mr. cogito meditates on suffering

all attempts to remove
the so-called cup of bitterness--
by reflection
frenzied actions on behalf of homeless cats
deep breathing
religion--
failed


one must consent
gently bend the head
not wring the hands
make use of the suffering gently moderately
like an artificial limb
without false shame
but also without unnecessary pride


do not brandish the stump
over the heads of others
don't knock with the white cane
against the windows of the well-fed


drink the essence of bitter herbs
but not to the dregs
leave carefully
a few sip for the future


accept
but simultaneously
isolate within yourself
and if it is possible
create from the matter of suffering
a thing or a person


play
with it
of course
play
entertain it
very cautiously
like a sick child
forcing at last
with silly tricks
a faint
smile


- zbigniew herbert, translated from polish by john and bogdana carpenter

a few improvs

We looked up. The bird held it's beak.
held tighter
to a perch,
to his place in treetop.
he looked at me, down
the long periscope of
filtering branches.

flintsteel glint
in black eye, he
makes no noise.

quiet, reader,
if i can see the glint,
he can see these tears.

perhaps that's why
there is no
song for me.



rails pierce the forest
handrails?
fingernails.

handrails clung to
by fingernails.

i'd like to
fucking get to you

if it weren't for
all these

goddamn
trees.



And land I used to till,
or, land i was,
tilled until the tilling
chilled.

too bad
new tilling can't be
willed.




to disappear, the red carpet, the brown
scab it will become

over time. we rot blissfully
slow into our future selves.

make ignorant
make merry
we're on our way.

don't need to worry
today, anyway.

oh absolution

i watch the clear trickle
of my thoughts distill, glaze your chin, 
pearl in the corners of your mouth.


you have eaten it for weeks, 
my curled center, each fetal fear.


the contours of your face 
ache in my empty fingertips,
and i, i go back - reread, find
oh, only everything. 


missed those first times,
when you tried to bless me
in the baptism of those waters: 
confession, truth, self.


the dream, do you remember it?
meaningful, many-layered.
a friendly visit, an overhang of ice,
baseball game...


so, selfish, unbelieving.
too caught in my own petty
problems not to see


the depth of this pool, the
edges long skirted. i toedipped.
now every pore of parched skin
an open mouth, crying
for full immersion.


am i too far back, now? tide
out, i smell my regrets in damp 
stretches of long beach between us, 
watching edges of you ebb,
a listless lapping at the shore.


i realized you were sending dreams to me
but they were overloading my senses like acid - 
images were crowding into me, 
thematic strands from every dream fragment coalescing,
riffing on each other, extraordinarily powerful in being 
literal fractals at amazing depth/resolution/speed of changing iterations -
more than just fractals however, 
fiendishly clever patterns that were
ten steps ahead of my brain, sly, 
socially conscious patterns, metaphors - 
i tried to tell you telepathically that it felt invasive,
to intentionally set off these cascades 
of images in my brain, to see what would happen, 
if my head would pop off... oh the irony - 
unsui irony, like wild geese lost in the clouds


oh god i try to write of you
it pours out, and i weep.
i can't encapsulate this in my
small words, my usually tidy
boxed stanzas stack so weakly, 


the tape, the packing
all done wrong. i couldn't 
ship you this, the sorry state of me.
sore and sunburnt 


you were asleep, as well as your visiting mother,
father, and brother - i was amazed 
at how soundly asleep you were - 
i could see your head and shoulders 
in some twist of bedsheets, dark hair - 
the house was serene, there was an easy summer vibe - 
the house was shaped strangely, designed 
more for aesthetics than functionality,
but beautifully textured with odd angles, 
shiny surfaces, wood and stone, elemental


and repentant;
if it were longer, i would 
trail my hair over 
your tear-bathed feet,


kiss them and atone.










so there, today, one for the void. 
that void we love so well. 
that embraces when nothing else does.

i dream

i watch the son of atlas crest
the curve
of the horizon
of the world which rests

upon his father's
long back.

he, too, hunches;
stooped shoulders slung,
his two arm
stretch, bear other

burdens, the weight
of the fear of man.

he smears a cynic's
smile at me
strikes out a hand.

it holds one quick second.

the other, so taxed,
or full, can only drag
bloodied knuckles, bones
bare from one
eternal scraping.

his teeth glisten in my ear,
he tells its contents:

the sound
of the setting sun.

distance

now that all your distance surrounds me

i stand unarmed inside a lone evening

the honey is fragrant on the table

and there is thunder in the valley,

much anxiety between the one and the other

i am frequented space

deserted by your sun.

come. ask me where

shout solitude at me

and this sky tainted with dismay

with mountain lights

has learned me by heart forever.

- andrea zanzotto, translated from italian by ruth feldman and brian swann.