A Version
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer those lilacs and roses whose breath
filled the broad woods, where the sail of a flame
lay at the end of each arrow-straight path.
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer that storm whose white nerve sparked
the castle towers, or left the mind unrhymed,
or flared an instant, just where the road forked.
It is the star struck under my heel in the night.
It is the word no book on earth defines.
It is the foam on the wave, the cloud in the sky.
As they age, all things grow rigid and bright.
The streets fall nameless, and the knots untie.
Now, with this landscape, I fix; I shine.
– Robert Desnos
Translated from the French by Don Paterson
Tagged: Don Paterson, French, imagery, love poetry, nature, Robert Desnos, translation
- Published:
- October 12, 2012 – 08:00
- Author:
- By Madhu
- Categories:
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- Comments:
You have such lovely bones, he says,
holding my face in his hands,
and although I can almost feel
the stone and the sand
sifting away, his fingers
like the softest of brushes,
I realize after this touch
he would know me
years from now, even
in the dark, even
without my skin.
Thank you, I smile—
then I close the door
and never call him again.
– Philip Memmer
Postscript:
This reminds me of Browning’s My Last Duchess, in the conjunction of the narrator being a person who’s very different from the poet, and in the understated menace, the threat of violence to women.
You can read Philip Memmer’s bio on his site here and at the Poetry Foundation (one of my favourite places for poetry) here.
Tagged: archaeology, Philip Memmer, tactile, unsettling
- Published:
- October 9, 2012 – 08:00
- Author:
- By Madhu
- Categories:
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- Comments:
The Black Art
A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
– Anne Sexton
Tagged: Anne Sexton, conversational, gender, magic, poems about poetry, social commentary