Day 30 – Last Dance

This is the last dance.

Andrew might ask Natasha–

Or that scoundrel Anatole–

While his sister Helene, the beautiful Helene,

Whose neckline is eternally plunging

To the delight of her guests and Tolstoy’s dismay,

Looks on.

Pierre, befuddled and at loss, would not think to ask

As he is clumsy on the dance floor as everywhere else

And Natasha is a gay and graceful sprite,

A charm dropped exquisitely on the parquet floor

That grows before our wondering eyes

First into a bashful young girl

And then a darling, daring, perfect young lady.

 

This is the last dance–a mazurka for the night–a waltz.

I put down the book and turn out the light.

We kiss. I turn, reach down and hold you tight.

Shall we linger through the night

For this is the last dance

Of lips, of hands, of mouths and tongues.

Shall we ride out the night,

My love, shall we, until the moon wearies from watching us

And the breezes are abashed by the sun?

Shall we run?

Day 29 – Psalm 26

We were suggested to incorporate several languages in our poem; but I’ve done that already in several posts.  Instead, I’m translating Psalm 26, which is quite powerful in the original Hebrew, direct, and full of plays on words; in English translations, the directness and vitality are usually lost.  The King James Version remains truest to the original–but the effect is lugubrious.  I’ve tried to be as simple as possible.  The original is ascribed to David, but the content of the text makes this unlikely.

With thanks, to Jonathan.

Judge me, o God,

For I, with no intention of wrong, went

And trusted in God.

I will not stumble.

Examine me, God, and test me,

Try my heart and mind

For I see your mercy before me

And I walk about in your truth.

I did not sit with the worthless

Or come among deceivers;

I hated the bad

And would not sit with the wicked.

I will wash my hands clean

And circle around your altar, O God,

To voice aloud a thanks

And relate all your wonders.

O God, I love the house of your residence

And the place where your glory dwells.

Do not gather sinners about my soul

And about my life bloody men

Who have dealt in lewdness

And whose right hands are heavy with bribery.

And I, unblemished, will go.

Redeem and pardon me.

My foot stands on solid ground.

Among many, in song, I will bless my Lord.

Day 28 – White

We were suggested to pick a color.

White.

White wedding dress we burned

And watched ash wavering in the air.

White walls

Aged here and there,

Chipping

Like our lives.

White linens

Some no longer white

Pinked in wash. Blued

Stained–where we made love.

White sheet. White duvet

Where my lover lies.

He is black; and I am white.

Yet when I place a hand on the sheet

It is the color of ochre flesh.

What is white? What is black?

His skin is brown; his shadows dark;

His teeth are white like mine.

What is white? What is black?

 

Black crows against a white sky

Presage death, did you know?

White is everywhere.

White sky in midday, the sun a flame.

Coal crumbles, burns, and dies

White.

White is the color of death

Of subjugation

Defeat at last.

Ice. Ice.

There is no snow to comfort me

No balming breezes.

Even the morning sky is pierced with white.

Day 27 – The Day After

Namu amita bul     Unter deinen weissen Sternen

The Lag BaOmer night is gone;

The fires are all out.

Flames have turned to coal

And coal to dust.

In a day’s burning sun,

Vanished are the high stars and white, big moon

Of a bright night sky.    

No. No Bodhisattva meets me at my door,

No charred potatoes remain,

Food for wandering dogs,

Ash to rise in the day’s hot breeze.

 

Du allein kennst meinem Schmerz.

Sieh das Feuer, das ich trage

Und es brennt in mir das Herz.

You alone know my pain

See the fire that I carry

That inflames my heart.

Namu amita bul my love.

So sit with me in the hot air

While dogs of war snap in the sky above,

And we, we alone, know each other’s pain.

Ramblings

Poems come in a flash at 5 a.m.

But on dry days, days when I am not awakened,

No spark strikes, my brain does not ignite

Can lists suffice?

Can poems capture the everyday?

Lady’s leap and spin when I grab the leash?

Oh the quandary of words–

3 masters in gray master robes genuflecting before the image of the deceased–

The boundary, slipshod confusion of my now native tongues.

What tongue to speak?

What tongue to keep silent?

What tongue to taste the chocolate in my mouth?

Day 25 – The Dance

I was knocked on the head by the Messiah,

Smacked in the noggin–to be more precise–today

By a yellow flag riding on a bicycle

In the holy city of Hadera on the way to the mall.

No trumpets sounded, just an expletive in English

Lost in the chaos of a noisy street.

 

And, in the evening, as we chanted, namu amita  bul,

Namu amita bul, I saw an image of a man

Dancing to our chant. How can I portray the dance?

For the man kept time to our chant.

Ran beat on the moktak, a hollowed-out

Gourd, and three men sang in Israel

In Korean, and the image in my mind–

For he was in my mind–

Bent and turned, turned and bent

And stretched out his arm–

Mind-sway, mind-turn with the grace of this

Song and chant, in a room empty of all

But song and chant, three men, and a dancing

Man.

Day 24 – After an Absence, Dz. T.

I took a break for a number of days and rested my mind. This morning, around 5:00, I awoke with the beginning of a poem that kept me up until I completed it.

Why? I do not know.

My brother’s eyes were black

And body strong.

He could go through fire, my brother,

Like Tamerlane, he said,

Riding across the steppes of America.

You had to see him making the bombs

Putting them together one by one,

Teaching me how to hold a gun,

To be a man.

 

Are there angels?

I sometimes thought my brother was god on earth,

A handsome, fierce god, a righteous one

So strong, he might crush me with a glance,

Embrace me and squeeze me like an orange,

Pierce me by the arrows of his eyes.

His life was pure, no fat upon his body

Untouched by flaming waters,

His spirit conquered all.

He could walk through conflagrations.

He made the people weep.

 

Have you wrestled with a god?

Have you touched the skin of might?

Had his arms wrapped about you so you could not move?

Felt the warmth of his breath on your face

As he lifted you off the ground like a child–a doll–

And known that love, that ecstasy?

Nothing was impenetrable for him.

Nothing could not be done.

Have you watched him build the bombs?

Have you watched him laugh?

His joy was like the cosmos.

His spirit was my king.

 

He was a soldier of God, he said,

But I knew he was a god.

 

And I killed him.

Day 20 – Thunder

The thunders roll on and on…

I could believe tonight the gods are

Tossing blocks of dice or

Clapping hard with brutal whips;

Or a soldier, as in Shakespeare’s plays,

Would come onstage from the wings

And enumerate portents of evil and doom to come:

A cow gave birth to a two-headed calf;

The milk in Derbyshire turned sour overnight

And not–like Egyptians of old–one house was spared.

But, perhaps, the heavens are but sad tonight

And the sounds are howls of grief?

I stand on this ancient plot of ground

And do not need the skies to tell me

What I already know: the night is black

And does not presage a welcoming dawn.

Day 19 – Cezanne

I’ve been sick and therefore lax in fulfilling my poetic duties 🙂

I dreamed an apple by Cezanne

Stroked in red, an impasto green, a dab of blue.

I bit and, as if in slow motion on TV,

A spray of tiny bubbles arching out

Like crystals to burst upon a palate fine

And flood the tiny chapel of my mouth

With tints unsullied by the pigment black,

Just blues and red and ochres fine

To mingle rainbows on my tongue.

Day 18 – Lady

The recommendation was a poem that began and ended with the same word.  I thought I would begin with my dog Lady and end with her name, but I cannot say I really rule my poetry.  Anyone who writes knows that you never really know how this will end.  Sometimes the ends are forced, and sometimes they come; and the best often surprise me.

This is dedicated to Zen Master Wu Bong who passed away on the 17th of April.

Lady jaunts up the steps, and I follow

White bushy tail wagging

Brown patch on her rump, body white

With hair as soft as silk to my fingers,

And catch her paws at the first landing

On my blue-jeaned thigh just below the knees

We pause together, as we always pause,

My fingers stroke under her chin and on her brown forehead.

I ask, “Okay?” as if she might answer,

And wonder at the marvel of the moment,

Of love as simple as paws upon a leg,

The silent swish of a tail, and ebony eyes fixed

Upon her master who is as much her child.

Now – the moment held—the moment on the stairs

Neither before or after, my fingers graze her hair—

Give me a dog’s grace of being there.