Coral Bracho

Firefly Under the Tongue
.

I love you from the sharp tang of the fermentation;
in the blissful pulp. Newborn insects, blue.
In the unsullied juice, glazed and ductile.
Cry that distills the light:
through the fissures in fruit trees;
under mossy water clinging to the shadows. The
papillae, the grottos.
In herbaceous dyes, instilled. From the flustered touch.
Luster
oozing, bittersweet: of feracious pleasures,
of play splayed in pulses.
Hinge
(Wrapped in the night's aura, in violaceous clamor,
refined, the boy, with the softened root of his tongue
expectant, touches,
with that smooth, unsustainable, lubricity—sensitive lily
folding into the rocks
if it senses the stigma, the ardor of light—the substance, the arris
fine and vibrant—in its ecstatic petal, distended—[jewel
pulsing half-open; teats], the acid
juice bland [ice], the salt marsh,
the delicate sap [Kabbalah], the nectar
of the firefly.)

Constantine P. Cavafy

.
THE CITY
.
You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,

find another city better than this one.

Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and

my heart -like something dead- lies buried.

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look,

I see the black ruins of my life, here,

where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."
.

.You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.

This city will always pursue you.

You'll walk the same streets, grow old

in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses.

You'll always end up in this city.

Don't hope for things elsewhere:

there's no ship for you, there's no road.

Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,

you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.

Amelia Rosselli

from WAR VARIATIONS

.

and what did that crowd want from my senses other than

my scorched defeat, or I who begged

to play with the gods and stumbled

like a poor whore up and down
the dark corridor─oh! wash my feet, take

the fierce accusations from my

bent head, bend

your accusations and undo all

my cowardice!: it wasn't my wish to break the delicate layer of ice

not my wish to break the mounting battle, no, I swear, it wasn't my

wish to break through your laughable

laughter!─but the hail has other reasons than

serving and the wet eastern wind of

evening does not dream of standing

watch by my

disenchanged lion sobs: no longer will I run

after every passage of beauty,─beauty is defeated, never again

at attention will I snuff out that fire now glimmering like

an old tree trunk

in which hollow swallows make nonsensical nests, child's play,

unreckoning misery, unreckoning misery of sympthy.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

NUMBER 20

.

The pennycandystore beyond the El

is where I first fell in love with unreality

Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom

of that september afternoon

A cat upon the counter moved among

.

the licorice sticks

and tootsie rolls

and Oh Boy Gum

.

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

.

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in

Her hair was rainy

Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling

and they cried

Too soon! too soon!

Guillermo Juan Parra

EVIL STANZAS

"No spirit seek here rest." —Stephen Spender
I
.

Breath defines line length

As does notebook shape / size
Yesterday afternoon hearing

Archie Shepp play
.

full breath, rich-toned

saxophone chords

think language too

can do this /
.

make feeling evidence

sound can evil stanzas
.

As one sufferer said:

unto us denied blessings
.

Make characteristic failure

our tautness—a trance
.

II

.

"after Juan Sánchez Peláez"
.

If snow falls now

on a street without course

nor sign,

.

myriad shades inquire

from the foyer

if our errantry is fleeting,

will it last or not and they point toward

the actual path

always attentive or dressed

in night cloth
.

thus

from what north or south

from what east or west

these prompt shadows arrive

or amble

.

through fields

in stables and cottages,
.

no one knows

save at dusk’s thin beam

when we can glimpse the absent

when our big hands

talking alone

open toward the other cold.

San Juan de la Cruz

SPIRITUAL VOICES

.

Seeking love always
with hope that cannot falter
I flew ever higher
till I overtook my prey.

I

So I might seize the prey
in this divine venture
I flew ever higher
from sight was forced to stray,
yet love so far did fly
that though in my flight
I faltered in the height
I caught the prey on high.

II

As higher I ascended
so the hardest conquest
came about in darkness,
all my sight was dazzled:
yet since love was my prey
from blind dark a leaper
I flew on ever higher
till I overtook the prey.
III

In this highest game,
the further I ascended
the humbler, more subdued
more abased I became.
‘None attains it’, I did say.
I sank down lower, lower,
yet I rose higher, higher
and so I took the prey.

IV

My one flight in strange manner
surpassed a hundred thousand
for the hope of highest heaven
attains the end it hopes for:
there hope alone did fly
unfaltering in the height:
hope, seeking in its flight,
I caught the prey on high.

An Indian Prayer

My grandfather is the fire

My grandmother is the wind

The Earth is my mother

The Great Spirit is my father

The World stopped at my birth

and laid itself at my feet

And I shall swallow the Earth whole

when I die

and the Earth and I will be one

Hail The Great Spirit, my father

without him no one could exist

because there would be no will to live

Hail The Earth, my mother

without which no food could be grown

and so cause the will to live to starve

Hail the wind, my grandmother

for she brings loving, lifegiving rain

nourishing us as she nourishes our crops

Hail the fire, my grandfather

for the light, the warmth, the comfort he brings

without which we be animals, not men

Hail my parent and grandparentswithout which

not I

nor you

nor anyone else

could have existed

Life gives life

which gives unto itself

a promise of new life

Hail the Great Spirit, The Earth, the wind, the fire

praise my parents loudly

for they are your parents, too

Oh, Great Spirit, giver of my life

please accept this humble offering of prayer

this offering of praise

this honest reverence of my love for you

Sandro Key-Aberg

Round as a seal cub

and his machinist's fist on his chest

Come lets go to the cranberry woods

.

it's fun to rock like a boat against the shore

when love flows yellow like rye pollen

.

Straddling butter-blond thighs

bumble-bee happy in the snapdragon of passion

life's surface is unruffled and yellow whole cream

.

Embittered as a winter crow

breath of booze against her cheek

Come quick here behind the outhouse

.

Desperately rocking like a

filthy cart loaded with potatoes

.

He cracks his dreams between his teeth

longs for the boniest of lovers

his life an umbrella unfolding

.

Sweden 1954

Richard Wilbur

Some winters, taking leave,

Deal us a last, hard blow,

Salting the ground like Carthage

Before they will go.

.

But the bright, milling snow

Which throngs the air today—

It is a way of leaving

So as to stay.

.

The light flakes do not weigh

The willows down, but sift

Through the white catkins, loose

As petal-drift

.

Or in an up-draft lift

And glitter at a height,

Dazzling as summer’s leaf-stir

Chinked with light.

.

This storm, if I am right,

Will not be wholly over

Till green fields, here and there,

Turn white with clover,

And through chill air the puffs of milkweed hover

Thomas Rain Crowe

RENDERINGS OF HAFEZ

.

Wake up Winebringer! And pour me a glass of wine.

Throw dust on the head of this sad earth man.
.

I’ve taken off my snazzy blue coat and bare-chested

I clutch this full cup.
.

Even though the rich or the politicians call us “trash,”

To us their blue blood or fame means nothing.
.

Give me more wine! All their dust blowing around in the wind of pride

And desire is as worthless as a hole.
.

The smoke from my burning heart

Gags all those with ignorance as their goal.

.
My mad heart has a secret

That no one knows.
.

The Beloved has stolen even the sweet solitude from my heart,

And I am content.

.

No one who has ever laid eyes on this silver-limbed Cypress,

Would ever go looking in the woods for a cypress again.
.

“Hafez,” the voice of inner wine will say;

“Be careful what you ask for, you may just get what you want."

Tao Chien

I made my home amidst this human bustle,

Yet I hear no clamour from the carts and horses.

My friend, you ask me how this can be so?

A distant heart will tend towards like places.

From the eastern hedge, I pluck chrysanthemum flowers,

And idly look towards the southern hills.

The mountain air is beautiful day and night,

The birds fly back to roost with one another.

I know that this must have some deeper meaning,

I try to explain, but cannot find the words.

Ruben Dario

PHILOSOPHY

.

Welcome the sun. spider, no need for spite.

Give thanks to God, o toad, for your life.

The hairy crab carries rosy thorns

and the mollusk something similar to the female sex.

.

Learn to be what you are, enigmas, given form

Give up the Norm,

a responsibility, in time, passed to the Divine,

(Play cricket, to the moonshine, and bear, dance.)

.

Nicaragua, 1905

Rainer Maria Rilke

SPANISH DANCER

.

As a struck match, before becoming flame, white

flickering tongues in all directions sends,

so, bystanders looking on, unfolds her dance: bright,

hot and hurried, a circular rite,

pulsating with passion, and intense.

.

And suddenly it is fully aflare.

.

With just a glance she lights her hair,

and then, with daring art, turns her entire

dress into this flaming ball of fire,

from which, each like a startled snake,

her naked arms dart, rattling and awake.

.

Then, deeming too close the lambent heat,

she gathers all of if it together and flings it to her feet

with an imperious gesture, haughtily gazing.

There it lies on the floor, enraged and blazing,

and burning still, refusing to retire.

But, confident of victory, her smile assured and sweet,

she lifts her face as if in greeting to the fire,

and stamps it out with solid little feet.

Jose Garostiza

EPODO

.

That word never appears

in the sung language of your questions,

that, dying,

it freezes in the air of your voice,

yes, like a breath of flutes,

against a glass air evaporated,

Look at it, oh, Play it!,

Look at it now!

Look at missing the entire word

without voice, without echo, without language, accurate

watch how its trace is in

walls of glass loving water!

Ernesto Trejo

AT MY WINDOW

.

At my window, I write:

Three children in the swings

testing how high they can go,

how much the chains will hold.

.

I imagine this April air

humming in their throats,

the trees behind them

disappearing like ice.

Off to one side

a younger kid awaits his turn

and pats the ground while his mouth

opens in a cry or a yawn.

.

Today I feel like that kid.

Last night I opened my arms

to embrace my muted dreams

and when I awoke I went around

shutting every door and window.

.

Nothing will happen. The sky

will go on circling above.

The trees will dig deeper.

In this corner of the planet, with

an angle of sunlight on my shoulder,

my pencil tucked away,

I stand up and leave.

Rosario Castellanos

DAYBREAK

.

What to do at death? Turn

your face to the wall?

Grab the shoulders of the closest

person, who will listen?

Do you run like a man on fire,

to the finish?

.

What rituals guide this ceremony?

Who owns the final agony? Who smooths the sheets?

Who watches from the last clear mirror?

.

In the end no mother nor heirs exist.

.

No sobbing. Terrible silence.

.

All become the attentive, incredulous face

of the other side.

.

What is happening is not true.

Antonio Jose Ponte

SONG
.

A whole summer I spent listening to that record.

So that the emotion would not leave it

I listened to it once a day.

If I ended up hungry I went out to walk.

.

The light sang that song in its way,

the sea sang it, a bird

spoke it.

In one instant I thought:

all this is happening to me so I might fall in love.

.

Then the summer went away.

The bird

dryer than the branch

didn’t open its beak again.

Robert Hunter

.HIGH TIME
.

You told me goodbye

How was I to know

You didn't mean goodbye

You meant please don't let me go

I was having a high time

Living the good life

Well I know
.

The wheels are muddy

Got a ton of hay

Now listen here baby'

Cause I mean what I say

I'm having a hard time

Living the good life

Well I know
.

I was losing time, I had nothing to do

No-one to fight, I came to you

Wheels broke down, the leader won't draw

The line is busted, the last one I saw

Tomorrow comes trouble

Tomorrow comes pain

Now don't think too hard, baby'

Cause you know what I'm saying

I could show you a high time

Living the good life

Don't be that way
.

Nothing's for certain

It could always go wrong

Come in when it's raining

Go on out when it's gone

We could have us a high time

Living the good life

Well I know

Adrienne Rich

LOVE POEMS II
.
I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.

Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other,

You've been at your desk for hours.

I know what I dreamed:our friend the poet comes into my room

where I've been writing for days,

drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,

and I want to show her one poem

which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,

and wake. You've kissed my hair

to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,

I say, a poem I wanted to show someone...

and I laugh and fall dreaming again

of the desire to show you to everyone I love,

to move openly together

in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,

which carries the feathered grass a long way

down the upbreathing air

Gregory Corso

I HELD A SHELLEY MANUSCRIPT

My hands did numb to beauty

as they reached into Death and tightened!

.

O sovereign was my touch

upon the tan-ink's fragile page!

Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,

sought for smell for dust for lace

for dry hair!

.

I would have taken the page

breathing in the crime!

For no evidence have I wrung from dreams--

yet what triumph is there in private credence?

.

Often, in some steep ancestral book,

when I find myself entangled with leopard-apples

and torched-skin mushrooms,

my cypressean skein outreaches the recorded age

and I, as though tipping a pitcher of milk,

pour secrecy upon the dying page.

Tai Qian

PALLBEARER'S SONG

.

Wild grass, how vast, vast;

White poplars too, sighing, sighing.
.

Harsh frost has come in the middle of the ninth month,

and you send me off in the distant countryside.

.
On all sides, there’s no one living:

just tall tombs towering, in rows.
.

So the horse lifts his head and neighs;

So the wind, alone, blows bleakly.
.

The dark chamber — once it’s already closed,

in a thousand years, the dawn will not come again.
.

In a thousand years, the dawn will not come again,

and the sages, the wise — they cannot help —
.

it’s in the past. People see each other off

and each person returns home —
.

the relatives. Perhaps their sorrow stays;

but they’ve already sung for other people,
.

dead and gone now. Where gone?

Entrust the body to a fold in the mountains.

San Juan de la Cruz

of perfection, that is, the union with God,
by the path of spiritual negation.

On a darkened night
on fire with all love’s longing
– O joyful flight! –
I left, none noticing,
my house in silence resting.

Secure, devoid of light,
by secret stairway, stealing
– O joyful flight! –
in darkness self-concealing,
my house in silence resting.

In the joy of night,
in secret so none saw me,
no object in my sight
no other light to guide me,
but what burned here inside me.

Which solely was my guide,
more surely than noon-glow,
to where he does abide,
one whom I deeply know,
a place where none did show.

O night, my guide!
O night, far kinder than the dawn!
O night that tied
the lover to the loved,
the loved in the lover there transformed!

On my flowering breast,
that breast I kept for him alone,
there he took his rest
while I regaled my own,
in lulling breezes from the cedars blown.

The breeze, from off the tower,
as I sieved through its windings
with calm hands that hour,
my neck in wounding
left all my senses hanging.

Self abandoned, self forgot,
my face inclined to the beloved one:
all ceased, and I was not,
my cares now left behind, and gone:
there among the lilies all forgotten.

Miklos Radnoti (1909-1944)

I went out, closed the street door, and the clock struck ten,

on shining wheels the baker rustled by and hummed,

a plane droned in the sky, the sun shone, it struck ten,

I thought of my dead aunt and in a flash it seemed

all the unliving I had loved were flying overhead,

with hosts of silent dead the sky was darkened then

and suddenly across the wall a shadow fell.

Silence. The morning world stood still. The clock struck ten,

over the street peace floated: cold dread was its spell.

Ryokan

Returning to my native village after many years’ absence:

Ill, I put up at a country inn and listen to the rain.

One robe, one bowl is all I have.

I light incense and strain to sit in meditation;

All night a steady drizzle outside the dark window --

Inside, poignant memories of these long years of pilgrimage

Gary Snyder

DECEMBER AT YASE


You said, that October,

In the tall dry grass by the orchard

When you chose to be free,

"Again someday, maybe ten years."

.

After college I saw you

One time.

You were strange,

And I was obsessed with a plan.

.

Now ten years and more have

Gone by: I've always known

Where you were—

I might have gone to you

Hoping to win your love back.

You still are single.

.

I didn't.I thought

I must make it alone.

I Have done that.

Only in a dream

like this dawn,

Does the grave, awed intensity

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.

We had what the others

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.

.

I feel ancient, as though I had

Lived many lives.

And may never now know If

I am a fool

Or have done what my

karma demands,

like this dawn,

.

Does the grave, awed intensity

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.

.

We had what the others

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.

.

I feel ancient, as though

I had Lived many lives.

.

And may never now know

If I am a fool

Or have done what my

karma demands.

John Keats (1795-1821)

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art --

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priest-like task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors --

No -- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever -- or else swoon to death.

Wislawa Symborska

UTOPIA

Island where all becomes clear.

Solid ground beneath your feet.

.

The only roads are those that offer access.

Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.

.

The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here

with branches disentangled since time immemorial.

.

The Tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple,

sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:the Valley of Obviously.

If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.

.

Echoes stir unsummonedand eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.

On the right a cave where Meaning lies.

.

On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.

Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.

.

Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.

Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.

.

For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,

and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches

.

turn without exception to the sea.

As if all you can do here is leave and plunge,

.

never to return, into the depths.

Into unfathomable life

Charles Simic

The mail truck goes down the coast

Carrying a single letter.

At the end of a long pier

The bored seagull lifts a leg now and then

And forgets to put it down.

There is a menace in the air

Of tragedies in the making.

Last night you thought you heard television

In the house next door.

You were sure it was some new

Horror they were reporting,

So you went out to find out.

Barefoot, wearing just shorts.

It was only the sea sounding weary

After so many lifetimes

Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere

And never getting anywhere.

This morning, it felt like Sunday.

The heavens did their part

By casting no shadow along the boardwalk

Or the row of vacant cottages,

Among them a small church

With a dozen gray tombstones huddled close

As if they, too, had the shivers.

Flavia Cosma

The road stays, sated, white,

Stretched out, facing the sky.

Rare snowflakes slowly descend.

The branch keeps mum,

A nest laid bare.

.

The river lifts its shirt at the shores,

Runs higher and higher on its fleet feet,

Runs hurriedly with the fish and the shadows.

.

Trice slips the footstep

On snow-hidden ice;

Mirrors slyly gleam beneath the flimsy cover;

The horizon teems with eyes and snares,

We christen each other with high reverence,

We want the recollection of who it is we are

To carry us forward.

Bulleh Shah (1680-1758)

I have been pierced by the arrow of love, what shall I do ?

I can neither live, nor can I die.

Listen ye to my ceaseless outpourings,

I have peace neither by night, nor by day.

I cannot do without my Beloved even for a moment.

I have been pierced by the arrow of love, what shall I do ?

The fire of separation is unceasing !

Let someone take care of my love.

How can I be saved without seeing him?

I have been pierced by the arrow of love, what shall I do ?

O Bullah, I am in dire trouble !Let someone come to help me out.

How shall I endure such torture ?

I have been pierced by the arrow of love,what shall I do ?

I can neither live, nor can I die.

Chuang Tzu

You train your eye and your vision lusts after color.

You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound.

You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness

is blown out of shape.

You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous

beyond all reason. You overdo liturgy, and you turn into

a ham actor. Overdo your love of music, and you play corn.

Love of wisdom leads to wise contriving.

Love of knowledge leads to faultfinding.

If men would stay as they really are,

taking or leaving these eight delights

would make no difference. But if they will not rest

in their right state, the eight delights develop like malignant tumors.

The world falls into confusion.

Since men honour these delights, and lust after them,

the world has gone stone-blind. When the delight is over,

they still will not let go of it...

Miguel Hernandez

YOUR HEART, A FROZEN ORANGE, A CENTRE
.

Your heart, a frozen orange, a centre,
within, without light, of sweet juniper oil
and a porous appearance of gold: a surface
that promises danger to those who look.

My heart, a feverish pomegranate
of clustered blushes, and opened wax,
which might offer you its tender seeds
with an enamoured obstinacy.

Ay! What an experience of loss
to go to your heart and find a coldness
of irreducible and fearful snow!

Through the outskirts of my weeping
a thirsty handkerchief goes flying,
with the hope of one who might drink there.