MINORWORDSWORTH

MY HEART AT EVENING

At nightfall you hear the bat shriek.
Two black horses leap across the meadow.
A red maple rustles.
Along the way a small tavern appears to the traveler.
The young wine and nuts are delicious.
It is splendid to stagger, drunk, through the darkening forest.
Through black branches come the ringing of grieving bells.
Dew covers your face. 

— Georg Trakl (trans. Daniel Simko)

RHYTHM

That landscape should I stalk
now that I’ve descended
and the war planes over my talk,
covering my mind are ended,

and it’s paroxysm
for you with the first lark songs?
Spring is in. O.K. Just
one love before the wolf
tears down the door.

But I am paralyzed.
The moons, the winds,
fade on with the first lark,
while the magic of Spring
teases and tempts beyond recall. 

— Joseph Ceravolo

THE LOTUS SUTRA, NATURALIZED

I got drunk your house
You put that diamond my shirt pocket
How am I supposed to know?
Laying there in strange drunk tank
                strange town don’t nobody know
Get out of jail at last you say
“You already spend that diamond?”
How am I going to know?

— Philip Whalen

A FADING OF THE SUN

Who can think of the sun costuming clouds
When all people are shaken
Or of night endazzled, proud,
When people awaken
And cry and cry for help?

The warm antiquity of self,
Everyone, grows suddenly cold.
The tea is bad, bread sad.
How can the world so old be so mad
That the people die?

If joy shall be without a book
It lies, themselves within themselves,
If they will look
Within themselves
And cry and cry for help?

Within as pillars of the sun,
Supports of night. The tea,
The wine is good. The bread,
The meat is sweet.
And they will not die.

— Wallace Stevens

WHAT IT’S LIKE
January 4, 1977

I wake up, it’s morning
the grass is still wet
the origins of poverty
are in my eyes, the sand
in my toes flushes my entrails
with acceptance and non-acceptance,
with my torso
like a lake of density,
But don’t feel sorry for me
I’m a son returning
from the masses.
I’m heavy with kisses
in the squalling night,
in the overdrive of death.
What pastoral is left
in the trees,
what song is left
in the cold wind,
like rusty springs
in my nostrils?

The ecstasy of the shepherd
falls apart with the singer.
It is snowing
and the sheep dog’s mouth
tastes of blood
Like my mouth
when I drink the dawn
and fly from you.

— Joseph Ceravolo

A REASON

That is why I am here
not among the ibises. Why
the permanent city parasol
covers even me

           It was the rains
in the occult season. It was the snows
on the lower slopes. It was water
and cold in my mouth.

           A lack of shoes
on what appeared to be cobbles
which were still antique

           Well wild wild whatever
in wild more silent blue

           the vase grips the stems
petals fall    the chrysanthemum darkens  

            Sometimes this mustard feeling
clutches me also. My sleep is reckoned
in straws

            yet I wake up
and am followed into the street.

 

— Barbara Guest 

THE DOOR TO THE FUTURE

Just a little nudge, he said, and then
The Liner docked. You came down
The same gang-plank the Captain
Did. I wondered. You cried. I said
Hello and you said Hi! Later
In the city we found vast excitement
And several lumps of sugar and we had
Coffee with sugar and you left
For South Dakota. I felt that you
Had stayed for only a minute. Then
I knew it was finished. The lights
Of the city seemed to dim
And I took a few steps across
The airfield. You went up
The same ramp the pilot did. I
Wondered. You said you’d be back
In a minute but the speaker said
Chicago and the pilot had a big
Container of coffee. After that
I didn’t see you anymore.

— Dick Gallup 

THE DAY

The day is gray
as stone: the stones
embedded in the
dirt road are chips
of it. How dark it
gets here in the
north when a cold
front moves in. The
wind starts up. It
keens around the
house in long
sharp sighs at
windows. More
leaves come down
and are borne
sidewise. In the
woods a flock
of small white
moths fluttered,
flying, like the
leaves. The wind
in trees, a
heavy surge, drowns
out the water-
fall: from here,
a twisted thread.
Winter knocks at
the door. Don’t
let it in. But
those shivering,
hovering late moths,
the size of big
snowflakes: what
were they doing
there, so late
in the year? Had
they laid their
eggs, and fluttered
in the then still
woods, aware of
the coming wind,
the storm, their
end? But they
were beautiful,
there in the woods,
frantic with life.

— James Schuyler 

CINCINNATI

The hatred the 
bum greeted me
with — in passing —

each a stranger
to the other —
brings my eyes tears —

for one enough
like me to be
me made him feel

like that. Now years
later I see
I met a friend.

— Cid Corman 

SPRING OF WORK STORM
 

Down near   “The river
barges”   I looked around me
Where could I wait?

My friend was always
human   I threw myself
beside; I turned the
new head

I took his paw   It
was tender   And kissed
its texture   Like a
bee 

Stars were darker
I felt the oil
in the sand
 

— Joseph Ceravolo 

A WORD WITH YOU
 

But you can’t keep me here.
I wonder what it is to be just.
Or is it impossible?
Ah, it must be possible, otherwise

We would not have a word for it.
The word is a fact, after all;
We can be sure of that,
Just as our talking is a kind of fact.

The eyes, the voice, the fact
Of your narrow throat, ah!
Remember that your talking habits
Change the word, and change who you are.

And so I say to you now
That all our fact is no more than a guess:
For a word contains the guess,
Like a sigh sounded within laughter,

And your voice will keep on talking
When the fact of it is no more.
The machine seems to have eyes.
But what can it know?

For the machine must have our habits.
My god! How the machine can gasp,
Sob, sigh, and weep.
And yet, it is not like us. 
 

- Aaron Kunin