Incurable

Dorothy Parker

And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned; The calmer, I, to see it true That ways of love are never new— The love that sets you daft and dazed Is every love that ever blazed; The happier, I, to fathom this: A kiss is every other kiss. The reckless vow, the lovely name, When Helen walked, were spoke the same; The weighted breast, the grinding woe, When Phaon fled, were ever so. Oh, it is sure as it is sad That any lad is every lad, And what’s a girl, to dare implore Her dear be hers forevermore? Though he be tried and he be bold, And swearing death should he be cold, He’ll run the path the others went.… But you, my sweet, are different.

Still Life

One of mine

I am a still life since you left me. (You said) our love was just a fling. I am a two-dimensional rendering of our three dimensional thing.

I am a still life in a time frame with no future but the past since you cast aside our canvas, then threw back your head and laughed.

I am a prisoner of the memories painted in chiaroscuro hues of good sex and fine wines and movies but where the hell are you?

I am a Caravaggio painting; darkened corners and decay. When you left with your pallets and brushes you took my life away.

I am still alive since you left me but I might was well be dead. Without you there’s no living; I am a still life like I said.

© Damian 22 ix 95 For Jerry

Somehow

Dorothy Chan

You visit me in a dream after passing,             after I’ve been awaiting you for weeks, because Chinese belief teaches us our             loved ones will appear when we’re asleep. It’s real when I enter the hotel restaurant             in the middle of nowhere town I live in, as the Midwest architecture transforms             into Kowloon at evening time. We eat bird’s nest soup, and I remember the time             my father ordered me this four-hundred- year-old delicacy at Hong Kong airport.             Out comes the Peking duck, and I ask you: “Why did it take you so long?” You answer:             “I arrived once you were strong and ready.” 

When My Mother's Portrait Sings

Sebastian H Paramo

When she prays in the living room. When her son leaves the house. When she puts her head down, chanting rosary after rosary. When she gifts him sweets, her pozole, anything for her firstborn. When she signs the Father, the Son, & the Holy Ghost—she wants nothing When she wants nothing but steamed salmon—vegetable medleys in February. When food reminds her of Acapulco with her sisters; she says, she always loved the water. When was the last time we took her to the beach? When this wasn’t quite the sleepy nursery rhyme she sang to her son. When her son doesn’t understand there are no fairy tales. When there is no one but God waiting When we both listen to el Padre say only God can judge When at night, the family dog barks at the door & the Mother shushes her like a daughter.

Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)

James Baldwin

In a strange house, a strange bed in a strange town, a very strange me is waiting for you.

Now it is very early in the morning. The silence is loud. The baby is walking about with his foaming bottle, making strange sounds and deciding, after all, to be my friend.

You arrive tonight.

How dull time is! How empty—and yet, since I am sitting here, lying here, walking up and down here, waiting, I see that time's cruel ability to make one wait is time's reality.

I see your hair which I call red. I lie here in this bed.

Someone teased me once, a friend of ours— saying that I saw your hair red because I was not thinking of the hair on your head.

Someone also told me, a long time ago: my father said to me, It is a terrible thing, son, to fall into the hands of the living God. Now, I know what he was saying. I could not have seen red before finding myself in this strange, this waiting bed. Nor had my naked eye suggested that colour was created by the light falling, now, on me, in this strange bed, waiting where no one has ever rested!

The streets, I observe, are wintry. It feels like snow. Starlings circle in the sky, conspiring, together, and alone, unspeakable journeys into and out of the light.

I know I will see you tonight. And snow may fall enough to freeze our tongues and scald our eyes. We may never be found again!

Just as the birds above our heads circling are singing, knowing that, in what lies before them, the always unknown passage, wind, water, air, the failing light the failing night the blinding sun they must get the journey done. Listen. They have wings and voices are making choices are using what they have. They are aware that, on long journeys, each bears the other, whirring, stirring love occurring in the middle of the terrifying air.

The Host of the Air

W. B. Yeats

O’Driscoll drove with a song, The wild duck and the drake, From the tall and the tufted weeds Of the drear Hart Lake.

And he saw how the weeds grew dark At the coming of night tide, And he dreamed of the long dim hair Of Bridget his bride.

He heard while he sang and dreamed A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay.

And he saw young men and young girls Who danced on a level place And Bridget his bride among them, With a sad and a gay face.

The dancers crowded about him, And many a sweet thing said, And a young man brought him red wine And a young girl white bread.

But Bridget drew him by the sleeve, Away from the merry bands, To old men playing at cards With a twinkling of ancient hands.

The bread and the wine had a doom, For these were the host of the air; He sat and played in a dream Of her long dim hair.

He played with the merry old men, And thought not of evil chance, Until one bore Bridget his bride Away from the merry dance.

He bore her away in his arms, The handsomest young man there, And his neck and his breast and his arms Were drowned in her long dim hair.

O’Driscoll scattered the cards And out of his dream awoke: Old men and young men and young girls Were gone like drifting smoke;

But he heard high up in the air A piper piping away, And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay.

A Sonnet

Jos Charles

                                                                      I sat in windows                                                                     doorways, closets                                                                   prostrate upon the                                                                   bed, or walking for                                                            hours, naming the flow                                                        ers I could. When misery                                                  came and went in 1995, mira                                     culously love took his place. Against                                my better judgment, I, occasionally, in vited misery back in. He’d look at me brilliantly like one staring at the sun and recline on his golden door. He’d leave inevitably for another, another more but things were evident. I liked how he’d watch me pile wood on the floor.

Inscriptions, 16: "The lamps are burning in the synagogue"

Charles Reznikoff

“The lamps are burning in the synagogue,

in the houses of study, in dark alleys. . .”

This should be the place.

This is the way

the guide-book describes it. Excuse me, sir,

can you tell me

where Eli lives, Eli the katzev—

slaughterer of cattle and poultry?

One of my ancestors.

Reb Haskel? Reb Shimin? My grandfathers.

This is the discipline that withstood the siege

of every Jew;

these are the prayer-shawls that have proved

stronger than armour.

Let us begin then humbly. Not by asking:

Who is This you pray to? Name Him;

define Him. For the answer is:

we do not name Him.

Once out of a savage fear, perhaps;

now out of knowledge—of our ignorance.

Begin then humbly. Not by asking:

shall I live forever?

Hear again the dear dead greeting me gladly

as they used to

when we were all among the living?

For the answer is:

if you think we differ from all His other creatures,

say only if you like with the Pharisees, our teachers,

those who do not believe in an eternal life

will not have it.

In the morning I arise and match again

my plans against my cash.

I wonder now if the long morning-prayers

were an utter waste of an hour

weighing, as they do, hopes and anguish,

and sending the believer out into the street

with the sweet taste of the prayers on his lips.

How good to stop

and look out upon eternity a while;

and daily

in the morning, afternoon, and evening

be at ease in Zion.

Maybe

Miłosz Biedrzycki

Dry twigs, thorns, maybe old cardboard: kindling. Today the sky spreading from the east was ostentatiously empty. I imagined that there were Mexican cactuses scattered all along the road. But there were no cactuses. I didn’t even have a striking surface to light a fire, should the need arise. Perhaps I love you more than I like you, I don’t quite know how you can like the sharp and pointy parts that cut me to ribbons from within. Or put another way: I like and respect you, but I’d have to survive some spiritual slip of the tongue before I’d trust you again. Which I obviously go with, since I’ll trust you now and forevermore. So much of this dust has gotten into the air filter: it was supposed to be off-white, like the wall, but it’s ashen, like the skin of an elephant keeping to itself, wholly in the pounding of a hidden sea.

Abela in Dubrovnik

Terry Collett

Abela sips her wine wipes her mouth looks around

love it here Dubrovnik she utters

I sip beer turn a page of my book poetry D. Thomas Welsh poet

lovely wine why don't you try the wine?

I like beer I reply

why do you have to read? she mutters

why do you have to talk?

she cold stares sips more wine

cigarette? I suggest

get your own she replies

I sip beer close the book

nice place this beer's good too and that girl that waitress she's good too

what's so good about her? what's she got that I've not?

I don't know not seen her undress yet

I light up a hand rolled cigarette

those two guys she tells me at the bar the other night are gay guys

I inhale hold the smoke exhale it

you think so?

it stands out a wide mile

you liked him the dark one his dark eyes wavy hair

she closes her eyelids zips her lips

what makes you think they're gay?

I saw them lip kissing she whispers

we lip kiss we hand kiss we thigh kiss we breast kiss

THAT'S ENOUGH she bellows

I think they're nice fellows I tell her not my scene but nice guys

Abela drains her wine glares at me

another wine? I ask her cigarette?

I want gin

I signal a waiter one gin please I tell him and whiskey

he goes off

she lights up a French smoke

about the girl the waitress just a joke I tell her

(but the girl the waitress occupies a small room in my mind)

how days go she utters how time flies.

Messina

David Keplinger

Take Messina: you'd be impressed and even sad that I remember. The crag of mottled faces the rocks made like old pensioners in back pages of a magazine. The light as bright as dentistry.

In Messina you're alone‚ available‚ the youth in your face still rising. As if there'll be no end to youth and solitude‚ the sea below Messina answers: solitude is beauty‚ even after you

get cold‚ go back to the hotel‚ and light begins to change‚ to fade‚ at each stage resonant. Messina? I have never been. You told the story quickly when I loved you; now here it is

exactly as you left it‚ its old stone faces alternately old and then like children‚ elated by a fallen tooth.

Our Garden Had No Pomegranate Tree

Şükrü Erbaş

There was the remnant of a mill Coy ears of wheat, prayer, expectation Wind-stripped fingers of water Sweltering skies, boredom, hard times A man bawling within himself Children not knowing where they’d grow up A woman, her skirts a summer garden

There was piteous poverty Smudged nights, blurry mornings Exhaustion blooming in the sun Words withering in moonlight A plain where horses held conversation with dogs A sky not seen until the stars came out Houses melting in a copper pot

There was the quickening of fairy tales A little radio filling with distance Grape-laden carts, apple sins, wet dreams Smoking an endless cigarette in the cemetery Quince-colored fluff on the window next door Girls encircling their mother with the bangs of their hair Loneliness brought by distant relatives

My darling, my spinfinch, my bulbul Your eyes were two enormous skies You asked while we were making love why I was crying Our own garden had no pomegranate tree When our bodies unstitched you had no mouth Desires that begin at our eyebrows would end at our eyelashes I wasn’t crying

I was loving my past, loving your future…

Prague

Stephen Dobyns

The day I learned my wife was dying

I told myself if anyone said, Well, she had

a good life, I’d punch him in the nose.

How much life represents a good life?

Maybe a hundred years, which would

give us nearly forty more to visit Oslo

and take the train to Vladivostok,

learn German to read Thomas Mann

in the original. Even more baseball games,

more days at the beach and the baking

of more walnut cakes for family birthdays.

How much time is enough time? How much

is needed for all these unspent kisses,

those slow walks along cobbled streets?

The Faithful Swallow

Thomas Hardy

When summer shone Its sweetest on An August day, ‘Here evermore,’ I said, ‘I'll stay; Not go away To another shore As fickle they!’

December came: 'Twas not the same! I did not know Fidelity Would serve me so. Frost, hunger, snow; And now, ah me, Too late to go!

Road Trip

Kurt Brown

The new road runs along the old road. I can see it still imprinted on the earth, not twenty feet away as I drive west past silos and farmsteads, fruit stands and hogs. Once in Kansas, I stood in a field and watched the stars on the horizon revolve around my ankles. People are always moving, even those standing still because the world keeps changing around them, changing them. When will the cities meet? When will they spread until there is a single city—avenue to avenue, coast to coast? What we call "the country" is an undeveloped area by the side of the road. There is no "country," there is no "road." It's one big National Park, no longer the wilderness it was. But the old world exists under the present world the way an original painting exists under a newer one. The animals know: their ancient, invisible trails cross and re-cross our own like scars that have healed long ago. Their country is not our country but another place altogether. Anything of importance there comes out of the sky. In Amarillo the wind tries to erase everything, even the future. It swoops down to scrape the desert clean as a scapula. Here among bones and bleached arroyos the sun leans through my window at dawn to let me know I'm not going anywhere. There's no more anywhere to go.

Still Life

One of mine

I am a still life since you left me. (You said) our love was just a fling. I am a two-dimensional rendering of our three dimensional thing.

I am a still life in a time frame with no future but the past since you cast aside our canvas, then threw back your head and laughed.

I am a prisoner of the memories painted in chiaroscuro hues of good sex and fine wines and movies but where the hell are you?

I am a Caravaggio painting; darkened corners and decay. When you left with your palettes and brushes you took my life away.

I am still alive since you left me but I might was well be dead. Without you there’s no living; I am a still life like I said.

© Damian 22 ix 95 For Jerry

Beer for two in Böckler Park, Berlin

Lucy Burnett

You asked me for a love poem and I gave you a text message and a handful of imaginary paprika crisps. You told me this was insufficient to the moment and I agreed. It was 3.08pm. I wrapped a single curl around my index finger – smiled. The thing about love is the very thinginess of it. You must agree! A ‘now I’ve got you now I never won’t’.

I held the umbrella to your sunshine the way you hold it to my rain: tell me one thing that I don’t know about you? We drank the beer, confusing the order in which our books would’ve liked the afternoon to turn around. If I were you and you were me – I wondered – might me marry you?