.
Hearing is one of the last senses to go;
and so they shush the relatives

that have come to start chants of ritual
mourning at her side. A son-in-law
slides a bow across a halting serenade

of viola strings. Grandchildren whisper
in her ear, urging her to the crossing.
And at the end, my friend swears

there is a split-second glimpse of wisping
breath— leaving the white-throated body
behind, slight tear like a wing in the air.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Blue Stone Blues

This entry is part 16 of 63 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

Here we are again, the eye skimming along the grid
of what it’s given, then doing its calculus—

this overcast morning, lingering over
the lightfast, loving what’s stable;

but also what shimmers into a range
of forms. Though damp and rain

have drained the green out of the trees,
a scrape of bark yields copper undertones,

or ultramarine— extracted from stones once
more expensive than vermilion or even gold,

the blue of lapis lazuli’s a sheen
that royals what it’s smeared upon.

Sometimes I want to hold even a fleck of it
in the back of my throat: oh little pebble I

might lick for luck, tasting of sulphates or
blood, tumbled smooth by rough-toothed days.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

“Just Trying to Get Better Cellphone Reception”

Dear ineffectually disguised intruder, dear
close call way out of turn, could you not have
thought of a better excuse when the police
doing Segway rounds caught you— having just
cleared the jutting-out branch of the maple,
having just jimmied the second floor front
windows of the neighbor, the ones that open
into atrium space clear from the balcony above
to the floor below? You didn’t know about
the thirteen foot drop, the jumble of plants
in pots by the door, the sharp cacophony
of broken terra cotta. Obviously you
had other things in mind— art work
in expensive frames on the wall;
a bedroom safe, shiny jewelry, small
appliances, cash found in a drawer:
anything, anything else but that.

—Luisa A. Igloria
10 10 2011