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Posted on by Dave Bonta

A glimpse from the gutter: three poems by Alejandra Pizarnik

This entry is part 33 of 38 in the series Poetry from the Other Americas

por un minuto de vida breve
única de ojos abiertos
por un minuto de ver
en el cerebro flores pequeñas
danzando como palabras en la boca de un mudo

for one minute of fleeting life
the only one in which eyes are open
for one minute of seeing
small flowers dance in the brain
like words in a mute person’s mouth

*

has construido tu casa
has emplumado tus pájaros
has golpeado al viento
con tus propios huesos

has terminado sola
lo que nadie comenzó

you’ve built your house
you’ve put feathers on your birds
you’ve struck the wind
with your own bones

alone you’ve finished
what no one began

*

una mirada desde la alcantarilla
puede ser una visión del mundo

la rebelión consiste en mirar una rosa
hasta pulverizarse los ojos

a glimpse from the gutter
can become a complete worldview

rebellion consists of gazing at a rose
until your eyes are reduced to dust

—Árbol de Diana (Tree of Diana), nos. 5, 16 and 23

One of the great advantages to being here in London is the super-fast internet. Without it, I doubt I would’ve seriously entertained the idea of making a bilingual videopoem with both the original poetry and the translation alternating in the soundtrack — it takes hours to upload a three-minute video file back home in Pennsylvania. Also, I was able to work closely with my co-conspirator here, Jean Morris, who came over to the house last week to record the the three Alejandra Pizarnik micropoems I’d chosen for the video (the first three from this post). In existing recordings of Pizarnik, the poet’s voice is slow, almost dreamy, and Jean tried with I think considerable success to imitate that quality without going so far as to actually mimic her Argentinian accent. I recorded my own reading later on, trying also to keep it slow and quiet. Jean also offered some valuable suggestions for improving my translations (she’s a professional translator; I’m a mere dilettante) and gave feedback on the imagery I’d had in mind to use.

The footage of the construction site at sunset had come first, shot out the back bedroom window. That made me think of these Pizarnik poems, which it seemed to me might form a unity with it. I shot the other footage purposefully for the project a few feet from the back door. (That rose had still been in bloom as late as December 15!) Finding the music was as usual a frustrating and time-consuming process, but at length I settled on a track at ccMixter which included some klezmer-like fiddle, a nod to Pizarnik’s Ashkenazi background. Enjoy!

Posted on by Jean Morris

Let things lie

photo by Jean Morris of a bust with two faces, male and female, back to back

My father left school at twelve,
my mother told me.
He had told her he didn’t leave
until he was fourteen,
she told me,
but his sister
had told her it was a lie.
I wonder why she needed
to tell me this.
She could never let things lie.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ring

Lay pretty long, and by lying with my sheet upon my lip, as I have of old observed it, my upper lip was blistered in the morning. To the office all the morning, sat till noon, then to the Exchange to look out for a ship for Tangier, and delivered my manuscript to be bound at the stationer’s. So to dinner at home, and then down to Redriffe, to see a ship hired for Tangier, what readiness she was in, and found her ready to sail. Then home, and so by coach to Mr. Povy’s, where Sir W. Compton, Mr. Bland, Gawden, Sir J. Lawson and myself met to settle the victualling of Tangier for the time past, which with much ado we did, and for a six months’ supply more.
So home in Mr. Gawden’s coach, and to my office till late about business, and find that it is business that must and do every day bring me to something. So home to supper and to bed.

with my old hip
at the station to see her off
I find a ring


Erasure haiku derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 24 January 1662/63.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Bit parts

Up and hastened him in despatching some business relating to Tangier, and I away homewards, hearing that my Lord had a bad fit to-night, called at my brother’s, and found him sick in bed, of a pain in the sole of one of his feet, without swelling, knowing not how it came, but it will not suffer him to stand these two days. So to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Lovell, our proctor, being there, discoursed of my law business. Thence to Mr. Grant, to bid him come for money for Mr. Barlow, and he and I to a coffee-house, where Sir J. Cutler was; and in discourse, among other things, he did fully make it out that the trade of England is as great as ever it was, only in more hands; and that of all trades there is a greater number than ever there was, by reason of men taking more ‘prentices, because of their having more money than heretofore. His discourse was well worth hearing.
Coming by Temple Bar I bought “Audley’s Way to be Rich,” a serious pamphlett and some good things worth my minding. Thence homewards, and meeting Sir W. Batten, turned back again to a coffee-house, and there drunk more till I was almost sick, and here much discourse, but little to be learned, but of a design in the north of a rising, which is discovered, among some men of condition, and they sent for up. Thence to the ‘Change, and so home with him by coach, and I to see how my wife do, who is pretty well again, and so to dinner to Sir W. Batten’s to a cod’s head, and so to my office, and after stopping to see Sir W. Pen, where was Sir J. Lawson and his lady and daughter, which is pretty enough, I came back to my office, and there set to business pretty late, finishing the margenting my Navy-Manuscript. So home and to bed.

feet know how
to love the land

hands having a way to be rich
turn to design

I discover a cod’s head
in my manuscript


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 23 January 1662/63.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Kundiman

Here I am trying to remember the name
of a song my mother was learning to sing
—in the evenings she’d ask me to play
accompaniment on the piano: a kundiman,
kung hindi man, if only, if not, if never,
song of always unrequited love, this one
about a lover on his deathbed, pining
only for one last sight of the beloved.
Does it end well? Lyrically, none of them do.
Musically, the voice is a triumph as it scales
the walls of growing sorrow. She will not look.
She will give her heart to another. She will not
be made to love under duress. The moon will float
above it all, its face streaked ash and silver.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Moss gatherer.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Five Remedies for Sadness

Aquinas suggests five remedies for when the fizz
bottoms out of the champagne, for when the balloon tied to the body
can’t even lever a dust mote to save the day— Not: Wallow in ballads from the jukebox,
dance with one arm wrapped around your neck, the other your shoulder. Not: swallow
every cachou that smells faintly of burnt almonds. He is firm and eschews improv:
first, he says, grant yourself something you like— And yes, I like the idea of a bateau
going by the name “Pleasure,” bobbing on the surface of the oily water, ready to punt
headfirst toward somewhere other than here. Second, assuage your sorrows
in the form of weeping. Have a good cry, find some little refreshment in catharsis, for
just as laughter does not take away from joy, tears do not damage sorrow. In a souq,
keepsakes are sold: tear catchers of glass tipped with bronze or silver, spindles to keep
lacrimae harvested from each eye. I’ll bring back just one each for you, my daughters— no
more than that. Something to show by way of novelty to your friends, yes? & your gremlin?
Next, contemplate the truth of your sadness: its peculiar song inducing ear worm,
or when it coincides with cravings for chocolate and chips, according to your journal.
Patchouli’s next; or a peppermint scrub, followed by naps on the couch or hammock.
Quell sadness by bathing and sleeping, is his final note. That’s right, no J(k).
Reviewed, remixed, his remedies read a bit like New Age— not medieval— wisdom. I
sag sometimes beneath the peculiar sorrow of being the one my children turn to when each
tangos with her own demons. Then I get FaceTime and phone calls frantic with sobbing,
urgent pleas for help. Thomas, what else can you tell me of sorrow branching from sorrow? Of
visceral pains that tear me up, head-heart-psyche, because of my mother-nature?
When finally I fall into sleep (after a hot bath, as prescribed),
xylems pull from the roots of old fears and swell with pressure. Pane, panic—
yeasts from similar spores? Oh to starve forever what feeds on the bread of misgiving. Rhumb
zeroing in on the mother of cures for malaise: just not enough to numb, and not yet nirvana.

 

In response to St. Thomas Aquinas.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Quick lay for John Donne

To the office, where Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes are come from Portsmouth. We sat till dinner time. Then home, and Mr. Dixon by agreement came to dine, to give me an account of his success with Mr. Wheatly for his daughter for my brother; and in short it is, that his daughter cannot fancy my brother because of his imperfection in his speech, which I am sorry for, but there the business must die, and we must look out for another.
There came in also Mrs. Lodum, with an answer from her brother Ashwell’s daughter, who is likely to come to me, and with her my wife’s brother, and I carried Commissioner Pett in with me, so I feared want of victuals, but I had a good dinner, and mirth, and so rose and broke up, and with the rest of the officers to Mr. Russell’s buriall, where we had wine and rings, and a great and good company of aldermen and the livery of the Skinners’ Company. We went to St. Dunstan’s in the East church, where a sermon, but I staid not, but went home, and, after writing letters, I took coach to Mr. Povy’s, but he not within I left a letter there of Tangier business, and so to my Lord’s, and there find him not sick, but expecting his fit to-night of an ague. Here was Sir W. Compton, Mr. Povy, Mr. Bland, Mr. Gawden and myself; we were very busy about getting provisions sent forthwith to Tangier, fearing that by Mr. Gawden’s neglect they might want bread. So among other ways thought of to supply them I was empowered by the Commissioners of Tangier that were present to write to Plymouth and direct Mr. Lanyon to take up vessels great or small to the quantity of 150 tons, and fill them with bread of Mr. Gawden’s lying ready there for Tangier, which they undertake to bear me out in, and to see the freight paid. This I did. About 10 o’clock we broke up, and my Lord’s fit was coming upon him, and so we parted, and I with Mr. Creed, Mr. Pierce, Wm. Howe and Captn. Ferrers, who was got almost drunk this afternoon, and was mighty capricious and ready to fall out with any body, supped together in the little chamber that was mine heretofore upon some fowls sent by Mr. Shepley, so we were very merry till 12 at night, and so away, and I lay with Mr. Creed at his lodgings, and slept well.

a mouth can die
for want of mirth

and the skin for want
of a mouth to read it

coming together in
a merry lay


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 22 January 1662/63, in honor of John Donne’s birthday.

Posted on by Laura M Kaminski

Ghazal with lines from The Book of Flight

One day someone will say to me: “To hell with you and your stars.”
That will be a dark day. When someone curses you and your stars,

Indigo clouds will gather and weep, pour fathoms of water.
The ocean is full. Something must move out to the tide pools: shore stars.

Spiral galaxies fall toward each other out where there’s no up
Or down. Vacuum-trapped, they still play Red Rover, Tug-of-War stars.

No up, but equine abundance in space: nebula horse-head,
And sign Sagittarius, galactic alpha-centaur stars.

Some were flung skyward by the old gods, heavenly haven from
Powerful lechers. Untainted, eternal, pure folklore stars.

For children, the mouths of such legends are thoroughly soap-scrubbed,
Painted on film, where headaches are rings of bluebirds and sore stars.

Too soon, children grow, are tangled in troubles resistant to
Soap scrubs. Some take up arms and uniforms of war and corps stars.

Wrong or right, they go. And then, they fight. And either live. Or die.
Or are taken hostage, forced to act in films with captor stars.

Indigo clouds, then, gather and weep, pour fathoms of water.
The ocean is full. Something must move out to the tide pools: more stars,

And sand dollars being flung like bad alms, neither hand knowing
What it is doing. These crack and reveal: white doves and core stars.

One day someone will say to me: “To hell with you and your stars.”
That will be a dark day. When someone curses you and your stars,

Stand on the deck, send a dove out to seek, tell her to look for
A supple sprig of Jacob’s ladder—tell her: bring azure stars.

While we are waiting for her to return, while we are braving
The dark, Halima reads by fireflies—those ghost-(f)lights of your stars.


In response to Luisa A. Igloria’s poem “Trusting the Process.” Lines in italics are from The Book of Flight by José Angel Araguz.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Moss gatherer

Up early leaving my wife very ill in bed de ses Moi and to my office till eight o’clock, there coming Ch. Pepys to demand his legacy of me, which I denied him upon good reason of his father and brother’s suing us, and so he went away. Then came Commissioner Pett, and he and I by agreement went to Deptford, and after a turn or two in the yard, to Greenwich, and thence walked to Woolwich. Here we did business, and I on board the Tangier-merchant, a ship freighted by us, that has long lain on hand in her despatch to Tangier, but is now ready for sailing. Back, and dined at Mr. Ackworth’s, where a pretty dinner, and she a pretty, modest woman; but above all things we saw her Rocke, which is one of the finest things done by a woman that ever I saw. I must have my wife to see it. After dinner on board the Elias, and found the timber brought by her from the forest of Deane to be exceeding good. The Captain gave each of us two barrels of pickled oysters put up for the Queen mother.
So to the Dock again, and took in Mrs. Ackworth and another gentlewoman, and carried them to London, and at the Globe tavern, in Eastcheap, did give them a glass of wine, and so parted. I home, where I found my wife ill in bed all day, and her face swelled with pain. My Will has received my last two quarters salary, of which I am glad. So to my office till late and then home, and after the barber had done, to bed.

my legacy is a green rock
one of the finest in the forest

gentle as an ill face
swelled with pain


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21January 1662/63.