of things phantasmic

  That I Saw the Light on Nonotuck Avenue          

That every musical note is a flame, native in its own tongue.

That between bread and ash there is fire.

That the day swells and crests.

That I found myself born into it with sirens and trucks going by
out here in a poem.

That there are other things that go into poems like the pigeon,
cobalt, dirty windows, sun.

That I have seen skin in marble, eye in stone.

That the information I carry is mostly bacterial.

That I am a host.

That the ghost of the text is unknown.

That I live near an Air Force base and the sound in the sky is death.

That sound like old poetry can kill us.

That there are small things in the poem: paper clips, gauze, tater
tots, and knives.

That there can also be emptiness fanning out into breakfast rolls,
macadam, stars.

That I am hungry.

That I seek knowledge of the ancient sycamore that also lives in
the valley where I live.

That I call to it.

That there are airships overhead.

That I live alone in my head out here in a poem near a magical
tree.

That I saw the light on Nonotuck Avenue and heard the cry of a
dove recede into a rustle.

That its cry was quiet light falling into a coffin.

That it altered me.

That today the river is a camera obscura, bending trees.

That I sing this of metallic shimmer, sing the sky, the song, all of
it and wonder if I am dying would you come back for me?

                                                      Peter Gizzi

//

from Donelaitis - the seasons

From THE CARES OF WINTER

... the winter's scowling wraths are already returning,
And again the bristling north wind is flying to scare us.
Look, how everywhere on pondwater panes are appearing
Just as, in that house, a glazier is putting in windows.
And the fishes' home, where bullfrogs saluted the summer,
Puts its armor on, because of the quarrels of winter,
Sending all its animals to sleep in the darkness.
There, the northern wind has frightened the fields with its scolding
So that bogs and swamps are shrinking, contracting themselves to
Stop the puddles of mud from their usual splashing and gurgling.
Listen, how the road, when skipping wheels try to strike it,
Rattles — having frozen — like a well-tightened snaredrum
So resounding that its sound keeps echoing in you.
Thus the world begins again to welcome the winter.
Well, I guess it's time: it won't be long'till Christmas
Holiday begins, and Advent wants to end by tomorrow.
Fall, that elephant, too painfully annoyed us,
Rudely spattering the mud it wallowed around in.
All who had to put some shoes on, bast or wooden,
Cursed the autumn for its works and its sloppy messes.
Gentlemen, who fly around on splendid stallions,
Going visiting each day in the finest of garments,
Also cursed the filthy autumn when the mud splashed.
Therefore all the people turned their faces northward,
Most impatient for a winter of dryness, complaining.

Then, while everyone lamented, a glow started spreading;
Soon, across the sky, the fluttering winds of the winter
Chased the stormy weather to the south, where the stork sleeps.
Later, thrusting out her head from the clouds, the winter
Quarreled like a shrew about the dungs of the autumn,
And, with frosts, she burned away its oozing labors;
Once she'd shoveled up the fall's manures, the winter
Built us all a road upon the horrible mudflats,
Teaching how to skate and fly again with sledges.
Now, where formerly we celebrated the springtime,
Gaily plucking for our use his herbs and his petals,
And where later warmer pleasures ended with summer,
There have risen drifts of snow with hillocks of whiteness,
And the flowers of the winter, that winter has woven.
It is wonderful to see how the forests of pinetrees
Show up everywhere, with curly crests, and bearded,
And, like powdered dandies, stand with elbows akimbo .,.

                                                  (Theodore Melnechuk) translator

                                                     -from Lithuanian

......

a prose poem

We draw near. Our lips touch, a first kiss, first among many firsts and deepened immeasurably by all of the farewell kisses that have preceded it and resonate within it. Beat after beat after beat. However our partings may have come about, they have given this affair an unusually robust pulse. They have taught me that passionate love endures only if it continually transforms itself, that transformation is achieved through the rapture of arrival, and that there is no arrival without a departure of one sort or another. More than anything, romance is rhythm. We exhale so as to inhale again. We withdraw so as to approach anew.




Edwin Dobb

from---Ten Thousand Things

...on a canine point of view









The dog is a part of every human
experience. It is very happy on every one
of its limbs. It bites / does not bite
the hand that mocks it.
Besides which, leading a dog
to water means only one thing. River
’s a mouth, the dog is endless. She cannot
change what she does not
see. Only
  
  
The stick is a thing to beat the human
with. The dog deserves this. Trailing
its tail in the dirt. Meanwhile we miss
beauty in all its small places. Have not
the patience nor courage to please the dog.
To not lead the dog. Intentionally.
What is the body for
if not this thing to beat us
with. But what is it for
now? Where is
our knowing when
it becomes nothing but
blind dust leading
the dust.
  
  
We have this thing. Isn’t any
kind of complexity. Doesn’t howl
when it’s called. Human flowing
through dust. Basin of time.
Unsupportable howling. Man is
  
  
But what is woman therefore. In the scene
where he enters. And where,
the dog. Narration
that figures is closing. The net is it
tightening. When he will settle
/forget. Her into the discourse.
When he will cut a line
into it, like a poem.
  
  
We have this thing
is it intentional.
Some think it is stick leading
dog. But is it the will leading
the moments, or beauty
leading the vice
versa can also work too. But of course
it does.
  
  
When you follow the time
is all backwards, is it all or apart.
When you follow this
had to add up to itself before
its presentment. And we who have time
at hand, as our stick, as our
eye leading the eye. Hand
held open to mock
  
  
What is that we are doing:
tradition, childhood, that wild
& whirring. That faux seeing.
Words are a net closing in
on the subject
of guilt, purpose, love
or presentment, swearing
blindness. Otherwise,
they are mirrors-for-
eyes. Either way dogs
do not have to bear all this
being four times more
grounded by earth &
sky.
  
  
But what is he doing now.
And what she is following
before him, leading him on
to the story of eyes.
It was older than that. It started
with she as matter
of course. No as he
as bones for eyes.
Taken as closing or doing
or wanting. Ha
he is – uh ah – she has
started the game where
the dog is meaning
foregrounded, intent
is unknown. No but how
known the dog is the she-wolf,
bitch is the earth. We come
after that meaning, suddenly
coming to life in this dangerous line
that does us no obvious good.
  
  
The thread is that too. But what were we
saying for. Dog is a dreamer who needs
to survive in the beauty’s glow. Walking
that line is a line of much weight.
Many centuries flowing & pressing
on her but on him. And we dreamt
while we were awake.
  
  
Was this a terror of things. And we work
for that. Noiselessly toiling,
trailing our hopes in the dust
for the birds to follow our meaning
seed. Loam in our heart.
Sky is untouched, but the river
follows the bends of our meaning
obviously. Jumps ahead to the place
– we will be when we come
down to earth
for a final time. Before the beginning.
  
  
We have that terror, that hook
at the end of the line. Knowing always.
Dog does not have to bear so much
freedom or pain. Is mere cipher
of line, hook
for this story that’s leading. Untilwe start back at the end.


                                     Emily Critchley








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