Lit Heroes #21 - Akaky

When a retainer – or nose – after time immemorial
Has resolved on running off and away
This is most probably the fault of an apathetic master.
When your loyal overcoat is snatched away or goes astray
Then it's because of the coat owner's unreliability.
Had to keep an eye on, especially when parading it.

One can't see one's own nose and this twerp trades on it;
But it's easy to watch one's own cloak, at least the front of it.
And if you just keep your hand always gripping the collar
None will snitch it from behind without noticeable tugging.

I am me with my nose, so I am else under a fur.
A nice fur, a cat fur, might make something of myself;
On certain spots I must lack natural hairiness.

Whatever I might be deprived of isn't me, and there is lots of
_______________________________________ it.
Whatever I mightn't be deprived of, is that me?
You can swipe my restraint, you can swipe my desire
You can despoil me of my bloody whole being on earth
But, as long as I am present, you cannot divert my attention
_____________________________________a bit.

And I need less a cloak for that
Than such cloak's very loss, or literal experience.

July 25, 2007

Lit Heroes:

01. Cervantes's Quixote
02. Swift's Gulliver
03. Proust's Narrator
04. Defoe's Friday
05. Hugo's Quasimodo
06. Homer's Ulysses
07. Hesse's Siddharta
08. Molière's Sganarelle
09. Grimmelshausen's Simplicius
10. Verne's Phileas
11. Melville's Ahab
12. Miller's Willy
13. Rimbaud's Je
14. Maturin's Melmoth
15. Shakespeare's Romeo
16. Dickens's Oliver
17. Cooper's Chingachgook
18. Mann's Tadzio
19. Murasaki's Genji
20. Sade's Rodin
21. Gogol's Akaky

Lit Heroes #20 - Rodin

When your are in a dead end, you best play it down
Like a whiteface clown. Or act it out.
Like Red Auguste, anatomizing, vicious brat
Beauty-stricken, thrashing the child out of innocence––
Since both hanker for this on their immaculate fell.

Wrists tied up to a ring fitted high on a pillar
Blindfolded and stripped to emotion by the way
Blameless candor magnifies into peccancy squirming
Whirled around by deprivation's dismally bland lash.

There are no more crank ideas once you feel twisted flesh
Hoisted under that callous a thumb to beat the hell out.
Once tickled where you itch, smart and prayers reach divinity
Answering them in a manner befitting to a supreme being:
Laughing out loud instead of whining once prone,
_________________________________unclamped.

When you'll have acquired some deeper knowledge, my
____________________________________weasel
There won't be any marks left if you apprehend that.
But there will last some joke entering the real world.

When your are in a dead-end, the best way to find out
Is vowing yourself to these scholarly shenanigans
To make belief that there is no executioner outside.

July 25, 2007

Contemplative Danger (“The Terrorist”)

[Um seine Zeit betrachtend zu verbringen, braucht es auch etwas zum Betrachten. Wer durch die Umstände eilt, eilt und betrachtet nichts, wird dabei unter Umständen betrachtet, und hätte doch selbst auch genug zum Betrachten, die ihn am Rande Betrachtenden mit eingeschlossen.
Wer hingegen schön betrachtet, der hat, je mehr er betrachtet, umso weniger zu betrachten, und betrachtet dieses wenige dann gezwungenermaßen umso mehr – das heißt länger und genauer – was dazu führt, dass es unweigerlich noch weniger wird.
Stünde man auf seiner Seite, könnte man beinahe sagen: der arme Mensch betrachtet am Ende das Nichts zuende. Doch damit fertig wird er wohl kaum.]

[Jawohl, Glätte spiegelt und lädt zum Betrachten ein, das weiss man. Und ebenfalls ist bekannt, dass doch erst das vielfach Gefältelte genug Eigenes hergibt für eingehende Betrachtung.
Unvermitteltes Interesse weckt zwar der geschichtslos abgeschliffene, vom Meer noch feuchte Kiesel, und es braucht bessere Augen für den verwitterten Stein im Gebirge – aber ist denn der eine zu häuten oder der andere?
Nur wenn sie hohl wären, etwa – was kaum zu vermuten ist – eine Druse in sich bürgen, gäbe es Oberfläche. Die sich gerade ereignende Geschichte des einen und die gewesene des anderen entziehen sich jedenfalls beide dem Betrachter – auf ihre Weise – ganz.]

Saw a monk under a hood.

Oh my goodness, most reverend friar

What are you fiddling around underneath?

No big deal, sir. See, I’m just one of these thugs

Glumly observing my thoughtless compatriots

While composing some carol of joy, soon

To be crackled out of a hearse radio.

[Bien qu'ignorant toute forme musicale autre que celle du chant funèbre, tel peuple andin, heureux témoin de l'arrivée du transistor dans ses vallées recluses, éprouva, lui aussi, le besoin de se faire bercer par des mélodies hors contexte. Peu enclin à s'habituer au répertoire étranger, il se divertit de nos jours à toute heure de ces tubes mortuaires radiodiffusés.]

December 24, 2007

Are One

The disappearance of dull divine countenance
On this bright side of the moon
And its replacement by a host of brilliant things
This profusion of metallic radiance
And the natural vanishing of the lusterless
Are one.

The disappearance of mat divine countenance
On this glossy side of the moon
And the transformation of its final devotees
Unsurprisingly resisting on the light-averted part
Into flagrant creators of flamboyantly colored events
Bombing in order to hasten the return of the lusterless
Are one.

For as we all know, the godhead
Its reflecting telescopes
––All sorts of them––
And even this orb
Are but one.
Amen.

December 24, 2007

Lit Heroes #19 - Genji

This is a dream
To equal stellar Hikaru
Faithful in diversity.

I commoner can't line up lives and be serenely me in all.
My brilliance illuminates few, and to satisfy one is victory.
To honor past love smack-dab in the middle of organized
_____________________________________crime
Memory can't overpower the requirements of day and health.

The Danish handbook says: Be all of one piece!
Coming dissolute, how should I be of one dissolute piece?
When I feel to move on I start to tell and then ain't gone.
Were I not gravity-bound I'd surely beat it like a thug, were it
______________________________________ not
Elegant gray the hue could go far more splashy, couldn't it?

I don't try hard enough to admire the cherry blossom
That parable for ubiquitous candor blown off under one rain;
I must live these many lives in dull their permanence and
_________________________________dissolution.

July 25, 2007

Love Bears

Love bears a question mark on her glad brow
& matter's gist means grasping at a straw –
Abetment is already subject to the law
As if you mentioned gush –: add brimful how

You even managed... Rapids overthrow
That shabby raft, a miserable thing
Lives on in slacks or stagnant watering
Makes food-blent giantly a haystack grow

Where pearl abides for ages–– Rush, there's all
A day thy Lord to come as tells the nun
That raising her mantilla must not shun
Spouse death, crest You the wavy vale & fall
Uphill, outbalance while you spread adrift
Your convent patiently the pick to lift.

March 4, 1985, The Sonnet Wreath, 42

Lit Heroes #18 - Tadzio

Why is youth so darn attracting? So reminiscent?
Does this wholesome poor lad have the slightest idea
That an old geezer is following each of his plain childish
___________________________________moves?
Oh, if he knew, by Zeus's beard, how terribly
Thwarting it would be!

Gentleman's gonna fall on his knees before me.
Should I replace an elderly lady?
How could I do that?
Doesn't he know that
I am cut out for masturbation?

Cut out for masturbation
The old man wipes his glasses
Lost in thought over schoolboy Alcibiades who
Caught up with that stuff and as flighty as he ought to be
Quite serendipitously managed to pull a low B in the said
___________________________________subject.

July 23, 2007

Lit Heroes #17 - Chingachgook

Skin is sheer beauty. Armor's sheer beauty.
But is armor any trustworthier than mere naked skin?
Phryne was safe under her blushing nude, Percival beneath
__________________________________red armor
Disconcerting Chingachgook prospered steel-clad in that
____________________________ hardy copper pelt.

Peeling a fruit, you may find sweetness
But don't dare flay the beast alive, unless you will encounter
__________________________________fierceness.

Is there any mere live skin, or sparkling armor without skin
________________________________underneath?

Skin or armor, they are both like one's triteness
A dateless longing that safeguards best.
On this slick surface of ours though surely not flush with
__________________________________ourselves
A most noble gloss of a model indeed
Quite everything runs off.

So, where can I now find my Aphrodite of Cnidus?
Where the least of Arthur's champions? Where the faintest
__________________________________Mohican?
If there ever has been any, beauty alone must have missed
___________________________________her aim.

July 18, 2007

Lit Heroes #16 - Oliver

A little swift crouches knocked out, this fine bird.
Hasn't seen the window pane.
I am sure these two rooks nearby
That now ignore her
But came

As smart and burly as they are
Could proceed to attack
Choosing to see in their near congener
A deliciously quivering meatball
Exactly as we may do.

Once considered as such, one is easily lost
And it's not a big thing to turn from somewhat refined
Right back into raw. Mind the passages, or else––
It's a tough job to accomplish, as tough as
Any swift's swift recovering.

July 18, 2007

Still Snapshots

[Die Aufnahme einer menschenleeren Moorlandschaft
Unter bestimmten Witterungsverhältnissen
Ist auch ein Schnappschuss
An Innigkeit vergleichbar jenen
Die einer vom Objekt seiner Liebe aufbewahrt.

C'est la pose seule et non pas le temps de pose
Qui détermine s'il s'agit d'un instantané
Ou bel et bien d'une nature morte.]

Snap or still:
A snap kept in
A wallet is a still
While any photograph
Unexpectedly popped up
In a mind is a regular snapshot.

I kept these moments in my mind
To turn them into proper stills
As if solely immortalized
Snaps implied still life.

December 18, 2007

Lit Heroes #15 - Romeo

The more there is love the less there is science
Lovers are like theologians, lovers either of faith or of rite.

Acquiring knowledge of him
She might even have come off to procure him some pleasure
But they hadn't the time for that.

Their whetted members would have run across each other
If they had had the time for that––
Only the affection would have blunted a bit.
And there was too much of that to bestow the time
And poor knowledge required.

Abstaining hasn't ever been a question of morals but one of
____________________________________stages.
They were hurried on the stage where to deal with the
___________________________________universe
Means to hardly recognize the universal.
She, humming, half ignored what to do with the half chub he
____________________________________sported
And he, baffled enough, did not know how to tell;
Thus remained beastly passion for a moment…

Yet in days of utter thrill the bucolic, hard by the flock, gets
___________________________________to know
And there is no lesser love.
But these weren't observers coming of age. However allured
They knew not love.

July 18, 2007

Map Room

Mappers in active duty aren't adventurers.
As long as they really do work the map
The desert is far, accuracy is needed
Next to the support of adventurers
To get somewhat useful stuff.

I left the map room
Eager to see what I had seen
On the map, I knew where to go and I knew
How to tell north from south when I'd be there.
But once gone walkabout, stood about in the desert
Rid of quite everything, desert-orphaned
Working my map out there
Was of no avail.
The map room was far, I appeared
Far too small and no damn cartographer
If by chance he'd run over the thing he was doing
Could ever stumble on me and from up there
Enlighten my plight in order to
Give it all meaning.

December 16, 2007

Lit Heroes #14 - Melmoth

Hitherto ’t was quite stark the converse:
Telling falsely joyful news, the depraved betimes
Coveted to administer me their own psychical sap;
But this one errant, with his brazen straw aglow…

Foolhardily counting of my bloom, pretending
That I be bitten by the naughty archfiend
And must needs be ridded of a venom he oculated into me.

But I know not of this, friend, I am certain
Mine earthly days have not suffered yet such mishap.
I have coped with many a rascal and worse––
Yet their familiar bruised eyne meant less harm!

Whereas I notice that thou callest for no fewer
Than to suck the juiciest part off my soul.

And didst thou succeed, then lasted but the thick of that broth
Which is of no great avail for the diffident shape
Lacking the means to baste further.

Since how can I do with the gobbet alone?
I will give thee my spoon, then, ghastly spook––
Have this parched remnant also!

But, cloyed, he hath gone forth already…

July 16, 2007

Odd Dock

One'd some fat burr dropt on his back
A burr but limp from fear
So tensely clinging to his neck
That he could not get clear.

The burden breathing on its own
Soon purred into his ear
Advice that turned his heart to stone
But stone constrained to hear.

Under the tale he gained a force
As if that cavalier
He was bestrid by made him horse
Whip-goaded to career.

He floundered and yet run ahead
Got headway in such gear
And felt that heart go bang instead––
That burdock in his rear.

December 15, 2007

Lit Heroes #13 - Je

The clincher is: "I am not me."
Once you understand this, partner, he said
There is something like a given result.

I've known Arthur for a long time
And I thought, I mean, at least, when we both were young
That he more than any other knew who he was.
It was only recently that he desired to open up my eyes.

I told him nuts, but the bugger insisted:
I is, quoth he, quite definitively somebody else.
Me too, I always thought so, I said
And still, we're absolutely different blokes.

He looked at me, yawning, like a kitten. Yep, I said, if you say
______________________________________so.
First, I didn't want to destroy our friendship
And second, his talent as a trader with Ethiopia is quite
________________________________impressing.

It took me that long to find out that little accident
Cause I never thought he too could scribble stuff in that
____________________________________sense.
For I did so. And therefore thought he couldn't.

I always thought him a well-to-do guy in the Overseas
__________________________________Division.
But these specimens have long died out, he told me.
These days, there is no more such thing as a senior sales
_________________________________executive.

July 16, 2007

Harmony and Scrambled Eggs

[1. Throwing up all these lies

Hors du monde, on peut vivre en harmonie
Tel l'amoureux regardant son amie endormie dans ce poème de Rexroth, She Is Away. C'est le monde qui, dès l'heure du réveil, ramènera la fabulation, voire la rendra inéluctable, puisque les relations qu'il génère sont trop polymorphes pour être comprises de la même façon par deux personnes.
Cela exprime l'autre Kenneth, de vingt ans son cadet, en d'autres termes, dans You Want A Social Life, prétendant qu'on ne saurait réussir et en petit et en grand comité.

2. Overwhelmingly true

Or, c'est dans n'importe quel contexte que je te mens, et cela même si je te dis la vérité, car dans l'incapacité de te fournir la plénitude de la situation, je suis forcé de me débrouiller avec des morceaux de faux. Et pourtant, ce contexte, étant écrasant de vérité, m'englobe si parfaitement qu'en fin de compte, même si, par commodité, je tente d'y échapper, je ne peux que te dire le vrai.

3. For keeps / A la revoyure

––J'adore la forme de tes joues. Je n'ai cessé dès lors de les dessiner avec mes mains.
––Mais sur les corps d'autres.
––Le moule reste pour toujours, quoi.]

December 13, 2007

Truth is not dangerous, if any danger
Arises from that truth: she makes you sleep
Most narcotizing danger, truth is cheap
No prize adventuresome––she's that arranger

And still not narrow, narrow as redundant lie
Hemmed in by brick veneer, yet cramping mind
Of mindful sceneries, much of a kind
A host of veins ways frame, roam, err or try.

One truth, you've just to swallow her, the rest
She'll do and make you see an inner world
Likely portentous––rich, large, weighty, free; unfurled
Truth makes you dream, her lying is your best.

(Aroused from it for once, you still should see
That very vision's visage, mugging verity.)

January 20, 1995 The Sonnet Wreath, 5

Lit Heroes #12 - Willy

I currently sell quite a lot of those lamps.
I just don't tell them to rub; they must find out this by
_________________________________________themselves.
I even think that from a legal point of view I'm forbidden to.

If one isn't stone-blind, the very looks should intrigue him
____________________________________________enough.
If I were my customers, I'd most certainly give it a try;
But that's none of my business, I'm not a teacher of curiosity.

On the other hand, they are customers, not blabbers.
They wouldn't call me up shrieking into the handset––
Exactly as I don't pick them out, these people!

No peddler here below can afford to choose to whom he's
___________________________________________hawking.
Once they're out of the wagon, please understand…
But in all these years not one's come back; so they must be
Just as satisfied to have them as I am to have them gone.

In some case, that's for sure, it may be better the man
Never notices how useful such a little thing can be.
He'd simply take it for a piece of fine art work thus.

As per me, I the hell know what to do with fine art work.
I think all things should sort of transcend in a way.
Especially in times as we have right now.
I am in that sense a bit of a philosopher.

July 16, 2007

Lit Heroes #11 - Ahab

Life is too short to trifle and scatter your shot.
It's hard enough to do one damn business right.
To have accomplished one single thing in this life
Is enough glory for a lifetime.

Do not get bogged down in details, the intention is all
No matter what that target thing is, big or small
Brute or meticulous by instinct.

In my case, it must be gigantic indeed.
Brute or meticulous by instinct, I don't know.

I ignore almost everything about this one great thing.
It is terribly agile despite its size, you'd never guess
How womanishly vagrant and brisk.
A quick-change chunk prima donna, like dancing jumbo
________________________________ sparks before the eyes.

Whenever requisite
The monster ducks below a line I cannot peek through.
Its reactions are utterly unforeseeable.
I wouldn't even dip below the line of my forehead.
My own reactions are utterly unforeseeable.

All too foreseeable to me, Ishmael says.
He won't achieve even one decent thing, this guy, for good.

July 15, 2007

Lit Heroes #10 - Phileas

If I am that world-weary it is because I am aware
How tiny our life space is.
With a little education we know it all
We might turn fusspots and discover the charms of pedantry
But we don't have much to discover.

At that moment of my life
The only open question was: how long would it take
To circumnavigate.

I've circumnavigated a lot of items
I've gone round subsidizing a lot of upmarket places––
Actual boredom has its price––
And I knew that it was too late for me to be dazzled.

To discover this last thing
I merely had to bypass any thing
Moving along without seeing a thing
Without smelling a stink
Without encountering a soul (I have my ways for that!)
Tipping quantities of beggars showing varieties of wondrous
____________________________________________wounds
Without helping out anyone else but me, Phileas

Just as if nothing else would've been at stake.

July 15 & December 10, 2007

Formes de Guerre

La guérilla, ou petite guerre, a lieu lorsqu'on se chamaille pour des détails sans portée réelle ; elle ne saurait être confondue avec la guerre guerre, l'hostilité dite grande guerre, historiquement déclenchée pour un détail sans portée réelle.
La grande guerre vraie, dans laquelle se trouvent toujours des grands principes mis en jeu, s'appelle également guéguerre : c'est celle des sexes, par exemple, experts en guerres larvées, interminables, car basées sur l'affrontement du Yin et du Yang, grands principes immuables.

Si, pour connaître le type de guerre auquel nous avons affaire, nous nous référons aux moyens engagés, le conflit où l'on tire avec des canons sur des moineaux, n'est ni de l'ordre d'une guéguerre ni de celui d'une guérilla, mais parfaitement de celui d'une guerre sérieuse.

Si nous nous référons par contre au nombre de victimes, celle qui hélas n'en a fait que fort peu, en a certainement encore fait trop, car elle ne peut avoir été menée que pour des bricoles.

Si, en dernier lieu, nous nous référons au nombre d'ouvrages effectués, bastions de retranchement ou lignes creuses, nous arrivons vite à la conclusion que dans le pire des massacres il n'y a eu que guéguerre, mais guéguerre d'opinions par trop fortifiées ou tranchées.

Nulle guerre n'est inutile, toutes sont strictement nécessaires pour la survie de l'espèce, nourrie de grands principes aussi bien que de l'importance accordée au moindre détail. Renonçons à la lutte pour le principe et voilà l'humanité bien mal en point ; cessons de faire les sourcilleux en ce qui concerne notre luxe des détails et adieu dignité humaine, bonjour barbarie : nous voilà réduits à la condition des bêtes ne guerroyant que pour leur survie !

December 9, 2007

[This helpless body muzzle, but
Do not expect him to hold still:
He's got a barrel and a butt
A blunt end with a channeled quill;
And if such nib is clogged, the stub
Itself now bound to pound will kill–
So prats sheer cue just prattling bill
Supplies dull bottom nebby top.

The thick of battle, 1995]

Lit Heroes #9 - Simplicius

The trouble with warfare is that
They reach for you in the snuggest hideout, these tourists
They come to gather you up wherever you linger.
All that silence, all that halcyon scenery they happen to
_________________________________________encounter
All those untrod mossy paths they happen to march up in
_____________________________________________step…

If you always longed to fly where seed burst open, you've
___________________________________________your fill.
This is, by any means, my tender snookums, the thriftiest
___________________________________________response
To a fledgling young angel's highly spirited expectations:
You instantly get
Whatever object of ripening yen might've ruffled your senses.

Eye-of-the-hurricane glory, I admit, has all along skimmed
___________________________________________your face
A gloomy yearning to reap the whirlwind, oh yes.
But you are hence reaping perpetual childhood, period.
A gift unrequitable, fade resistant, forever staining, the finest
Thing in warfare is that you may stay in the warmth of the
___________________________________________fireplace.

July 15 & December 8, 2007

Des Morgens, im Halbschlaf

[Ce que nous adorons c'est trahir la chose intérieure : car nous ne pouvons nous attacher qu'à des choses extérieures, visibles. Même en affectionnant certaine vertu intérieure, c'est toujours au travers de quelque chose de visible qui semble l'incarner, qu'on s'y attache.]

...
...Nach Jahren in der Fremde unversehrt
In die vertraute Heimat heimgekehrt
Fand sich Ulyss um seinen Preis geprellt
Vor eine Wand unmitteilbar gestellt
...Und konnte kaum, weil es nicht mehr von ihm
Jetzt abhing, um Verständnis sich bemühn:

...Dem Inselvölkchen, das Ulysses Reisen
Nicht einsah, noch des Fahrers neue Weisen
Begreifen mochte, nicht von ungefähr
Allseits umbrandet vom vertrauten Meer
...Stands freilich zum lebendigen Beleg
Der eignen Abgesondertheit im Weg.

October 1, 1993 Divan, Übergänge I

Village Basque

In order to stick to my last
I poked around on my own.
Found a ring in the ashes
––Very useful
Since I was not alone.

[Le mystère du village basque

Il y a le modèle de la séparation des tâches dans un bel ensemble agencé, et il y a celui de l'homme libre qui, maître miséreux de sa bastide, croit œuvrer à sa tête, tandis que du ciel on perçoit les sillons de conserve. Lequel des deux procure le plus de solitude ?

Dans une tribu montagnarde dont les membres, appréciant l'effort commun, vaquent à leurs occupations dans des cercles distants, les vaches sont certes aussi bien gardées que les solitudes, lovées dans l'ensemble qu'elles entourent.
Tu entres dans leur village, il ne s'y trouve qu'une seule grande maison, puis tu le quittes, roulant à nouveau en pleine nature jusqu'à ce qu'au bout de x bornes tu rentres dans du pareil au même – un village du même nom, constitué là aussi d'une demeure isolée. Et ainsi de suite. La solution du mystère : Tout cela forme une unique commune aux distances entre les fermes trop grandes pour ne pas en sortir entre deux. Il y a là et village et solitude et un espace à respirer.
Alors que la solitude de ceux qui se sont séparés comme il faut, engendrant des vies parallèles reliées par le vide ressenti, reste toute relative.]

[Und weil der dennoch überzählige Baske nach Amerika geht:

Ein Goldsucher siebt nicht mit dem anderen
Doch am selben Bach
Schon.]

December 6, 2007

Lit Heroes #8 - Sganarelle

The village quack told me to not worry about it:
Giving credit to my books, all this is pretty bog-normal;
The almighty masters simply have Asperger's.
Perhaps, he added, that's why they work…
I suggested that a manservant should be entitled to have
____________________________________an ass purger too.

You can obey instructions without an ounce of
_______________________________understanding, he said;
Obedience is a mere body job, menial brains are not required.
But if you do as I say––and that's the trick in it––you'll wind
___________up acting in a way that first of all is fun for you.
Anyway, I riposted, I mostly execute orders that I don't get
_______________________________________the reason for.
I won't say that his desires are pointless but I'm obviously
_____________________________missing part of that point.

Stuff would be quite easier if he'd let me handle it entirely my
_______________________________________________way;
But no way, I'm the flunkey, he's the bossy. I'm a free man
_____________________________________as he uses to say
Whilst he, at least thrice a day, suddenly buckles overburden
__________________________________ with accountability.
You know, the quack I'm friends with said, you can't tell an
_________Asperger to look through somebody else's eyeballs!
He'd better give a little peep through his own very balls for
_________________________________ a change! I retorted.

July 14, 2007

Emily Somewhat Preggers

Up to what age can one stay a child?
Up to what age can one bear any
Only the pot knows?
A bulge may indicate undernourishment.

There was this snag of permanent pregnancy
And the seclusion it calls for
While the face up there is withering.
While the mind up there long grew into belly.

Batches of unsent mail, stowed away
Under embroidered petticoats or the pillow
Of a bed in a room
And then snuffed out the candle for revery.

I ignore if there was ever an alarm clock tolling.
To tell the days apart
She had no other occupation than
To wait composedly for the one of her delivery

Aggrandizing within one minute stuff after another
Into always wanderlusty chits.
If ever, the bell must have tolled continually
For every day is doom's betwixt posies.

December 3, 2007

Lonesome Cumulus

I heard a bluster in the sky
I heard it clamor loud;
First thought it was a tempest's cry
But there was just some cloud.

Lone clouds are hailing when they pass
I guess they'd love to stay.
My misty boy far-off, alas
Life is a getaway!

If clouds could come and go at will
And be one's invitee
They'd smother all the parlor, still
And bland they could not be.

Thus, with my shy salute file past––
We would not consort well:
You, by yourself in heaven's vast
And I in poky hell.

December 2, 2007

It Makes Quite a Difference

א It makes quite a difference whether it’s God you besiege
Or your movable peer, stooping by your approach
Though desired he came up to that godhead whose arrival
_____________________________________one is pining for
Inexorably equal an idol indeed.

ב This is even more presumptuous
Than to rival, sick of anguish, one’s likes:
Hieratically jealous, yet bearably self-possessed
Just so commonplace dreaming to cope with the matchless:
___________________________Unable to grasp but eternals

ג & not your sheer aspect, unfortunate fugitive, seized in
Immobile ever-parting… unable to grasp, at any rate, but the
__________________________________one you came across
Guessing his very semblance familiar to you, & his essence
__________________________________________ comprised

When, chipper, he blesseth thy loins that much tired of battles

ד …Turns out harmless our contest, & the joke to be a joke
Striving only with withering beauteousness’s hearty little
______________________________________________vessel
& you, offering up, in secret athletes’ healthy stead, fully
____________________________unmasking your lustfulness
(Still a choosing, yet a dooming? a See of Rome, or yet the
_________________________true tiny bum thing in view?)
To Olympian omnipotence &, by your judgement, what a
_______________________________________________lidlet!
Put the mild golden “μηλον” (a pome) on some heavenly
__________________________________________thronelet –

ה Then, you critic wound up finite, a right venerable boy
Your mettle’s fair & futile blow, Alcibiades, neither Hermes
_______________________________nor Phœbus attainted –
Not an icon, but its wraith, meek Hyacinthus alone.

א Cela fait quand même une sacrée différence si c’est le Dieu que tu assailles ou bien, modestement, ton pair instable, etc.

ב Encore plus prétentieux que de vouloir rivaliser, malade de douleurs, avec son semblable, etc.

ג Mais pas ton simple aspect, infortuné fugitif, appréhendé dans un adieu permanent, etc.

ד… Notre émulation se révèle alors n’être qu’un jeu anodin, & le mensonge, etc.

ה Critique devenue fini, toi, vénérable galopin : ta juste & futile colère, etc.

« Ein Anderes ist es, den Gott zu bestürmen & jenen / Dir gleichend Beweglichen nahen zu wollen ergeben / So sie dir auch sind wie die Gottheiten, die wir ersehnen / Begehrt ihnen gnadenlos gleichkommend, Abgötter eben. // Schon schmerzensgebeugt mit Vergleichbaren sich angemessen / Nicht allerdings mit Unvergleichlichem halbwegs gelassen / Hieratischer Eifersucht bieder im Traume zu messen / Ist freilich vermeßner: ¬ Unsterbliches läßt sich nur fassen… // Nicht aber dein Anblick, unsäliger Flüchtling, ergriffen / In reglosem Scheiden… nur immerzu, wem du begegnet / Als wär dir sein Abbild geläufig, sein Wesen begriffen // (Da, Heiterer, er dir die kampfmüde Lende gesegnet…) // Erweist sich der Wettstreit als harmlos, der Scherz als gefährlich / Allein mit verwelklicher Schönheit beherzten Gefäßchen / & opferst du offen, statt heimlichen Knaben, begehrlich / (Noch Wahl, doch schon Schicksaal? Noch heiliger Stuhl, schon Gesäßchen?) // Olympischer Allmacht &, urteilend, setzest – welch Krönlein! – / Die mildgüldne Melfrucht auf irgendein himmlisches Thrönlein – / So schlug, wurdest, Richter, du endlich, vergöttlichtes Kind / Dein Mut, Alkibiades, für Hermes und Phöbus… Jazinth. »

διαφερει γαρ προς τον θεον

1990/1992/1998

Lit Heroes #7 - Siddharta

A probably soft-spoken fellow
With metal-rimmed goggles
And a flamboyant bow tie when he started to feel old
Wrote a book since he bothered about me
While I was passing most of my adult life
Experiencing this one thing:

That it is useless to care about someone
Because the only way to
Approach collective redemption is
To concentrate strictly on one's unique self
Even yielding into the palatine hazard of gamy boar
To finally fade away

For everyone's sake.

(Supposing that he acted like me
I must have been reconsidered as the hog.)

July 14, 2007

Tel Voyage Dans le Temps

Comme s'il était mort.

Je regarde une photo de moi, elle est
récente, mais j'ai l'air de quelqu'un
qui, si du temps de la prise de vue
il était certainement bien vivant
a dû casser sa pipe depuis lors.

Ce parfum-là, je voudrais qu'il n'émane
Ni du flou ni de la netteté de l'image
Ni du fait d'être tout à fait en vie
Ni du fait d'être mort à présent.

Que je sois toujours parmi les miens, la photo
le contredit presque. Foin des félicitations !
En fait, je ne suis pas très sûr que depuis
j'aie eu la chance de pouvoir faire
encore un petit bout de voyage.

Nov 27, 2007

Lit Heroes #6 - Ulysses

As far as I am concerned, I'm a born couch potato.
I grew up on TV just as you did and always considered
That there's enough change of scene on the screen.

I ignore who brought up the idea that I was restless.
Sure, I have traveled a bit––mere obligation––every
Friggin' day I goddamn prayed to rejoin my little wify…

Not one of the exploits they ascribe to me makes sense.
Since I got back I at last live the present.
I am sick of all the time wasted.

I don't deny that my beard is gray
Only I haven't the faintest idea what for.
I forget. Don't assault me with your questions.

Well, maybe there have been some fine moments
In the middle of the slog––but see
I can't even name now those island beauties…

July 14, 2007

A Model of Gracefulness

You nimble-minded variety of man
Four arms linking twigs
Tinier and tinier, faster and faster
No legs to touch ground, never still
You would fall
I not only desire your move
But your build.

You would be a statue
Too late, too long, headlong
I'd covet you all the same
Fallen from that high
Into a model of gracefulness.

March 2, 2005

L'Aporie de l'Aphoriste

Lichtenberg, cet autre adorable bossu, des lumières
Voulut se faciliter les choses en élevant
Lui-même l'objet de ses désirs.

[Elévation - Aufhebung]

Arrivé au point de pouvoir servir, ledit objet s'effaça.

Lichtenberg en fut inconsolable
Mais, philosophe, il aurait dû le prévoir.

When quanta do the danza
He who observes swerves
The whirligig of their feet
Into naught but stampede.

[War es die jahrelange Beobachtung, die das Kleine
So beeinflusste, dass es ganz aus der Welt schied?
Sei mein, sagt ein witziger Mann, und ich möchte
Kein Aufhebens mehr um dich machen.]

November 25, 2007

Lit Heroes #5 - Quasimodo

Who do you think I am?
Not one split second did I delude myself.
Such a beautiful girl––do you think
I didn't know that I never could have her
With that bit of a lump in my back?

Ever since I can remember
That darn hunch tells me that these chicks are pretty thick
Albeit awfully tempting
And this one was tempting to such an extent…
Her immoderate silliness was nothing less than unexpected.

Ringing bells twice a day isn't quite an absorbing job;
There's masses of spare time off the chimes
And you start to have some weird ideas.
I didn't even tell that twat I was into her gorgeous boobs––
I simply failed to save her… and she was mine.

July 14, 2007

Overreading the Bible

There are as many Bibles as there are generations.
The Scriptures are supposed to be re-read by each.
Mishnaic

The trouble has always been that
Discerning simple ideas soft-focussed in the haze of precious
___________________________________________language
Or filtering unheard-of data out of commoner talk
Are two different jobs for there are converse codings
And only the last one's Ars poetica
And only the last one can be Bible.

You might find in the Sutras some obsolescence
And Targumic Aramaic isn't currently a mother tongue
But the crowd-perturbing fact is: there is too much simplicity
Looming through it, rather than esoteric automatic writing
It would be the chore of the learned, Benedictine labor
With––unkindly enough––scarce an image in it.

It's no ban, no adult subtlety, no puerile iconoclasm though, it's
___________________________________________just 'cause
Image in it but explains, states and expounds, elucidating
Neither willy nor nilly, yet as motivated as
Otherwise only a porn pic;
All this canonical stuff is an apron-clad housewife, plainly kind of
_____________________________________________ a chum
But nonetheless the only person knowing your kinks 'n tantras well
_____________________________________________ enough
To have satisfying sex with:

I am sort of resting for a spell in a tiny park
Smack dab in the middle of Metropolis
Stillness and by-oneselfness amidst the roaring midtown bustle

(––Do you remember Puy Mary, adamantly wrapped in snowfall
____________________________________________and fog?
You thought us lost in some Pamir, smelling near-death xp, you
__________________________________________were frozen
With fear, wailing and gnashing of teeth, inconsolable, en route to
__________________________________________your maker
And then this truck came along and we heard it honk and found
________________________________________________out
We weren't even a stone's throw away from the local highway:
If we'd been to die it'd have been no avalanche but this truck to
_______________________________________run us over––)

Me alone for a spell on this minuscule island thus.
And as if it where the most normalest thing in this world:
Here observing an ant crawling over a leaf
Here shaded by a Japanese maple
Here a piece myself of utterly made-up nature.
Herein between myself.

November 22, 2007

Lit Heroes #4 - Friday

Oh no, that's no name, it would be pointless.
It's a keyword he used when he was searching after me.
I preferred hearing that than hearing the sounds mangled.

I nevertheless tried to tell him, he was a friend after all.
Indeed, he was the first I have given those syllables.
We don't do it. We don't have to, our kinsfolk do know
And an alien mustn't for it confers fulsome influence.

But I told him and, as a faithful pal, even admitted
To being about to decrypt his in the potent language too.
He didn't even want to hear that.

I named him in front of me and he didn't pay attention.
I got fulsome influence over him but I wouldn't misuse.
For all the influence he could have had over me
He had spoiled it either by kindness
Or blatant ignorance.

July 13, 2007

A Tale of Male Delicacy

A nosegay of florets crammed into a hole
Is easily beaten by one made of flesh.
Compelled to decorate my soul
I naturally am a bit rash.

Too stirred to go out plucking daisies
I'd leave 'em where they gaudify
But what I stick into the vases
Won't wither, mowed away.

Mine fade and die by slight attention
But in an incarnadine flowerpot
Dainty corollas of venison
Do flourish quite a lot.

(At any rate, they must do
Expedients for barren a season––
I resort to those who wouldn't renew
Resisting and yet wrested from the freezer.)

November 21, 2007

Lit Heroes #3 - Narrator

When I get up too late, I won't sleep the ensuing night.
My breakfast, then, consists of a plump little pilgrim's shell.
Its citrusy smack entails a litany of complex explanations.

Morning is a starting point for complex explanations
While the morning light, that rather simple chap, that
Teenage lunk, drops in everybody's news.

I watch him coming but I don't say a word at table.
The darkness broke, am I less puzzled now?
I, grown into myself, ponder…

The day begins with funny day ideas.
I ought to cheerfully plunge into the bustle––
Could be also like bolting back into my burrow, huh?

It is strange, I'm not preparing for that.
I'm preparing for melancholy
And analysis.

July 13, 2007

Capriolo al Tartufo

Die große Katze, das edle Tier, scharrt nicht im Boden;
Nur elende Schnauzen durchstöbern den Dreck.
Bin ich ein Schwein, wenn ich nach Trüffeln schnüffle
Statt schlanker Schönheit aufzulauern?

Wir glauben dir nicht.
Was gedeiht schon im Dunkel?
Jene Knollen sind schlechterdings Beiwerk, zur Würze
Des einzig begehrten Wildes.

[L'ongle du beau félin
Ne gratte point la brousse ;
Est truffe de cochon
Qui à la truffe va.

Nous ne t'approuvons pas :
Dans l'ombre, rien ne pousse ;
Tes champignons ne sont
Qu'épice au ragoût fin.]

[Big puss
won't paw
but sow
snuffles truffles.

Those tu-
bers add
some zing
to lame game.]

November 20, 2007 Helle Zeit für Knollennasen

Lit Heroes #2 - Gulliver

Size is a lifetime problem.
The most dazzling issue is not
Whether I am too big or too small or precisely my size
––For I always fit into the size I'm supposed to be––
What really bamboozles me are those changeling volumes
_________________________________________everywhere.

I am personally not used to switching sizes.
If I can sway the lighting I can't bias the light––
My size is true and I am right.
Though I'd prefer to be even tinier at times…
And sometimes feel that even life-size I am taller than life.

Little buggers kind of scurry all around me
And a huge moron enjoys battering down my crown.
It scurries and it batters.
I have ants in my pants
While a colossus labors to scratch me away.

July 12, 2007

Certitude Makes Life Easier

Certitude makes life easier
Animals hunt by necessity
But to track down the quarry
Even a beast of prey needs to doubt.

I am beset by suitable doubt, for a while
Thinking I could debunk some
Of those throbbing miracles, they are
Responsible for the hardships I know.

But, why, should I thrive by the snout?
Whatever I get hold of emerges from buried.
There's a different stillness required
To conjecture the labor of hounds.

Qualm and calm tell at least one same thing:
Were this a chase I'd be long
Left behind, having grown latent prey
To most warily stashing away my own hide.

The comfy hideout I am galling in
Isn't a place of rest though, under shelter
Inert I must creep way more scared
Then, say, while I would run away.

Life is easy as long as I beat it;
It is most easy when I catch my breath
Panting for the pursuer's out of sight:
At this juncture I'd embrace nature itself

Feeling it pound on my side, soaked, puny
Distraught––I, expendable pillar in its center
Thus unattainable, unsought for myself
Quite as astray, am the middle of nowhere.

June 5, 2005 & November 19, 2007

Lit Heroes #1 - Quixote

Had you not tilted at them
Those giants most peacefully would have
Stayed what they are:
Giants grinding their bit without a thought.
Fairly out of your way then.

So long as you do not drive them into
Making use of their brains, awful enough
They'd be loath to ape a bunch of
Run-down windmills––and you
Certainly are on the sure side, knight valiant.

Do savor the day instead of taking
A daring peek at vane-glorious mills;
In times out of joint, windy moments
You better sow your wild oats
Without forthwith allowing for an all too floury outcome.

July 12, 2007

Sonnet After a Time

Life's harvest (if there be one) into ash
The summers burnt and nothing left, reap: zero
A barn forever void, you daylights hero
A sack long since run empty through its gash.

Am I a hamster with two pouching cheeks?
I hate and love myself as anyone
When I catch sight of me with mirrors, done
Somewhere he's left a track, that sack that leaks.

Who ever cares? The pigeons ate it up
They tuck in vomit, sputum, spooge in case–
To nourish the maroon no cream is base
Whatever the refuse to grab, it's crop.

Choice muck or offal trim, fruitlessly gone
Ashes and easy bones, groomed by the sun.

July 15, 2001

Merry Burial

Should winter bride in with her dower of chill:
A layer of white fits to cushion the hill
A coating of night fits to shelter the vale
Both skin grafts torn off ye fair bridegroom. Unveil

The share you're betrothed to: if grim, strewn with frost
Go, chip crusty hymen and hallow that host–
The shroud remains yours, just the maiden's a cheat
Albeit her oncoming dark no deceit.

Yet brickwork and tile make a coffin to house
In hideaway happy enough near that spouse;
A sickroom for shell far too frail to appease
Dejection will finally warrant your ease.

September 27, 2001 Atonement

On Greatness and Infinitude

Low-flying fowl, pigeon, vomit eater
Upon which pithily the pigeon eater pounces–
Plump twice, where is greatness in this world?

Like a shadow outlined, to be trodden by the quick
Driven onward across it another body of oblivion, this
Is the sole infinitude both might experience.

To fell honest loot, not a quarry bewildered nor that
Emaciated self, projected talon within the beak's reach,
Heaven, there is way to catch greatness or infinitude.

April 2, 2004

Things

Good things, bad things:
How to tell ’em apart?
The outcome? Of what? They are already.
By their fruits ye shan’t know them
Since actual things aren’t ideas at all.

August 1, 2007