Weep no more, little love-notes, your shoebox homes are safe from Dewey's decimals.
I have found a prettier way to index.Seo Jungju, translated by Clare You
Prayer I
Now I’m
Like an utterly empty vessel or
An utterly vacant field
Oh Lord,—Knowing not how to call you—
Leave the harsh storm
A bit longer in me or
A few butterflies or
Make me a half-filled celadon of water
Whatever pleases you
Now I’m
Like an empty vessel
Once full of blossoms with scents
American Wedding
BY ESSEX HEMPHILL
In america,
I place my ring
on your cock
where it belongs.
No horsemen
bearing terror,
no soldiers of doom
will swoop in
and sweep us apart.
They’re too busy
looting the land
to watch us.
They don’t know
we need each other
critically.
They expect us to call in sick,
watch television all night,
die by our own hands.
They don’t know
we are becoming powerful.
Every time we kiss
we confirm the new world coming.
What the rose whispers
before blooming
I vow to you.
I give you my heart,
a safe house.
I give you promises other than
milk, honey, liberty.
I assume you will always
be a free man with a dream.
In america,
place your ring
on my cock
where it belongs.
Long may we live
to free this dream.
Essex Hemphill, “American Wedding” from Ceremonies. Copyright © 1992 by Essex Hemphill. Reprinted by permission of The Frances Goldin Literary Agency.
Source: Ceremonies (Cleis Press, 1992)
NOTHING THAT IS COMPLETE BREATHES.
I have a new mantra on my desktop… took this photo at the pumpkin patch in the Hamptons last year. The quote is from an incredible little book I randomly picked up off the shelf at V Spot. It’s called Voices, a James Merrill translation of Antonio Porchia’s aphorisms, which as far as I can tell may be more rightly called poetry. I’d never heard of him (and when I dragged my Dad to V Spot for a smoky uncomfortable brunch and look-see at the little chapbook, found out Dad hadn’t either), but apparently he’s kind of a big deal. Born in Italy, lived in Buenos Aires from the early 1910’s, i.e. my Grandfather’s childhood years. In the book’s introduction there is some question as to whether Porchia was a potter or a carpenter, possibly he was both. Certainly a lot of the aphorisms take clay as their central image, so I’m leaning in that direction. Anyway Porchia was a bit of an autodidact, with not so much exposure to the contemporary literary world, but its luminaries were very taken with him. They tried to prove he was untainted by au courant influences, and marveled at Argentina’s homegrown savant from afar. In the lunchtime quiet at V Spot, so many of the quotes spoke to me, I just had to write them down, and in the time it took me to finish my California burger I had a two-page scroll full of Porchia…
Letter
—————-
I had wanted to begin
by telling you I saw another
tanager below the pond
where I had sat for half an hour
feeding on wild berries
in the little clearing near the pines
that hide the lower field
and then looked up from red berries
to the quick red bird brilliant
in the light. I have seen
more yarrow and swaying
Queen Anne’s lace around the woods
as hawkweed and nightshade
wither and drop seed. A new blue flower,
sweet, yellow-stamened, ovary inferior,
has recently sprung up.
__________________But I had the odd
feeling, walking to the house
to write this down, that I had left
the birds and flowers in the field,
rooted or feeding. They are not in my
head, are not now on this page.
It was very strange to me, but I think
their loss was your absence. I wanted
to be walking up with Leif, the sun
behind us skipping off the pond,
the windy maple sheltering the house,
and find you there and say
here! a new blue flower (ovary inferior)
and busy Leif and Kris with naming
in a world I love. You even have
my field guide. It’s you I love.
I have believed so long
in the magic of names and poems.
I hadn’t thought them bodiless
at all. Tall Buttercup. Wild Vetch.
“Often I am permitted to return
to a meadow.” It all seemed real to me
last week. Words. You are the body
of my world, root and flower, the
brightness and surprise of birds.
I miss you, love. Tell Leif
you’re the names of things.
///////////////////
ee cummings
///////////////////
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neatening each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
—before leaving my room
i turn, and(stooping
through the morning)kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.
Watching the video brings to mind my in-college realization (after lapsing out in Modern Poetry class, certain I was going insane when Prof Leibovitz started to describe/analyze/exegisize Questions of Travel seeing as I did not recognize anything of Bishop in his words; after accidentally on purpose missing the rest of our class sessions that semester, and passive-aggressively in a fit of self-preservation decided to read only Marianne Moore and EB //collected correspondences, biographies, poetries, interviews essays etc.// even though the semester final would be a sweep of the modern canon; after all this, writing an essay about The Moose and having to deliver it by cab to my prof’s apartment (an event of which all I remember is the building had a lovely wrought iron door like in Buenos Aires)), the shock of clarity the revelation when I receiving pencilled comments suggesting the need to account and explain EB’s queer constructions for the ear and eye. Which I could not do! because I had not realized and still cannot see how they are strange! to me her writing just seems normal, and the rest of us affected.
Funny she is known for writing about traumatic experiences, loss and the importance of memory, how hard it is to be an individuated being; also for her perfectionistic revision and “unusual and interesting way of looking at the world” oh and that at first she was thought of as a miniaturist.
And I was with you again
But we were going in different directions.
We met and started to go in the same direction.
Then once more our paths crossed and we met again
Under the believable blue of a traffic light where we first met
The village coconut who had forbidden our meetings
But now we meet all the time.
“You go this way and I’ll go that,
And when we head back we will meet
And declare our love”
This is the foundation of the emotions.
The sky is our parade ground and our glove.
The fish in the bay are the slaves of their time and not of art
But somehow our emotions can become their emotions.
This is the beginning of Realism. This is the end of the ideal.
This is the degree of front and back.
THE TALE THE SHEPHERDS TELL THE SHEEP that some will rise above shorn clouds of fleece and some will feel their bodies break but most will pass through this into sweet clover where all all will be sheltered safe until the holy shearing don’t think about the days to come sweet meat think of my arms trust me.
Correspondence:
when I have sad thoughts
even the moon’s face
embroidered on my sleeve
is wet with tears.
(our two frail vials, pierced / drink each other up)
