Nicanor Parra, far from imaginary, was all too real, according to David Unger in the Paris Review blog — though Alejandro Zambra, writing in the New Yorker, did call the Chilean poet, who died on January 23 at the age of 103, “almost immortal.” The English-language Wikipedia refers to him as

a Chilean poet, mathematician, and physicist. He was considered an influential poet in Chile and throughout Latin America. Parra described himself as an “anti-poet,” due to his distaste for standard poetic pomp and function; after recitations he would exclaim “Me retracto de todo lo dicho” (“I take back everything I said”).

I’ve always admired his work as a useful corrective for extreme lyricism and romanticism, but as the following demonstrates, his poems could still pack quite a punch. This appears in a 1985 collection with a punning title, Hojas de Parra (Grape Leaves or Pages from Parra).

The Imaginary Man

The imaginary man
lives in an imaginary mansion
surrounded by imaginary trees
on the banks of an imaginary river

On the imaginary walls
imaginary old paintings hang
imaginary irreparable cracks
that represent imaginary events
occuring in imaginary worlds
in imaginary times and places

Every afternoon an imaginary afternoon
he climbs the imaginary stairs
and leans out the imaginary balcony
to gaze at the imaginary view
which consists of an imaginary valley
encircled by imaginary hills

Imaginary shadows
advance down the imaginary road
singing imaginary songs
for the death of the imaginary sun

And on imaginary moonlit nights
he dreams of the imaginary woman
who gave him his imaginary love
once again feeling that same pain
that same imaginary pleasure
and that imaginary man’s heart
once again throbs

El hombre imaginario

El hombre imaginario
vive en una mansión imaginaria
rodeada de árboles imaginarios
a la orilla de un río imaginario

De los muros que son imaginarios
penden antiguos cuadros imaginarios
irreparables grietas imaginarias
que representan hechos imaginarios
ocurridos en mundos imaginarios
en lugares y tiempos imaginarios

Todas las tardes tardes imaginarias
sube las escaleras imaginarias
y se asoma al balcón imaginario
a mirar el paisaje imaginario
que consiste en un valle imaginario
circundado de cerros imaginarios

Sombras imaginarias
vienen por el camino imaginario
entonando canciones imaginarias
a la muerte del sol imaginario

Y en las noches de luna imaginaria
sueña con la mujer imaginaria
que le brindó su amor imaginario
vuelve a sentir ese mismo dolor
ese mismo placer imaginario
y vuelve a palpitar
el corazón del hombre imaginario

I made a video for the poem; see Moving Poems for the process notes.

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!

Watch on Vimeo.

A powerful new film from the Spanish director Eduardo Yagüe in response to a poem by the Uruguayan writer Rafael Courtoisie, which is included in the soundtrack. Jean Morris supplied the English translation used in the subtitles.

Remember

Remember your nakedness, their exile
the man struggling to live

I find myself again at the appointed place
and thirsty for these words

I left my country with little pride
Exile is hard, my fear follows me

Silence is no longer possible – listen
some evening to what I shall say

Come closer and touch my voiceless misery
my faceless body, my silent hope

Poetry has no importance, but it speaks
Sweet violence rises up

My despair arrives with broken neck
no name, no past and harbouring no hatred

Some grey morning a comrade I cannot name
and a beloved country tremble

I shall live weighed down and bent over
my words still resounding from land to land

A shadow will trace the outline
of your pale face when I find it again.

(words and phrases culled from Jacques Brault’s nearly 900-word-long poem, Visitation)

Souvenez-vous / de / votre nudité / de leur exil /
de celui qui a mal de vivre /

Je me retrouve / au / rendez-vous /
J’ai soif / de / ces paroles /

J’ai quitté / le pays / peu fier /
L’exil est dur / ma peur / me suit /

Je ne sais plus / me taire /
Ecoute / ce que / je / dirai / un soir /

Approche et / touche / ma misère / sans voix /
mon corps / sans visage / ma silencieuse espérance /

La poésie / est / sans importance / mais elle / parle /
La violence / douce / se relève /

Ma détresse / arrive / le cou brisé /
sans nom / sans passé / et sans haine /

Un matin gris / une /compagne / innommable /
et / un pays aimé tremblent /

Je vivrai / lourd et penché /
Mes mots / vibrent encore / entre terre et terre /

Une ombre / tracera /
ta figure blanche / retrouvée.

Image: Another Place — photo by Jean Morris, 2007

Nameless

Here on the streets the water wails its old lament
Seagulls crash-land

I do not know your name know nothing any more
All these human shapes barely floating now in the gutters
Fingernails marred by eyelids
Smiles in the hollow of a groin
Jumbled faces in old windows

So many dead unadorned unlabelled
Melting in the sweet water
April casts its light and shadow on their graves

Water mingles our little hopes
Mutely agile not a bubble or an eddy
A volley of laughter rains down on the streets
Oh watery folly

The water’s soft lament against the tide of time
This murmuring of pale lips this wrinkling of old skin
All those who leave here are undone

And you scattered to the four winds
You whom I seek among these long tresses swept towards the sewers

But water runs its own business in its own way
A fine embroiderer of death’s complex designs
Water sews and re-sews a lovely length of fabric
As it flows

Anonyme

L’eau dans la rue se plaint d’une vieille plainte
Où se cassent des mouettes d’eau

Je ne sais ton nom je ne sais plus
Tant de formes humaines à peine coulent encore dans les caniveaux
Doigts à l’ongle embué de paupières
Sourires au creux de l’aine
Visages disjoints de vieilles fenêtres

Tant de morts sans collier ni bannière
Fondent en la douceur de l’eau
Avril sur les tombes met une ombre de lumière

L’eau raccorde les petits espoirs
Agile et muette et sans bulles ni remous
Une volée de rires qui s’abattent dans la rue
O folie de l’eau

La plainte de l’eau tout bas à contre-courant de l’heure
C’est un murmure de lèvres blanches un froissis de vieilles peaux
Tous ceux-là que s’en vont se défont

Et toi éparse çà et là
Toi que je cherche parmi les cheveux qui s’allongent vers l’égout

Mais l’eau mène bien son ouvroir et sa façon
Brodeuse fine des morts aux dessins compliqués
L’eau coud et recoud fait une belle étoffe longue
Et coule

Like All Those Others

You are the one invented by my gaze
like the shape of an ink blot on paper
and I am unafraid to speak my love
for you the way you are just as I fashion you
as my hands find themselves again upon your body
and the greedy expectancy of every day
the annunciation of a world scarcely beginning
the gestures of morning on a street corner
that snatch at a vagabond’s one instant of light
and this folly of feeling like your newest unborn child
I love you like all those others yesterday tomorrow
still learning this old refrain learning it always
I love you in the future wind in the rubble of fear
love you in the little life of hair curlers
love you in these paltry ecstasies these meagre glories
love you alone and abandoned by myself

Comme tant d’autres

Ton être que j’invente du regard
comme une tache d’encre sur le papier
je n’ai pas peur de nommer mon amour
tu es comme je t’aime telle que je te fais
avec mes mains retrouvées sur ton corps
et l’espérance goulue de chaque jour
l’annonciation d’un monde qui commence à peine
le geste du matin au coin de la rue
qui reprend à la rôdeuse un instant de lumière
et cette folie d’être en toi un nouvel enfant à naître
je t’aime comme tant d’autres hier demain
cette vieille rengaine je l’apprends encore je l’apprends toujours
je t’aime dans le vent du futur dans la pierraille de la peur
je t’aime dans la petite existence en bigoudis
je t’aime dans les pauvres extases dans les chiches gloires
je t’aime seul et déserté de moi-même

I’ve been reading Jacques Brault’s work while trying to formulate a few thoughts about the pleasure of translating some poetry for the Poetry from the Other Americas project. And about my surprise, because I’d only rarely written poetry myself and had stoutly maintained that only poets should translate it. Even greater surprise that it led to writing a few poems of my own: the patient exercise of translating a poem mobilises the relevant muscles, I suppose. Like many, I’m often too speedy and compulsive a reader to fully appreciate poetry, fret against slowing down enough, going deep enough. Translation is an exceptionally close kind of reading. It makes you slow down a lot, read and re-read a poem over a considerable time. This concentrated, fierce encounter with words is rewarding, and I’d encourage fellow sceptics to have a go. If you don’t think of yourself as someone who writes poetry, but do know more than one language, translation might prove to be a way in. It might even lead you to the puzzling, scary but alluring place Jacques Brault describes here:

          But I don’t know don’t know any more if I should speak or keep silent let the waters flow or plunge myself into them forget myself in the moment of turning down this street or inhabit myself down to the bone down to the cry

          Tell me do you know you who listen to me watch me do you know what it is that I don’t say won’t ever say so there it is between us like a night falling and hiding us in darkness

          In a low voice lower your voice I beg you come closer let your breath touch my ear it makes a sound I had forgotten the human voice

          Or je ne sais pas je ne sais plus s’il faut parler ou me taire laisser les eaux couler ou me rouler en elles m’oublier dans l’instant qui tourne le coin de la rue ou m’habiter jusqu’à l’os jusqu’au cri

          Dis le sais-tu toi qui m’écoutes et me regardes le sais-tu ce que c’est que je ne dis pas que je ne dirai jamais et c’est là entre nous comme un soir qui tombe et nous oscurcit

          À voix basse baisse la voix je t’en prie approche et que ton souffle me touche à l’oreille cela fait un bruit que j’avais oublié la parole humaine

* I found out about Jacques Brault from Sherry Simon’s absorbing book, Translating Montreal.

Emily’s fans are everywhere (and thank you, US blogger friends, for making me one). See Dave’s recent translation of Alejandra Pizarnik’s “Poema para Emily Dickinson”. The prolific Quebecois poet, dramatist, performer and broadcaster Michel Garneau (b. 1939) published this long poem in 1977 and followed it in 1981 with his play Émilie ne sera plus jamais cueillie par l’anémone, wherein Emily’s life is transposed to a setting in Quebec, as were – controversially – his French translations of Shakespeare.

Michel Garneau has often focused on and written in the voices of women. Is it too much to deduce that woman also stands here for Quebec, that Emily is Quebec? Anyway, from this very active, public, male, francophone writer, a poem both bold and delicate that I think holds its own in the context of recent attempts to reassess and de-romanticise the work and life of Emily Dickinson.

Cousin to the squirrels

would we all have made fun
of this little woman drunk on dew
old maid with jam on her mind
hiding literature in her apron?

by the end of her journeying within
she used to stay at the top of the stairs
when
     visitors
     arrived
while
     they would be left
          in the brown shadows
               of the hallway
and
     she
          would
               address them
                    from on high

                    for a few moments
emily
     the lowliest
     of all those present

vibrating
like the string of a kite

and did she ever love a man of flesh and blood
stirring hidden and mysterious
beneath the clothes that were fashionable then?

discreet biographers have suggested
that she died
she died still
died still a virgin

or perhaps she loved a woman
and reading between the lines you might
believe she just touched her hair

she held debates with her very personal god
there among the flowers she called by name
while believing in no names
but those exhaled by the flowers themselves

on rosy-brown butcher paper
and on used envelopes
she made a little note of every nuance
of how everything was part
of an infinite possibility

it took her breath away
when the setting sun
lit up the squirrel’s tail

she breathed as if labouring uphill
with her two narrow little lungs

she listened
to her heart’s gift
to the rhythm
of too great a benefaction:
               her very lifeblood

there in her village
she devoured the whole cosmos
made the best jams
while never telling a soul
that she knew the sacredness of everything
even of evil living as she did
in the dizzy ecstasy
of life’s bounty
that she had no fear
of sorrow
that she never was alone
being both herself
and her own confidante

observing the passage of the bee
with his cartload of honey
there in those famous fields
starry with clover
she allowed the heedless thistles
to tear her pretty yellow dress

and if from time to time
she mouthed
a plea for help
at other times
she would weed out despair
with her own fine manners

you see
if you spoke too loudly
in her presence
she would retreat to her room
excusing herself with a small smile

and did she love her own body?
can one really love the whole universe?

the clouds pregnant with chilly peace
took refuge in the grass

the song of the nighthawk echoed around
then lost itself in the surface of the leaves

the bobolink sang just for her
and often she would thank him
for staying close
often she wrote his name
I hear her saying it softly
over and over
as she swept up the tiniest trace
of the bobolink’s pale dust
     bobolink bobolink

emily had little learning
emily isn’t in the know
emily had no opinions
only revelations

clearly though she knew she saw
she heard with such exquisite pleasure
truly tasted and was luminously
touched by everything she felt

she knew only
streams and ponds
the very thought of a raging flood
ravaged her heart

naïve was emily
naïve as the devil
and supremely skeptical

with more sweetness than wisdom
she passed the afternoons
her heart stirred
by the wildest of hopes
like the first railway engine

beneath eyelids
as wilful as
the rampant clover
she always had plans
for tomorrow
subtle as the night

I turn my own sunseeking heart
towards the clarity of her questions
her eternal september
and I hear the little scholar of the garden
murmuring among our own lilacs
in that mossy musical way she had
that wonderment is not exactly knowledge
but work is easy
when the soul is at play

emily
smallest
in the house

I learn from her learn from her sweetness
to read the hillsides one syllable at a time

delicate and free in my own house
delicate and free in this
rainbow-hued drama of ours

when death prowled among the trees
she offered him a cup of tea
knowing full well
that death did not drink tea

and on that sombre evening
when death finally
overcame her
with what good grace
she must have offered him her life

Cousine des écureuils

et au soir sérieux
quand la vraie mort
l’a envahie
elle a dû gentiment
lui offrir sa vie

Surfing through online poetry sites, skittering through countries and centuries, pulling out a few – not necessarily the most representative – poems that grab me and having a bash at translating them, is an ahistorical and superficial approach, perhaps. But it’s a bit like being an inexperienced prospector panning for gold – and finding it. The second of these poems, Bajo la Lluvia, is set to join my all-time favourites.

What I Am for You

           A doe
eating fragrant grass out of your hand.

           A dog
that follows everywhere in your footsteps.

           A star
twice as bright and sparkly just for you.

           A spring
rippling snake-like at your feet.

           A flower
whose honey and whose scent are yours alone.

For you I’m all of these,
I gave you my soul in all its guises.
The doe, the dog, the heavenly body and the flower,
the living water flowing at your feet.
           My soul is all
           for you, my
           Love.

Lo que soy para tí

           Cierva
que come en tus manos la olorosa hierba.

            Can
que sigue tus pasos doquiera que van.

            Estrella
para ti doblada de sol y centella.

            Fuente
que a tus pies ondula como una serpiente.

            Flor
que para ti solo da mieles y olor.

Todo eso yo soy para tí,
mi alma en todas sus formas te dí.
Cierva y can, astro y flor,
agua viva que glisa a tus pies,
            Mi alma es
            para tí,
            Amor.

Being Rained On

How the rain is sliding down my back!
How it’s soaking into my skirt
and planting its icy cold on my cheeks!
It’s raining, raining, raining.

And I’m off, I’m on my way,
with a lightness in my soul and a smile on my face,
with no emotions, no dreams,
just full of the pleasure of not thinking.

Here’s a bird taking a bath
in a muddy puddle. Surprised by my presence,
it pauses… looks me in the eye… feels like we’re friends…
We’re both in love with sky and fields and wheat!

Then the startled face
of a passing labourer with his hoe on his shoulder
and the rain is drenching me in all the scents
of October hedges.

And, soaked to the skin as I am,
a kind of wonderful, stupendous crown of crystal drops,
of flowers stripped of their petals,
pours over me from the astonished plants I brush against.

And I feel, in this mindless,
sleepless state, the pleasure,
the infinite, sweet, strange delight
of a moment’s oblivion.

It’s raining, raining, raining,
and in my soul and in my flesh, this icy cold.

Bajo la lluvia

¡Cómo resbala el agua por mi espalda!
¡Cómo moja mi falda,
y pone en mis mejillas su frescura de nieve!
Llueve, llueve, llueve.

Y voy, senda adelante,
con el alma ligera y la cara radiante,
sin sentir, sin soñar,
llena de la voluptuosidad de no pensar.

Un pájaro se baña
en una charca turbia. Mi presencia le extraña,
se detiene… me mira… nos sentimos amigos…
¡Los dos amamos muchos cielos, campos y trigos!

Después es el asombro
de un labriego que pasa con su azada al hombro
y la lluvia me cubre de todas las fragancias
de los setos de octubre.

Y es, sobre mi cuerpo por el agua empapado
como un maravilloso y estupendo tocado
de gotas cristalinas, de flores deshojadas
que vuelcan a mi paso las plantas asombradas.

Y siento, en la vacuidad
del cerebro sin sueño, la voluptuosidad
del placer infinito, dulce y desconocido,
de un minuto de olvido.

Llueve, llueve, llueve,
y tengo en alma y carne, como un frescor de nieve.

The Fig Tree

Because she’s rough and ugly,
her branches uniformly grey,
the fig tree moves me to pity.

At my country place are a hundred lovelies,
bushy plum trees,
upright lemons,
shiny-leaved orange trees.

Every springtime,
clothed in blossom,
they crowd around the fig tree.

Poor thing, how sad she looks,
with her twisted, truncated branches
that never sport tight little buds…

That’s why
each time I’m near her
I murmur, summoning
my sweetest, blithest tones:
“the fig tree is the loveliest
of all the orchard’s trees.”

And if she hears me,
if she understands my words,
what a deep sweetness will make its nest
in her sensitive tree-soul!

Perhaps, in a trance of pleasure,
while the wind fans her topmost branches,
she’ll tell the night:

Today I was called beautiful!

La Higuera

Porque es áspera y fea,
porque todas sus ramas son grises,
yo le tengo piedad a la higuera.

En mi quinta hay cien árboles bellos,
ciruelos redondos,
limoneros rectos
y naranjos de brotes lustrosos.

En las primaveras,
todos ellos se cubren de flores
en torno a la higuera.

Y la pobre parece tan triste
con sus gajos torcidos que nunca
de apretados capullos se visten…

Por eso,
cada vez que yo paso a su lado,
digo, procurando
hacer dulce y alegre mi acento:
«Es la higuera el más bello
de los árboles todos del huerto».

Si ella escucha,
si comprende el idioma en que hablo,
¡qué dulzura tan honda hará nido
en su alma sensible de árbol!

Y tal vez, a la noche,
cuando el viento abanique su copa,
embriagada de gozo le cuente:

¡Hoy a mí me dijeron hermosa!

Somewhat shockingly, this will be, as the publisher (New Directions) notes, “The first full-length collection in English by one of Latin America’s most significant twentieth-century poets.” For those who have some Spanish, there’s a generous selection of Pizarnik poems at a website devoted to poètes maudits: Escritores Malditos. (Pizarnik certainly deserves inclusion in such a gathering, especially since Rimbaud and Lautréamont were among her biggest influences.) Finally, for anyone with even a passing interest in Latin American literature or the relationship between writing and mental illness, let alone the background and tumultuous life of a great poet, I highly recommend the award-winning documentary Alejandra, by Argentine filmmakers Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina. It tells Pizarnik’s story through interviews with her sister, her biographer, and various friends and lovers as well as through excerpts from her diary, letters and poems. It’s a highly poetic documentary in the way it was written and shot, and is simply an outstanding film in every way (except for the English translation in the subtitles, which is slightly dodgy in places).

from Tree of Diana (Árbol de Diana)

(5)

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

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

(16)

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

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

has terminado sola
lo que nadie comenzó

(23)

a glimpse from the gutter
can become a complete worldview

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

una mirada desde la alcantarilla
puede ser una visión del mundo

la rebelión consiste en mirar una rosa
hasta pulverizarse los ojos

(29)

for André Pieyre de Mandiargues

We live with one hand on the throat here. Those who used to invent the rains and spin words from the torment of absence already realized that nothing is possible. That’s why their prayers had the sound of hands in love with fog.

Aquí vivimos con una mano en la garganta. Que nada es posible ya lo sabían los que inventaban lluvias y tejían palabras con el tormento de la ausencia. Por eso en sus plegarias había un sonido de manos enamoradas de la niebla.

a André Pieyre de Mandiargues

(1962)

Poem

for Emily Dickinson

On the other side of the night
her name is waiting for her,
her surreptitious urge to live—
on the other side of the night!

Something cries in the air;
sounds are sketching out the dawn.
She ponders eternity.

Poema

para Emily Dickinson

Del otro lado de la noche
la espera su nombre,
su subrepticio anhelo de vivir,
¡del otro lado de la noche!

Algo llora en el aire,
los sonidos diseñan el alba.
Ella piensa en la eternidad.

(1965)

Clock

Miniscule lady
tenant in the heart of a bird
she goes out at dawn to pronounce a single syllable
NO

Reloj

Dama pequeñísima
moradora en el corazón de un pájaro
sale al alba a pronunciar una sílaba
NO

(1965)

Like Water Over a Stone

whoever goes back to pursue a former pursuit
night closes over her like water over a stone
like air over a bird
like two bodies closing to make love

Como agua sobre una piedra

a quien retorna en busca de su antiguo buscar
la noche se le cierra como agua sobre una piedra
como aire sobre un pájaro
como se cierran dos cuerpos al amarse

(1968)

Vertigos, or Meditation on Something that Ends

The lilac sheds its leaves.
It falls away from itself
and conceals its old shadow.
I should die from things like this.

Vértigos o contemplación de algo que termina

Esta lila se deshoja.
Desde sí misma cae
y oculta su antigua sombra.
He de morir de cosas así.

(1968)

The Musical Inferno

They beat with suns

Nothing connects to anything else here

And with so much dead animal in the graveyard of my memory’s pointed bones

And with so many nuns like crows flocking in to peck between my legs

I’m broken by the weight of these shards

Tainted dialogue

A desperate dice-throw of verbiage

Liberated in herself

Sinking like a ship into herself

El infierno musical

Golpean con soles

Nada se acopla con nada aquí

Y de tanto animal muerto en el cementerio de huesos filosos de mi memoria

Y de tantas monjas como cuervos que se precipitan a hurgar entre mis piernas

La cantidad de fragmentos me desgarra

Impuro diálogo

Un proyectarse desesperado de la materia verbal

Liberada a sí misma

Naufragando en sí misma

(1971)

Anne Brunelle is a poet & novelist, born in Montreal in 1956. Published in many journals & with two collections out.

Reunions

blood-gold reflections of the kir
in the milky half-light
of a storm in apostrophes
gouts of mustard
on our forks of broken sticks

the swarm of babbled memories
buzzing through the dialogue
barely concealing the startled joy
of our vigilant bodies

an arabesque of pointillist brush-strokes
between the watercress beds
and the saffron of your eye

flash
an old man busy on the pavement
pushing flakes with slow strokes of his broom
restrained

the candle snickers
our bubble reforms
your lips against my palm
sew the stitches of our reunion
whispering a picture clear and open
out of the incarnation
of a still unconsummated desire.

:::

Retrouvailles

reflets d’or sanglant du kir
dans la demi-nuit laiteuse
d’une tempête en apostrophe
éclats de moutarde
sous nos fourchettes à bâtons rompus

la nuée de souvenirs babillards
effleure le dialogue
dissimule à peine l’euphorie étonnée
de nos corps à l’écoute

arabesque de frôlements pointillistes
entre le lit de cresson
et le safran de ton oeil

flash
un vieil homme s’affaire sur le trottoir
dissémine à lents coups de balais
flocons et modestie

la chandelle ricane
notre bulle se reforme
tes lèvres sur ma paume
ourlent la saveur de nos retrouvailles
murmurent un portrait ouvert
sur l’incarnation
d’un désir toujours vierge

TROIS, volume 14, numéro 1, p. 136 (1999).