a work for poets

A Work for Poets

To have carved on the days of our vanity

A sun

A ship

A star

A cornstalk


Also a few marks

From an ancient forgotten time

A child may read


That not far from the stone

A well

Might open for wayfarers


Here is a work for poets -

Carve the runes

Then be content with silence

--George MacKay Brown

working on a writing project with two friends from the good old blogging heyday and i'm struggling to get started. it's an absolutely fascinating story and research keeps revealing new and interesting angles and possibilities, but that makes the story elusive and hard to grab onto. perhaps i just need to carve a few runes and then listen to the silence and see what happens.

in vino veritas: thoughts of st. petersburg

with sabin in st. petersburg, my thoughts turn to russian poetry. i've said it before, i'm a prose person, not a poetry person, but this one by alexander blok is one of the few i like.

The Stranger

The restaurants on hot spring evenings

Lie under a dense and savage air.

Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers

Contaminate the thoroughfare.

Above the dusty lanes of suburbia

Above the tedium of bungalows

A pretzel sign begilds a bakery

And children screech fortissimo.

And every evening beyond the barriers

Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm

Go strolling beside the drainage ditches --

A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.

The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water

A woman's shriek assaults the ear

While above, in the sky, inured to everything,

The moon looks on with a mindless leer.

And every evening my one companion

Sits here, reflected in my glass.

Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.

Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.

The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables

Waiting for the night to pass

And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits

Cry out: "In vino veritas!"

And every evening (or am I imagining?)

Exactly at the appointed time

A girl's slim figure, silk raimented,

Glides past the window's mist and grime.

And slowly passing throught the revelers,

Unaccompanied, always alone,

Exuding mists and secret fragrances,

She sits at the table that is her own.

Something ancient, something legendary

Surrounds her presence in the room,

Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,

Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.

Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,

I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil

And I behold an enchanted shoreline

And enchanted distances, far and pale.

I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,

Someone's sun is entrusted to my control.

Tart wine has pierced the last convolution

of my labyrinthine soul.

And now the drooping plumes of ostriches

Asway in my brain droop slowly lower

And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless

Are blooming on a distant shore.

Inside my soul a treasure is buried.

The key is mine and only mine.

How right you are, you drunken monster!

I know: the truth is in the wine.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok

tranströmer poems

it's nearly time again for the nobel prize for literature. here are some gems from last year's winner, tomas tranströmer (best brush up on your swedish), while we wait:

Hör suset av regn.
Jag viskar en hemlighet
för att nå in dit.

Scen på perrongen.

Vilken egendomlig ro -

den inre rösten.

Askfärgad tystnad.
Den blå jätten går forbi.
Kall bris från havet.

of course we have a camel for a neighbor

it seems i have only a limited amount of words at my disposal. and when they are going elsewhere, i have none to leave here. i've been editing a book. i think i'm actually pretty good at it (could it be i found my calling at this advanced age?), but it's pretty time consuming. and has filled my brain for days, leaving room for little else.

* * *

i've also just reread murakami's wind-up bird chronicle. he always makes me feel a step apart from the ostensibly real world (if i even know what that is). his words are so beautiful it feels pointless to try to put any down on the page (let alone send them out into cyberspace). plus, he makes me think it would be a good idea to spend time down a well. too bad ours is full of water.

* * *

polylingual poet cia rinne doesn't lack words. i wish i'd been at louisiana to hear her yesterday.

* * *

not a whole lot of words here in sign: moa + holmberg
i'm fascinated by the spare, clean, modern, scandinavian aesthetic, even as i could never indulge in it myself.

november sun

Novembersolen...
min jätteskugga simmar
och blir en hägring.
          - Tomas Tranströmer, Den Stora Gåtan

ode to (un)common things

fish by resurrection fern, bowl by artemisartemis, ring from here.

felted stone by me (with fibers from artemis artemis)

i've been struggling to write a post on my all-time favorite, couldn't-do-without-it ingredient over on domestic sensualist. i've been struggling because it's hard to narrow to just one ingredient - is it cream or onion or garlic or olive oil or bacon or...you get the idea. and i'm still not there yet (bee's going to go first), but in my quest to break through, i turned to poetry. yes. me. poetry. weird, huh? since i always protest that i'm not a poetry person. except for a bit of cavafy, the odd alexander blok and teeny bit of  akhmatova and mandelstam, poetry just doesn't speak to me. but then i remembered neruda. and the beautiful edition i have of his odes to common things with beautiful pen and ink illustrations by ferris cook. so, in light of yesterday's post on the simple things and reading all of the other beautiful posts about simple things around the blogosphere, i just had to share neruda's ode to things with all of you. in case you hadn't seen it. and since i don't speak spanish, i'm sharing it in english translation, tho' my edition has both.

ode to things


I have a crazy,
crazy love of things.
I like pliers,
and scissors.
I love
cups,
rings,
and bowls -
not to speak, or course,
of hats.
I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the
infinite-
ly
small -
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.

Oh yes,
the planet
is sublime!
It's full of pipes
weaving
hand-held
through tobacco smoke,
and keys
and salt shakers -
everything,
I mean,
that is made
by the hand of man, every little thing:
shapely shoes,
and fabric,
and each new
bloodless birth
of gold,
eyeglasses
carpenter's nails,
brushes,
clocks, compasses,
coins, and the so-soft
softness of chairs.

Mankind has
built
oh so many
perfect
things!
Built them of wool
and of wood,
of glass and
of rope:
remarkable
tables,
ships, and stairways.
I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don't know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms
glasses, knives and
scissors -
all bear
the trace
of someone's fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,
streets and
elevators
touching things,
identifying objects
that I secretly covet;
this one because it rings,
that one because
it's as soft
as the softness of a woman's hip,
that one there for its deep-sea color,
and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable
river
of things:
no one can say
that I loved
only
fish,
or the plants of the jungle and the field,
that I loved
only
those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.
It's not true:
many things conspired
to tell me the whole story.
Not only did they touch me,
or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death.

antique locks from the middle east

it seems that no matter how much i try to convince myself otherwise, i really do love things. things of all kinds, but especially old things. or things that are nice to touch. or unusual things. things that have a story to tell. i just can't help myself.