reflective glimpses

                                                                 






                                                               On the Anvil               
                                                               


                                                                 Finely, brush the
                                                                 sound from your
                                                                 eyes: it rests
                                                                 in the hollow

                                                                 as looking in
                                                                 the shops at both
                                                                 reflections, in
                                                                 the glass how
                                                                  
                                                                  to move and the
                                                                 sun slanting over
                                                                 the streets: shielded
                                                                 from the market

                                                                 in the public
                                                                 domain, as
                                                                 taking the pace
                                                                 of movement

                                                                 in the hollow
                                                                 furnished with that
                                                                 tacit gleam, the
                                                                 cavernous heart




                                                                   J.H. Prynne














..

from: the Wishing Bone Cycle

 QUIET UNTIL THE THAW                                                            






Her name tells of how
it was with her.


The truth is,  she did not speak
in winter.
Everyone learned not to
ask  her questions in winter,
once this was known about her.


The first winter this happened
we looked in her mouth to see
if something was frozen.  Her tongue
maybe,  or something else in there.


But after the thaw she spoke again
and told us it was fine for her that way.


So each spring we
looked forward to that.






                  words of:


                  Samuel Makidemewabe


                  recorded and translated by:


                         Howard Norman




















.....

aqua aeternis

                                                   A river flowing this way         

a river flowing this way

here and there and back again

songs and memories

beneath the rise and fall of waves

songs and memories

shelter them and shelter them and shelter them

in your water-laden arms,

in your birth water

shelter them and shelter them and shelter them

upon your shores.

Al Hunter - Saulteaux poet

.

a refreshing take on intimacy

     The Beloved                                                                    

She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is wound in mine,
She has the form of my hands,
She has the colour of my eyes,
She is swallowed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.

Her eyes are always open
And will not let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak with nothing to say.








                            Paul Eluard
 
                  Trans.  A.S. Kline












































......

Mirror/ mirror

You can’t step twice into the same mirror,
said Heraclitus, of the river’s mirror.

A vessel holding water was the first mirror.
A mirror held to nostrils, life’s last mirror.


“Who is fairest?” the queen asked her mirror.
A vampire has no reflection in a mirror.


Those backward letters without a mirror
spell AMBULANCE in your rear-view mirror.
 

After Mom died, I covered all the mirrors
with cloth, sat seven days without mirrors.


Staring at myself staring in my mirror,
“I” became the “other” in the mirror.


Watching themselves making love in the mirror,
they were aroused by the couple in the mirror.


The amputee stood at an angle that mirrored
his phantom limb, now visible, mirrored.


In the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait’s mirror,
its painter is a figure in that convex mirror.


A palindrome is another kind of mirror
like the couplets in a ghazal’s mirror.


Her beloved’s eyes were her only mirror.
Seven bad years when he broke a mirror. 


I avoid, when I can, cruel three-way mirrors.
“Mute surfaces,” Borges called mirrors.  


As Vanity combs her long hair in the mirror,
an old bald skull awaits in the mirror. 


Standing between two facing mirrors,
I shrank down a long hallway of mirrors.
 
Which Jane are you? I asked my mirror.
My mirror answered, Ask another mirror.




                                          Jane Shore




























.....

Tombeau

THE DEATH OF KROPOTKIN                                                                                              










             
Emma said there had been snow
and a keen wind sighing in the withered branches
And I imagined little details
sheepswool caught in the thorns
red berries and a prophet's dead face on the pillow.


She said he had died in peace
and the eternal intelligence on his brow
had seemed like a light in the dark unlit hut
And I imagined steel-rimmed glasses
on a side-table and eyes forever hidden.


She said there had been a great concourse of people
walking out from Moscow
or the nearest station poor humble people -
Lenin had let them come to sidle lovingly past his silent form.
 Several hundred people,
simple people fur caps down to their ears
their padded trousers crisscrossed with string
standing there on the obliterated road waiting for the cortege.










                                                                                                                Herbert Read

a translated lyric of Llasa de Sela

con toda palabra                                






With every word
With every smile
With every look
With every touch
İ come closer to the water
drinking your kiss
the light of your face
the light of your body
İt's a desire prayer
İt's a silent song
A blind look
A nude secret
I surrender to your arms
with fear and with calm
and a prayer on my lips
and a prayer in my heart
With every word
With every smile
With every look
With every touch
İ come closer to the fire
let it burn all the light of your face
the light of your body
İt's a desire prayer
İt's a silent song
A blind look
A nude secret
I surrender to your arms
with fear and with calm
and a prayer on my lips
and a prayer in my heart






.....Llasa was a powerful singer...she died young
















...




were I......a sonnet

an expression by Cecco Angiolieri    (  + 1312   )                 


















S'i' fosse foco....









S'i' fosse foco, ardare'  'l mondo;
s'i' fosse vento, lo tempestarei;
s'i' fosse acqua, I' l'annegarei;
s'i' fosse Dio, mandereil' en profondo;

s'i' fosse papa, sare' allor giocondo,
ché tutti cristiani embrigarei;
s'i' fosse emperator, sa' che farei?
a tutti mozzarei lo capo a tondo.

S'i' fosse morte, andarei a me' padre;
s'i' fosse vita, fuggirei da lui;
similemente faria da mi' madre.

S'i' fosse Cecco, com' I' sono e fui,
torrei le donne givani e leggiadre;
le zoppe e laide lasserei altrui.




























        (Translation).....Gavin Bryars







If I were fire, I would burn the world;  
if I were wind, I would bestorm it;
if I were water, I would drown it; 
 if I were God, I would hurl it into the deep;

If I were Pope, I would be happy,  
 as I would harry all Christians;
if I were emperor, do you know what I would do?
I would chop off the heads of the lot of them.

If I were death, I would go to my father;
if I were life, I would run from him,  
and I would do the same for my mother.

If I were Cecco, as I am and have been, 
 I would take for myself all the young and pretty women,
and leave the lame and ugly for others.




























...