THE INVISIBLE WAR ~

EYES & EARS ~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/06/james-steele-america-iraq-video

ETERNAL ENEMIES ~

STAR


I returned to you years later,

gray and lovely city,

unchanging city

buried in the waters of the past.


I'm no longer the student

of philosophy, poetry, and curiosity,

I'm not the young poet who wrote

too many lines


and wandered in the maze

of narrow streets and illusions.

The sovereign clocks and shadows

has touched my brow with his hand,


but still I'm guided by

a star by brightness

and only brightness

can undo or save me.







RAIN DROP


In the drop of rain that stopped

outside my window, dawdling,

an oval, shining shape appears

and I see Mrs. Czolga again,

stuffing a statuesque goose in her kitchen.

Carts, dark and chthonic, carried coal,

rolling over wooden cobbles,

asking — do you want to live?

But after the great war of death

we wanted life so much.

A red-hot iron pressed the past,

at dawn German blackbirds

sang the poems of Georg Trakl,

and we wanted life and dreams.







NEW YEAR'S EVE, 2004


You're at home listening

to recordings of Billie Holiday,

who sings on, melancholy, drowsy.

You count the hours still

keeping you from midnight.

Why do the dead sing peacefully

while the living can't free themselves from fear?







NO CHILDHOOD


And what was your childhood like? a weary

reporter asks near the end.

There was no childhood, only black crows

and tramcars starved for electricity,

fat priests in heavy chasubles,

teachers with faces of bronze.

There was no childhood, just anticipation.

At night the maple leaves shone like phosphorus,

rain moistened the lips of dark singers.







MUSIC HEARD


Music heard with you

was more than music

and the blood that flowed through our arteries

was more than blood

and the joy we felt

was genuine

and if there is anyone to thank,

I thank him now,

before it grows too late

and too quiet.







POETRY SEARCHES FOR RADIANCE


Poetry searches for radiance,

poetry is the kingly road

that leads us farthest.

We seek radiance in a gray hour,

at noon or in th chimneys of the dawn,

even on a bus, in November,

while an old priest nods beside us.


The waiter in a Chinese restaurant bursts into tears

and no one can think why.

Who knows, this may also be a quest,

like that moment at the seashore,

when a predatory ship appeared on the horizon

and stopped short, held still for a long while.

And also moments of deep joy


and countless moments of anxiety.

Let me see, I ask.

Let me persist, I say.

A cold rain falls at night.

In the streets and avenues of my city

quiet darkness is hard at work.

Poetry searches for radiance.







TWO-HEADED BOY


The fifteen-year-old boy carried a kitten

inside his dark blue windbreaker.

Its tiny head turned,

its large eyes watching

everything more cautiously

than human eyes.


Safe in the warm train,

I compare the boy's lazy stare

to the kitten's pupils,

alert and narrow.


The two-headed boy sitting across from me

made richer by an animal's unrest.



_____________________________

ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI
from Eternal Enemies
translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
(Farrar 2008)

Ramblin' Boy ~

http://www.tompaxton.com/

FOOL'S GOLD ~

NORMAN SCHAEFER

printed in limited edition by

Jerry Reddan

Tangram 2013

Berkeley

ESTAMOS AQUI ~

Poems by Migrant Workers
translated by Janine Pommy Vega

Un Viaje Espantoso
Valentin Lucas


Fue muy sufrido el viaje
Veníamos en un trailer
y mucho calor en el trailer
Casi nos sentíamos personas
treinta y dos horas
Cubiertos y tapados
no había aire
no salia nadie para nada,
ni siquiera para ir al baño,
aguantábamos treinta y dos horas.

Hablábamos entre nosotros
que duro estaba
pero tuvimos confianza
que íbamos a llegar donde
queríamos.
Por la ambición de llegar
acá en los Estados Unidos,
tuvimos que aguantar.

Entonces
aire fresco, un pieblo chiquito
Llegamos.


A Dreadful Journey


It was a journey of suffering
We traveled inside a trailer
lots of heat in the trailer
We almost felkt we would die
A hundred and fifty people
thirty-two hours
Covered up, closed in,
no air
no one got out for anything,
not even to go to the bathroom,
we endured it for thirty-two hours.

We spoke among ourselves
about how hard it was
but we trusted
that we were going to arrive
where we were going.
Because of our ambition
to arrive here, in the United States,
we endured it.

Then
fresh air, little town.
We arrived.






Un Recuerdo
Artémio Morales Diaz


En el poblado Nuevo Amatenango,
municipio de Amatenango, allí vivo.
Compré un sitio con una casae
y la casa faltaba servico de agua
y de luz
pero yo ya lo instalé, yo y mi esposa,
y logré hacer esto por hacer
un dinerito.

Ahora la tengo enmayado con hierro
para proteger que no entran ladrones,
también tengo una esquinita allá
frente a la carretera, con jardín.

Tengo flores, buganvilla, tulipán,
y muchas flores de todos los colores,
pero la buganvilla es de color guinda.
la tengo armada con alhambre
para que sube las paredes en frente.

Cada año trabajo aquí
para no sufrir en tierras ajenas
cuando tengo cincuenta años,
volvere allí donde tengo todo.



A Memory


In the little village of Nuevo Amatenango,
in the municipality of Amatenango, I lived.
I bought a site with a house
and the house had no water
or electric
but I installed it, me and my wife,
and I managed to do this by making
a little money.

Now it's fenced in with wire
so that thieves can't enter.
Also, I have a little corner place facing
the highway, with a garden.

I have flowers—bouganvillea, tulips,
many flowers, all colors,
the bouganvillea is plum colored.
I have it strung up with wire
so it climbs the walls in front.

Every year I wotk here ensures
I will not have to suffer in foreign lands
when I am fifty years old
I will be in Nuevo Amantenango,
wgere I have everything.






Mi Canasta
Margarita Sierra


Mamita me ha dicho
que Dios me mandó
en esta canasta
que aqui tengo yo

Un angel la trajo
vestida de azul
un angel del cielo
no lo viste tú

Mil maripositas
vinieron con él
y mil pajaritos
vinieron también

Canasta llena
de rosas y solo
canasta en que vine
dormidita yo

¿Y saben lo que
he visto yo?¡

Que en mi canasta
compran el pan!



My Basket


My mother told me
that God sent me
in this basket
I have here

An angel brought it
dressed in blue
an angel from the sky
unseen by you

A thousand butterflies
came with him
and a thousand small birds
came too

Basket full
of roses and alone
basket that I came in
sleepy one

And you know what
I see now instead?
They're using my birth-basket
to buy bread!






Dos Brujas
Hosvaldo Mejia


Una vez fuimos en la noche de cacería,
mis amigos y yo,
caminábamos bastante por las praderas
no había animales para cazar,
y seguímos caminando hacia un arroyo
grande con dos cuervos
que se levantaban
Nos quedamos mudos de miedo.
Eran dos brujas soltando luces
como platillos voladores.
Corrímos y corrímos hasta llegar a casa.



Two Witches


One time we went hunting at night,
my friends and I, we walked
and walked through the fields
but there were no animals to hunt.
We kept on walking toward a big
ravine when two crows
flew up.
We were struck dumb with fear.
They were two witches, throwing off
light like flying saucers.
We ran and ran until we reached home.






Leyenda Maya La X-Tabay
José Maoro C.


Allá por los pueblos antiguos
Donde existen las haciendas antiguas
Hay unas matas, unos árboles
Llamados ceíbo
Cuentan los antiguos que
Entrando la noche si pasa un hombre
A ese lugar, aparece una mujer chula,
Muy hermosa, bien peinada,
Bien arreglada
Seduce a los hombres que pasan allá
Embruja a los hombres con sus
Encantos, y después se los domina
Ellos pierden su voluntad
Y hacen lo que ella dice
Los Illeva a su cueva
Y los mata
Esas personas no regresan
Se llama X-Tabay



Mayan Legend of X-Tabay


There in the ancient villages
Where the old porperties are
There are shrubs  a kind of tree
Called ceibo
The old people say that when night
Enters, if a man passes that place,
A wild woman appears —
Very beautiful, flashily dressed,
Her hair beautifully combed
She seduces the men who pass that way,
She bewitches them with her charms,
And when she subdues them.
They lose their will
and hey do what she says.
She brings them to her cave
And kills them.
Those guys won't return
Her name is X-Tabay!






Aburrido
Balbino Silverio


De diez y nueve días aquí y hemos
trabajado cinco, a causa de la lluvia.
Estamos como en la cárcel
pues, que no pasa nadie por aquí,
ni una mosca.
No tenemos dirección. Nadie sabe
llegar aquí. El vecino está aquí
dos años. Tampoco tiene dirección.

No podemos conseguir
una muchacha
para quitar el mal pensamiento
que tiene uno.
Solamenta si uno tiene mujer
uno puede tranquilizarse.
Mejor que hablar de eso
o del otro
es platicar con ella.



Bored


Nineteen days here and we have
worked only five, because of the rain.
Well, it is like we are in jail —
no one passes by,
not even a fly.
We have no address. No one knows
how to ger here. Our neighbor has been here
two years. He has no address, either.

We can't find
a girlfriend
to take away the bad thoughts.
Only a woman
can make a man calm.
Better than speaking of this
or of that
is speaking with her.






En Un Instante
Rómulo Bernardo Cortez


hace ya varios años
que soñe te vi un instante
y solo te ví un instante
para después, seguir
soñando nuevemente.

Las ideas se revuelan
en mi mente y corazón
como paros dormidos
temerosos del viento

Las mariposas que juegan
a hacer al amor, en una
flor que estaba muriendo
sin marchitar su color
amarillo.

Las mariposas que juegan
a hacer el amor
mientras los pájaros
estan dormidos.

Una montaña que juega
con el atardecer
es un mundo nuevo, igual
que tus ojos verde claro
Y qué decir de la música
de tus labios.

Para decir te quiero
con un instante basta,
para decir te amo
la eternidad no alcanza.

Qué me importa
lo que tiene sentido,
si en cada frase que dices
encuentro un poema
que aún no escribo

A los pájaros dormidos
los has lanzado al vuelo
y revolotean en mi corazón
como verdaderos pájaros
en celo.




In An Instant


Several years ago
I dreamt I knew you
I saw you only an instant
and afterward continued
dreaming

Ideas turn around
in my mind and heart
like sleeping birds
afraid of the wind

Butterflies play
at making love
inside a dying flower
whose yellow color
is unfading.

The butterflies play
at making love
while the birds
are asleep.

A mountain that plays
with the late afternoon
is a new world, equal
to your light green eyes
And what to say of the music
from your lips.

To say I want you
one instant suffices
to say I love you
eternity is not enough time.

What do I care
what makes sense,
if in each phrase you speak
I find a poem
I still don't write

You have hurled into flight
the sleeping birds
and they flap in my heart
like read birds
in heat.


__________________________

Bowery Books, 2007
YBK Publishers
39 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10013



photo of janine pommy vega © susan arnold

RAIN ~

Bill and I stand in the rain smoking
A Gypsy from Romania joins us.


Bill and I talk about the Portland Powwow.
The Gypsy asks, "What's a powwow?"


Bills says, "It's a celebration.
Indian people dance and sing for life."


The Gypsy says, "It's not a talk?
Like Bush and Gorbachev? They come
to an agreement in their powwow."


"We agree to celebrate," I say.


It's been raining for days.
It's going to keep raining for days.


Bill says, "It's a religious event.
People get together to sing and dance."


The Gypsy says, "Do Indians believe
the Mormons? They say Indians
are a lost tribe of Jews."


"Mormons say a lot of things," I say.


Then the Gypsy says, "White men killed
the Indians in the east and the west.
It's in their nature to kill."


Bills asks Gypsy from Romania,
"What do the Gypsies believe?"


The Gypsy looks away and doesn't answer.


The rain keeps falling: it will rain
for days and days and more days.


Thinking aloud I say, "Probably
like Indians, the old religion of Gypsies
was a belief in the creation of all things
and the holiness of sky, land, and people."


To the things I say, the Gypsy says, "No."
His voice is very quiet, and he looks away.


Bill and I both look at the Gypsy.


"The rain," I say, feeling the constant rain.
Today the rain cannot be denied at all.


"No," the Gypsy says, and he looks at Bill.


And then looks at me and Bill, and he asks,
"How did you Indian guys make it?"


___________________________________

SIMON ORTIZ
Out There Somewhere
(University of Arizona Press, 2002)

RETURN OF THE GENTLEMAN ~

When this song comes out of nowhere, it stands me still.
From one of the best LPs of all time.

AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD ~

                                                                            Rediscovered fragment


This sky over Paris purer than a winter sky lucid with cold
I have never seen such starry, luxuriant nights as this spring
When the trees along the boulevards are like shadows from the sky,
Foliage in rivers thick with elephants' ears,
Plane trees leaves, heavy chestnut trees.


A lily on the Seine is the moon at the water's level
The Milky Way swoons on Paris and embraces it
Mad, naked, sprawled out, its mouth sucks at Notre Dame.
The great Bear and the Little Bear growl around Saint Merry.
My amputated hand shines in the sky in the Orion constellation.


In this hard, cold light, flickering, more than unreal,
Paris is like the frozen image of a plant
Reviving in its ashes. Pitiful specter.
In unanswering line and ageless, the houses and streets are only
Stone and iron heaped up in an unbelievable desert.

Babylon and the Thebaid are no less dead tonight than the dead city of Paris
Blue and green, ink and pitch, its arches starwashed.
Not a sound. No passerby. It is heavy silence of war.
My eyes travel from the urinaries to the violet eye of the street lamps.
It is the only lighted space to which I can drag my uneasiness.


So it is that every evening I cross Paris on foot
From the Batignolles to the Latin Quarter just as I would cross the Andes
In the fires of new stars, ever larger and more overwhelming,
The Southern cross more stupendous at each step one takes
   toward it, emerging from the old world
Onto its new continent.


I am the man who has no more past. — Only my stump aches. —
I rented a hotel room to be truly alone with myself.
I have a brand new wicker basket filling up with my manuscripts.
I have neither books nor paintings, no esthetic geegaws.


A newspaper is yellowing on my worktable.
I work in my bare room, behind a frosted glass,
Bare feet on red linoleum, playing with balloons and a little child's trumpet:
I am working on LA FIN DU Monde.


BLAISE CENDRARS

(New Directions 1965)

PEEK-a-BOO ~

photo © bob arnold
"peek-a-boo"

SWEET ASS'D ANGELS
PILGRIMS & BOOGIE WOOGIES ~

[ In the beginning God created pole-vaulters,
exploding poets, and dirty old angels. ]


for Larry Goodell


There are magicians and quick shooters,

pick pockets and leprechauns. Lepers,

whores and bareback riders.



Trolls,
Zen gardens, granny goose and bastards.



Nose pickers, grave robbers, sunburst chanters,
dirty old angels,
pole vaulters, pilgrims, and sweet-ass'd



boogie woogies.

                             When I close my eyes

they dance on stage

throw roses into my ears

and sing until Tuesday. 


____________________

 GINO CLAYS SKY

Sweet Ass'd Angels,
Pilgrims & Boogie Woogies
(Cranium 1973) 

  

http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/jus-one-more-cowboy/Content?oid=923425

  

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY ~

I think it's good for the Academy Awards that Quentin Jerome Tarantino won for best original screenplay — unlike the usual fare of a technically bright Lincoln script, fixed in a history lesson, we get the Tarantino modernized version of reviewing slavery. It may be a mess, a joke, and it may bubble up or shock open the realest answers. Sometimes a winner is what it can produce elsewhere, more than what it is. I see Tarantino as a derivative auteur with just the right amount of originality and just the right amount of bullshit. He fits exactly into this New World Order of things. Right, he's the joker. He couldn't balance a smooth portrait like John Ford (whom he hates) or the wise puzzlement of Jean-Luc Godard if his life depended on it. He's a channel ghost of a million films, a collagist, who then inspires original thought elsewhere, or even breaks some sound barriers. His choice of actors and assemblages is often wiser than his films.

ROLL 'EM ~

Daniel-Day Lewis had the most telling line during the Academy Awards, “I really don’t know how any of this happens,” which addresses just how I felt, that something as half-baked as Argo could have won Best Picture. But then The Artist won last year, and how many of you have returned to watch that film? Nice touch having Jack Nicholson step back and allow Michelle Obama on a large screen deliver to the Best Picture winner. It's always awarding to see a thoughtful artist win something: Ang Lee, Michael Haneke and a few others. But if the Academy was going to do one "tie", and they did, but for the wrong category, last night was the golden moment to present it to the youngest actor ever nominated Quvenzhane Wallis, and the oldest Emmanuelle Riva. Now wouldn't that of been something.

Quvenzhane Wallis





Emmanuelle Riva

HEADLESS ~

I'm recovering from trying to find any empathy in myself for the caper film ARGO. A film I found almost totally worthless, and so does, evidently, the fact machine since nearly every move in the film seems dubious (except there were American hostages who scuddled over to the Canadian Embassy), but let's forget about the real hostages that suffered a year and a half in Iran. Nevermind Iranians who have suffered from Shahs and American power. You think those angry mobs at the American Embassy gates might have a beef? Typical fare for these days: let's caper, let's not deal with the real issues: health care, taxes, Americans hurting, the world hurting, environment hurting (that's all); and throw our money and whatever free time we think we may have onto bogus and empty-headed films, books, television and "news", which ain't much news. It hurt the most last night bearing up with the hip, and let's-get-drunk-at-every-table-with-a-big-bottle-of-Jameson's-whiskey-at-every-table Independent Film Spirit Awards to watch Beasts of the Southern Wild be totally ignored for one more Hollywood sure-thing movie. Now the Spirit Awards, the so-called "Independents", have been overcome. I realize I'm being unfair and unwise to think a film like Beasts, filmed on a bottom of a bucket budget, with nonactors galore, on a stage of set-free imagination and dirty Gulf water infrastructure, could possibly deserve a leg-up or an independent spirit of anything, but I'll try to get with it and join the ranks. Which headless line is it we're supposed to stand in?

EARTH ~
 

Nanao Sakaki

 ____________________


If you have time to chatter

Read books

If you have time to read

Walk into mountain, desert and ocean

If you have time to walk

sing songs and dance

If you have time to dance

Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot


[ kyoto 1966]







SHARPENING A KNIFE


Nanao, keep your knife clean

Nanao, keep your mind clean



Sea breeze is bad for a knife they say

Sea breeze is good for a mind they say



Sea breeze not bad for a knife

Sharpen your knife, that's all



Sea breeze neither bad nor good

The ocean a whetstone for mind



A clean knife mind

A clean mind ocean

Nanao, sleep well tonight

Blossoming cranium lily as a shelter

The coral sand beach as a bed

The Southern Cross as a pillow.

[Iriomote, Japan
Under the Tropic of Cacer
February, 1976]






FIREWOOD


Looking for firewood in snowy mountains


  Carrying back firewood
      Splitting firewood
         Listening to burning wood
            Watching for dancing flame


               So joyous
                  You forget yourself
                      You forget a serious appointment
                          You become a piece of firewood



                               Warming up
                                   Flaming up
                                      Singing up
                                          Dancing up



                                              You become ash.

[Feb. '80]

TOP TEN OF AMERICAN POETRY

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

  — Walt Whitman

The government of the people, by the people, for the people.

  — Thomas Jefferson

You deserve a break today.

   — McDonald's

Where science gets down to business.

  — Rockwell International

Kick the letter habit.

  — Bell System

Crime hits everybody. Everybody oughta hit back.

  — Chicago Crime Commission

Without chemicals life itself would be impossible.

  — Monsanto

I think America's future is black, coal black.

  — Atlantic Richfield Company

Have a coke and a smile.

  — Coca Cola

Private property—No trespassing—Dead end road.

  —Anonymous

[Thanksgiving '79]

WHY DO YOU WRITE POEMS?

Because my stomach is empty,

Because my throat's itching,

Because my bellybutton's laughing

Because my heart is love burning.

[Mons Venus, NM

November, '79]

MEMORANDUM

1970:

Carlsbad Caverns, then I moved to

White Sands National Monument.

Dr. Albert Einstein,

government officials and the Pentagon

all watched

the mushroom-shaped cloud

right here in the Chihuahua desert

25 years ago.

1973:

Jemez Springs, New Mexico,

I met a Christian priest.

At Tinian Air Base in Micronesia

he held a service for "B-29" pilots

who headed for Hiroshima,

August 6, 1945.

1945:

Izumi Air Base in Japonesia,

100 miles south of Nagasaki.

Three days after the Hiroshima bombing

I caught a "B-29" on my radar screen.

Due north. 30,000 feet high. 300 m.p.h.

Three minutes later

my soldiers shouted,

"Look, a volcanic eruption!"

In the direction of Nagasaki

I saw the mushroom-shaped cloud

with my own eyes.

1946:

Hiroshima. There,

one year after the bombing

I searched for

one of my missing friends.

As a substitute for him

I found a shadow man.

The atomic ray instantly

disintegrated his whole body,

all — but shadow alive

on a concrete wall.

1969:

Bandelier National Monument.

Beautiful ruin

of ancient people, the Anasazi.

Dead of night, the earth

quakes three times.

Not by Jemez volcano

but by underground nuclear explosion

in Los Alamos.

More ruins, more churches!

1975:

The Air Base ruin in Japonesia,

south of Nagasaki.

No more "Kamikaze pilots",

now 3,000 cranes soaring high

in the setting sun.

1979:

Northern edge of Chihuahua desert,

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

Sandhill crane, "Grus canadenis" : 1.7000.

Whooping crane, "Grus americana" : none.

As a substitute

for the extincting species

Mr. Kerr-McGee wants to dump

ever-existing nuclear waste

into "The Land of Enchantment".

[Sangre De Cristo Mountains

March 5, 1979]

   PLEASE

 Sing a song

        or

     Laugh

        or

       Cry

        or

   Go away.

       [January, '81] 

___________________

 NANAO SAKAKI

Real Play

(Tooth of Time Books, 1983)