Category: Staying Alive

Blinding bright lights

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books, 
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,,, 
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter, 
such and so many blinding bright lights,, ,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

Notes on the Art of Poetry​,  Dylan Tomas


Photo at The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, June 29 2017

The escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.

Fernando Pessoa, English Poems (1921)

 

 

Photo (mine) Ponte de Lima, 21.05.2107

Who’s the audience

1.
Peony silks,

in wax-light:

that petal-sheen,

gold or apricot or rose

candled into-

what to call it,

lumina, aurora, aureole?

About gowns,

the Old Masters,

were they ever wrong?

This penitent Magdalen’s

wrapped in a yellow

so voluptuous

she seems to wear

all she’s renounced;

this boy angel

isn’t touching the ground,

but his billow

of yardage refers

not to heaven

but to pleasure’s

textures, the tactile

sheers and voiles

and tulles

which weren’t made

to adorn the soul.

Eternity’s plainly nude;

the naked here and now

longs for a little

dressing up. And though

they seem to prefer

the invisible, every saint

in the gallery

flaunts an improbable

tumble of drapery,

a nearly audible liquidity

(bright brass embroidery,

satin’s violin-sheen)

raveled around the body’s

plain prose; exquisite

(dis?)guises; poetry,

music, clothes.

2.
Nothing needs to be this lavish.

Even the words I’d choose

for these leaves;

intricate, stippled, foxed,

tortoise, mottled, splotched

-jeweled adjectives

for a forest by Fabergé,

all cloisonné and enamel,

a yellow grove golden

in its gleaming couture,

brass buttons

tumbling to the floor.

Who’s it for?

Who’s the audience

for this bravura?

Maybe the world’s

just trompe l’oeil,

appearances laid out

to dazzle the eye;

who could see through this

to any world beyond forms?

Maybe the costume’s

the whole show,

all of revelation

we’ll be offered.

So? Show me what’s not

a world of appearances.

Autumn’s a grand old drag

in torched and tumbled chiffon

striking her weary pose.

Talk about your mellow

fruitfulness! Smoky alto,

thou hast thy music,

too; unforgettable,

those October damasks,

the dazzling kimono

worn, dishabille,

uncountable curtain calls

in these footlights’

dusky, flattering rose.

The world’s made fabulous

by fabulous clothes.
Couture

Mark Doty, 1953

My nights are rarely unruly

Not for me a youngman’s death
Not a car crash, whiplash
John Doe, DOA at A&E kind of death.
Not a gun in hand, in a far off land
IED at the roadside death

Not a slow-fade, razor blade
bloodbath in the bath, death.
Jump under a train, Kurt Cobain
bullet in the brain, death

Not a horse-riding paragliding
mountain climbing fall, death.
Motorcycle into an old stone wall
you know the kind of death, death

My nights are rarely unruly. My days
of allnight parties are over, well and truly.
No mistresses no red sports cars
no shady deals no gangland bars
no drugs no fags no rock’n’roll
Time alone has taken its toll

Not for me a youngman’s death
Not a domestic brawl, blood in the hall
knife in the chest, death.
Not a drunken binge, dirty syringe
“What a waste of a life” death.

Not for Me a Youngman’s Death
By Roger McGough

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

References

The Waking By Theodore Roethke

Spring in Sarajevo

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

Lewis Carroll

Ilidža, Sarajevo (this morning)

At home

POEMA A UN GATO

No son más silenciosos los espejos
Ni más furtiva el alba aventurera;
Eres, bajo la luna, esa pantera
Que nos es dado divisar de lejos.

Por obra indescifrable de un decreto
Divino, te buscamos vanamente;
Más remoto que el Ganges y el poniente,
Tuya es la soledad, tuyo el secreto.

Tu lomo condesciende a la morosa
Caricia de mi mano.
Has admitido,
Desde esa eternidad que ya es olvido,
El amor de la mano recelosa.

En otro tiempo estás.
Eres el dueño
De un ámbito cerrado como un sueño.

Jorge Luis Borges, El oro de los tigres, 1972

 

To a cat

Mirrors are not more wrapt in silences
nor the arriving dawn more secretive;
you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure
which we can only spy at from a distance.
By the mysterious functioning of some
divine decree, we seek you out in vain;
remoter than the Ganges or the sunset,
yours is the solitude, yours is the secret.
Your back allows the tentative caress
my hand extends. And you have condescended
since that forever, now oblivion,
to take love from a flattering human hand.
You live in other time, lord of your realm —
a world as closed and separate as dream.

Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Alastair Reid, 1977)

Movie inspiration of the week – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Costume Designer: Lucinda Ballard, Nominated Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (24th Academy Awards)

And so it was I entered the broken world

To trace the visionary company of love, it’s voice

An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)

But not for long to hold each desperate choice.

“The Broken Tower” by Hart Crane

streetcar4

Her appearance is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. She is about five years older than Stella. Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.

IMG_3194

He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens.

streetcar2

Look at these feathers and furs that she come here to preen herself in! What’s this here? A solid-gold dress, I believe! And this one! What is these here? Fox-pieces! Genuine fox fur-pieces, a half a mile long! Where· are your fox-pieces, Stella? Bushy snow-white ones, no less!

IMG_3198

Pearls! Ropes of them! What is this sister of yours, a deep-sea diver? Bracelets of solid gold, too! Where are your pearls and gold bracelets?

IMG_3197

Compliments to women about their looks. I’ve never met a woman that didn’t know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they’ve got.

poker

The poker players–Stanley, Steve, Mitch and Pablo-wear colored shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red-and-white check, a light green, and they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colors.

IMG_3192

“And if God choose,

I shall but love thee better-after-death!”

Why, that’s from my favorite sonnet by Mrs. Browning!

lantern

I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

a_streetcar_named_desire1

I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft-soft people have got to shimmer and g1ow-they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly’ wings, and put a paper lantern over the light …it isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I-I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.

car-003488

We danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ranout of the casino. A few moments later-a shot!
IMG_3193
 What do you two think you are? A pair of queens?

a-streetcar-named-desire-23

I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!

scaryasHELL

The opposite is desire. So do you wonder? How could you possibly wonder!
a-streetcar-named-desire-tiara

She has dragged her wardrobe trunk into the center of the bedroom. It hangs open with flowery dresses thrown across it. As the drinking and packing went on, a mood of hysterical exhilaration came into her and -she has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels. Now she is placing the rhinestone tiara on her head before the mirror of the dressing-table and murmuring excitedly as if to a ‘group of spectral admirers.

IMG_3202

Well, it’s a red letter night for us both. You having an oil millionaire and me having a baby.

tiara

A cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding, can enrich a man’s life – immeasurably! I have those things to offer, and this doesn’t take them away. Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession. But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart-and I have all of those things-aren’t taken away, but grow! Increase with the years! How strange that I should be called a destitute woman! When I have all of these treasures locked in my heart. I think of myself as a very, very rich woman! But I have been foolish-casting my pearls before swine!

shatter

The hot trumpet and drums from the Four Deuces sound loudly
kindness

He takes off his hat and now he becomes personalized. The unhuman quality goes. His voice is gentle and reassuring as he crosses to Blanche and crouches in front of her. As he speaks her name, her terror subsides a little. The lurid reflections fade from the walls, the inhuman cries and noises die out and her own hoarse crying is calmed.

Whoever you are-I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

’In this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching,’ Blanche raises the flag of magic against the crushing disappointment of reality in her “worn-out Mardi Gras outfit” and the costumes are absolutely brilliant in creating this fantasy world, showing us  someone trying to survive the decay and decadence of her own life and not being able to cope with what the world has thrown at her. And that’s how a trunk full of flowery dresses and rhinestone tiaras can help you survive as long as you keep away from the brutes, maybe you’ll be able to not only tell, but also live what ought to be truth.  ( And this in no way an endorsement of post truths or a glorification of mental illness)

References and Photos

A Streetcar Named Desire BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS – With an Introduction by the Author, Signet Books (1951)

Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Norman N. Holland

Best Shot: “A Streetcar Named Desire”

A Madhouse In The Quarter: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE A Madhouse In The Quarter: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

The Furniture: Decorating Madness in A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

http://www.virtual-history.com/movie/film/2060/a-streetcar-named-desire

when time from time shall set us free

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

e. e.  cummings

 

 

Photo: Warsaw, 2012

one­-less-­days

“The Verb to Be,“ a Poem by André Breton

I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no wings, it doesn’t necessarily sit at a cleared table in the evening on a terrace by the sea. It’s despair and not the return of a quantity of insignificant facts like seeds that leave one furrow for another at nightfall. It’s not the moss that forms on a rock or the foam that rocks in a glass. It’s a boat riddled with snow, if you will, like birds that fall and their blood doesn’t have the slightest thickness. I know the general outline of despair. A very small shape, defined by jewels worn in the hair. That’s despair. A pearl necklace for which no clasp can be found and whose existence can’t even hang by a thread. That’s despair for you. Let’s not go into the rest. Once we begin to despair we don’t stop. I myself despair of the lampshade around four o’clock, I despair of the fan towards midnight, I despair of the cigarette smoked by men on death row. I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no heart, my hand always touches breathless despair, the despair whose mirrors never tell us if it’s dead. I live on that despair which enchants me. I love that blue fly which hovers in the sky at the hour when the stars hum. I know the general outline of the despair with long slender surprises, the despair of pride, the despair of anger. I get up every day like everyone else and I stretch my arms against a floral wallpaper. I don’t remember anything and it’s always in despair that I discover the beautiful uprooted trees of night. The air in the room is as beautiful as drumsticks. What weathery weather. I know the general outline of despair. It’s like the curtain’s wind that holds out a helping hand. Can you imagine such a despair? Fire! Ah they’re on their way … Help! Here they come falling down the stairs … And the ads in the newspaper, and the illuminated signs along the canal. Sandpile, beat it, you dirty sandpile! In its general outline despair has no importance. It’s a squad of trees that will eventually make a forest, it’s a squad of stars that will eventually make one less day, it’s a squad of one­-less-­days that will eventually make up my life.

Translated from the French by Bill Zavatsky and Zack Rogow via The Paris Review


Original Poem can be read here

Photo me by F.M.

Aimless

Retrato de uma princesa desconhecida
Para que ela tivesse um pescoço tão fino
Para que os seus pulsos tivessem um quebrar de caule
Para que os seus olhos fossem tão frontais e limpos
Para que a sua espinha fosse tão direita
E ela usasse a cabeça tão erguida
Com uma tão simples claridade sobre a testa
Foram necessárias sucessivas gerações de escravos
De corpo dobrado e grossas mãos pacientes
Servindo sucessivas gerações de príncipes
Ainda um pouco toscos e grosseiros
Ávidos cruéis e fraudulentos

Foi um imenso desperdiçar de gente
Para que ela fosse aquela perfeição
Solitária exilada sem destino

Portrait of an Unknown Princess
For her to have such a slender neck
For her wrists to bend like flower stems
For her eyes to be so clear and direct
Her back so straight
Her head so high
With such a natural glow on her forehead
It took successive generations of slaves
With stooping bodies and patient rough hands
Serving successive generations of princes
Still a bit coarse still a bit crude
Cruel greedy and conniving

It took an enormous squandering of life
For her to be
That lonely exiled aimless perfection

© 1991, Sophia de Mello Breyner
From: Obra Poética III
Publisher: Caminho, Lisboa
© Translation: 2004, Richard Zenith

And sometimes

​“E por vezes”

E por vezes as noites duram meses
E por vezes os meses oceanos
E por vezes os braços que apertamos
nunca mais são os mesmos  E por vezes

encontramos de nós em poucos meses
o que a noite nos fez em muitos anos
E por vezes fingimos que lembramos
E por vezes lembramos que por vezes

ao tomarmos o gosto aos oceanos
só o sarro das noites   não dos meses
lá no fundo dos copos encontramos

E por vezes sorrimos ou choramos
E por vezes por vezes ah por vezes
num segundo se evolam tantos anos

David Mourão-Ferreira

And an attempt at a literal translation

And sometimes the nights last for months

And sometimes the months last for oceans 

And sometimes the arms that we tighten 

never again are the same And sometimes 

We find in ourselves in a few months what the night did to us in many years 

And sometimes we pretend to remember And sometimes we remember that sometimes

when we taste the oceans 

Just the lees of nights not months we find in the bottom of our glass

And sometimes we smile or cry

And sometimes sometimes ah ah sometimes in a second, so many years go by