DREAMSCAPES

 

At the center the Minotaur

waits for me

the winding maze is

my wandering mind

I lost the track of the thread

spun by Ariadne's 

ball of twine

*

A woman in a moon-glossed coif

pours blue milk

into a Dutch oven.

She smiles at me

still struggling at stool

to feed verses into

my tablet.

Suddenly the woman

 flew away

like a moth

*

'Non serviam'-said Satan

to God

'No serviam"-says the Muses

to me every morning

at stool        just about

to be inspired

to be poet

to be

*

At stool

I dreamt of Tizian 

painting you 

with his fingertips

using all the colour-hues

conjured up

 by my words

*

Strolling about the Heath

-as was my wont-

Star-addicted and mud-ridden

all coalesced 

in the pool of clarity

today

nothing is out

of kilter

of me

A DREAM

 

Strolling around the river gauche at Quai Voltaire I stopped over one of those bouquiniste stands by the Seine to take a quick glance into the bouquins since I hadn't enough time and was strapped for money. But a thick volume in beautiful binding, rose vellum, gold embossed caught my eyes:

"The Correspondence between James Joyce and Clarissa Holloway(1928-1941)

Hogarth Press (so revealed the ex-libris)was the publishing house. Year of issue: 1953.

At first sight I thought it was a long-winded and pedantic essay about the metafictive connection between James Joyce and Virginia Woolf's styles. But when I started to flick through its yellowish pages there was not the slightest doubt: I was reading the crossed letters between a real person and a fictional character from a very famous novel. 

Well upon my soul!, I muttered to myself smirking, pretty sure that was only a boutade contrived by some two-bit admirer of Georges Perec. 

However, I noticed the book was prefaced by Leonard Woolf himself who spent several years to compile the letters. I read some of them with the growing curiosity of a scholar and that really oozed the aroma of something pukka, not a bogus. 

Enthused with such a rare trove, I asked the bouquiniste(an old blue-eyed geezer with grey beret and Quebec's accent) about the book price. He dusted it off examined the first pages like an expert with a magnifying glass, at the same time he tipped the beret over one ear, then over the other like a madman. "40 euros"-suddenly he snapped without raising the eyes from the book. I was surprised, rather expecting a hefty price, maybe 100 euros, even more. Nevertheless, I only had 20 euros on me, so I nearly entreated the bouquiniste not to sell the book to anyone, that I'd be back in a jiffy with the fric. I nipped to the next ATM and withdrew 60 euros.

 When I hurried back I came across the same stand, the same books, but not the same bouquiniste: this time I met a young and strapping Senegalese with long and colourful dreadlocks. His dark shades mirrored back my face. A kind of piercing glinted on his lower lip. Sat down on a stool, slouchy, he seemed more interested in selling old postcards about Notre Dame de Paris. I asked him about the old man with grey beret and the book he had put me by. I flaunted my 60 euros. His dark shades reflected the sad and overcast sky of Paris as well. He only grinned and gave me the cold shoulder and after billowing out the smoke from an odorous spliff, he got up to attend a gaggle of Japanese tourists. Disappointed, I asked around all the stands, all the bouquinistes but nobody knew anything about the book, let alone about the blue-eyed old geezer with Quebec's accent.

FERROL-GIJON

estoy a bordo de un tren Ferrol-Gijón, 

voy a ver a un amigo enfermo que vive en Burelas. 

Gaviotas, cuervos que emergen 

de una niebla perfumada de eucaliptus

 disputándose unos cotos de claridad o azul. 

Un anciano de Ferrol me comenta:

 "cerca de aquí lincharon al marqués de Sargadelos 

durante la invasión napoleónica, por afrancesado".

 Pensé en mi amigo enfermo-también francófilo-

que me esperaba para leerle algunos fragmentos de

 Proust. Foz. Viveiro. Ortigueira... 

 El tren bordeando un mar que guarda 

en los cofres de la lluvia memorias de exilios, 

leyendas de pescadores que han visto la Atlántida,

 la cola del leviatán. veo acantilados oscuros 

que presagian el Finesterre. veo ninfas desnudas bajo la lluvia 

jugando con la verga de los caballos salvajes 

 gaviotas que limpian sus picos ensangrentados 

en la grasa de una ballena muerta.

MATSUO BASHO, EDO, 1694

The sound of water,

the whisper of water trickling

over the conical hat of Matsuo Basho,

over the glossy plantain leaves

under the moon.

He falls asleep. Even the incessant

blue pheasant wingbeats

cannot wake him up,

nor the lovestruck choir

of the frogs in the pond

"Furuike ya 

Kawazu tobikomu

Mizu no oto"

While kipping under the stars

He caresses in dream the purple eggplant

-first of the season-

a present from a Shinto temple's priest

to honour his most beautiful haiku...

While he sleeps al fresco his words 

turn into golden fireflies 

outshining the Mount Fuji.

The sound of water,

the buzz of a lovelorn wasp

embracing a triple-peony 

foreboding the springtime.

White peonies of gilded edges,

sometimes pink like the kimono

of some geisha onto his aching back

his virile member, numb.

The whisper of the water 

over the green-porcelain leaves,

over the massive straw hat...

He's dead asleep like a log.

Even the high-pitched call

from a crane hatching in the willows

cannot wake him up,

nor the nigh sob of a maiden

turned into amber of millenary pines

for being deflowered by a Yizo in the road.

The poet glimpses himself in reveries 

as a samurai lost in the mist,

in the nude, with his sword erected,

gleaming at sunrise.

"Mizu no oto"

The sound of water 

so smooth

like the hands of a youth

rubbing his painful feet

at sunset.

"And in the last minute of the journey 

he clearly glimpsed his soul

in the shape of a deer running away

into an emerald woods,

the eternal silence of Buddha"

    

ELEVEN VARIATIONS ON A HEADSTONE IN HIGHGATE

 

I

Teetering on the brink

of a blue poppy, a bee.

Melancholy over a mossy

headstone, a white cat.

II

One, two, three crows

space out on a headstone

like undertakers having a laugh

in a sun-kissed bench.

III

A madman sings " Vesti

la giubba" at a headstone.

The pouring rain on the grass

sings along  as well

the wind sighing through

the ash trees leaves.

IV

A lizzard slithered across

the tall grass in blue dew,

the yellow star thistles.

Then climbed upon a headstone

and stayed put for flies.

V

A Red Admiral has landed

suavely on a headstone...

or rather slipped into

the colourful dreams

of a fox sleeping by?

VI

In shade of mother-of-pearl

shimmers the sky.

A goblet of daffodils

yellowing up a headstone

rain-stained and green.

In an oval portrait in sepia

a Victorian girl smiles.

VII

From nearby a din

of chainsaw and rooks.

A red squirrel upon a headstone

plays with conkers.

The morning fog

with a will-o'-the-wisp.

VIII

Spoken for to the moonlight

an owl broods over a headstone.

Her lilting hoot hardly starts 

a mouse that nibbles on dead bones.

IX

From golden to ashen the moon

glosses a brushwood glade.

A couple of smoochy foxes read

the name of a poet who died young

chiselled into a headstone.

X

The pattering of hail

against a headstone

not even perturbed

the reveries of a ghost

illumined by lightnings.

XI

Overrun with greenery,

bluebirds and white buttercups,

a headstone is no longer

the hallmark of worms.

A BALMY DAY...

 

A balmy day     there is no match 

not a single soul   

I come to the football stadium

 to wind down

on the top side of the bleachers 

near the soothing sun:

it's definitely comforting to see

 the vacant pitch the stands

not a player not a single

football-chanter

not a dicky bird.

Only the bright and trimmed lawn 

where some pigeons coo and preen 

each other in the sunshine  a few tabby cats

taking a breather in the shade.

No match no loud insults

like thunderous tannoys

Only some pigeons 

some cats 

and meself nibbling

a sandwich of twilight 

and daydreams.

             ©Hiromu Kira, The Thinker, 1930

WILD HORSES IN THE PYRENEES

 

I would like to spend my last eternity 

 with the wild horses.

Up in the high mountains where

 the sea is only a dream of clouds.

I'd like to stay there to speak no more 

like a monk in a blue grotto

and water drops slumbering

 on fern leaves.

Wild horses that run away

from the horizon to heaven.

from heaven to my shadow

grazing in the wind-kissed grass.

(1996)

WEAVING ESPARTO GRASS

 

As solitary people weaving 

esparto grass by the moon

I weave this words by my self. 

Weave and weave into a basket

with no other aim but the beauty

 of words themselves

crafted together like the ropes

 in demijohns of wine.

I weave this words on and on.

 I am a basket case of wine

 the same wine sipped by Sappho

 when just on the brink to embrace Phaon

just on the brink to jump

near the Leucadian cliffs.

MY HORSE

 I had a horse who fed on jasmine sprigs.

A horse indeed: arabian, handsome, brisk.

When cantering or galloping he sweated golden rivers

and the sweat gave off a perfume that made dizzy 

the whole airspace the whole sun.

He munched on any jasmine shrubs around,

flowers for him were as delicious

as apples or sugar lumps.

The kids made fun of my horse'

scented neighs and withers.

His droppings freshened the ambiance so good

that the mayor ordered never to clean them up.

All was running smoothly till one day my girlfriend

took a shine to my stallion. They fell in love.

They ran away.

Six months after the elopement I received a postcard

from Glasgow. She appeared in the picture

dressed up as a  famous jokey riding my horse. She smiled.

I wept rivers when I saw him

eating jasmine petals out of her hands.

 

THE LAMENT OF HERACLES

 

"Where is now my strength of yesteryears?

Omphale wants me to be dressed

with her yellow silk tunic more blazing

than Helios' smile on the horizon.

Omphale wants me to wear her hoop earings,

shell bangles and blue-laced sandals.

She nicked my lion's hide, my bow,

my long spear and all the vigour of my limbs

now smelling of scented resins and the cedar

perfume that give off  all the Lydian maids...

One morning in the vineyards of Tmolos,

the god Pan did bless us:

I was bound to her like a jolly slave

in the shadow of a golden parasol 

we made love,

in the shadow of a giant eagle,

 we made love...

Presently she forced me to be a woman

while hiding my odorous clobbers.

Now all her maidens comb my long hair,

rub my skin with ointments of wild flowers,

 put lead powder on my face right

 into the pure whiteness of a mortuory mask.

Where is my strength of yesteryears?

Shall I be able to kill the voracious Stymphalian birds?

I want to be at the spinning wheel no more

singing along the chorus of women in thrall.

I want to get up again with my furry hides

stinking of manure and bull entrails.

I want to culminate all the twelve tasks

that can make me an hero kissed by Hera.

Hera,

Hera,

the goddess who I will love forever

even if I keep burning on end

 like deadwood in the freezing Hades."

(2006)

EL BALNEARIO, VIRGINIA WOOLF

 Como en todas las ciudades costeras se imponía el olor a pescado. Las tiendas de juguetes estaban repletas de conchas laqueadas, duras pero frágiles. Incluso los residentes tenían una apariencia conchesca, una frívola apariencia como si el auténtico animal hubiese sido extraído con la punta de un alfiler y solo quedase el caparazón.  Los ancianos desfilando eran conchas; sus polainas, sus pantalones de montar, sus prismáticos parecían convertirlos en juguetes. Ya no podrían haber sido marineros reales sino conchas incrustadas en los bordes de marcos y espejos que yacerian en lo mas profundo del mar. Las mujeres-con sus pantalones, sus zapatos de tacones altos, sus bolsos de rafia y sus collares de perlas-tambien parecian las conchas de mujeres reales que salen por la mañana hacia la tienda de víveres.

A la una, esta frágil y barnizada población-crustáceo se arracimaban en el restaurante. El restaurante olía a pescado, ese aroma de zumaca con sus redes llenas de arenques y espadines. El consumo de pescado en el comedor tuvo que ser enorme. El olor invadía incluso la habitación que indicaba "Señoras" en el primer piso. Solo una puerta dividía esta habitación en dos compartimientos. Uno para sastifacer las necesidades naturales, y el otro, con lavamanos y espejo, para disciplinar con arte la naturaleza. Tres chicas jóvenes ya habían alcanzado la segunda etapa de ese diario ritual, ejerciendo su derecho a mejorar la naturaleza, subyugarla con sus almohadillas de maquillaje y barras de labios. Mientras se maquillaban, hablaban, pero su conversación fue interrumpida por algo asi como el aluvión de la marea subiendo; luego la marea retrocedió y se escuchó una de sus voces:

"Nunca me importó esa tontita risueña...A Bert nunca le importaron las mujeres altas...¿Lo has visto desde que regresó?..Sus ojos...son tan azules...como estanques...Los de Gert también..Ambos tienen los mismos ojos...Ambos tienen los mismos dientes...El tiene unos dientes tan blancos y bonitos...Gert también, pero un poco torcidos...cuando sonríe..."

El agua borboteaba. La marea espumeaba y retrocedia. Y dejaba escuchar lo siguiente:

"Pero él debería ser mas cuidadoso. Si lo cogen haciendo eso, terminará en un consejo de guerra..."

Un gran chorro de agua surgió del otro compartimento. La marea en el balneario parecía eternamente subir y bajar. La marea desvela y enjuaga esos peces diminutos. Retrocede, y alli están los peces de nuevo con el fortísimo olor de algun extraño aroma que parece invadir todo el balneario.

Pero al caer la noche la ciudad luce tan etérea. Hay un blanco resplandor en el horizonte. Aros y coronas de flores en las calles. La ciudad se ha hundido en el agua. Y su estructura solo puede descubrirse por las guirnaldas luminosas.

(1941)

IN FACEBOOK

 

Today God accepted my friendship request

(one month later)

I blocked God

(one day later)

"Satan and you are now friends"

(one minute later)

Facebook blocked me.

DIVERTIMENTO

 The poet is brooding

about death:

"Enfold me, wings of doom,

fluttering along the night.

Enfold me, arms of gloom,

play suave, be bright."

And then the poet proceeds

 hopping up and down

in Pogo-stick.

ZEN POEM

 A Chinese gong resonated

and rippled into the sunrise.

The cats scampered away, the crows

in melancholy flight, the adder 

slinked inside the mossy well.

Even the Yizo statue always at rest

ran off to the golden paddies.

Only the butterflies with blue wings

stayed put sipping in the yellow roses.

VIA QUERINI, VENICE, 1972

 

He is about to kick the bucket,

his last breath nearly to become

a dense mist shrouding La Giudecca...

Ezra Pound wistful stares the little finger

of Olga Rudge, tiny little finger, colour de rose.

There she stands, as ever in the last ten years

near the carcass of the old poet who lies down in bed

by the window overlooking the canal side.

The mist of his breath also enshrouds the dusk 

The gondoliers' shadows sing loud Puccini arias,

the seagulls hover over the isle of San Michele,

the belfry of San Giorgio Maggiore

like birds of ill omen.

Ezra Pound suddenly kiss Olga Rudge's

little finger without respite. 

In ecstasy sucks it like a toddler

the wet nurse's teat. He begs for more...

But no one will never know 

how was that last gesture,

 his last breath

 colour de rose,

no one except that little finger

 blossoming in that lifeless mouth.

EARLY PEACHES

 The aroma of early peaches

weaving into the air

remembrances of you

(happenstances of love).

At the windowpane,

a wistful cat, his eyes

reflecting the murmuration

of starlings in the sky,

the gappy smile of a girl

running along the street.

At eventide I rush out

to the poisoned breeze

of downtown and canalsides:

people hop on the buses

like cattle ready to be put down

or living in blindfolded bliss...

...sitting on the stone ledge

in the portico of a church

like a beggar at sunset

I write sensual poems in dead leaves

falling from my mind

(happenstances of love,

remembrances of you).

A blackbird stays along with me,

a waxing moon, the aroma

of early peaches in March.

I NEVER LEFT...

 

I never left my wave-worn town

near a Caribbean din of seagulls, gannets

and ghost-ships in the horizon.

I never left the azurest blue I ever saw,

even the black and most dehumanised hours

were embathed in that serene blue

of Novalis flower.

I never left. I still watch from a wooden pier

the sun up and down

like a sudden daffodil in bloom

yellowing clouds, the lighthouse, my reveries,

even the rotten smell of dead cats

floating in the slick.

I never left the scent of fallen mangos

dreaming of dewdrops

the tender glance of mongrels

sulking along the shores

or lapping up pools of rain.

I never left that full moon like dancing

over the sea, over the white oleanders

to the rhythm of African drums.

The first kiss as sour as tamarind juice.

The first love as brief as the moth flight

I never left my wave-hugged town

nestled in the doldrums of a Caribbean isle

where a sea goddess, a stella maris

(the bluest I ever saw)

still blows me gentle a breeze-smile.

THE PERSON FROM PORLOCK

The person on business from Porlock

 knocks on my door

and am I still ploughing on my best

poems ever to be.

Still moulding like a clay sculptor

the words to become the God's final words.

My cat snoozes over my red espadrilles,

he perhaps dreams about those poems: 

a dreamscape of moons plenty 

of goldfish and fireflies.

My red espadrilles might as well dream

 on toes with faces of egyptian cats.

The person on business from Porlock 

knocks on the buzzer like hell,

and I'm still plodding along to turn 

Venetian salizades, Parisian passages,

Sevillian callejas and English lanes

into the right path to the perfect elegy.

The crickets trill outside.

A breeze like the giggles of witches

prancing over bucking bulls.

My brindle cat now leaps 

onto a pile of books to be read...

The person on business from Porlock

knocks and knocks and knocks

at early morning.

 I don't want to open the door.

I don't want to sell my soul.

I only intend to keep blooming

 as ruderals in a landfill,

to keep toiling through the furrows of my brain

and digging into the last neuronal light,

my last elegy to come.

EL ACENTO DE MI PADRE (KAVEH AKBAR)

 Un muchacho, más bello que yo,

que me ama por mi vocabulario y

por mis píldoras anaranjadas,

una vez me pidió 

traducir el inglés 

de mi padre.

*

Este poema quiere también 

que yo lo traduzca.

Estupido poema, estupidas manos

que lo escriben:

un acento no es un sonido.

Solo aquellos a quienes

les parece extraño

pueden reducir un acento

a un sonido.

*

Mi poema creció aquí,

sentado en este silla

americana

contemplando la inerte

nieve de América.

Hierba negra marchitandose

por la nieve, el extenso rastro

de un conejo como un fantasma

sentado erguido

diciendo: "ah",

*

Incluso eso es mentira.

No hay rastro.

Solo hierba negra, nieve

azul.

No puedo escribir esto

sin tratar de hacerlo

hermoso. Sumisión,

resistencia, rendición.

*

En su primera

inspección a Adán 

el Diablo entró en sus labios.

Mirad: el Diablo entra

en los labios de Adán,

repta a través de su garganta,

en sus intestinos

para finalmente emerger

de su ano.

"Es todo oquedad"- sonríe 

con disimulo el Diablo.

Sabe que sera fácil su trabajo

de llenar una sola extensa y humana

desesperación.

*

La camiseta de mi padre 

se asoma en su cuello. La mano

de mi padre rebanando piel,

cartílago de la carcasa de un pollo

que firme sostengo

 sobre la tabla de cortar,

A veces se muerde 

el labio inferior para suprimir

lo que debe ser 

la ira. Debe ser la ira 

porque es insonora. Mi inmenso

terror a lo que no puedo oír,

a mi ignorancia

es intraducible.

Mi padre habla un inglés 

perfecto.

Kaveh Akbar

(Tomado de "Pilgrim Bell: Poems", Vintage Digital, 2022)

HIDE-AND-SEEK

 I was playing

hide-and-seek

with God

when I came across you

hidden

in the dewy eyes 

of God

himself

A WHITE POPPY...

 

A white poppy in a bridle path

(Once I glimpsed death: she had

the face of a white poppy by the sea).

A red carnation withering

among the pages of a Quasimodo's book 

flicked through by the breeze:

red carnation conjured up by my words.

A full moon and a wolf

Both drinking

fresh water in my hand.

The moon had your voice, 

Helen, your voice.

The wolf mine.

 

BETWEEN

 Between the asphodels and the fresh sea breeze

between the March rain and a sunny spot

of anglers in the river

between the stone bench by my front door

and the fishy stench in the market

between the hut for weathered hunters

and the pub for daydreaming poets

between a snowed bridge and tangerines in the basket

between the wild horses and the train tunnel

between my alleyway and Wall Street

between the summer and the coldest heart

between the landscape and my aquarelle box

between the birds and that sickle moon:

there is just the distance

from your hand to mine.

SUNFLOWERS

Notwithstanding the universe

will perish into frozenness 

you and I will die

in the shape of sunflowers

crestfallen but gleaming

like sea waves at dusk.

Two sunflowers

-one facing the other-

alone in a vast desert

or a city devastated

by plagues and famine.

Every year both tilting

getting closer and closer

until their Istrian yellow petals

touch each other at last

their pistils locked in

an everlasting hug

just in the moment

when they start to wilt.