Ernesto Cardenal . . .

Lights

                       That top secret flight at night.
We might have been shot down. The night calm and clear.
The sky teeming, swarming with stars. The Milky Way
so bright behind the thick pane of the window,
     a sparkling white mass in the dark night
with its millions of evolutionary and revolutionary changes.
We were going over the water to avoid Somoza's air force,
                    but close to the coast.
The small plane flying low, and flying slowly.
First the lights of Rivas, taken and retaken by Sandanists,
            now almost in Sandanist hands.
Then other lights: Granada, in the hands of the Guard
                                                (it would be attacked that night).
Masaya, completely liberated. So many fell there.
Farther out a bright glow: Managua. Site of so many battles.
(The Bunker.) Still the stronghold of the Guard.
Diriamba, liberated. Jinotepe, fighting it out. So much heroism
glitters in those lights. Montelimar--the pilot shows us--:
the tyrant's estate near the sea. Puerto Somoza, next to it.
The Milky Way above, and the lights of Nicaragua's revolution.
Out there, in the north, I think I see Sandino's campfire.
            ("That light is Sandino.")
The stars above us, and the smallness of this land
but also its importance, these
tiny lights of men. I think:  everything is light.
The planet comes from the sun.
                       "Let there be light."
There is also darkness.
There are strange reflections--I don't know where they come
      from--on the clear surface of the windows.
A red glow: the tail lights of the plane.
And reflections on the calm sea: they must be stars.
I look at the light from my cigarette--it also comes from the sun,
         from a star.
And the outline of a great ship. The U.S. aircraft carrier
sent to patrol the Pacific coast?
A big light on our right startles us. A jet attacking?
No. The moon coming out, a half-moon, so peaceful, lit by the sun.
      The danger of flying on such a clear night.
And suddenly the radio. Jumbled words filling the small plane.
The Guard? The pilot says: "It's our side."
                     They're on our wavelengths.
Now we're close to León, the territory liberated.
A burning reddish-orange light, like the red-hot tip of a cigar:
           Corinto:
the powerful lights of the docks flickering on the sea.
And now at last the beach at Poneloya, and the plane is coming in 
           to land,
the stream of foam along the coast gleaming in the moonlight.
     The plane coming down. A smell of insecticide.
And Sergio tells me: "The smell of Nicaragua!"
It's the most dangerous moment, enemy aircraft
                     may be waiting for us over this airport.
And the airport lights at last.
We've landed. From out of the dark come olive-green-clad comrades
to greet us with hugs.
We feel their warm bodies, that also come from the sun,
that also are light.
                     This revolution is fighting the darkness.
It is daybreak on July 18th. And the beginning
          of all that was about to come.

1979

trans. Jonathan Cohen

fr. Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems
[New York: New Directions, 1980]

John Ashbery . . .

The Serious Doll

The kinds of things are more important than the
Individual thing, though the specific is supremely
Interesting. Right? As each particular
Goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel one may

Justifiably ask: Where does this come from?
Whither goes my concern? What you are wearing
Has vanished along with other concepts.
They are lined up by the factory balcony railing
Against blue sky with some clumsy white paper clouds
Pasted on it. Where does the east meet the west?
At sunset there is a choice of two smiles: discreet or serious.
In this best of all possible worlds, that is enough.


fr. Houseboat Days
[Penguin Books, 1977] 

RIP James Tate

The Blue Booby

The blue booby lives

on the bare rocks

of Galápagos

and fears nothing.

It is a simple life:

they live on fish,

and there are few predators.

Also, the males do not

make fools of themselves

chasing after the young

ladies. Rather,

they gather the blue

objects of the world

and construct from them

a nest—an occasional

Gaulois package,

a string of beads,

a piece of cloth from

a sailor’s suit. This

replaces the need for

dazzling plumage;

in fact, in the past

fifty million years

the male has grown

considerably duller,

nor can he sing well.

The female, though,

asks little of him—

the blue satisfies her

completely, has

a magical effect

on her. When she returns

from her day of

gossip and shopping,

she sees he has found her

a new shred of blue foil:

for this she rewards him

with her dark body,

the stars turn slowly

in the blue foil beside them

like the eyes of a mild savior.

fr. Selected Poems
[Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1991]

Paul Sampson

A Middle Manager, Newly Dead, Learns That Tibetan Buddhism Is True

Bardo, they call this. Jail is more like it.
"Don't worry," they tell me. "You'll be out in no time."
No time! Little joke there, eternity humor.
Very funny. "No time." Cute. I get it.

So this is the deal: you keep doing it over,
no telling how often. "Get it right, get it perfect,
you can stop, no more troubles." It doesn't sound likely.

And doesn't seem fair. Each "Life," as they call it,
you start over, pig-ignorant, misleading road map,
expected to learn what you missed on the last trip,
in spite of distractions, incessant annoyance,
orders from everyone, dozens of voices,
all claiming authority, threatening punishments,
always enough to keep you off balance.

Then on short notice, it's pack up, it's over.
The return trip is usually painful and scary,
and back in your cubicle at Bardo's Head Office,
you desk has been filling with karmic account books
that need straightening out. "So how was it?" they ask you.
"I scarcely remember. Too short, that's for damn sure,"
and you get down to business, reporting to demons
(this much seems familiar) until the next journey.

The end of it all? The retirement program?
"Nirvana," they tell you. No details to speak of;
"The End of Desire." It had better be worth it.

--Paul Sampson

fr. Dirge in a Resolutely Major Key [Unicorn Press, 2006]

Rosmarie Waldrop . . .

The Grandeur of the Mountains

Could the grandeur of the mountains be inhaled by a village girl? How fraught the bond between warm-blooded animals. The governing classes had no intention of loosening their grip. The more snow piled up undenied on the snowbank the more shadows of clouds moved across "household slavery." What does it mean to put a word between quotation marks? Thanks to the discoveries of Darwin the structural plan of every species is laid down in two strands. How wonderfully the air is laid down on shadows. She had left her widowed mother to discover the grandeur of the mountains. Above a certain solitude no trees grow. Snowballing denoted making few concessions to women. What is passed from generation to generation is a structure of detail like the lacing of boots. Whereas inverted commas take their distance from language. Such as the accessories of light, heat, electricity, laced boots. Soon she was pregnant. The more rapidly commas were snowballing the harder the resolve to maintain symbols of order. For proper understanding use distance from language. Sometimes slight errors occur above a certain solitude. The sense has been shifted, but not cut into mouthfuls. This air, then, those we call animals suck in by mouthfuls. In October, there was a severe storm among the symbols of order. This is what is known as genetic mutation. Solitude engulfed the accessories. The vast, shifting grandeur of the mountains. Sexual tolerance was confined within commas, suspended within its history, weighted and therefore thought. The old woman knew her daughter was near her time. Air is decomposed in the lungs and therefore thought. But genes are grouped into larger units called history. The word enclosed within quotation marks is waiting for its moment of revenge. The governing classes did not confine covert storms, but fidelity to one's wife remained a warm-blooded option. No smoke rising in the public realm. Part of what they inhale is distributed with the arterial blood (warm). The broken door banged backwards and forwards on its hinges. Only in exceptional cases does a mutation enable an organism to adapt more profitably to solitude. She wrapped her daughter in a quilt. The clergy showed themselves unprepared to overturn the institution of "household slavery." He who puts a word in quotation marks can no longer rid himself of it. --Rosmarie Waldrop fr. CrossConnect [Vol. 2, issue 3; Feb. 2007]

Miroslav Holub

The Minotaur's Thoughts on Poetry

Certainly this thing exists. For
on dark nights when, unseen,
I walk through the snail-like windings of the street
the sound of my own roar reaches me
from a great distance.

Yes. This thing exits. For surely
even cicadas were once of gigantic stature
and today you can find mammoths' nests
under a pebble. The earth, of course,
is lighter than it once was.

Besides, evolution is nothing but
a long string of false steps;
and it may happen that a severed head
will sing.

And it's not due, as many believe, to
the invention of words. Blood
in the corners of the mouth is substantially
more ancient and the cores of the rocky planets
are heated by the grinding of teeth.

Certainly this thing exists.
Because
a thousand bulls want to be
human.
And vice versa.

--fr. Intensive Care (Oberlin College Press, 1996)
tr. Ewald Osers

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Halvard Johnson

Alice Fulton

Trouble in Mind

A murdered body's shallow grave.
A ditch that shelters sniper fire.
Who says memory's a friend? Who'd grieve
to find their sleep unrifled, furred

by a select amnesia? Because I thought
recalling all turned all to sense,
I filed my life in pieces, all that
debris changed to meaning, all scenes to signs.

As soldiers dismember weapons to check
on their perfection, I broke the said
and done. Blame's the bullet you catch
between your teeth or worse, inside.

And if some angel dust or peace
pill, busy bee or killer weed
could turn the past to has-been, a poison
shot let bygones be, who wouldn't

try it? The stuff of Agent Orange,
which says the world's no matter, gutting
every ghost within its range.
A jungle of nothing. A forgetting.


fr. Powers of Congress (1990)

David Shapiro

House


In extreme pain
Q meets T
They walk into a house
And later a double-exposure is sent to S

Somewhere behind the curtains
Uncertainty is laughing
As you ask the yes or no questions
I am moving towards you by analogy


fr. David Shapiro, New and Selected Poems (1965-2006)
     [Woodstock & New York: Woodstock Overlook Press, 2007]

Paavo Haavikko

fr. The Bowmen (1955)

Statecraft, sagacity
Gone to the mountain council
My lord has planted his banner
We must not go there

And clearly
Alone I am nothing
Come read it now --

Returning to Worms
I take my nail and hammer

The hand touches sky
The foot presses down on the ground
Henceforth may nothing divorce
The hand from the sky
The feet from the ground

On the mountains forever
Winds water and fire
Scorched earth
The elements bringing forth bloodshed
Rebellion war
Plague evil sudden death

Statecraft, sagacity
Reappear
And also the men in black
Honour cries out for violence
Sagacity's foresight improves
When glasses are reddened by flames

We have not come here
To look into wisdom
But into our hearts
We have all of us come here
Not to display sagacity
But the willingness
To make sacrifices.

--tr. Anselm Hollo

Tomas Tranströmer

Oklahoma

1

The train stopped far to the south. There was snow in New York.
Here you could go about in shirtsleeves the whole night.
But no one was out. Only the cars
flew past in their glare, flying saucers.

2

'We battlefields who are proud
of our many dead . . .'
said a voice while I wakened.

The man behind the counter said:
'I'm not trying to sell it,
I'm not trying to sell it,
I only want you to look at it.'
And he showed the Indians' axes.

The boy said:
'I know I have a prejudice,
I don't want to be left with it sir.
What do you think of us?'

3

This motel is a strange shell. With a hired car
(a huge white servant outside the door)
almost without memory and without ploy
at last I can settle on to my point of balance.

--fr. Sounding and Tracks (1966)
tr. Robin Fulton

Gerardo Deniz (RIP 1934-2014)

Classified Ads 

SEIZE THIS OPPORTUNITY. 1962 Sonnet. Kept in excellent condition.
Quite heterotonic. Philosophical. Savvy. Chute remarquable. Afford-
able. Information 5 36 22 82 afternoons only.

SECTION of Marxist-Leninist epopee. 123 infecto-contagious hexame-
ters. Allusions to Ezekiel (ossa arida) and to Eisenstein's Potempkin. 6
58 79 99. Insist insist.

PARTING for the depths of pains, giving away paradigmatic poetic
panoply. Desk goose feathers lachrymatories works essential references
dictionary rhyme etc. Callejón del Sapo number 13. Ms. Georgina
Leontina de Avellaneda y Ampala shows all.

MADRIGAL dedicated to a pair of hands easily adjustable to peduncles.
Pressing. Chastised. Intense lyricism. Only used twice in 400 years. If
she doesn't give in dinner expenses reimbursed. 5 36 22 82 Mr. Cetina.

--Gerardo Deniz

tr. Mónica de la Torre 

fr. Gerardo Deniz: Poemas/Poems [Mexico City: Ditoria / Lost Roads Publishers, 2000]

Ivan V. Lalić

Travellers in Winter

On our return we saw fire in the snow,
A brown bloodstain on the bandage of a midnight just 
     healed
At the foot of the hills;
                                          and up there, on the slopes,
The unforgotten foam of last year's sea was returning,
In the sign of a new innocence.
                                                          And there was
The lightning flight of an angel through a crack
In the low sky, and our footprints, a murmur,
But no star;
                       we understood this was the nadir,
Frozen mud, the bottom of the well
Where our footfall mingled with despair
And the smoke of voices--
Then the rattling of a chain on the windlass above us,
Maybe just the wind coming down from the hills,
Feeling its way, blind as Oedipus--
And waiting, the final form of hope.

--Ivan V. Lalić
tr. Francis R. Jones

David Huerta

Ayotzinapa

Mordemos la sombra

Y en la sombra

Aparecen los muertos

Como luces y frutos

Como vasos de sangre

Como piedras de abismo

Como ramas y frondas

De dulces vísceras

Los muertos tienen manos

Empapadas de angustia

Y gestos inclinados

En el sudario del viento

Los muertos llevan consigo

Un dolor insaciable

Esto es el país de las fosas

Señoras y señores

Este es el país de los aullidos

Este es el país de los niños en llamas

Este es el país de las mujeres martirizadas

Este es el país que ayer apenas existía

Y ahora no se sabe dónde quedó

Estamos perdidos entre bocanadas

De azufre maldito

Y fogatas arrasadoras

Estamos con los ojos abiertos

Y los ojos los tenemos llenos

De cristales punzantes

Estamos tratando de dar

Nuestras manos de vivos

A los muertos y a los desaparecidos

Pero se alejan y nos abandonan

Con un gesto de infinita lejanía

El pan se quema

Los rostros se queman arrancados

De la vida y no hay manos

Ni hay rostros

Ni hay país

Solamente hay una vibración

Tupida de lágrimas

Un largo grito

Donde nos hemos confundido

Los vivos y los muertos

Quien esto lea debe saber

Que fue lanzado al mar de humo

De las ciudades

Como una señal del espíritu roto

Quien esto lea debe saber también

Que a pesar de todo

Los muertos no se han ido

Ni los han hecho desaparecer

Que la magia de los muertos

Está en el amanecer y en la cuchara

En el pie y en los maizales

En los dibujos y en el río

Demos a esta magia

La plata templada

De la brisa

Entreguemos a los muertos

A nuestros muertos jóvenes

El pan del cielo

La espiga de las aguas

El esplendor de toda tristeza

La blancura de nuestra condena

El olvido del mundo

Y la memoria quebrantada

De todos los vivos

Ahora mejor callarse

Hermanos

Y abrir las manos y la mente

Para poder recoger del suelo maldito

Los corazones despedazados

De todos los que son

Y de todos

Los que han sido

2 de noviembre de 2014. Oaxaca

Barbara Guest

Twilight Polka Dots

The lake was filled with distinguished fish purchased
at much expense in their prime. It was a curious lake, half salt,
wishing to set a tone of solitude edged with poetry.
This was a conscious body aware of shelves and wandering
rootlings, duty suggested it provide a scenic atmosphere
of content, a solicitude for the brooding emotions.

It despised the fish who enriched the waters. Fish with 
their lithesome bodies, and their disagreeable concern
with feeding. They disturbed the water which preferred
the cultivated echoes of a hunting horn. Inside a
mercantile heart the lake dwelt on boning and deboning,
skin and sharpened eyes, a ritual search through
dependable deposits for slimier luxuries. The surface
presented an appeal to meditation and surcease.

Situated below the mountain, surrounded by aged trees,
the lake offered a picture appealing both to young and
mature romance. At last it was the visual choice of two
figures who in the fixity of their shared glance were
admired by the lake. Tactfully they ignored the lacustrine
fish, their gaze faltered lightly on the lapping
margins, their thoughts flew elsewhere, even beyond the
loop of her twisted hair and the accent of his poised tie-pin.

The scene supplied them with theatre, it was an evening
performance and the water understood and strained its
source for bugling echoes and silvered laments. The
couple referred to the lake without speech, by the turn
of a head, a hand waved, they placed a dignity upon the lake
brow causing an undercurrent of physical pleasure to
shake the water.

Until the letter fell. Torn into fragments the man tossed
it on the water, and the wind spilled the paper forward,
the cypress bent, the mountain sent a glacial flake.
Fish leapt. Polka dots now stippled the
twilight water and a superannuated gleam like a browned
autumnal stalk followed the couple where they shied in
the lake marsh grass like two eels who were caught.


fr. The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest
[Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2008]