Mimesis by Fady Joudah

Mimesis

My daughter

                        wouldn’t hurt a spider

That had nested

Between her bicycle handles

For two weeks

She waited

Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said

It will simply know

This isn’t a place to call home

And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others

Become refugees isn’t it?

Dedication by Franz Wright

Dedication

It’s true I never write, but I would gladly die with you.

Gladly lower myself down alone with you into the enormous mouth

that waits, beyond youth, beyond every instant of ecstasy, remember:

before battle we would do each other’s makeup, comb each other’s

                   hair out

saying we are unconquerable, we are terrible and splendid—

the mouth waiting, patiently waiting. And I will meet you there

                   again

beyond bleeding thorns, the endless dilation, the fire that alters

                   nothing;

I am there already past snowy clouds, balding moss, dim

swarm of stars even we can step over, it is easier this time, I promise—

I am already waiting in your personal heaven, here is my hand,

I will help you across. I would gladly die with you still,

although I never write  

from this gray institution. See

they are so busy trying to cure me,

I’m condemned—sorry, I have been given the job

of vacuuming the desert forever, well, no more than eight hours

                   a day.

And it’s really just about a thousand miles of cafeteria;

a large one in any event. With its miniature plastic knives,

its tuna salad and Saran-Wrapped genitalia will somebody

                   please

get me out of here, sorry. I am happy to say that

every method, massive pharmaceuticals, art therapy

and edifying films as well as others I would prefer

not to mention—I mean, every single technique

known to the mouth—sorry!—to our most kindly

compassionate science is being employed

to restore me to normal well-being

and cheerful stability. I go on vacuuming

toward a small diamond light burning

off in the distance. Remember

me. Do you

remember me?   

In the night’s windowless darkness

when I am lying cold and numb

and no one’s fiddling with the lock, or

shining flashlights in my eyes,

although I never write, secretly

I long to die with you,

does that count?

A Dream of Death by W. B. Yeats

A Dream of Death

I dreamed that one had died in a strange place

Near no accustomed hand,

And they had nailed the boards above her face,

The peasants of that land,

Wondering to lay her in that solitude,

And raised above her mound

A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,

And planted cypress round;

And left her to the indifferent stars above

Until I carved these words:

She was more beautiful than thy first love,

But now lies under boards.

Allegro by Tomas Tranströmer

Allegro

I play Haydn after a black day

and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.

The resonance green, lively and calm.

The music says freedom exists

and someone doesn’t pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets

and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag – it signifies:

“We don’t give in. But want peace.’

The music is a glass-house on the slope

where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through

but each pane stays whole.

(Translated by Robin Fulton)

A Scholar by Don Paterson

A Scholar

Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli 

The light is dying, and the clock has died;

the page succumbs to the atrocious care

that disinters the things not wholly there

by which your solemn field is justified. 

You burnish them until they bear the shine 

of common knowledge, knowing one black skill 

is yours alone: before the greater will

all text is dream, and takes on the design

of what was sought there. Thus your word is God. 

This grammarie electrifies the gate;

none pass but such as you initiate.

The students hurry by you in the quad 

attending to their feet. What can you say? 

You know your Shakespeare would have walked that way. 

Still Life in Landscape by Sharon Olds

Still Life in Landscape

It was night, it had rained, there were pieces of cars and

half-cars strewn, it was still, and bright,

a woman was lying on the highway, on her back,

with her head curled back and tucked under her shoulders

so the back of her head touched her spine

between her shoulder-blades, her clothes

mostly accidented off, and her

leg gone, a long bone

sticking out of the stub of her thigh—

this was her her abandoned matter,

my mother grabbed my head and turned it and

clamped it into her chest, between

her breasts. My father was driving—not sober

but not in this accident, we’d approached it out of

neutral twilight, broken glass

on wet black macadam, like an underlying

midnight abristle with stars. This was

the world—maybe the only one.

The dead woman was not the person

my father had recently almost run over,

who had suddenly leapt away from our family

car, jerking back from death,

she was not I, she was not my mother,

but maybe she was a model of the mortal,

the elements ranged around her on the tar—

glass, bone, metal, flesh, and the family. 

The Lie by Don Paterson

The Lie

As was my custom, I’d risen a full hour

before the house had woken to make sure

that everything was in order with The Lie,

his drip changed and his shackles all secure.

I was by then so practiced in this chore

I’d counted maybe thirteen years or more

since last I’d felt the urge to meet his eye.

Such, I liked to think, was our rapport.

I was at full stretch to test some ligature

when I must have caught a ragged thread, and tore

his gag away; though as he made no cry,

I kept on with my checking as before.

Why do you call me The Lie? he said. I swore:

it was a child’s voice. I looked up from the floor.

The dark had turned his eyes to milk and sky

and his arms and legs were all one scarlet sore.

He was a boy of maybe three or four.

His straps and chains were all the things he wore.

Knowing I could make him no reply

I took the gag before he could say more

and put it back as tight as it would tie

and locked the door and locked the door and locked the door

I Go Back to May 1937 by Sharon Olds

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

The Voice at 3:00 A.M. by Charles Simić

The Voice at 3:00 A.M.

Who put canned laughter

Into my crucifixion scene?

A ballad that we do not perish by Zbigniew Herbert

A ballad that we do not perish

Those who sailed at dawn

but will never return

left their trace on a wave--

a shell fell to the bottom of the sea

beautiful as lips turned to stone

those who walked on a sandy road

but could not reach the shuttered windows

though they already saw the roofs--

they have found shelter in a bell of air

but those who leave behind only

a room grown cold a few books

an empty inkwell white paper--

in truth they have not completely died

their whisper travels through thickets of wallpaper

their level head still lives in the ceiling

their paradise was made of air

of water lime and earth an angel of wind

will pulverize the body in its hand

they will be

carried over the meadows of this world 

Still Life by Thom Gunn

Still Life

I shall not soon forget
The greyish-yellow skin
To which the face had set:
Lids tight: nothing of his,
No tremor from within,
Played on the surfaces.

He still found breath, and yet
It was an obscure knack.
I shall not soon forget
The angle of his head,
Arrested and reared back
On the crisp field of bed,

Back from what he could neither
Accept, as one opposed,
Nor, as a life-long breather,
Consentingly let go,
The tube his mouth enclosed
In an astonished O.

Report from the Besieged City by Zbigniew Herbert

Report from the Besieged City

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others - 

they graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler 

I record - I don't know for whom - the history of the siege 

I am supposed to be exact but I don't know when the invasion began 

two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn 

everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time 

all we have left is the place the attachment to the place 

we still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses 

if we lose the ruins nothing will be left 

I write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks 

monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency 

tuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants 

wednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our 

    messengers 

we don't know where they are held that is the place of torture 

thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected 

the motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender 

friday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender 

N.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back 

an attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance 

all of this is monotonous I know it can't move anyone 

I avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the 

    facts 

only they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets 

yet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world 

that thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children 

our children don’t like fairy tales they play at killing 

awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones 

just like dogs and cats 

in the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the city 

along the frontier of our uncertain freedom. 

I look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights 

I listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks 

truly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself 

the siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns 

nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination 

Goths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the 

    Transfiguration 

who can count them 

the colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon 

from delicate bird's yellow in spring through green through red to winter's 

    black 

and so in the evening released from facts I can think 

about distant ancient matters for example our 

friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize 

they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice 

they don’t even know their fathers betrayed us 

our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse 

their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful 

they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity 

those struck by misfortune are always alone 

the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers 

now as I write these words the advocates of conciliation 

have won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles 

a normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance 

cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller 

yet the defence continues it will continue to the end 

and if the City falls but a single man escapes 

he will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile 

he will be the City 

we look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death 

worst of all - the face of betrayal 

and only our dreams have not been humiliated 

(Translated from the Polish by John and Bogdana Carpenter)

Canoe by Keith Douglas

Canoe

Well, I am thinking this may be my last

summer, but cannot lose even a part

of pleasure in the old-fashioned art

of idleness. I cannot stand aghast

at whatever doom hovers in the background:

while grass and buildings and the somnolent river,

who know they are allowed to last forever,

exchange between them the whole subdued sound

of this hot time. What sudden fearful fate

can deter my shade wandering next year

from a return? Whistle and I will hear

and come again another evening, when this boat

travels with you alone toward Iffley:

as you lie looking up for thunder again,

this cool touch does not betoken rain;

it is my spirit that kisses your mouth lightly.

 

Fatalville, Ark by Franz Wright

Fatalville, ARK

To you this world’s the other world. The first transparent leaves wind-blown to spreading green flames—how strange everything looks all at once, my room looks different, and I am afraid of it. You’ll never guess why the universe just turned into somebody’s name, the morning light a look of love: a single double-nostriled blast (40 mg per). A single white rose glows on the tabletop, filling the room with the distant and close to inaudible voices singing from its whorled earlike depths, the connection nearly lost … What can you do but walk toward it? I cross the room for several years staying one step ahead of the avalanche and resisting attempting, at each star-filled canyon’s ledge, flight. I reach the bed at last and lie down, like you entertaining no need whatsoever to open my eyes, to move my hand, or pronounce another word, ever. Let someone else give it a try, and they will, too. My friend I never met, I think you would agree: the deans are never going to let that cow go. I don’t wonder how many more of them there are these days, all those masters of the art in their early twenties, just like John Keats and Hart Crane! We don’t have to think about it anymore. The poet will come, no matter what they do.