Friday, April 24, 2009
Sin Nombre
Untitled
The precision of dawn, a brow of white stone
the color of autonomy, the price of your hand
the price of any gaze to be shot stark from nothing
strings tuning themselves to willowy trumpets
wringing feathers with fingers, the snapping of necks
along the aluminum lines of your expert mouth
hung open
a lesson, a line, the number of faces beneath your own
billowing girdle, lattice of flesh, steady thrumming of
light beneath that plate, beneath that glowing disc
you will find the soul
Untitled (Unfinished Sestina)
My uncle signed his name in night
hued ink, a song to sing, he’d say
the face you assume when your
bones have turned to wayward dust
when the cries of the loon can no
longer be heard, the resigned day
rolling from its shoulders, the day
that is swallowed by night,
a cloak of sidereal blue no
closer to Him than, say,
these petals of pale coral dust,
these spokes of time your
ancestors quietly wheeled, your
heavily shadowed frame by day
adorned in wool, tawdry dust
rising from cracked lips as falling night
deals a blow to the disc they say
burns for Him and not one man; no
shepherd, beggar, virgin, no
ascetic lying prostrate while your
candle burns without purpose, while you say,
and make to repeat, ‘this and every day
serves as the venue for His arrival, this night
draws the curtains on His stage’ but dust
borne of fervor and stately conviction, dust
stacked upon your broken back, your beaten breasts,
is taken with the wind as feathers of kings
Bartholomew Dougherty, 2008/9
The precision of dawn, a brow of white stone
the color of autonomy, the price of your hand
the price of any gaze to be shot stark from nothing
strings tuning themselves to willowy trumpets
wringing feathers with fingers, the snapping of necks
along the aluminum lines of your expert mouth
hung open
a lesson, a line, the number of faces beneath your own
billowing girdle, lattice of flesh, steady thrumming of
light beneath that plate, beneath that glowing disc
you will find the soul
Untitled (Unfinished Sestina)
My uncle signed his name in night
hued ink, a song to sing, he’d say
the face you assume when your
bones have turned to wayward dust
when the cries of the loon can no
longer be heard, the resigned day
rolling from its shoulders, the day
that is swallowed by night,
a cloak of sidereal blue no
closer to Him than, say,
these petals of pale coral dust,
these spokes of time your
ancestors quietly wheeled, your
heavily shadowed frame by day
adorned in wool, tawdry dust
rising from cracked lips as falling night
deals a blow to the disc they say
burns for Him and not one man; no
shepherd, beggar, virgin, no
ascetic lying prostrate while your
candle burns without purpose, while you say,
and make to repeat, ‘this and every day
serves as the venue for His arrival, this night
draws the curtains on His stage’ but dust
borne of fervor and stately conviction, dust
stacked upon your broken back, your beaten breasts,
is taken with the wind as feathers of kings
Bartholomew Dougherty, 2008/9
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Paul Eluard
Without music
The silent ones are liars, speak.
I am really angry at speaking alone
And what I say
Awakens errors
Dear heart.
(PT/MAC)
The Sighing Shadow
Light sleep, little propeller,
Little, warm, heart in the air,
Magician love,
The hand's heavy sky, the veins' lightning.
Running down the colorless street,
Caught in its paving stones,
He frees the last bird
From yesterday's halo -
In every well, one snake only.
Might as well dream you can open the gates of the sea.
(PT/MAC)
From Capital of Pain, 1926. As translated from the original French by Patricia Terry and Mary Ann Caws.
The silent ones are liars, speak.
I am really angry at speaking alone
And what I say
Awakens errors
Dear heart.
(PT/MAC)
The Sighing Shadow
Light sleep, little propeller,
Little, warm, heart in the air,
Magician love,
The hand's heavy sky, the veins' lightning.
Running down the colorless street,
Caught in its paving stones,
He frees the last bird
From yesterday's halo -
In every well, one snake only.
Might as well dream you can open the gates of the sea.
(PT/MAC)
From Capital of Pain, 1926. As translated from the original French by Patricia Terry and Mary Ann Caws.
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