Words in the Air

Three poems from Alphabet de soleils

C

The banner of your body floats in the Brandenburg wind.
An old woman wants to come in, I
can see her through the door, her red felt hand
pressing in vain on the latch, scraps
of her cries come at me like the barbaric
song of a violin mending the night;
I’m going to slip a rose under the door
a black-blooded rose, maybe she’ll go away?
And I could wallow in the bramble hammock
but her voice hiccups: Ophelia
My name is Ophelia, open the door, O-phe-lia…
—What do I care about her grotesque distortions
What lie will she bring me? Why
doesn’t she extend it to me through the sheets
of sand the way she extends her name…Ophelia
Ophelia, her shadow ricochets in the aura
of my dusk. Ophelia, her voice grates
like a leper’s rattle, philia, figlia…

K

Let’s catapult the conchoidal colocynth
Let’s catapult the choephori of the coliddors of the tifth
and the mitten cruncher, the tomcat cruncher, crunchers of sheep
note cruncher, crunch-in-your-mouth and in arms and in deaths.
Let’s catapult the lynx and the oriole’s cochineal mantilla
let’s catapult the mango
and the mongoose, shoo!

O

I’ve plunged my insatiable thirst into the seaweed of your body at rest on the anvil, splendid carrion, treasure of the Galapagos I’ve plunged my hands into your entrails and taken out the Black Lady’s stone dress, stones of grasses, of water and sky, stones of suns and sons.
I’ve plunged my hands into your womb, I’ve taken out the wooden horse, white as a star, its tulip harness.
I’ve plunged my hands and face into your rotting flesh and taken out your heart gnawed by a big cat, your heart that continues to beat in the pit of my hands more alive than Koh-i-Noor, more precious than the sea’s chariot.
I’ve embraced your stiff breasts, beautiful as permanence, and your mouth, crocus of ash said: hate.
Your eyes repeated it again as I raised your eyelids oh! Madeleine.
Then with a turn I excavated the pearl inlaid in your temple.
What erupted were voracious breezes that made your mind a tatter of blue.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Untitled [Do you still remember: falling stars]

Do you still remember: falling stars,
how they leapt slantwise through the sky
like horses over suddenly held-out hurdles
of our wishes—did we have so many?—
for stars, innumerable, leapt everywhere;
almost every gaze upward became
wedded to the swift hazard of their play,
and our heart felt like a single thing
beneath that vast disintegration of their brilliance—
and was whole, as if it would survive them!

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design By Kevin Seaman

"the distant steps"

By Cesar Vallejo

my father sleeps. his august frontispiece  

portrays a gentle heart;

it is now so placid...  

if there's something bitter, should be me.

.  

there is solitude in our home; we pray;  

there is no buzz today to share.  

my father awakes, as it resounds

the Egypt's gap, the farewell with no meaning.

.  

now it is so close;  

if there's something far on, should be me.  

then my mother walks beyond the gardens,  

enjoying this feel now already disenchanted.  

she is so delicate,  

fluid, brief and beloved.  

the solitude in our home has no riots,  

no news, no flora, without child roots.  

and if something is broken at afternoon  

which bends and breaks  

are those two leaned old folks.  

for them my heart still stands.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Shadwell Stair

by Wilfred Owen

I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.

      Along the wharves by the water-house,

      And through the cavernous slaughter-house,

I am the shadow that walks there.

Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,

      And eyes tumultuous as the gems

      Of moons and lamps in the full Thames

When dusk sails wavering down the pool.

Shuddering the purple street-arc burns

      Where I watch always; from the banks

      Dolorously the shipping clanks

And after me a strange tide turns.

I walk till the stars of London wane

      And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair.

      But when the crowing syrens blare

I with another ghost am lain.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production, Composition and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

I would have each couple turn,
join and unjoin, be lost
in the greater turning
of other couples, woven
in the circle of a dance,
the song of long time flowing

over them, so they may return,
turn again in to themselves
out of desire greater than their own,
belonging to all, to each,
to the dance, and to the song
that moves them through the night.

What is fidelity? To what
does it hold? The point
of departure, or the turning road
that is departure and absence
and the way home? What we are
and what we were once

are far estranged. For those
who would not change, time
is infidelity. But we are married
until death, and are betrothed
to change. By silence, so,
I learn my song. I earn

my sunny fields by absence, once
and to come. And I love you
as I love the dance that brings you
out of the multitude
in which you come and go.
Love changes, and in change is true.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

THE HOLLOW MEN
by T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz-he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, when 
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar 
Shape without form shade without colour,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes to death's other Kingdom
Remember us--if at all-- not as lost 
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom 
These do not appear:
There the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There is a tree swinging

And voices are 
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom 
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves 
No nearer--

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.

III

This is the dead land
this is cactus land 
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this 
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss 
Form prayers to broken stone

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eye here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley 
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river. 

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom 
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear 
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act 
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion 
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm 
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow 
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For thine is the

This is the way the way the world ends 
This is the way the way the world ends
This is the way the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

"This living hand, now warm and capable"

By John Keats

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–

I hold it towards you.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman

The Haunted Palace

By Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace -

Radiant palace - reared its head.

In the monarch Thought's dominion -

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow,

(This - all this - was in the olden

Time long ago,)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically,

To a lute's well-tuned law,

Round about a throne where, sitting

(Porphyrogene!)

In state his glory well-befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch's high estate.

(Ah, let us mourn! - for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him desolate!)

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed,

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

To a discordant melody,

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh - but smile no more.

Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman