Category — Poetry

“Get rid of the crow

… enter the cave”

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is an American poet who grew up speaking Italian in an Italian immigrant family in Paterson, New Jersey.  She received the American Book Award in 2008 for her collection, All That Lies Between Us, and the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers. Gillan is the founder and executive director of the Passaic County community College Poetry Center, which publishes The Paterson Review. She is a full professor and Director of Creative Writing in the English Department at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. She has many books to her credit, and her poetry has appeared widely, including previously in Ragazine. She is the mother of two children with her late husband Dennis Gillan. Gillan’s efforts on behalf of young and unknown poets and writers has made her an inspiration to students and acquaintances alike. The following interview took place in April 2011.

By Emily Vogel

Q: Most of the time, when I read someone’s poem, my first question pertains to whether or not the poem is autobiographical.  Sometimes, it is difficult to tell because the poet might conflate true event with elements of fiction, or the autobiographical aspects are merely obliquely autobiographical.  The difficult part about autobiographical poems is that it might make the poem and/or the poet susceptible to a kind of “vulnerability.”  Your poems speak from the heart, and evoke both empathy and emotional reactions.  Could you say something about the autobiographical nature of your poems?

Maria Gillan: For many years, I wrote poems based in the English literary tradition and I was anxious to hide behind language, images, and literary references. Then when I was 40, my first book was published, and a graduate school professor said, “You know, it’s in this poem about your father that you find the story you have to tell.” Then I thought, well I don’t have to be an English Romantic Poet, maybe I can be just what I am – a wife, mother, daughter, granddaughter, grandmother, an Italian American – and write poems from those perspectives. I began then to write more directly and specifically about events and people in my own life, and to be as honest as I could be about what my life was actually like. It took me a long time to have the courage to write with honesty, specificity, and directness. Gradually, I made my language plainer and plainer in an attempt to lessen the distance between myself and my reader.

Q: Your collected book of poems, What We Pass On, speaks a lot to the “shames and eventual triumphs” of growing up Italian-American.  I know that when you were young, you and your family spoke exclusively Italian in the home, and that you were presented with the challenge of essentially “straddling and reconciling two cultures” in order to establish an identity and develop a poetic voice.  To what extent do the pain and/or healing of your assimilation into American culture still influence your work?

MG: My ethnicity and attempts at assimilation have fostered my sense of connection to all people who are outsiders. Consequently, I think that my own struggles with assimilation and with spending so many years trying to erase what I was will always be part of my work. I think that shy, introverted, foreign little girl that I was has never left me and is always there inside, even when I think I’ve left her behind.

Q: You write a great deal about family.  What advice would you give to emerging poets about exploring the depths inherent in family relations, with all the hurts, celebrations, challenges, and wealth of love in order to weave these into their poetry?

MG: The advice I give to emerging poets is that they have to get rid of the crow in their minds, the one that tells them everything that is wrong with them. The crow will try to stop them from descending to the deepest places inside of themselves, the place I call the cave, where all their memories and experiences, good and bad, reside. The cave is where they have to have the courage to go, if they are going to write, if they’re going to be honest enough to search for the stories they have to tell. It is in specificity that we find the universal, rather than the other way around. The mind does not control the poem. It is the old woman or old man who lives in our bellies, who helps us to be wise truth-tellers. We need to learn to trust that inner voice, and not to depend on the intellect to guide us.

Q: You also write a great deal about your late husband’s illness.  What difficulties and/or reliefs have you experienced while exploring this in your work?

MG: My husband got sick with early-onset Parkinson’s disease 25 years ago, and I have been able to survive, I believe, by writing about this very human experience of losing someone I love over a very long period of time. I don’t think I could have survived the pain and terror of this experience without my poetry. I hope by exploring the complications of love and illness that it will help other people who are going through similar experiences to realize that we’re all human, and they shouldn’t expect perfection from themselves or others.

Q: Recently, I heard you read a relatively new poem, which employed “parallel/simultaneous narratives” in order to get at the sentiment of the poem and the experience.  It was about (for our readers) watching birds on the television in one setting, while also attending to your ill husband at the hospital.  There seemed to be a discontinuity of “time” and a juxtaposition of two typically unrelated things, while at the same time these two experiences seemed to reconcile and inform one another.  The poem was very successful. As a teacher of poetry, how do you explain this overlap and weaving of narratives to students?

MG: For me, “Watching the Pelicans Die,” was a very difficult poem to write, because I could not confront my husband’s final weeks directly, and it became commingled in my mind with the BP oil disaster.  The black slick of oil on the sand and water made me incredibly sad at a time when I was watching my husband die, and watching his hands go black at the tips. The poem is a howl of sorrow for the world and also for my husband. One of the prompts I give my students is to go back and forth in a poem between two seemingly unconnected things, and find something in common between them to use as a thread to weave the poems together. I did that with this poem, but I think more than anything the sight of that dying pelican brought back my husband’s death, and I wrote the poem a couple of weeks after he died.  When I started writing, I had the image of the pelican in my mind, but very quickly, the poem took off and seemed almost to write itself. I do believe that happens when you let go and let instinct take over. I swear it’s as if the pen is moving by itself. I try to encourage students to let go when they’re writing. Sometimes, when they think too much, the poem is wooden and ineffective. I want a poem to make people laugh or cry or to make the hair on their arms stand up. I really believe poetry is rooted in the body, and that we react to it by smiling or crying or laughing.

* * *

The Dead Deer on the Side of the Road

When I see a dead deer on the side of the Rt 17 west,
its hind legs pointing up to the sky, stiff as sticks, its body
crumpled and still

I think of you in the ER cubicle at Valley Hospital, your
eyes suddenly blank and staring, your body motionless.

A doctor says “he’s gone” and closes your eyes.  Just
moments before your breath was a loud rasping in your
chest, your fingers turned black at the tips, and the doctor tells me,
“you know, don’t you that he’s dying?  He
probably only has an hour at the most.”

When I see that dead deer, the way life is gone from it,
I cry for you and for the deer and for all the other creatures
lost. I talk to you, as though you were actually in the car
with me and could help me carry the cup of grief
that I try to balance in my hands.

Too much death surrounds me now, my mother, father,
sister, best friends of forty years, all gone and I mourn for
them all, but you who were with me forty six years, you are
the one I am afraid to grieve for, afraid that if I start I will
have to know that I will never fill the space your going
leaves.  I pretend to myself that you are still with me in our
family room as in this car.  It is only when I cry for the deer
that I am able to cry for you.  “I love you,” you said, the day
before you died.   When I came into the room you turned
to me with a smile that filled your face with light.  I will carry
that smile in my memory like a talisman, a worry stone that
I can hold and touch when I am most alone, most afraid.

The EPA Comes to Binghamton, NY

The EPA says there’s a dead  zone in the Susquehanna
River that is growing wider with each day.
Nothing can survive in it.

Some days I feel there is a dead zone in me
as the world I knew, the one with you in it,
has vanished, and the world around me
with its dying lakes and rivers, its endangered
water supplies, its polluted air, grows larger.

As a child, the air smelled fresh and sweet,
even on 17th Street in Paterson, New Jersey
and the stars were huge and visible in the sky.

Why do we ruin everything we touch with our greed
and hunger?  We used to eat fresh snow in a cup
with espresso and sugar.  Are we ever grateful

for what we have without wanting more?  How carelessly
I held you in my arms when we were still young and you
could still travel, your hand in mine in Italy and France,
Spain and Portugal, in theaters where we watched
the plays and movies we loved, in the museums we visited,
the folk concerts.  It wasn’t until later that I realized
what I’d lost and now, how heedless we’ve been

with the prefect beauty of the world, how ashamed I am
of all I have held and failed to protect and cherish

Emily Vogel is poetry editor of Ragazine.

“… writers writing in a way

that seemed like writers writing

the way people talked …”

An Interview with Lyn Lifshin

by Emily Vogel

The following interview took place via e-mail in April.

EMILY VOGEL: As a poet I can admit that at thirteen I also had aspirations to be an actress.  And ballet, well, it was intense from the time I was six until fourteen years old.  Anyway, let us commence this interview.  Can you tell me who or what has inspired your aesthetic choices with regard to poetry?

LYN LIFSHIN: Well it is an amazing coincidence that I got this question right when I am for the weekend at my place in New York where all my older books are.

How did I get started?  I am told, around three years old on a trip from Barre, Vermont to Middlebury , Vermont, where I grew up until college, I am told, (while) looking at the trees, I told my mother it looked like the trees and leaves were dancing. And she said I’d probably grow up to be a poet (though she named me Rosalyn, thinking that would be the perfect name for an actress). I think as the first born I got a lot of attention, a lot of books, but one I really remember and just grabbed from the shelf is “Now We Are Six”, by A. A. Milne. I adored the story of Pinkle Purr and the poem about Alexander Beetle and Butter Cup Days and Binky…. I loved that book, and how it survived I’ve no idea, but it was given to me when I was three. There’re a few little scribbles in it, but pretty amazing –  it is in great shape.

I started school at six, but skipped many grades because I read well before starting school. I had a simply wonderful third grade teacher who had us write poems every day. I still have a little blue notebook with those hand-written pieces, many based on things she’d bring in: a bough of apple blossoms, melting snow. So I had an early love of poetry. By fifth grade we were reading Milton. Being terrible in math, I am lucky poetry came easily.

I’ve often told the story of how I copied a poem of Blake’s from “Songs of Innocence” in third grade and showed it to my mother and said I wrote it. She was amazed I knew words like “descending” and “rill”, and not surprisingly she ran into my teacher, told her how amazed she was that I had written such an amazing poem. As a result, I had to write my own poem by (the following) Monday. And I had to use “descending” and “rill” in it.

So I got off to a good start really. My father, who I had little relationship with, showed one of my few poems to Robert Frost, who wrote on it “Very good images, sayeth Robert Frost… bring me some more poems.” By the time I had more, he was dead. But that bit of praise went a long way in giving me confidence. Still, I started in theater in college, and then, feeling I needed a way to have a real job, I majored in English literature with a minor in art history. I thought I would get a Ph. D., get a good job and then write. Though I finished all the course work for a Ph. D., got all “A”s , passed Italian and French language exams and had 100 pages of a dissertation written, somehow, as the department said, there was a personality conflict between their new English faculty member and me. And in the end, I walked away from finishing the degree.

EV: So it is evident that your mother was a great influence on your poetry, and also the teachers you had in elementary school.  When I was in fifth grade, we were introduced to the limerick form.  Could you tell me a bit about what forms have inspired you and which forms you are devoted to?

LL: When I left SUNY (State University of New York), Albany, I walked out into traffic with no idea what I would do. I knew, or felt, I wanted to be as far away from anything Academic as possible. I painted for a while, was asked to display my paintings, have a very few on my web site. I took a job at an entertainment TV station. During the quiet weeks, I began to type up the few poems I’d started. I ordered a copy of Len Fulton’s “International Directory” – a slim stapled, I think, directory at the time, and sent requests of sample copies to every magazine listed. I got a quick overview of what was being published. And, I wanted to get as far away from academia, as far from 15th and 16th and 17th century literary.

I started sending out poems that summer, and luckily the first submission (actually the second – the first submission  – I can even remember the mail box I sent it from — two haiku pieces – two variations of the same poem ) was accepted. I was thrilled. It was from Folio magazine, an attractive magazine from Birmingham, Alabama. That was followed by an acceptance from Kauri magazine, a poem, the first of many they would accept and publish.

It was an extremely exciting time. I was daily finding wonderful poems that thrilled me. I’d done my Master’s thesis on Dylan Thomas, and an undergraduate thesis on Federico Garcia Lorca. And had my rough draft of Wyatt and Sidney – I still really love Wyatt, but I discovered poets like (Charles) Bukowski and Anne Sexton and (Sylvia) Plath … writers writing in a way that seemed like writers writing the way people talked: William Carlos Williams … it was like finding jewels every day.

When I began to write, I wanted to read and publish in the least academic magazines I could. I was charmed by Wormwood Review, Marijuana Quarterly, Goodly Company, Trace, Lung Socket. I avoided any magazine with a university connection.  Of course, that changed eventually, but I wanted magazines like The Outsider with their special Bukowski issue. These are the magazines I submitted to, read, collected.

I was happy to publish regularly, to be the most published poet in Rolling Stone. I was chosen early on as one of one hundred most promising young poets – that was special to me. It attracted mostly good attention, but one well known promoter called, wanted to send me air fare to come out to LA to see if  I really looked as good and interesting as I seemed in that photo. I didn’t go, but the one phone call triggered at least one poem that is in my new book, “All the Poets (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me Living and Dead,” All True, Especially the Lies.

Now, my tastes are much more catholic. You can get an idea of some writers I love (not all — there are so many), in the three anthologies I have edited:  “Tangled Vines,” “Ariadne’s Thread,” and “Lips Unsealed”.

As for forms I am addicted to, I’d say there are none. Sometimes I try my own vaguely like a villanelle, but with its own variations. I wrote haiku early on and some sonnets, but I have not worked with form that much.

EV: It seems that your philosophy for poetry is that it is a daily practice, not just an occasional hobby.  Being a poet myself, I have more than once been accused of “poetry as obsession.”  Do you find that poetry can be addictive, or that it is just simply one of the necessities of daily life?

LL: I would say yes to all the aspects of obsession, addiction and something I have to do every day. Once I said that the word in the Eskimo language for “to breathe” is the same one as to make a poem. I believe and feel that. Of course I am obsessive about a lot: ballet, ballroom , horses, Abyssinian cats, horse like Ruffian and Barbaro – velvet, clothes, silk, soft leather…. So “Yes” to all you suggest!

EV: You have obviously written an enormous amount of poems.  Do you ever get stuck in the rut of an image, word, phrase, or topic that wants to be recycled?  In other words, what have been your experiences with “writer’s block” and how have you overcome it?

LL: I should cross my fingers before saying I rarely have writers block. Ironically, in college I was afraid to take a creative writing course, afraid I would have nothing to write about.

I am pleased my new book “All The Poets (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me (Living and Dead: All True, Especially the Lies,” is out and getting strong reviews, “…a tremendous book along the lines of John Berryman’s Dream Songs” … “mind candy” … “witty … lusty … a feast of words.” If you are a poet, know a poet, or are wild for the secrets of writers you may never have heard before, this is a book you shouldn’t resist.

——————————————

DRIFTING

things I have and
don’t have
come from this
moving between
people like
smoke. I’ve been
waiting the way
milkweed I
brought inside two
years ago stays
suspended, hair in the
wind it seems to
float, even its
black seeds don’t
pull it down
tho you don’t under
stand how any
thing could stay
that way
so long

LIGHT FROM THIS TURNING

I have lost touch with
distant trees,
the wind you brought
in your hair
and lilac hills.

Something different
bites into the river
and the river of lost days
floats over my tongue.

Love, you are like that
distant water, pulling
and twisting,
you turn me

apart from myself
like some frightening road,
something I don’t want
to know

Still, let my
hair float slow through
this new color,
let my eyes absorb
all light

from this turning
that has brought us
here, has carried us
to where we are,
we are

NOT THINKING IT WAS SO WITH YELLOW FLOWERS

At night I
dreamed that
same dream,
the one
full of muscles
and thighs
that aren’t you.
Later the fear
came back
crossing into
Mexico tho
at first
when I woke up
I thought it
wasn’t true
the air was so
bright and
yellow flowers
were falling
from the
pepper tree
like suns

——————————————

New Books by Lyn Lifshin include “Ballroom” and “ALL THE POETS WHO HAVE TOUCHED ME, LIVING AND DEAD. ALL TRUE: ESPECIALLY THE LIES.” Recent books include “The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian,” “Another Woman Who Looks Like Me,”Following Cold and comfort”, “Before It’s Light, Desire” and “92 Rapple.” She has over 120 books and edited four anthologies. 

For more information, visit: www.lynlifshin.com

I Know Who Built the Pyramids

I came in cold.
Some guys I work with were gathered around,
staring at a paper, pinned above the time clock.
It was pinned in a crooked way, done in haste,
in a manner without regard for those eyes that fell upon it now.

Just a paragraph, colder than the winds outside.

Due to a lack of orders in our backlog,
we are looking for volunteers for layoffs.
Those who are interested see Human Resources.

The rest of the page reflected our faces, blank and drained of color.
Layoffs.

The roof was leaking from the rain and melting snow.
Everywhere there were buckets catching drops of water,
and puddles were new leaks were starting,
and rumors.
Filling every bucket until they overflowed.

They’re looking for twenty guys,
if not more.
If they don’t get volunteers then
they look to the junior employees.

New puddles,
no one even tries to control.

We might all be locked out.
The leaks are overwhelming.
We might all be in the unemployment line.

No health insurance then.
Not for the guy who has cancer.
Or the two, who’s wives have cancer.
Or the two who are expecting.

But fears are quelled when we work.
When we use our hands, amidst
the pounding of the machines.
We break a sweat, and it’s zen.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
and acceptance all before we clock out.

Even by break time,
the boys are cracking wise again.

You see,
I know who toiled under
those stones at the Great Pyramids,
who fruitlessly charged at the German trenches,
cut a swath through the Burmese mountain range,
because I work with them.

I’m proud to be counted among them,
people who keep their chin up,
even though it’s where they get hit
every time.

Unlike those we work for,
our wealth is in misery and hardship.
And we consume it with might.
The might of David when he shouted the Psalms to God
from the dark of a cave.

Yes, we can joke and smile,
even when we walk the gallows,
and ask the executioner,
“Are you sure this is safe?”

We can laugh now,
because it’s either
laugh, or cry.

About the poet:
Steven Oldford is an unskilled laborer and freelance writer.  In all honesty, this is his first submission, resulting from encouragement by his former professor, Joe Weil.  Oldford currently lives with his wife, daughter, and a mountain of student loans, in Hallstead, PA.

Instructions for the Living, Part II

Remember that sometimes,

the dead do not go all at once.

Sometimes, the dead erode

like an unforgivable hillside.

This rise in the earth

from which you better viewed the world,

so unmoveable beneath the stomp

of everything else, is slipping away

in an unremarkable rain.

But so it is.

Their roots have let go of all they were,

bit by bit, until they hang

an embarrassing naked,

limp and pointing down at what was shed.

As if you needed a reminder

of what had been lost.

You find yourself wondering,

which piece was it?

Which piece, with its sloughing off,

turned him from father to shell?

The left hand’s refusal to palm

a morning coffee? A missing name

that even your dear and insistent face

could not call forth?

Do not do this math.

It is one of those things, like love,

that doesn’t need your permission.

How I Learned My Multiplication Tables

One is quiet, stoic, but knows more

than he lets on. Two is the mother of

everything else, even odd and unruly

children. Three is the artist. Four is a

sharp suit, he sets up the deals for Five,

the banker. Six likes to gossip. Seven

is a freak. Eight is almost there, pulled

together but still trying too hard. Nine

is who everyone dreams about. Ten is god.

Old Love

They say this is what the married become:

An old mill, churning at nothing but the

water’s insistence; romantic in the forgotten

sense of the word. Sex will have

the satisfaction of a hard day’s work.

Your lover is your husband and no magic

is an everyday affair. To them

a heart must seem an appeasable,

if not bored,  thumping marker of time.

There is a growing piece of my heart

that wants me dead. On days when it beats

the thick muscle of my chest I am filled

with soured wine. There is no mistaking

its sediment collecting in the corners

of my mouth.  I am, each week, an unnamed

fear. Everyone who has ever loved me

becomes a fool. Everything I have ever touched

suddenly wishes it were whole. Every word

of comfort unspells itself. And when this

Tuesday afternoon, this Sunday before dinner,

this Friday before bed, is that last I want to see of it all

I find the man whose arms are old paths

and his mouth, a river. I go to him to drown.

In this ordinary small of a back I leave my ugly name.

This pocked and speckled shoulder I will bite until forgiven.

These eyes demand beautiful, beautiful, beautiful

until I breach from the sheets

a belated crescent moon,

glistening and spent.

God bless those who are so sure

what old love must be.

God bless the untroubled heart

that has never made love

to save itself.

About the poet:

Emily Kagan Trenchard began writing poetry while at the University of California, Berkeley, where her work was commissioned for an address to the graduating class of 2004. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and she received an honorable mention in Rattle’s 2009 Poetry Prize. Emily holds a Master’s in Science Writing from MIT. She lives in Brooklyn where she is a co-curator of the renowned louderARTS Project Reading Series.

Digression on a Sign:  Welcome to Sea Isle City

Where the sea grass by the bay can get to be twelve feet tall
and the dogs are so old  they can’t be bothered to bark at passers-by.
They just come out to look at you and turn right back into their houses.
There’s something welcoming about a quiet dog.

My grandfather used to say most animals are nicer than most people.
Black bears, for instance, won’t come near you in the woods if you
sing loudly or clap as you walk.  And if you’re a stupid, 19 year old
camp counselor and walk back out to your unit after a night off  in
Main Camp with no flashlight and you come right up on a bear she’ll
just run like hell in the opposite direction you’re running.

My son might disagree—he was trapped in a latrine once, a black bear
scratching to get in—but he disagrees with me on most things, so maybe
I should tell him his teacher is wrong and you don’t need trigonometry
to be a functioning, happy adult.  I don’t think I’ll tell him how I got
a fifty-seven on my trigonometry regents in high school, though.
He couldn’t keep that secret.  Animals are better secret keepers.
My dogs, although the smaller of the two is pretty verbose in the
barking department, haven’t ever told any of my secrets, even after
they’ve  had a drink. It’s disconcerting when animals are like people—

sheep cough, for instance, and when they’re mating porcupines laugh
like perverted old men. Trust me, this is not a good sound to hear
when you’re camping in the  middle of nowhere in the middle of the night
and you’re the only one awake.  I always hated being the only one awake
at slumber parties when I was ten.  I’d hear a weird noise and say “what
was that” and when no one answered I knew I was the last one awake
and I was responsible for the others, like the designated driver or the
mom who sets up the carpool.

Some moms try to make you feel guilty because it’s your third child
and you know he won’t die if he drops his pacifier and you just blow
off the bigger pieces of dirt and pop it back in his mouth.  I wonder,
were these women really concerned for my baby’s welfare?  I wonder
why they felt welcome to make such comments to me.  I wonder too, at
road signs that say things like “Welcome to Sea Isle City” or Welcome
to New York State” or “Welcome to Pennsylvania,” as there’s no way
every single person who crosses town or state lines is actually welcome.

Some people are about as welcome anywhere as a porcupine in a latrine.
Did you know that if you don’t keep the outhouse doors shut porcupines
will come in and chew around the seat?  They like the salty taste of the wood.
My ex-husband used to laugh about the time at his uncle’s cabin in the Catskills
When his uncle caught a porcupine and swung it around by its tail and let it go
and then it was stunned enough so he could bash its head in with a rock.
“They eat wood and wreck things,” he told the kids.

This uncle wasn’t all bad though, he once gave me “mountain coffee”
(with a shot of whiskey) at eight A.M. and said I would always be
welcome in his house because I helped him wash the cabin windows
with newspaper, which is the best for ending up with no streaks.

Porcupines don’t have too many redeeming qualities.  They aren’t
really welcome anywhere, especially if there are dogs, even though
dogs are way more stupid than porcupines—case and point—my brother’s
dog tried to bite porcupines at least five different times, you’d think she
would learn, but you love them anyway, dogs, even if they’re too stupid
to stay away from what hurts them, unlike bears, who run from people
given half a chance and we don’t love bears, we love dogs because we
can leave them home alone all day and forget to feed them and they’re
still supremely happy to see us and welcome us unconditionally home.

How I Could Do It

He slept in a plastic crib-sized bed.  It was like a racecar,
and the mattress sank with our weight as we read to him,
the smell of urine faint but definite. His dandelion-down
hair tickled my nose and I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
even read to him without choking. “What’s wrong, Mommy?
Sing!” he said, and I said “just a tickle, just a frog taste
in my throat,” but I sang a little, then he slept.

It was as if he knew. What if he wanted me in the night
on his father’s night? He wasn’t even four. Later I heard
small, soft vibrations–feet pajamas on carpet. “I can’t sleep,
he said.  It was two AM.  I was still up, still trying to decide.
“What’s wrong?” I said. He grabbed me. His neck smelled
like aspirin. He said “I had a dream about hands. I was afraid,”
which is why I decided not to decide, at least not tonight.

Then in preschool later that week: “He doesn’t listen.
He stands on his head. He laughs when we punish him,”
his caregiver said. “He hit Sarah with a train today.
Is there anything wrong at home?” They say children
internalize tension.  I say, hey, he is loved. I pick him up early
when he bites the black-haired girl on the arm. Her mother
shows me the marks—two berry red half moons. He blinks
like he’s never seen them before.  He says, “She tasted sour.”

About the poet:

Svea Barrett is a writing teacher and a mom of three teenage boys. Her chapbook, Why I Collect Moose, won the 2005 Poets Corner Press Poetry Chapbook Competition, and her work has appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Samsara Quarterly, The Journal of NJ Poets, Caduceus, US 1 Worksheets, Ariel XXVII, and other online and print journals.

Swimming In the Whispering

1.

I was not going to be long,
I promised.
I promised and hoped to die.
I swore on a name no one would say lightly,
without feeling dread.
The same fear one has of drowning,
arms tired of flailing, giving into the undertow,
going under currents, into something
so dark, we do not speak of it.

2.

I went out into the beginning of darkness.
This is before the owls are ready
and the moon is not in ascension.

I went out into the beginning of things,
a screen door swinging behind me
as an afterthought.

Out,
where things are never ready
and I was not ready either.

3.

I went into that night-sweat, frosted echo,
into the heartbeat of loss, into things
whispered, things barely beginning
and barely ending, and barely neither,

at the hour when things are closing,
doors are bolted and lights of regret are turned on,
where the trajectory of meteor showers
follows loss, follows the wrenching sun,

where night holds wind against its will,
where the sun is in the given-up. Into this
is where I was headed, without light,
without knowing where I was going,

or how to come back,  and  not really caring.
I had turned out the light as I left,
locking the way behind me,
leaving the sound of the closing door far behind.

4.

I could have gone to the broken limestone quarry.
There things are blasted into stillness
and reduced into less than themselves.
I could have headed to the smoke station at the peak
with its ladders to Cooper Hawks
and into the streams of cloud cover.

I could have found the headquarters of tenderness, or
gone into remembrance or forgetfulness.
I could have found buoys of walnuts,
or climbed into the dazzlingness.

But, it was solid night as I left,
when no one in their right mind would go
without anything. And I left empty-handed.

5.

I went into the hibiscus moon, into
the eggplant-colored night.

I went out, realizing, I forgot something.
Then I decided it did not matter.

If I was intended to find my way, I would;
If not, then who would care?

When we walk out of the language of ourselves,
what are we looking for? Then what?

Will someone search for us in the sensuous longing?
Into the Whispers?

There are only so many words to step out of.
Only so much drowning in air.

About the poet:

Martin Willitts, Jr., was nominated for two Best of The Net awards and his 5th Pushcart award. He has three new chapbooks: “The Girl Who Sang Forth Horses” (Pudding House Publications, 2010), “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for Cezanne” (Finishing Line Press, 2010), “True Simplicity” (Poets Wear Prada Press, 2011).

-30-

Domestic Ops

On another swollen summer night,

stricken by the shadows of agents

strumming sullen adagio banjos

on the street outside our avocado

split-level ranch, she sets traps

for the maturing apocalypse. I must

study Mandarin and speed chess

down at the local community center,

tonal syllables and ivory gambits.

His job is to roll out a nylon mat

five times per day and comb the dog

for bugs and fingerprints. Our sister

learns to dazzle with sinuous displays

of flaming nunchaku and cymbals.

All of us have to hunt for and gather

nutritious wild plants from vacant

residential lots in the neighborhood.

We ask her why again, leery of specters.

She opens the back of the record player,

spinning the turntable at 78 rpm

with a bloody-cuticled index finger.

Out pops four dull sapphire capsules,

one for each secret molar compartment.

About the Poet:

Born in Flint, MI, raised in the Detroit area, and ripening in California since the fall of 1992, John F. Buckley lives and works in Orange County with his wife, teaching at local colleges and chasing the poetic dragon. His work has been published in a few places, one of which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize.

___________________________________________

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

……………………………………………

IDA MUSEMIC, Photographer

Ida Musemic’s eye sees what’s common, while her mind and emotions realize what makes the common special.  Her photographic gift is in capturing sequences of events that echo the staccato of time passing: a clip here, an instant there, the space between a blank the viewer fills in as ‘obvious’.  Musemic’s work is on display at the 12×12 International Art Show through January 9, 2011, Jeanne D’Arc Studio · 253 West 24th Street · New York. For gallery hours, schedule a viewing with the curator, Stella Lilling · 212.924.3605.

More of Musemic’s work appears on her website: http://www.idamusemic.com.

For thePHOTOGRAPHYspot submissions, please see guidelines at ragazine.cc/submissions/

Micah Tower has his MFA from Hunter College. He teaches at Trinity Western University, has written film and music reviews for Slant and Patrol, and his poetry has appeared in publications such as Paterson Literary Review, Gulf Stream and, previously, in Ragazine. He enjoys making his own yogurt and blogging on http://www.thethepoetry.com.

©2011 chuckhauptphoto

Chuck Haupt is photo editor of Ragazine. You can visit his blog at www.chuckhaupt.com/blog.

For thePHOTOGRAPHYspot submissions, please see guidelines at ragazine.cc/submissions/

The Songs of Maldoror translated by R J Dent

—-

An extract from The Songs of Maldoror

by Le Comte de Lautréamont

Translated by R J Dent and illustrated by Salvador Dalí

VII

The corsair with the golden hair has received Mervyn’s reply. Across that
singular page he follows the trace of the intellectual unease of its writer
abandoned to the weak powers of his own suggestion. He would have done
better to consult his parents, before responding to the offer of an unknown
friendship. No benefit will result from his being involved as the main actor in
this equivocal intrigue. But after all, that’s how he wanted it. At the specified
hour, Mervyn, from the door of his house, goes straight ahead, following the
Boulevard Sebastopol to the Saint-Michel fountain. He takes the Quai des
Grands-Augustins and crosses the Quai Conti; as he walks along the Quai
Malaquais, he sees, walking parallel to him and moving in the same direction
along the Quai du Louvre, an individual carrying a sack under his arm who
appears to be scrutinising him closely. The morning mists have lifted. The two
passers-by simultaneously arrive on the Pont du Carrousel from opposite
sides. Although they have never seen each other, they recognise each other!
Truly it was touching to see these two beings, separated by age, bring their
souls close through an immensity of feelings. At least that would have been
the view of those who paused in front of the spectacle, which many – even
the mathematically-minded – would have found moving. Mervyn, his face
covered in tears, was thinking to meet, at the entrance of a life, so to speak,
a precious support in future adversities. Be assured that Maldoror said
nothing. This is what he did: he unfolded the sack he was carrying, opened
its mouth wide, and seizing the youth by his head, pushed his whole body in
the rough sacking envelope. With his handkerchief, he tied up the end that
had served as way of introduction. As Mervyn was uttering loud and piercing
cries, he picked up the sack like a bag of linen and smashed it repeatedly
against the parapet of the bridge. Then the victim, aware that his bones were
breaking, became silent. A unique scene no novelist will ever find again! A
butcher was passing, sitting on the meat in his cart. An individual runs up to
him, urging him to stop, and says: “There’s a dog in this sack; it has rabies:
Put it down as quickly as you can.” The butcher is happy to oblige. As the
individual walks away, he sees a young girl in rags holding out her hand.
What heights of audacity and impiety can he reach? He gives her alms! Tell
me if you want me to escort you through the door of a distant
slaughterhouse, a few hours later. The butcher has returned and as he
throws his burden onto the ground, he has said to his friends: “Let’s hurry up
and kill this rabid dog.” There are four of them, and each picks up the
hammer he normally uses. And yet they are hesitant because the sack is
moving violently. “What’s this emotion that grips me?” one of them shouted,
slowly lowering his arm. “This dog is whimpering with pain like a child,” said
another, “you’d think it knows the fate that awaits it.” “They usually do,” said
the third, “even when they are not sick, as in this case; their master only has
to stay away from home for a few days and they start howling in a way that’s
horrible to hear.” “Stop!… stop!…” the fourth shouted, before all their arms
were raised in unison to resolutely strike the sack. “Stop, I tell you, there’s a
fact here that has escaped us. Who told you that this cloth sack contains a
dog? I want to make sure.” Then, despite the taunts of his companions, he
untied the bundle, and pulled out one after the other the limbs of Mervyn! He
was almost suffocated by the discomfort of this position. He fainted when he
saw the light again. After a few moments he gave undoubted signs of life. His
rescuer said: “In future, learn to use caution in all of your dealings. You
almost found out for yourself that it is pointless practising non-observance of
this law.” The butchers fled. Mervyn, heavy-hearted and full of grim
forebodings, returns home and locks himself in his room. Do I need to dwell
on this stanza? Ah, who would not deplore the events consummated above!
Let us wait until the end for an even harsher judgement. The dénouement is
going to be precipitated, and in these kinds of stories, where a passion of
whatever kind is given, and fears no obstacle as it makes its way, there is no
reason for diluting in a godet the shellac of four hundred banal pages. What
can be said in half a dozen stanzas must be said, and then, silence.

VIII

To construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous tale, it is not enough to
dissect nonsense and powerfully brutalize the reader’s intelligence with
renewed doses, so as to paralyse his faculties for the rest of his life, by the
infallible law of fatigue; one must, besides, with the use of a good
mesmerizing fluid, ingeniously make him somnambulistically unable to move,
forcing him to close his eyes against his nature by the fixity of your own
stare. I mean – and I to say this not to make myself better understand, but
only to develop my thoughts that simultaneously interest and irritate you by
their most penetrating harmony – that I do not think it is necessary, to
achieve the proposed goal, to invent a poetry entirely outside the usual laws
of nature, the pernicious breath of which seems to unsettle even absolute
truths, but to bring about a similar result (consistent, moreover, with the rules
of aesthetics, if one thinks about it) is not as easy as one imagines: that is
what I wanted to say. That is why I will make every effort to do so! If death
arrests the fantastic thinness of my two long arms on my shoulders, used in
the lugubrious crushing of my literary gypsum, I at least want the reader, in
mourning, to be able to say: “One must give him his due. He has cretinised
me considerably. What would he not have done if he’d lived longer? He was
the best professor of hypnotism that I ever knew!” These few touching words
will be carved on the marble of my tombstone, and my ancestors’ spirits will
be content! – I continue! Once there was a fish’s tail which moved about at
the bottom of a hole, next to a down-at-heel boot. It would not be natural to
wonder: “Where is the fish? I only see the tail moving.” Precisely – for one
would implicitly acknowledge not having seen the fish, because in truth it was
not really there. The rain had left a few drops of water in the bottom of this
funnel dug in the sand. As for the down-at-heel boot, some have since
thought it was left there after being voluntary abandoned. The great crab, by
divine power, was reborn from its resolved atoms. He pulled the fish’s tail
from the well and he promised to re-unite it with its lost body, if it announced
to the Creator his representative’s powerlessness to dominate the raging
waves of the Maldororean Sea. He lent it two albatross wings, and the fish’s
tail took off. But it flew up to the renegade’s residence, to tell him what was
happening and to betray the great crab. But the latter guessed the spy’s plan,
and before the third day had reached its end, it pierced the fish’s tail with a
poisoned arrow. The spy’s gullet uttered a feeble sigh and gave up its last
breath before hitting the ground. Then an ancient beam, on the highest point
of a castle, drew itself to its full height, then sprang back on itself and cried
loudly for vengeance. But the Almighty, changed into a rhinoceros, told him
that this death was deserved. The beam calmed down and went back to its
place at the heart of the manor and resumed its horizontal position, and
recalled the startled spiders so that they could continue, as in the past, to
spin their webs in its corners. The man with lips of sulphur learned of his
ally’s weakness, which is why he commanded the crowned madman to burn
the beam and reduce it to ashes. Aghone executed this harsh order. “Since,
according to you, the time is ripe,” he exclaimed, “I have gone and recovered
the ring that I had buried under the stone, and I’ve attached it to the end of
the rope. Here is the bundle.” And he presented a thick coiled rope, sixty
metres long. His master asked him what the fourteen daggers were doing. He
said they remained faithful and stood ready for any event, if necessary. The
criminal nodded his head in satisfaction. He showed surprise, and even
concern when Aghone said that he had seen a cock split a candelabra in two
with its beak, look closely at each part in turn, and exclaim as it frantically
beat its wings: “It is not as far as one thinks from the Rue de la Paix to the
Place de Panthéon. Soon you will see lamentable proof of this!” The great
crab, mounted on a fiery horse, rode at full speed towards the reef – witness
of the flinging of the stick by a tattooed arm; the reef which had provided
sanctuary on the first day of his descent to earth. A caravan of pilgrims was
on its way to visit this place, thenceforth consecrated by an august death. He
hoped to reach it, to urgently ask for help against the plot that was being
prepared, of which he had knowledge. You will see a few lines further on with
the help of my icy silence that he did not arrive in time to tell them what a
ragman, hidden behind the scaffolding adjoining a house under construction
had recounted to them: namely, on the day the Carrousel bridge was still
covered with the wet dew of the night, he saw with horror the horizon of his
thought confusedly expand in concentric circles at the morning spectacle of
an icosahedric sack rhythmically pounded against the limestone parapet!
Before he elicits their compassion with the memory of this episode, they will
do well to destroy the seed of hope within themselves... To shake yourself
free of your laziness, put the resources of good will to use, walk beside me
and do not lose sight of that madman, his head crowned with a chamber-pot,
and with a stick in his hand which he uses to drive along in front of him one
that you would have difficulty recognizing, unless I took care to warn you and
recall to your ear that the word is pronounced Mervyn. How he has changed!
With his hands tied behind his back he walks straight ahead as if he were
going to the scaffold, and yet he is guilty of no crime. They have arrived at
the circular enclosure of the Place Vendôme. On the entablature of the
massive column leaning against the square balustrade more than fifty meters
above the ground, a man has uncoiled and thrown a rope which falls to the
ground a few paces from Aghone. With practice, one can do a thing quickly,
but I can say that the latter did not take very long to tie Mervyn’s feet to the |
end of the rope. The rhinoceros had learned of what was going to happen.
Covered with sweat, it appeared breathing heavily at the corner of the Rue
Castiglione. It did not even have the satisfaction of joining the fight. The
individual, who was examining the area from the top of the column, loaded
his revolver, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The commodore, who
had been begging in the streets since the day when what he believed to be
his son’s madness had begun, and his mother, who was known as the
daughter of snow because of her extreme pallor, pushed forward and used
their chests to protect the rhinoceros. Useless care. The bullet punched
through its hide like a drill; one would have thought, with all the appearance
of logic, that death would inevitably occur. But we knew that this pachyderm
had been imbued with the substance of the Lord. He withdrew, grieving. If it
were not fully proven that he was often too good to one of his creatures, I
would pity the man on the column! The latter, with a flick of the wrist, pulled
back towards him the rope, which was now weighted as described. Put out of
the perpendicular, its oscillations swing Mervyn, head down. His hands
suddenly snatch up a long garland of immortelles that join the two
consecutive corners of the base, against which he beats his forehead. He
carries into the air with him that which was not a fixed point. After piling at
his feet a large part of the rope in the shape of superposed ellipses, so that
Mervyn remains suspended halfway up the bronze obelisk, the escaped
convict with his right hand moves the youth into an accelerated movement of
uniform rotation, in a plane parallel to the column’s axis, and with his left
hand gathers up the winding coils of rope which lie at his feet. The sling
whistles through space, the body of Mervyn follows it everywhere, always
kept away from the centre by centrifugal force, always keeping a mobile and
equidistant position in an aerial circumference independent of matter. The
civilized savage gradually lets out the rope to the far end, which he holds with
a firm metacarpal bone, which has a strong but inaccurate resemblance to a
steel bar. He starts to run around the balustrade, holding on to the rail with
one hand. This manoeuvre has the effect of changing the original plane of the
rope’s revolution, and increases its already considerable tensile force.
Thereafter it turns majestically on a horizontal plane, after having passed
successively and imperceptibly through several oblique planes. The right
angle formed by the column and the vegetal string has equal sides! The
renegade’s arm and the murderous instrument merge in linear unity, like the
atomistic elements of a ray of light penetrating a dark room. The theorems of
mechanics allow me to speak thus; alas! we know that one force added to
another force generates a resultant consisting of the sum of the two original
forces! Who is to say that the linear rope would not already have broken but
for the strength of the athlete, but for good quality of the hemp? The corsair
with the golden hair at the same time suddenly arrests his own momentum by
opening his hand and letting go of the rope. The recoil of this operation,
totally opposite to the previous ones, causes the balustrade’s joints to creak.
Mervyn, followed by the rope, is like a comet trailing behind it its blazing tail.
The iron ring of the running knot, gleaming in the sunlight, itself helps to
complete the illusion. In the course of his parabola, the condemned youth
cleaves the atmosphere right to the left bank, passes it by virtue of the
driving force which I suppose to be infinite, and his body hits the dome of the
Pantheon, while the rope partly coils around the upper wall of the immense
cupola. On its spherical and convex surface, which resembles an orange only
in shape, one can at any hour of the day see a dried skeleton hanging there.
When the wind moves it, they say that the students of the Latin Quarter,
fearing a similar fate, say a short prayer: these are insignificant rumours
which one is not obliged to believe, and are only fit for frightening little
children. It holds in its clenched hands a sort of large ribbon of old yellow
flowers. The distance must be taken into account, and nobody, despite the
evidence of good eyesight, can categorically state that they really are those
immortelles I have spoken of, and which were snatched from a grandiose
pedestal during a one-sided struggle that took place near the Nouvel Opera.
It is nevertheless true that the hangings draped in the shape of a crescent
moon do not receive any further expression of their definitive symmetry from
a quaternary number: go and see for yourself if you do not believe me.

Salvador Dali, Signed Portrait, Valerie Brown photo, 1976

The French, which follows:

VII

Le corsaire aux cheveux d’or, a recu la reponse de Mervyn. Il suit dans

 cette page singuliere la trace des troubles intellectuels de celui qui

l’ecrivit, abandonne aux faibles forces de sa propres suggestion.

Celui-ci aurait beaucoup mieux fait de consulter ses parents, avant de

repondre a l’amitie de l’inconnu. Aucun benefice ne resultera pour lui

de se meler, comme principal acteur, a cette equivoque intrigue. Mais,

enfin, il l’a voulu. A l’heure indiquee, Mervyn, de la porte de sa

maison, est alle droit devant lui, en suivant le boulevard Sebastopol,

jusqu’a la fontaine Saint-Michel. Il prend le quai des Grands-Augustins

et traverse le quai Conti; au moment ou il passe sur le quai Malaquais,

il voit marcher sur le quai du Louvre, parallelement a sa propre

direction, un individu, porteur d’un sac sous le bras, et qui parait

l’examiner avec attention. Les vapeurs du matin se sont dissipees.

Les deux passants debouchent en meme temps de chaque cote du pont du

Carrousel. Quoiqu’ils ne se fussent jamais vus, ils se reconnurent!

Vrai, c’etait touchant de voir ces deux etres, separes par l’age,

rapprocher leurs ames par la grandeur des sentiments. Du moins, c’eut

ete l’opinion de ceux qui se seraient arretes devant ce spectacle, que

plus d’un, meme avec un esprit mathematique, aurait trouve emouvant.

Mervyn, le visage en pleurs, reflechissait qu’il rencontrait, pour ainsi

dire a l’entree de la vie, un soutien precieux dans les futures

adversites. Soyez persuade que l’autre ne disait rien. Voici ce qu’il

fit: il deplia le sac qu’il portait, degagea l’ouverture, et, saisissant

l’adolescent par la tete, il fit passer le corps entier dans l’enveloppe

de toile. Il noua, avec son mouchoir, l’extremite qui servait

d’introduction. Comme Mervyn poussait des cris aigus, il enleva le sac,

ainsi qu’un paquet de linges, et en frappa, a plusieurs reprises, le

parapet du pont. Alors, le patient, s’etant apercu du craquement de ses

os, se tut. Scene unique, qu’aucun romancier ne retrouvera! Un boucher

passait, assis sur la viande de sa charrette. Un individu court a lui,

l’engage a s’arreter, et lui dit: “Voici un chien, enferme dans ce sac;

il a la gale: abattez-le au plus vite.” L’interpelle se montre

complaisant. L’interrupteur, en s’eloignant, apercoit une jeune fille en

haillons qui lui tend la main. Jusqu’ou va donc le comble de l’audace et

de l’impiete? Il lui donne l’aumone! Dites-moi si vous voulez que je

vous introduise, quelques heures plus tard, a la porte d’un abattoir

recule. Le boucher est revenu, et a dit a ses camarades, en jetant a

terre un fardeau: “Depechons-nous de tuer ce chien galeux.” Ils sont

quatre, et chacun saisit le marteau accoutume. Et, cependant, ils

hesitaient, parce que le sac remuait avec force.” Quelle emotion

s’empare de moi?” cria l’un d’eux en abaissant lentement son bras.

“Ce chien pousse, comme un enfant, des gemissements de douleur, dit

un autre; on dirait qu’il comprend le sort qui l’attend.” “C’est leur

habitude, repondit un troisieme; meme quand il ne sont pas malades,

comme c’est le cas ici, il suffit que leur maitre reste quelques jours

absent du logis, pour qu’ils se mettent a faire entendre des hurlements

qui, veritablement, sont penibles a supporter.” “Arretez!… arretez!…

cria le quatrieme, avant que tous les bras se fussent leves en cadence

pour frapper resolument, cette fois, sur le sac. Arretez, vous dis-je;

il y a ici un fait qui nous echappe. Qui vous dit que cette toile

renferme un chien? Je veux m’en assurer.” Alors, malgre les railleries

de ses compagnons, il denoua le paquet et en retira l’un apres l’autre

les membres de Mervyn! Il etait presque etouffe par la gene de cette

position. Il s’evanouit en revoyant la lumiere. Quelques moments apres,

il donna des signes indubitables d’existence. Le sauveur dit: “Apprenez,

une autre fois, a mettre de la prudence jusque dans votre metier. Vous

avez failli remarquer, par vous-memes, qu’il ne sert de rien de

pratiquer l’inobservance de cette loi.” Les bouchers s’enfuirent.

Mervyn, le coeur serre et plein de pressentiments funestes, rentre chez

soi et s’enferme dans sa chambre. Ai-je besoin d’insister sur cette

strophe? Eh! qui n’en deplorera les evenements consommes! Attendons la

fin pour porter un jugement encore plus severe. Le denoument va se

precipiter; et, dans ces sortes de recits, ou une passion, de quelque

genre qu’elle soit, etant donnee, celle-ci ne craint aucun obstacle pour

se frayer un passage, il n’y a pas lieu de delayer dans un godet la

gomme laque de quatre cents pages banales. Ce qui peut etre dit dans une

demi-douzaine de strophes, il faut le dire, et puis se taire.

VIII

Pour construire mecaniquement la cervelle d’un conte somnifere, il ne

suffit pas de dissequer des betises et abrutir puissamment a doses

renouvelees l’intelligence du lecteur, de maniere a rendre ses facultes

paralytiques pour le reste de sa vie, par la loi infaillible de la

fatigue; il faut, en outre, avec du bon fluide magnetique, le mettre

ingenieusement dans l’impossibilite somnambulique de se mouvoir, en le

forcant a obscurcir ses yeux contre son naturel par la fixite des

votres. Je veux dire, afin de ne pas me faire mieux comprendre, mais

seulement pour developper ma pensee qui interesse et agace en meme temps

par une harmonie des plus penetrantes, que je ne crois pas qu’il soit

necessaire, pour arriver au but que l’on se propose, d’inventer une

poesie tout a fait en dehors de la marche ordinaire de la nature, et

dont le souffle pernicieux semble bouleverser meme les verites absolues;

mais, amener un pareil resultat (conforme, du reste, aux regles de

l’esthetique, si l’on y reflechit bien), cela n’est pas aussi facile

qu’on le pense: voila ce que je voulais dire. C’est pourquoi je ferai

tous mes efforts pour y parvenir! Si la mort arrete la maigreur

fantastique des deux bras longs de mes epaules, employes a l’ecrasement

lugubre de mon gypse litteraire, je veux au moins que le lecteur en

deuil puisse se dire: “Il faut lui rendre justice. Il m’a beaucoup

cretinise. Que n’aurait-t-il pas fait, s’il eut pu vivre davantage!

c’est le meilleur professeur d’hypnotisme que je connaisse!” On gravera

ces quelques mots touchants sur le marbre de ma tombe, et mes manes

seront satisfaits!–Je continue! Il y avait une queue de poisson qui

remuait au fond d’un trou, a cote d’une botte eculee. Il n’etait pas

naturel de se demander: “Ou est le poisson? Je ne vois que la queue qui

remue.” Car, puisque, precisement, on avouait implicitement ne pas

apercevoir le poisson, c’est qu’en realite il n’y etait pas. La pluie

avait laisse quelques gouttes d’eau au fond de cet entonnoir, creuse

dans le sable. Quant a la botte eculee, quelques-uns ont pense depuis

qu’elle provenait de quelque abandon volontaire. Le crabe tourteau, par

la puissance divine, devait renaitre de ses atomes resolus. Il tira du

puits la queue de poisson et lui promit de la rattacher a son corps

perdu, si elle annoncait au Createur l’impuissance de son mandataire a

dominer les vagues en fureur de mer maldororienne. Il lui preta deux

ailes d’albatros, et la queue de poisson prit son essor. Mais elle

s’envola vers la demeure du renegat, pour lui raconter ce qui se passait

et trahir le crabe tourteau. Celui-ci devina le projet de l’espion, et,

avant que le troisieme jour fut parvenu a sa fin, il perca la queue du

poisson d’une fleche envenimee. Le gosier de l’espion poussa une faible

exclamation, qui rendit le dernier soupir avant de toucher la terre.

Alors, une poutre seculaire, placee sur le comble d’un chateau, se

releva de toute sa hauteur, en bondissant sur elle-meme, et demanda

vengeance a grands cris. Mais le Tout-Puissant, change en rhinoceros,

lui apprit que cette mort etait meritee. La poutre s’apaisa, alla se

placer au fond du manoir, reprit sa position horizontale, et rappela les

araignees effarouchees, afin qu’elles continuassent, comme par le passe,

a tisser leur toile a ses coins. L’homme aux levres de soufre apprit la

faiblesse de son alliee; c’est pourquoi, il commanda au fou couronne de

bruler la poutre et de la reduire en cendres. Aghone executa cet ordre

severe. “Puisque, d’apres vous, le moment est venu, s’ecria-t-il, j’ai

ete reprendre l’anneau que j’avais enterre sous la pierre, et je l’ai

attache a un des bouts du cable. Voici le paquet.” Et il presenta une

corde epaisse, enroulee sur elle-meme, de soixante metres de longueur.

Son maitre lui demanda ce que faisaient les quatorze poignards. Il

repondit qu’ils restaient fideles et se tenaient prets a tout evenement,

si c’etait necessaire. Le forcat inclina sa tete en signe de

satisfaction. Il montra de la surprise, et meme de l’inquietude, quand

Aghone ajouta qu’il avait vu un coq fendre avec son bec un candelabre en

deux, plonger tour a tour le regard dans chacune des parties, et

s’ecrier, en battant ses ailes d’un mouvement frenetique: “Il n’y a pas

si loin qu’on le pense depuis la rue de la Paix jusqu’a la place du

Pantheon. Bientot, on en verra la preuve lamentable!” Le crabe tourteau,

monte sur un cheval fougueux, courait a toute bride vers la direction de

l’ecueil, le temoin du lancement du baton par un bras tatoue, l’asile du

premier jour de sa descente sur la terre. Une caravane de pelerins etait

en marche pour visiter cet endroit, desormais consacre par une mort

auguste. Il esperait l’atteindre, pour lui demander des secours

pressants contre la trame qui se preparait, et dont il avait eu

connaissance. Vous verrez quelques lignes plus loin, a l’aide de mon

silence glacial, qu’il n’arriva pas a temps, pour leur raconter ce que

lui avait rapporte un chiffonnier, cache derriere l’echafaudage voisin

d’une maison en construction, le jour ou le pont du Carrousel, encore

empreint de l’humide rosee de la nuit, apercut avec horreur l’horizon de

sa pensee s’elargir confusement en cercles concentriques, a l’apparition

matinale du rythmyque petrissage d’un sac icosaedre, contre son parapet

calcaire! Avant qu’il stimule leur compassion, par le souvenir de cet

episode, ils feront bien de detruire en eux la semence de l’espoir …

Pour rompre votre paresse, mettez en usage les ressources d’une bonne

volonte, marchez a cote de moi et ne perdez pas de vue ce fou, la tete

surmontee d’un vase de nuit, qui pousse, devant lui, la main armee d’un

baton, celui que vous auriez de la peine a reconnaitre, si je ne prenais

soin de vous avertir, et de rappeler a votre oreille le mot qui se

prononce Mervyn. Comme il est change! Les mains liees derriere le dos,

il marche devant lui, comme s’il allait a l’echafaud, et, cependant, il

n’est coupable d’aucun forfait. Ils sont arrives dans l’enceinte

circulaire de la place Vendome. Sur l’entablement de la colonne massive,

appuye contre la balustrade carree, a plus de cinquante metres de

hauteur du sol, un homme a lance et deroule un cable, qui tombe jusqu’a

terre, a quelques pas d’Aghone. Avec de l’habitude, on fait vite une

chose; mais, je puis dire que celui-ci n’employa pas beaucoup de temps

pour attacher les pieds de Mervyn a l’extremite de la corde. Le

rhinoceros avait appris ce qui allait arriver. Couvert de sueur, il

apparut haletant, au coin de la rue Castiglione. Il n’eut meme pas la

satisfaction d’entreprendre le combat. L’individu, qui examinait les

alentours du haut de la colonne, arma son revolver, visa avec soin et

pressa la detente. Le commodore qui mendiait par les rues depuis le jour

ou avait commence ce qu’il croyait etre la folie de son fils et la mere,

qu’on avait appelee _la fille de neige_, a cause de son extreme paleur,

porterent en avant leur poitrine pour proteger le rhinoceros. Inutile

soin. La balle troua sa peau, comme une vrille; l’on aurait pu croire,

avec une apparence de logique, que la mort devait infailliblement

apparaitre. Mais nous savions que, dans ce pachyderme, s’etait

introduite la substance du Seigneur. Il se retira avec chagrin. S’il

n’etait pas bien prouve qu’il ne fut trop bon pour une de ses creatures,

je plaindrais l’homme de la colonne! Celui-ci, d’un coup sec de poignet,

ramene a soi la corde ainsi lestee. Placee hors de la normale, ses

oscillations balancent Mervyn, dont la tete regarde le bas. Il saisit

vivement, avec ses mains, une longue guirlande d’immortelles, qui reunit

deux angles consecutifs de la base, contre laquelle il cogne son front.

Il emporte avec lui, dans les airs, ce qui n’etait pas un point fixe.

Apres avoir amoncele a ses pieds, sous forme d’ellipses superposees, une

grande partie du cable, de maniere que Mervyn reste suspendu a moitie

hauteur de l’obelisque de bronze, le forcat evade fait prendre, de la

main droite, a l’adolescent, un mouvement accelere de rotation uniforme,

dans un plan parallele de l’axe de la colonne, et ramasse, de la main

gauche, les enroulements serpentins du cordage, qui gisent a ses pieds.

La fronde siffle dans l’espace; le corps de Mervyn la suit partout,

toujours eloigne du centre par la force centrifuge, toujours gardant sa

position mobile et equidistante, dans une circonference aerienne,

independante de la matiere. Le sauvage civilise lache peu a peu, jusqu’a

l’autre bout, qu’il retient avec un metacarpe ferme, ce qui ressemble a

tort a une barre d’acier. Il se met a courir autour de la balustrade, en

se tenant a la rampe par une main. Cette manoeuvre a pour effet de

changer le plan primitif de la revolution du cable, et d’augmenter sa

force de tension, deja si considerable. Dorenavant, il tourne

majestueusement dans un plan horizontal, apres avoir successivement

passe, par une marche insensible, a travers plusieurs plans obliques.

L’angle droit forme par la colonne et le fil vegetal a ses cotes egaux!

Le bras du renegat et l’instrument meurtrier sont confondus dans l’unite

lineaire, comme les elements atomistiques d’un rayon de lumiere

penetrant dans la chambre noire. Les theoremes de la mecanique me

permettent de parler ainsi; helas! on sait qu’une force, ajoutee a une

autre force, engendre une resultante composee des deux forces

primitives! Qui oserait pretendre que le cordage lineaire se serait deja

rompu, sans la vigueur de l’athlete, sans la bonne qualite du chanvre?

Le corsaire au cheveux d’or, brusquement et en meme temps, arrete sa

vitesse acquise, ouvre la main et lache le cable. Le contre-coup de

cette operation, si contraire aux precedentes, fait craquer la

balustrade dans ses joints. Mervyn, suivi de la corde, ressemble a une

comete trainant apres elle sa queue flamboyante. L’anneau de fer du

noeud coulant, miroitant aux rayons du soleil, engage a completer

soi-meme l’illusion. Dans le parcours de sa parabole, le damne a mort

fend l’atmosphere jusqu’a la rive gauche, la depasse en vertu de la

force d’impulsion que je suppose infinie, et son corps va frapper le

dome du Pantheon, tandis que la corde etreint, en partie, de ses replis,

la paroi superieure de l’immense coupole. C’est sur sa superficie

spherique et convexe, qui ne ressemble a une orange que pour la forme,

qu’on voit a toute heure du jour, un squelette desseche, reste suspendu.

Quand le vent le balance, l’on raconte que les etudiants du quartier

Latin, dans la crainte d’un pareil sort, font une courte priere: ce sont

des bruits insignifiants auxquels on n’est point tenu de croire, et

propres seulement a faire peur aux petits enfants. Il tient entre ses

mains crispees, comme un grand ruban de vieilles fleurs jaunes. Il

faut tenir compte de la distance, et nul ne peut affirmer, malgre

l’attestation de sa bonne vue, que ce soient la, reellement, ces

immortelles dont je vous ai parle, et qu’une lutte inegale, engagee pres

du nouvel Opera, vit detacher d’un piedestal grandiose. Il n’en est pas

moins vrai que les draperies en forme de croissant de lune n’y recoivent

plus l’expression de leur symetrie definitive dans le nombre quaternaire:

allez-y voir vous-meme, si vous ne voulez pas me croire.

About the Translator:

R J Dent is a poet, novelist, translator, blogger, essayist, short story writer, researcher and Creative Writing tutor. His latest book is an English translation of Le Comte de Lautréamont’s surrealist classic, The Songs of Maldoror, published in 2011 by the University of Chicago Press/Solar Books. Prior to this he published a novel, Myth (2006), a poetry collection, Moonstone Silhouettes (2009), and an English translation of Charles Baudelaire’s decadent classic,The Flowers of Evil (2009).  He is currently writing a book about Emily Dickinson and studying for a PhD at Sussex University.

Details of R J Dent’s work can be found at www.rjdent.com

An excerpt from The Songs of Maldoror
by Le Comte de Lautréamont
Translated by R. J. Dent (© R J Dent 2010)
with Illustrations by Salvador Dalí
and a new Foreword by Paul Éluard
ISBN: 9780982046487
Publisher: Solar Books
Format: Paperback, 264 pages, 22 half-tones, 5 1/2 x 8 ½
Price: $16.95

R J Dent’s translation of Le Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror is now available from:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=bio&isbn=9780982046487

from:

http://www.solarbooks.org/solar-titles/maldoror.html

and from:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Maldoror-Solar-Books-Nocturnal/dp/0982046480/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289143240&sr=1-1

Fragile Trifles

Don’t disturb the dream’s last fragment
or blame the morning’s entrance.

If you’re humming or you’re hungry,
don’t rush to conclusions.

Don’t assume the bird sitting in sand
is wounded.

We’re all misguided at dawn,
not sure we’re still alive;

the flowers that bloomed in the spring, tra la,
dead without a half-life,

are more certain to return than you are.
And even if you’ve only seen

the whale’s arc or the pelican’s dive,
it’s enough to scissor your fingers like Spock

giving the Kabbalists’ blessing.
Really.  It’s enough.

About the Poet

Florence Weinberger is the author of four published collections of poetry, The Invisible Telling Its Shape, Breathing Like a Jew, Carnal Fragrance, and Sacred Graffiti (Tebot Bach, 2010).  Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Another Chicago Magazine, Antietam Review and Spillway.

—__________________________________________

thePHOTOGRAPHYspot

©2010 chuckhauptphoto

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got as a young photographer was perspective. Shoot high, shoot low. How about shooting deep into the clusters of tiny white flowers of Queen Anne’s Lace?

Chuck Haupt is photo editor of Ragazine. You can visit his blog at www.chuckhaupt.com/blog.

For thePHOTOGRAPHYspot submissions, please see guidelines at ragazine.cc/submissions/

By Way of Explanation

Because I’ve never had Madeleines
with lime-blossom tea,
because my memory is voluntary,
because I am the third person,
because we never stopped
speaking in italics,
because I wanted to make you apologize.

Because I cannot pace myself,
because I am watching your ghost
walk around the kitchen,
because I painted my toenails
blue this morning,
because James said “The trail
of the human serpent is over everything,”
because I buried its skin
underneath the floorboards.

Because lightning was the accidental
origin of life,
because I turn around
when I shouldn’t,
because I am a vowel
caught in the middle,
because you cannot say it,
because of the moment’s prime meridian,
happily defunct.

Because you are impossible,
because I had no paper,
because I wrote my biography on a lampshade,
because the idea had windows
disproportionate to its doors,
because we tried to warn each other,
because there are poems everywhere and they are still
only poems.

About the Poet

Katie Hogan is a senior at Binghamton University, majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and Global Culture. After graduating, she hopes to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry.

THE AMERICAN JITTERBUG

The step goes like this in six-eight rhythm:  right-toe-
Heel, left-toe-heel, both toes, right heel, and twirl and twirl.
This is the American Jitterbug.  To feel
The swing of it, bend your knees slightly, like a girl

Curtsying, but don’t curtsy all the way.  There is
No royalty in this dance straight out of Harlem ,
Only slick hipsters and the saxophone soul-kissed.
The boys throw girls in the air, gather their harems

By flinging women skyward, catching them ably,
Then tossing them between their thighs American-
Style.  The American Jitterbug – Oh, baby,
Let your backbone slip.  Improvise.  Don’t make a plan

Or box-step your way around Roseland’s big wood floor
Like some European stuck in neutral.  Vroom-vroom
It like the motors we invented.  Just score
Like a Yankee passing third in the Bronx .  Ballroom

Is too pinched for this continent, too tea-and-punch.
Tango sacrifices all for love, not moolah,
So it is not our dance.  Merengue shakes too much,
But we are fearless optimists. The lambada

Is bull.  This is the American Jitterbug.
We dance like there were no steps, and yet we keep time.
Cut the waltz schmaltz.  Cut the etiquette.  Cut a rug.
Tell the truth by spinning.  Your strut croons the end rhyme.

About the Poet:

Anne Babson  is recipient of  the Columbia Journal Prize and the Artisan Journal contest. Her work has appeared in The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Ilya’s Honey, Bridges, Barrow Street, Connecticut Review, and elsewhere. She was included in an anthology of the best contemporary American poets, Seeds of Fire: Poetry from the Other US (2008, Smokestack Books).  She sits on the Literary Committee of the National Arts Club.

Stumbling Around in the Light

I can tell by the way it wobbles
across the lawn, mid-afternoon,
something isn’t right.

Fat Head the cat knows it too
and keeps back, pretending to lick a paw
each time the opossum stumbles.

When it collapses, I step outside
as far as the side porch then stop short,
should it jump up rabid and biting.

Maybe it is just looking for water
or a patch of tall grass
to die in, I tell myself.

But what if the kids next door
frighten it by accident?
There is a shovel nearby in the shed.

But wouldn’t it be best to let it be?
Besides, it might be harder to get rid of
dead than alive.

Maybe it isn’t dying at all,
just sleepwalking,
stumbling around in the light

looking for a place safe and shaded
or at least as far away from daytime atrocities
as possible. Maybe it isn’t any more deadly

or closer to death than I am. Maybe I
have been playing opossum all my life,
pretending, even now, to be alive.

About the poet:

John Smith has published poetry in the New York Quarterly, The Literary Review, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, New Jersey Audubon, and elsewhere. He lives in Frenchtown, N.J.

Mental Additions

What we would do
with an extra room -

entertain weekend guests
focus on our crafts
make room for your office
exercise magazine quality
organization

close the door
before company arrives
the stacks of get-to-laters
in denial

*

Two Perspectives

we vacuum
tuck away magazines, books, remote controls
fluff pillows
light candles
dust surfaces
add music
hide laundry, toiletries, all signs of the living

they see
cat-scratched couch corners
paint-chipped kitchen ceiling
seventies bathroom tiles
a double chin in a family photograph
streaks lingering from a quick window clean

*

You know you want to look

His:
toothbrush leaned against recycled take-out cup
deodorant barely capped
hairbrush buried alongside mishmash of odds
and ends
disposable razor, still good
for tomorrow

Hers:
toothbrush
toothpaste
floss
fine-tooth comb
detangling gel
sea salt scrub
moisturizer
gloss
misty body spritzer
nail file
polish

About the Poet:

Lori A. May is the author of four books, including stains: early poems. Her work has appeared in The Writer, Rattle, Two Review and Writer’s Digest, among others, as well as anthologies including Van Gogh’s Ear. More information is available online at www.loriamay.com.

Avocado

My crotch feels warm before I know to hold it in. The wet blankets will soon be colder than they were last night.  The snores of those who sleep are muffled by heavy fabric. I get out of bed and I don’t mind the jeans and jacket so much anymore, how denim clings to bed sheets, how nylon slides away. I am hungry and the aroma of the avocado makes me almost myopic. This morning, though, the avocado is harder than I remembered it. Spoons are always dull. The cold of the kitchen walls stretches the skin so that I feel like the tips of my fingers are coming undone. The knuckles tighten and I think of my youngish aunt who moves with a walker. Maybe the body dies not all at once but in pieces. The tortilla for the avocado taco blackens over the stove burner but my fingers don’t burn when I touch the part that smolders. I place my hands close to the flame – blue with an orange center – and soon the scent of burnt hair, fine like ice crystals, fills the space before me. I no longer think of the avocado exposed to the air, blackening.  My hands ache something new like my next birthday, but I don’t cry and I wish my father could see me. Later that morning something on TV will mention an overnight freeze, damage to the citrus orchards my father tended to in the night. Within a year he will be out of work, will leave far in search of orchards green instead of ice burnt. I will promise to him that I will no longer wet my bed. I won’t cry. Instead, I will hand him an avocado and tell him to cut it open on a warm day.

Sorrow

© Steve Bromberg

There is a place beyond this place

The world has
extended its carpet
so you may walk upon it,
it’s warm arms  reach
out to embrace you,
lure you toward
the floating island,
the outback of cloud.

With your foot extending
from your rolled-up pants,
you touch the edge
of the known.

Water and sky.
Feet and sand.Cloud and hill.
Hand and rock.
In the end
everything is one.

In some small way
you meet this fact each day.
when you breathe the air
rotating from India,
taste rain imported
from the Andaman Sea,
and look out over
the tempting beautiful
nothing of everything
in that place beyond.

The Introduction of If and Then

When Black met White, there was a definite|
moment of tension, and Black lit a cigarette
and strutted around the courtyard several times
until it realized how much better White
made it feel about itself,  how it helped with self esteem.

Either was asked what it thought about Or
and it took awhile, almost a week,
but Either finally admitted it needed Or
when it came to a fork in the road
or when the first snows came rushing in
breathlessly, bleaching the lawn
and there were decisions to be made about the cattle.

If was tentative when it first encountered Then
but If finally realized it needed Then
to answer those big dark questions that come in the night,
to lie beside it, to make the biggest promises,
and, of course, for science projects.

The Purpose of Money

1.
So much of the time it is like pollen
floating into, out of a life,
away from a city,
toward the coast,
back to the mountains,
up to the moon,
planting a flag there and leaving behind
expensive junk.
And the thing is
it doesn’t care, money,
where it lands or evacuates,
it has no pulse,
no four chambered heart.

There are those who have wondered
if it is mammalian or reptilian.
To them we must point out:
It does not bear its young live.

2.
Once, in a small city in Spain,
a woman wanted to help her brother.
He needed work,
to get it he would need boots
and to get boots for him
she would need a maid’s uniform,
pink and aproned and starched clean.
To get that she would need
twenty seven pesetas.
She had nobody to go to for them
but that same brother,
the one who needed work.
3.
The world has broken open for the lack of it,
it has collapsed and peeled back
and then, attaining it, empired and colonialized
gone war mongering, invented new diseases.
Despite this clear pattern, the begging
and brutalizing, we continue
to  wrap our days in it,
then regurgitate at the end,
we swallow it and spit
and repeat cycle,
repeat cycle
our wallets filling and emptying
like the womb of an orthodox woman,
as many times as is humanly possible
until the yearning,
becomes a fabric we sleep in,
it becomes flannel,
or it becomes silk,
so much a part of us we can no longer tell
where our skin ends and our money begins.

4.
A man who won the lottery last week
decided to give it all to a library
near his home so they could buy
computers that the people there
could use to search for work.
He was interviewed by a newspaper reporter
whom he told he knew it, instinctively,
what he would do,
it was like it had been stitched
onto his bones at birth:
the purpose of money.

Supply and Demand

1.

When you are tired
of the vagaries of highways,
the vanities of buildings,
jetstreams that criss-cross
the cerulean sky

When you weary
of the politics of hurricanes,
the beached whale’s
solemn eye

The waltzing of the presidents,
the parry of governments,
the closed gates
of the shoelace factory

Remember this:
it is just a matter of give and take,
yearn and satisfy, want and have.
It is simple, really, the world.

There is a rule.
The patter of rain desires the sea.
The smallest wave
desires the beach.

Northerners want bananas,
Southerners want steel.
And all of us want larger hard drives
to hold the names of all things.

This is the message of the economist.
Something as clever
as Velcro, or bubble wrap or a new kind of tea
strainer can bring the world
and its minions  right to your door.

II.

In the country of potatoes
there are no leeks:

In the country of leeks
there are no potatoes.

Nobody in either country
can make soup.
The economist explains
to his daughter.

He has a smoker’s cough,
it sounds like a sputtering tractor,
his skin has grown tallow
and he often belches.

But he still knows the truth
about things: the two countries,
of potato and leek.
There is need
and there is have.
“Value is determined only by need.”

“You could own a diamond mine
and starve,” he explains,
“You could own an oil well
and die of thirst.”

“But what,” asks the daughter,
“if you own a small carrot and chicken farm
next to a lake, an apple orchard
and a field of wild strawberries
and then some horses come
and they carry you to the top of a hill
nearby where there are orange trees
and peanut bushes?

You would have
everything you need and want.”

The economist
finally clears his throat,
nodding, looking into
the placid fresh brown eyes
of the girl. She is the supply truck
of his heart. The answer to
his questions.
And he, the answer of hers.

About the poet:

Elizabeth Cohen is the author of two books of poetry – Impossible Furniture and Mother Love- and a memoir, The Family on Beartown Road. She teaches poetry at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh.

About the Photographer:
Steve Bromberg is a freelance photographer on one of the greatest adventures of his life. He is currently working in China. Home base for the next few months is Wuxi in Jiangsu Provence — a stone’s throw from the north to Shanghai.

The photo-inspired poem is one of several collaborative efforts under way between Cohen and Bromberg.