logosotoi tautologosthoi

     Men Made Out Of Words                         

 

What should we be without the sexual myth,
The human reverie or poem of death?

Castratos of moon-mash – Life consists
Of propositions about life. The human

Reverie is a solitude in which
We compose these propositions, torn by dreams,

By the terrible incantations of defeats
And by the fear that defeats and dreams are one.

The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.

                                                 Wallace Stevens  +1955












.

go ahead feel free

Alfred Corn

Alice’s Rules                         

Any behavior even suggesting restraint
should expect a faceful of cream pie. Be free
or else. How’d they say do it? "Thanks, I’ve got
other plans," and, these put into effect, steal home,
veer off at a tangent, whatever, so you won’t be
boxed in and made to fess up. Prefer the faux
marble urn to the "real," a malicious fake, and harp
on what was never thought but oft expressed
so as to convey the contraband being imported.
An offensive is most when delivered deadpan,
no mouthed butter melting as the loom is bowered.
"Know what I’m saying?" we say, hedging our bets
when we hog the mike, lest the players trip over
the ferns or refuse to use flamingos for their mallets.

Today man (or woman) is guaranteed to feel
a lot more like now than was true yesterday —
depending, granted, on which day we’re talking
and on whose nickel. In the city of Dis, junkie
and disc-jockey smote the chest, crumpling
posies meant to impress the Empress with.
"Please come in and perch in front of my latest
mirror writing while we punt up the river Lapis,
whose surface dimples with parodic fleur-de-lis."
Collection amounts to a new Fleurs du mal?
They’ll have to squawk and earn it first. Then be
proclaimed a touchdown, toast of the capital —
though still hard-pressed, a burn-victim of ironic
and amped-up malingerers. The loyals, meanwhile,
need to scrape together a little support, each two
of us pitching in, a-pelting ye olde dodos with sugared
almonds. Numbing out on a nemesis so manual as that,
what’ll we ens and ems have to say for ourselves?

.....

.

Magnus Sigurdsson - some poems from iceland

Vetrarhugur          

What’s the winter for?
To remember love.
  — Theodore Roethke

  
Það hefur gránað
í fjöll,
og haustvindarnir
æða naprir
milli húsa. 

Samt hlakka ég
til komandi vetrar. 

Þegar áin streymir
milli skara,
og raddirnar
berast óravegu
í stillunum

milli
okkar tveggja, 

í mánuðinum
með járnnafnið.
Þegar orðin eru
einsog kalt stál 

og það er málmbragð
milli tanna.

     Winter Thoughts

What’s the winter for?
To remember love.
  — Theodore Roethke

  
The mountain
has turned grey,
and autumn winds
whip sharply
between buildings.

Yet I look forward
to the coming winter.

When rivers channel
through border ice
and voices carry
far away
in the stillness,

between
us,

in the months
with iron names
when words are
like cold steel,

and leave a metallic
taste between my teeth.

                   trans. Meg Matich

.

soneto erotico

          French Braids                             





While one hand is content to touch, admire
A balanced, careful weave—preserve for viewing
The beauty and the boundaries of desire—
The other hand is busy at undoing.
The quiet hand counsels restraint; afraid
To wreck the composition of composure,
It’s wary of destruction just for fun.
The other wants to slip between each braid,
To tease apart the strands, let run, spill over,
Release, unbind, what was so neatly done.
Your urgent kiss decides which hand is played.
A gentle pull brings argument to closure.
Surprised, my hands attempt to catch your hair:
It falls the way the rain lets go the air.



                              Robert W. Crawford










....................