Alone in my simple cell’s observatory,
I iterate the haunted names of stars:
Betelgeuse and Aldebaran,
Sirius, Rigel, Alpha Centauri.
I spread celestial maps in excited survey
And blink with timid interest at the moon in her boudoir.
Unattainable courtesan, your false reflection
Mocks me from the black canal.
A hunter with only one arrow,
I stalk the night,
Awaiting my chance.
When every leaf is rotted, what remains?
The sullen smoke of bonfires
Vanishes over gardens where huddled hedges
Creak, and tool-sheds, tensed like cobwebs,
Clench their secrets.
Tasting atmospheres on the tongue,
Myself the unphrased question that obsesses me,
I study the ancient inflections of light.
Kaleidoscopic silence rotates.
I want to join the mauve clouds’ conversation.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Fate or chance,
Take your pick,
The result is the same,
And no less strange.
Intellect and intuition-
Equal superstitions!
Moments
Are Presentiments
-Of what
I do not know…
Coincidences, repetitions, parallels and connections,
These are my reasons,
A modus vivendi,
And I love the idea of equilibrium
But perhaps not the actuality,
So I keep on,
Elliptical in the obscure,
Taking whatever I can get.
Did you think you were separate,
Different, alone?
Listen as your bones explain
The mystery of suffering;
You are mankind.
Take your pick,
The result is the same,
And no less strange.
Intellect and intuition-
Equal superstitions!
Moments
Are Presentiments
-Of what
I do not know…
Coincidences, repetitions, parallels and connections,
These are my reasons,
A modus vivendi,
And I love the idea of equilibrium
But perhaps not the actuality,
So I keep on,
Elliptical in the obscure,
Taking whatever I can get.
Did you think you were separate,
Different, alone?
Listen as your bones explain
The mystery of suffering;
You are mankind.
Bardsey Island
Is this then the Isle of the Blessed,
So tiny and weird,
Midway between sea and sky,
Between life and death?
Do the bones of twenty thousand saints
Howl underfoot?
Nine maidens wait to heal
The wounded king.
Across Cardigan Bay,
Straining against thewed currents,
Ghost-boats brought flowering corpses
To their incunabulum,
Their druidical Rome.
From all across the peninsula
Fairy paths, straight as sunbeams, home,
Dark-fiery snake-rivers,
For the soul to dowse and dream,
And suckle on revelations,
Departing hence over the western horizon.
(Over on the mainland, at low tide,
In a gully below St Mary’s at Uwchmynydd
Pilgrims, last before boarding
Their soul-ships to the west,
Fill their mouths with fresh wellwater
And dash three times around the church,
Crossing themselves with wishes,
And straining not to spill a drop).
Glass-castled Myrddin sleeps here
In coiling cycles of time,
Guarding the Thirteen Treasures of Britain:
Arthur’s Cloak of Invisibility,
The Sword of Rhydderch Hael,
The Hamper of Gwyddno Garanhir,
The Drinking Horn of Bran,
The Chariot of Morgan,
The Halter of Clydno Eiddyn,
The Knife of Llawfrodedd,
The Cauldron of Dyrnwych,
The Whetstone of Tudwal Tydglyd,
The Red Coat of Padarn,
The board game Gwyddbwll,
The Ring of Eluned
And the Dish of Rhygenydd.
Pelagius wanders the booming shore,
Feather-cloaked Jesus in his esplumoir,
Shedding lives like seasons,
While seals by the hundred bask and sing.
Where the lost abbey’s lone tower
Rises, hermits once crouched in huts,
Fistfuls of watercress their eucharist,
Rendering their bones to prayer.
Pilgrim, your boat is ready:
Do you dare to board her and be rowed
Across the perilous tides and currents,
Into the west?
So tiny and weird,
Midway between sea and sky,
Between life and death?
Do the bones of twenty thousand saints
Howl underfoot?
Nine maidens wait to heal
The wounded king.
Across Cardigan Bay,
Straining against thewed currents,
Ghost-boats brought flowering corpses
To their incunabulum,
Their druidical Rome.
From all across the peninsula
Fairy paths, straight as sunbeams, home,
Dark-fiery snake-rivers,
For the soul to dowse and dream,
And suckle on revelations,
Departing hence over the western horizon.
(Over on the mainland, at low tide,
In a gully below St Mary’s at Uwchmynydd
Pilgrims, last before boarding
Their soul-ships to the west,
Fill their mouths with fresh wellwater
And dash three times around the church,
Crossing themselves with wishes,
And straining not to spill a drop).
Glass-castled Myrddin sleeps here
In coiling cycles of time,
Guarding the Thirteen Treasures of Britain:
Arthur’s Cloak of Invisibility,
The Sword of Rhydderch Hael,
The Hamper of Gwyddno Garanhir,
The Drinking Horn of Bran,
The Chariot of Morgan,
The Halter of Clydno Eiddyn,
The Knife of Llawfrodedd,
The Cauldron of Dyrnwych,
The Whetstone of Tudwal Tydglyd,
The Red Coat of Padarn,
The board game Gwyddbwll,
The Ring of Eluned
And the Dish of Rhygenydd.
Pelagius wanders the booming shore,
Feather-cloaked Jesus in his esplumoir,
Shedding lives like seasons,
While seals by the hundred bask and sing.
Where the lost abbey’s lone tower
Rises, hermits once crouched in huts,
Fistfuls of watercress their eucharist,
Rendering their bones to prayer.
Pilgrim, your boat is ready:
Do you dare to board her and be rowed
Across the perilous tides and currents,
Into the west?
Layla
Come to the black prayer rug,
Draw the Prophet’s black shawl
Around you,
Let the female superior
Draw you out of yourself,
To ecstasy,
To love.
Address the kiblah,
The mihrab!
Infinite powers
The veil protects.
Come
To the Ka’aba,
The black mirror,
The breast like a crescent moon
Dripping milk.
Work through the body,
With the body,
When you are hungry
Eat.
See the signs,
The world for contemplation,
Be the priest
Of every leaf,
Every stone-
This body now,
Forever!
Return to the mountain,
Where you began,
Square on the earth,
Reaching up with your hands-
Everything that lives
Is in your spine.
This air
Is ganglions of lightning,
I am tremors,
Hot and cold,
Electrical storms,
Whirlpools in the head-
Slipping,
Toppling,
Tumbling
Into terror,
Into bliss,
With the visions
On my fingertips
And the Milky Way
In my breath.
Doors Close Soon After The Melody Ends
Did I tell you about a friend of mine?
One day he jumped into a lake,
And when they found his body,
He was curled up like a baby,
With a big smile on his face.
We know when dinosaurs roamed the earth;
How long it takes for radioactive isotopes to decay;
When our hominid ancestors branched off from apes;
The dates of lunar and solar eclipses far in the future;
We know, we know it all…
Come to the encounter,
Make of it what you will,
In this world of copies
That we dub beauty,
Layer on layer
Of commodities,
Signs…
Technology is the mystery
And we its sounds;
Take what you want,
Give what you need.
Here I sit,
Scribbling and crossing out.
My mind:
Silurian reefs in the Welsh Borders, the hilltops of Wenlock Edge:
White limestone mottled with coral colonies,
Some miniature spiderwebs, others little chains,
Stromatoporoids, trilobites and brachiopods,
Bryozoans, snails and sea lilies…
And I stand here,
Like a man struck by lightning,
All his innards ravaged,
Yet not a mark on his skin.
One day he jumped into a lake,
And when they found his body,
He was curled up like a baby,
With a big smile on his face.
We know when dinosaurs roamed the earth;
How long it takes for radioactive isotopes to decay;
When our hominid ancestors branched off from apes;
The dates of lunar and solar eclipses far in the future;
We know, we know it all…
Come to the encounter,
Make of it what you will,
In this world of copies
That we dub beauty,
Layer on layer
Of commodities,
Signs…
Technology is the mystery
And we its sounds;
Take what you want,
Give what you need.
Here I sit,
Scribbling and crossing out.
My mind:
Silurian reefs in the Welsh Borders, the hilltops of Wenlock Edge:
White limestone mottled with coral colonies,
Some miniature spiderwebs, others little chains,
Stromatoporoids, trilobites and brachiopods,
Bryozoans, snails and sea lilies…
And I stand here,
Like a man struck by lightning,
All his innards ravaged,
Yet not a mark on his skin.
Rorschach Test
I lurch through darkness,
Like a sailor in the port of Manila,
Eager to find the spinning basket trick.
And you said you would not move on again…
You said you would settle,
Be normal,
Do as others do.
All kinds of nasty worms are in you,
Weeviling under and through…
I have sat on the steps of cathedrals
In miscellaneous cities,
Pondering and watching the crowds,
All the nameless people I will never meet,
My brothers and sisters.
In ten million years, the scientists say,
Men will become extinct.
Their chromosomes were defective all along.
From the Devonian and Carboniferous oceans
The shark has swum relentlessly on
Through millions of years, voracious, unstoppable,
While other species have perished all around,
On and on he cruises, seeking prey,
Cannily improving his design,
Nostrils tuned to the scent of blood, however minute,
The ampullae of Lorenzini under his snout
Detecting the far-off struggles of a wounded fish
Or the subtle respiration of a crab.
When does the next ship leave?
You know I will be on it,
Leaning off the taffrail, spitting into the wake.
Like a sailor in the port of Manila,
Eager to find the spinning basket trick.
And you said you would not move on again…
You said you would settle,
Be normal,
Do as others do.
All kinds of nasty worms are in you,
Weeviling under and through…
I have sat on the steps of cathedrals
In miscellaneous cities,
Pondering and watching the crowds,
All the nameless people I will never meet,
My brothers and sisters.
In ten million years, the scientists say,
Men will become extinct.
Their chromosomes were defective all along.
From the Devonian and Carboniferous oceans
The shark has swum relentlessly on
Through millions of years, voracious, unstoppable,
While other species have perished all around,
On and on he cruises, seeking prey,
Cannily improving his design,
Nostrils tuned to the scent of blood, however minute,
The ampullae of Lorenzini under his snout
Detecting the far-off struggles of a wounded fish
Or the subtle respiration of a crab.
When does the next ship leave?
You know I will be on it,
Leaning off the taffrail, spitting into the wake.
The Man Who Wouldn't Dance
Today I feel so ill, so out of sorts,
Not coming out to play.
I appear to be sweating dark poisons.
Bone-delirious,
Goosepimples on the brain,
Shudder and shiver
You weird little imp!
Nothingness is yours
For the taking.
“In a lifetime the average person
Spends the equivalent of a year on the toilet…”
A whole twelve months of my precious life
With my trousers round my ankles
Huddled on the pot…!
I am here,
The Count of Monte Cristo in his dungeon,
After God knows how many years,
And you, dear reader,
Is it you that makes that scratching noise
On the far side of the wall?
Scream, little baby,
Scream into the sky,
Breathe in the world
And scream.
Collapsed dead drunk the other night
Almost knocked some sense into myself…
My head still hurts,
But I’m no wiser.
The truth slips from my fingers
And dissolves
Like soap in the bath…
Can you feel
The unseen dimensions of time and space
Which distort gravitation,
The weird darkness somersaulting
And nonchalantly practising legerdemain?
Strange blue light
Irradiates
From the Andromeda galaxy’s core,
Where frenetic blue stars by the hundred
Race round a tiny circuit
Round a black hole,
All hot, fierce and young.
Not coming out to play.
I appear to be sweating dark poisons.
Bone-delirious,
Goosepimples on the brain,
Shudder and shiver
You weird little imp!
Nothingness is yours
For the taking.
“In a lifetime the average person
Spends the equivalent of a year on the toilet…”
A whole twelve months of my precious life
With my trousers round my ankles
Huddled on the pot…!
I am here,
The Count of Monte Cristo in his dungeon,
After God knows how many years,
And you, dear reader,
Is it you that makes that scratching noise
On the far side of the wall?
Scream, little baby,
Scream into the sky,
Breathe in the world
And scream.
Collapsed dead drunk the other night
Almost knocked some sense into myself…
My head still hurts,
But I’m no wiser.
The truth slips from my fingers
And dissolves
Like soap in the bath…
Can you feel
The unseen dimensions of time and space
Which distort gravitation,
The weird darkness somersaulting
And nonchalantly practising legerdemain?
Strange blue light
Irradiates
From the Andromeda galaxy’s core,
Where frenetic blue stars by the hundred
Race round a tiny circuit
Round a black hole,
All hot, fierce and young.
If At All
The coffin lid slams shut
On another day
And it glides politely
Through the curtains
Into the fire.
I followed a girl in the street today,
Bewitched by her magnificent bottom,
A sculptor’s dream,
Round as the earth.
Forever separating
Beauty from ugliness,
Designating, classifying,
Turning away,
Always feeling there must be something better,
Somewhere out of sight,
I watch the heavens like an Aztec priest,
So terribly alive,
Suffering the passage of the sun.
Test your strength against the night,
Bear with its counsel.
There is no order without disorder,
No form without formlessness.
The power that possesses me
When, retrieving my balance,
I stand foursquare on the earth,
And gaze into the future,
Afraid of nothing, ready for all.
Music is love
To the wishful heart,
All-absorbing, all-transforming.
Why should I fear falling
When all I am is sound?
On another day
And it glides politely
Through the curtains
Into the fire.
I followed a girl in the street today,
Bewitched by her magnificent bottom,
A sculptor’s dream,
Round as the earth.
Forever separating
Beauty from ugliness,
Designating, classifying,
Turning away,
Always feeling there must be something better,
Somewhere out of sight,
I watch the heavens like an Aztec priest,
So terribly alive,
Suffering the passage of the sun.
Test your strength against the night,
Bear with its counsel.
There is no order without disorder,
No form without formlessness.
The power that possesses me
When, retrieving my balance,
I stand foursquare on the earth,
And gaze into the future,
Afraid of nothing, ready for all.
Music is love
To the wishful heart,
All-absorbing, all-transforming.
Why should I fear falling
When all I am is sound?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Calabrian Days
In the Byzantine chapel in Stilo,
Beside the antique column turned upside-down
To celebrate the triumph over pagan evil,
I heard the Easter procession passing,
Drunk on honey, almonds and figs,
And thought of Tommaso Campanella,
Transfixed here on the mountainside,
Prisoner of the heretical stars.
In Crotone,in the ossuary of the Immacolata,
Regarding the nameless skulls piled high,
I thought of Pythagoras, seeking sanctuary
In the malarial city, hoping to crown himself
King of a new dominion, his own utopia,
Only to find himself banished, on the run again,
Cursing the incurable stupidity of man.
Squirreling in the Sila mountains,
Spring sang fierce Albanian hymns,
And the ghosts of lions and panthers
Stalked among vanished trees,
And your kiss was like snow on a pine branch.
At Nocera Tirinese wailing processions
Swayed through the streets, the flagellants
Flogging their naked backs, splashing the doors
With their blood, to protect those within,
Till the rain washed the stains away.
In Tropea, grotesque faces stared out from walls,
Warding off the evil eye, and we gazed out
Across the sea to the silhouette of Strómboli
And heard the Aeolian Islands singing
Beneath the swordfish sun’s high leap.
In the olive groves of Aspromonte,
I thought of Musolino,that great brigand
Who led the police a long mocking dance
For years on these slopes, preying on the rich
And corrupt, but a friend to the needy,
Doomed to die at last in the lunatic asylum,
Too sane for the world he lived in.
We plucked the sun like a bergamot
On afternoons of love and dumb confusion,
Alchemists sweating over the alembic
To elixiate the tiniest quintessence.
Sybarites surviving the city’s fall,
Sacked by barbarous envy and greed,
We escaped into the mountains and rivers,
And merged with the heavy vines.
Beside the antique column turned upside-down
To celebrate the triumph over pagan evil,
I heard the Easter procession passing,
Drunk on honey, almonds and figs,
And thought of Tommaso Campanella,
Transfixed here on the mountainside,
Prisoner of the heretical stars.
In Crotone,in the ossuary of the Immacolata,
Regarding the nameless skulls piled high,
I thought of Pythagoras, seeking sanctuary
In the malarial city, hoping to crown himself
King of a new dominion, his own utopia,
Only to find himself banished, on the run again,
Cursing the incurable stupidity of man.
Squirreling in the Sila mountains,
Spring sang fierce Albanian hymns,
And the ghosts of lions and panthers
Stalked among vanished trees,
And your kiss was like snow on a pine branch.
At Nocera Tirinese wailing processions
Swayed through the streets, the flagellants
Flogging their naked backs, splashing the doors
With their blood, to protect those within,
Till the rain washed the stains away.
In Tropea, grotesque faces stared out from walls,
Warding off the evil eye, and we gazed out
Across the sea to the silhouette of Strómboli
And heard the Aeolian Islands singing
Beneath the swordfish sun’s high leap.
In the olive groves of Aspromonte,
I thought of Musolino,that great brigand
Who led the police a long mocking dance
For years on these slopes, preying on the rich
And corrupt, but a friend to the needy,
Doomed to die at last in the lunatic asylum,
Too sane for the world he lived in.
We plucked the sun like a bergamot
On afternoons of love and dumb confusion,
Alchemists sweating over the alembic
To elixiate the tiniest quintessence.
Sybarites surviving the city’s fall,
Sacked by barbarous envy and greed,
We escaped into the mountains and rivers,
And merged with the heavy vines.
A Tour of the Abruzzo
On the beach at Pinetto, in the pine-shade,
We catch the sun on the tips of our tongues,
And pass it back and forth between our mouths,
Trying to forget the frescoes in the Duomo at Atri,
With sea-horses and fish swimming in the light
Of the rose-window, on the floor of the Roman baths
Beneath the apse, with The Slaughter of the Innocents
Before us, the opulent killers going about their work
With calm efficiency, skilled butchers slicing cuts of meat
From children, and holding them up by the ankles
While their mothers weep over the tiny corpses,
And Herod’s officials watch coolly from a balcony.
In Cocullo, on the first Thursday in May,
The people fling snakes at San Domenico’s statue,
Then carry the saint, vipers still clinging
Around him, through the streets in procession,
The crowds rushing forward to touch the serpents
So that they will live long and be happy.
Peregrine falcons patrol the alpine meadows,
And spring stalks the mountains like a wolf.
In grim L’Aquila,as the ninety-nine chimes
Shudder Teutonic night, in the Aurora hotel,
I draw a figure eight on your naked back
In red wine, spread across the smirking bed;
Dawn burns its silver crucifix into my brow
With werewolf frenzy, laughing earthquake of light,
And through the Holy Door of Santa Maria
Sinners pass, absolved in fire at summer’s end.
For several nights I dream the dead of Castel del Monte,
Buried in caves beneath the castle, fully clothed
And seated in cane chairs, as if in conversation.
In the sugar almond afternoon of Sulmona,
We discover dolphins leaping across the mosaic floor
Of Ovid’s Villa, and the barren women coming
To pray to the poet, and touch his stone phallus.
We catch the sun on the tips of our tongues,
And pass it back and forth between our mouths,
Trying to forget the frescoes in the Duomo at Atri,
With sea-horses and fish swimming in the light
Of the rose-window, on the floor of the Roman baths
Beneath the apse, with The Slaughter of the Innocents
Before us, the opulent killers going about their work
With calm efficiency, skilled butchers slicing cuts of meat
From children, and holding them up by the ankles
While their mothers weep over the tiny corpses,
And Herod’s officials watch coolly from a balcony.
In Cocullo, on the first Thursday in May,
The people fling snakes at San Domenico’s statue,
Then carry the saint, vipers still clinging
Around him, through the streets in procession,
The crowds rushing forward to touch the serpents
So that they will live long and be happy.
Peregrine falcons patrol the alpine meadows,
And spring stalks the mountains like a wolf.
In grim L’Aquila,as the ninety-nine chimes
Shudder Teutonic night, in the Aurora hotel,
I draw a figure eight on your naked back
In red wine, spread across the smirking bed;
Dawn burns its silver crucifix into my brow
With werewolf frenzy, laughing earthquake of light,
And through the Holy Door of Santa Maria
Sinners pass, absolved in fire at summer’s end.
For several nights I dream the dead of Castel del Monte,
Buried in caves beneath the castle, fully clothed
And seated in cane chairs, as if in conversation.
In the sugar almond afternoon of Sulmona,
We discover dolphins leaping across the mosaic floor
Of Ovid’s Villa, and the barren women coming
To pray to the poet, and touch his stone phallus.
Cannabis
Sweeter music falls from the air,
Assuaging the restlessness.
I am the sultan of smoke,
The slow man surrounded by speed.
Joy of Sufis and scholars,
Connect the clouds and earth!
Are you ready for The Secrets,
The Arouser of Thought?
Ah yes, I am besotted
With the world as it is,
(Or as it is not),
Knowing nothing, and happy
To know nothing.
I love the deep,
Strangely at home there.
I love the changes,
I am not afraid.
Eat, sleep, make love,-
All so easy and right!
Ah, colours of music
Oozing through my pores,
As I kiss my way
Around the moon...
Now I touch
The truth,
The thing itself
And not the perception.
I touch time, caress it,
Cup it in my hands.
And everything is form and pattern,
The game is oh-so clear-
Drunkenly, I laugh at my insight.
Assuaging the restlessness.
I am the sultan of smoke,
The slow man surrounded by speed.
Joy of Sufis and scholars,
Connect the clouds and earth!
Are you ready for The Secrets,
The Arouser of Thought?
Ah yes, I am besotted
With the world as it is,
(Or as it is not),
Knowing nothing, and happy
To know nothing.
I love the deep,
Strangely at home there.
I love the changes,
I am not afraid.
Eat, sleep, make love,-
All so easy and right!
Ah, colours of music
Oozing through my pores,
As I kiss my way
Around the moon...
Now I touch
The truth,
The thing itself
And not the perception.
I touch time, caress it,
Cup it in my hands.
And everything is form and pattern,
The game is oh-so clear-
Drunkenly, I laugh at my insight.
Number 43
This is my apartment,
Where I wager the days.
I hear the sound of feet above,
Walking on my grave.
Brilliant clownfish,
Are you happy in your tank?
I know you should really be in the sea,
But I learn so much
Just from watching you…
Repetition is my angel:
Reciting my life,
I learn it by heart,
And soon I can spell
Any word, almost.
Oh, just a dream,
But I want to escape
To the Swedish archipelago in summer,
To lounge on hot smooth rocks
Through phosphorescent days
And gather wild strawberries in the sky…
On the chessboard, as the game begins,
King and queen stand side by side,
But then the king hides in his fortress
As his wife roams free in battle…
But will she sacrifice herself
To win him victory?
To spout about destiny…no, just the slow accumulation
Of circumstance, toppling into events,
And whatever comes of it all…
Oh, why torment oneself with defining,
With full stops and commas and false punctuation
While the flux just laughs on its way,
Forever and ever the universal nothing?
History knows nothing of me,
Who scribble wicked comments in its margins,
Smirking at my own derivative wit,
My own world’s eccentric scholar.
A parody here, a caricature there,
And the day passes nicely, put to bed
Without unnecessary thought or affection.
Insolent to myself, I practise
Jibes and sneers against the soul,
Relishing the sound of words
Like pastiche and cliché.
How I like to strut and act the part
Of a black prince at the battlements of the sky!
This brief intoxicated instant of life
Consumes itself in its own weird frenzy.
How can I in myself
Combine adventure and order,
Face to face with the void?
Rapture and despair
Divide my soul as spoils,
And what remains?-
A prehistoric handprint
Glowing on a cave wall.
Dreams’ mitosis
Frenzies my head,
Electromagnetic storms,
Savage exultation.
Limitless capricious music,
Flash of a razor
Opening a cut!
My mind, cruel and impatient,
Refuses to surrender its strangeness,
Scowling defiance at itself,
Clashing in mortal combat.
All I see is machines…
To contemplate the order of the cosmos
And find such order in myself,
Might that not prove a kind of immortality?
Ah,the supreme good fortune
Of standing on the earth,
Breathing, thinking, suffering,
With no purpose but to be.
Break my mind and set me free…
Take your finger out of your arse
And get a move on.
Thank you for your custom;
Do call again.
Where I wager the days.
I hear the sound of feet above,
Walking on my grave.
Brilliant clownfish,
Are you happy in your tank?
I know you should really be in the sea,
But I learn so much
Just from watching you…
Repetition is my angel:
Reciting my life,
I learn it by heart,
And soon I can spell
Any word, almost.
Oh, just a dream,
But I want to escape
To the Swedish archipelago in summer,
To lounge on hot smooth rocks
Through phosphorescent days
And gather wild strawberries in the sky…
On the chessboard, as the game begins,
King and queen stand side by side,
But then the king hides in his fortress
As his wife roams free in battle…
But will she sacrifice herself
To win him victory?
To spout about destiny…no, just the slow accumulation
Of circumstance, toppling into events,
And whatever comes of it all…
Oh, why torment oneself with defining,
With full stops and commas and false punctuation
While the flux just laughs on its way,
Forever and ever the universal nothing?
History knows nothing of me,
Who scribble wicked comments in its margins,
Smirking at my own derivative wit,
My own world’s eccentric scholar.
A parody here, a caricature there,
And the day passes nicely, put to bed
Without unnecessary thought or affection.
Insolent to myself, I practise
Jibes and sneers against the soul,
Relishing the sound of words
Like pastiche and cliché.
How I like to strut and act the part
Of a black prince at the battlements of the sky!
This brief intoxicated instant of life
Consumes itself in its own weird frenzy.
How can I in myself
Combine adventure and order,
Face to face with the void?
Rapture and despair
Divide my soul as spoils,
And what remains?-
A prehistoric handprint
Glowing on a cave wall.
Dreams’ mitosis
Frenzies my head,
Electromagnetic storms,
Savage exultation.
Limitless capricious music,
Flash of a razor
Opening a cut!
My mind, cruel and impatient,
Refuses to surrender its strangeness,
Scowling defiance at itself,
Clashing in mortal combat.
All I see is machines…
To contemplate the order of the cosmos
And find such order in myself,
Might that not prove a kind of immortality?
Ah,the supreme good fortune
Of standing on the earth,
Breathing, thinking, suffering,
With no purpose but to be.
Break my mind and set me free…
Take your finger out of your arse
And get a move on.
Thank you for your custom;
Do call again.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
There were always hotels, those stations of the soul,
As he wandered around Europe, in search of something
That cool dispassionate prose could only guess at,
Some innocence beyond the grasp of “”form” and “structure”.
If they called him a great man, who was he to argue?
That was what he had worked for from the first, after all;
To prove himself the hero, the champion of letters,
A second Goethe, the soul and conscience of the race.
Bred for profit in the quays and mansions of Lubeck,
Scion of merchant princes, faithful both to man and to God,
He would do what was superior, correct and noble,
Serve the cause of culture and tradition to the end,
And no one, he prayed, would see the wretch within,
Suffering the exquisite torments of the damned,
Yearning for forbidden love, for disreputable ecstasies,
For lyrical beauty in a smiling young hotel waiter’s face.
How else could he perfect himself, master his life,
But through sacrifice, renunciation, self-inflicted pain?
He knew no other way; it was chivalry’s perversion,
The ancestral quest continued in thinner weaker blood,
The stray son weeping for the fall of his fathers’ house,
Sighing invalid in love with his own congenital malaise.
He had always been alone, solitude his sad vocation,
The necessary test of the prophet, the medicine man,
Killing the health in himself in order to heal others,
Tempted by the devil, torn apart, yet never giving in.
From his hotel window he could look discreetly down
At the handsome young tennis coach on the court below,
Hurt by his splendour, envying such weightless skill and flair,
While he, for his sins, laboured to write a single page a day,
Taking pride in his scrupulous bourgeois martyrdom.
Then he would sit at the piano, his grave dignified face
Betraying no emotion as his long sly fingers lingered
Over the keys, coaxing music from the empty afternoon,
Vicarious hints of the “transcendent”, the “absolute.”
Haloed by the smell of rich cigars and eau de cologne,
Grey-suited and stiff as any businessman or banker,
His ruined teeth rotting in his tight-lipped sensual mouth,
He groped for the perfect sounds to evoke his mood,
Coveting the same such majesty for life as for art.
The world had believed his clever lies, his legerdemain;
He had conjured a product people wanted to buy,
The finest luxury at affordable prices, filling a void,
While others less canny had neglected to set up stalls.
He reckoned fame and praise in the counting-house,
As the currency of greatness, the only compensation;
Otherwise, why would anyone so torment himself,
While those around lived in comfortable ignorance,
Wholly themselves without self-doubt or self-hatred?
Everyday at the same time he was there at his desk,
Surrounded by cosy clutter, in his prismatic oubliette,
His children tiptoeing past the door in biblical dread,
Minions of a despot, fearful of his cold inhuman wrath;
He saved his twisted love for himself and for his work,
Where passion and austerity met in grim confusion,
Frustration’s discipline perfected with patience
To serve the higher cause for which he had been born.
The sensual pleasure of words was his only solace,
While the world fell into chaos and barbarism again;
Who better than he to speak for reason and humanity
With ancestral authority, the imprimatur of the dead?
Politics were an inconvenience, a duty to discharge;
Democracy was so hard to love, that only catastrophe
Could make him its paladin, lest all he had lived for
Be annihilated on the bonfires of forbidden books.
All he wanted was to preserve the best of tradition,
The comforts and graces of the old world.
If they only knew how he longed for the commonplace!
His admirers never saw him locked behind his study door,
Sobbing, trembling, convulsed by dread and panic,
Shedding another skin, another life, another disguise.
But could they not read? Could they not guess the truth
So guiltily made flesh in words, in elegant fictions?
Why, sometimes he almost longed to be found out.
He kept his secret diaries locked in his drawer,
Confessions of torment and self-disgust, yearning
To be “normal”, freed from the never-ending shame
Of the hopeless deviant, diseased and isolated,
Secretly proud of his sickness, his precious artifice.
Sometimes he thought he was scarcely human,
So cold and remote, always observing from a safe distance,
Afraid to get involved, lest he start to feel, to succumb
To the mundane, and shed real blood like everyone else.
Could ambition not conquer self-disgust after all,
And the self-created image not become the man?
More and more, in the arms of his wife, in the dark,
Performing the perfunctory duties of the husband,
He saw her face become that of a beautiful boy,
Her body the splendid torso of a divine ephebe,
His platonic passion consummated on the sly.
He had married for ambition and conformity,
Deceiving the world but not himself, not his soul,
Sacrificing desire and love for the world’s approval;
What did it matter anyway, all that bestial surrender?
However or whoever one did it with, it was ugly,
The brutish distraction of the stupid undisciplined,
Their substitute for knowledge, wisdom or religion.
Irony was his fatal mistress; the reflex of a hollow man,
Believing in nothing, a fraud, a confidence trickster,
A capering jester in the guise of a philosopher-king,
An actor knowing just how much to show or hide.
Ah, how easy it was to impress with grand ideas!
To make a show of conscience, philosophy and wisdom.
“Order” was his demon, the suave oppression of the lost,
Rage held in check with a tyrant’s will, gathering force
As the stakes were raised, the voluptuous dreams forsworn.
Only the unattainable could make him want to love;
To look, not to touch, to yearn, to fall secretly in love,
Acting gout in his head the most extravagant passion,
The grand affairs he would never dare to live for real,
In all those grand hotels, with their bell boys and porters,
Where a fleeting look could thrill him to the marrow,
Unsettle him for days or weeks, with limitless fantasies,
Tantalise him to the most exquisite extremities of frustration,
Paroxysms of exhilaration and despair, then melancholy
To stimulate him long after; there was always the chance
Of a poetic encounter in a lift or in a corridor, a brief glance
Signalling so much, too much to bear, all that he was missing,
That tender simple humanity in which he did not share.
The joke was on him after all; he, the great humanist,
Whose humanity was abstract, parodic, and incomplete.
As he wandered around Europe, in search of something
That cool dispassionate prose could only guess at,
Some innocence beyond the grasp of “”form” and “structure”.
If they called him a great man, who was he to argue?
That was what he had worked for from the first, after all;
To prove himself the hero, the champion of letters,
A second Goethe, the soul and conscience of the race.
Bred for profit in the quays and mansions of Lubeck,
Scion of merchant princes, faithful both to man and to God,
He would do what was superior, correct and noble,
Serve the cause of culture and tradition to the end,
And no one, he prayed, would see the wretch within,
Suffering the exquisite torments of the damned,
Yearning for forbidden love, for disreputable ecstasies,
For lyrical beauty in a smiling young hotel waiter’s face.
How else could he perfect himself, master his life,
But through sacrifice, renunciation, self-inflicted pain?
He knew no other way; it was chivalry’s perversion,
The ancestral quest continued in thinner weaker blood,
The stray son weeping for the fall of his fathers’ house,
Sighing invalid in love with his own congenital malaise.
He had always been alone, solitude his sad vocation,
The necessary test of the prophet, the medicine man,
Killing the health in himself in order to heal others,
Tempted by the devil, torn apart, yet never giving in.
From his hotel window he could look discreetly down
At the handsome young tennis coach on the court below,
Hurt by his splendour, envying such weightless skill and flair,
While he, for his sins, laboured to write a single page a day,
Taking pride in his scrupulous bourgeois martyrdom.
Then he would sit at the piano, his grave dignified face
Betraying no emotion as his long sly fingers lingered
Over the keys, coaxing music from the empty afternoon,
Vicarious hints of the “transcendent”, the “absolute.”
Haloed by the smell of rich cigars and eau de cologne,
Grey-suited and stiff as any businessman or banker,
His ruined teeth rotting in his tight-lipped sensual mouth,
He groped for the perfect sounds to evoke his mood,
Coveting the same such majesty for life as for art.
The world had believed his clever lies, his legerdemain;
He had conjured a product people wanted to buy,
The finest luxury at affordable prices, filling a void,
While others less canny had neglected to set up stalls.
He reckoned fame and praise in the counting-house,
As the currency of greatness, the only compensation;
Otherwise, why would anyone so torment himself,
While those around lived in comfortable ignorance,
Wholly themselves without self-doubt or self-hatred?
Everyday at the same time he was there at his desk,
Surrounded by cosy clutter, in his prismatic oubliette,
His children tiptoeing past the door in biblical dread,
Minions of a despot, fearful of his cold inhuman wrath;
He saved his twisted love for himself and for his work,
Where passion and austerity met in grim confusion,
Frustration’s discipline perfected with patience
To serve the higher cause for which he had been born.
The sensual pleasure of words was his only solace,
While the world fell into chaos and barbarism again;
Who better than he to speak for reason and humanity
With ancestral authority, the imprimatur of the dead?
Politics were an inconvenience, a duty to discharge;
Democracy was so hard to love, that only catastrophe
Could make him its paladin, lest all he had lived for
Be annihilated on the bonfires of forbidden books.
All he wanted was to preserve the best of tradition,
The comforts and graces of the old world.
If they only knew how he longed for the commonplace!
His admirers never saw him locked behind his study door,
Sobbing, trembling, convulsed by dread and panic,
Shedding another skin, another life, another disguise.
But could they not read? Could they not guess the truth
So guiltily made flesh in words, in elegant fictions?
Why, sometimes he almost longed to be found out.
He kept his secret diaries locked in his drawer,
Confessions of torment and self-disgust, yearning
To be “normal”, freed from the never-ending shame
Of the hopeless deviant, diseased and isolated,
Secretly proud of his sickness, his precious artifice.
Sometimes he thought he was scarcely human,
So cold and remote, always observing from a safe distance,
Afraid to get involved, lest he start to feel, to succumb
To the mundane, and shed real blood like everyone else.
Could ambition not conquer self-disgust after all,
And the self-created image not become the man?
More and more, in the arms of his wife, in the dark,
Performing the perfunctory duties of the husband,
He saw her face become that of a beautiful boy,
Her body the splendid torso of a divine ephebe,
His platonic passion consummated on the sly.
He had married for ambition and conformity,
Deceiving the world but not himself, not his soul,
Sacrificing desire and love for the world’s approval;
What did it matter anyway, all that bestial surrender?
However or whoever one did it with, it was ugly,
The brutish distraction of the stupid undisciplined,
Their substitute for knowledge, wisdom or religion.
Irony was his fatal mistress; the reflex of a hollow man,
Believing in nothing, a fraud, a confidence trickster,
A capering jester in the guise of a philosopher-king,
An actor knowing just how much to show or hide.
Ah, how easy it was to impress with grand ideas!
To make a show of conscience, philosophy and wisdom.
“Order” was his demon, the suave oppression of the lost,
Rage held in check with a tyrant’s will, gathering force
As the stakes were raised, the voluptuous dreams forsworn.
Only the unattainable could make him want to love;
To look, not to touch, to yearn, to fall secretly in love,
Acting gout in his head the most extravagant passion,
The grand affairs he would never dare to live for real,
In all those grand hotels, with their bell boys and porters,
Where a fleeting look could thrill him to the marrow,
Unsettle him for days or weeks, with limitless fantasies,
Tantalise him to the most exquisite extremities of frustration,
Paroxysms of exhilaration and despair, then melancholy
To stimulate him long after; there was always the chance
Of a poetic encounter in a lift or in a corridor, a brief glance
Signalling so much, too much to bear, all that he was missing,
That tender simple humanity in which he did not share.
The joke was on him after all; he, the great humanist,
Whose humanity was abstract, parodic, and incomplete.
The Quest for El Dorado, 1530-1545
Precious is the dream, more precious than life itself;
The promise of glory that leads men to their deaths,
Venturing ever further into the perilous unknown.
Bartering their souls, their lives, for great fortune.
El Dorado! The Earthly Paradise lures its pilgrims on,
Through deserts, over mountains, across rivers and seas,
Gold-dazzled, hope-scourged, striving beyond the possible
To be crowned kings, immortals, gods among men.
Once a huge meteorite fell from heaven’s height,
And buried itself in the desolate páramo, excavating
An awesome hole that the rain filled with shine;
Holy chalice of the sun, Lake Guatavita ignited
In dawn’s first light, high on the frigid windy altiplano,
Land of the Chibcha, farmers, warriors, and craftsmen,
Who adorned themselves with the sun-stuff bartered
From their neighbours, since their own domain
Was rich in other treasures, in emeralds and salt;
Salt, not gold, was their true treasure, their sustainer.
In homage to the sun, the all-knowing,
They sacrificed even children at his bidding,
And fought savage wars with their neighbours,
Sometimes cannibalising the flesh of their captives;
And carried their golden chief on a ceremonial litter,
All his ornaments, arms and furniture made of gold.
No golden city was their home, but wooden huts
In humble villages, where they dwelt in Spartan fashion,
In a barefoot world, unlettered and perishable.
In Lake Guatavita’s depths dwells the puissant god
Who consecrated each new Chibcha chief, as his people
Encircle the lakeshore, laden with golden offerings,
Hope and awe in their eyes; smearing their bodies
With red achiote, they process to the shore, blowing
On panpipes and conch shells, and calling on the gods
To empower their ritual; the chief stands naked there,
His whole body anointed with sap, from top to toe,
Onto which gold dust is blown, till he stands
Resplendent, gilded avatar of the sun, then mounts
His ceremonial raft, and bids his servants row him
To the centre of the lake, and there, rapt in prayer,
Plunges in, and submerges himself in the freezing water,
That washes him clean and pure, bleseed and reborn,
Then out he climbs again, shining in the joyous day,
And sails back to shore, his majesty confirmed,
While the joyful crowds, shouting thanks and acclamation,
Cast their golden tribute into the lake’s embrace.
Foreign witnesses beheld this ceremony, and marvelled,
Then carried the tale of the Golden Man far abroad,
Forever growing and changing, exaggerated in wonder,
Till the Spaniards heard it, and lost their minds, bewitched;
Somewhere in Venezuela’s interior, it was said,
Lived a people so rich in gold and emeralds,
That such treasure was mere baubles and trinkets to them,
A magnificent ciivilstaion, remote from the world;
Surely it was God’s will that such unworthy heathens
Should also yield proper tribute to their rightful masters,
The noble race of Spaniards, whose every endeavour
Was ordained by the Creator, and assured of success?
Soldiers, scholars, adventurers, noblemen and rogues
All saddled their horses and set out to find their dream,
Audacity their watchword, honour their professed belief,
In whose name they wreaked havoc and destruction;
Forsaking home and comfort, daring fate’s decree,
Driven mad by the sun, where no tree cast a shadow,
Scorched by furnace winds, drenched by monsoons,
Stumbling into swamps and chasms, leaving their bones
As warning to the next fool, they perished in oblivion,
Stricken by Indians’ poisoned arrows, by starvation
And disease, incinerated and frozen, attacked
By hunger, thirst and despair, following mere rumours
And legends, in lands where no white man has trod,
Ignorant of destination, without maps or guides,
Tricked by hostile natives, doomed to false trails,
Yet they struggled on, and the greater the adversity
The stronger their conviction that somewhere near
Must lie the fabulous kingdom, whose limitless riches
Would yield themselves to him who had travelled
Most, and suffered most, and sacrificed all he had.
Everywhere they ventured, they admonished the Indians
To renounce their heathenism and accept the true God,
Else suffer his wrath; thus, they razed hostile villages,
And slaughtered and enslaved the rebellious,
And instead of glory they found misery, madness and death,
But still the myth seemed reality, and the least encouragement
Revived hope and energy, and drove them on again,
Immensity forever extending beyond another horizon,
Meagre facts transmogrified by fierce imagination,
Till only the impossible sufficed to keep them alive,
And miracles and marvels bewitched them at every turn.
When at last the Spaniards came upon the Chibchas,
They reckoned them a miserable worthless people,
And within months they had massacred thousands
And conquered and looted their realms, disgusted
To find no Golden City, no fantastic riches,
And, peering into Lake Guatavita, looking for gold,
They saw only the sky’s reflection, and the clouds,
And turned away, back into the emptiness.
The promise of glory that leads men to their deaths,
Venturing ever further into the perilous unknown.
Bartering their souls, their lives, for great fortune.
El Dorado! The Earthly Paradise lures its pilgrims on,
Through deserts, over mountains, across rivers and seas,
Gold-dazzled, hope-scourged, striving beyond the possible
To be crowned kings, immortals, gods among men.
Once a huge meteorite fell from heaven’s height,
And buried itself in the desolate páramo, excavating
An awesome hole that the rain filled with shine;
Holy chalice of the sun, Lake Guatavita ignited
In dawn’s first light, high on the frigid windy altiplano,
Land of the Chibcha, farmers, warriors, and craftsmen,
Who adorned themselves with the sun-stuff bartered
From their neighbours, since their own domain
Was rich in other treasures, in emeralds and salt;
Salt, not gold, was their true treasure, their sustainer.
In homage to the sun, the all-knowing,
They sacrificed even children at his bidding,
And fought savage wars with their neighbours,
Sometimes cannibalising the flesh of their captives;
And carried their golden chief on a ceremonial litter,
All his ornaments, arms and furniture made of gold.
No golden city was their home, but wooden huts
In humble villages, where they dwelt in Spartan fashion,
In a barefoot world, unlettered and perishable.
In Lake Guatavita’s depths dwells the puissant god
Who consecrated each new Chibcha chief, as his people
Encircle the lakeshore, laden with golden offerings,
Hope and awe in their eyes; smearing their bodies
With red achiote, they process to the shore, blowing
On panpipes and conch shells, and calling on the gods
To empower their ritual; the chief stands naked there,
His whole body anointed with sap, from top to toe,
Onto which gold dust is blown, till he stands
Resplendent, gilded avatar of the sun, then mounts
His ceremonial raft, and bids his servants row him
To the centre of the lake, and there, rapt in prayer,
Plunges in, and submerges himself in the freezing water,
That washes him clean and pure, bleseed and reborn,
Then out he climbs again, shining in the joyous day,
And sails back to shore, his majesty confirmed,
While the joyful crowds, shouting thanks and acclamation,
Cast their golden tribute into the lake’s embrace.
Foreign witnesses beheld this ceremony, and marvelled,
Then carried the tale of the Golden Man far abroad,
Forever growing and changing, exaggerated in wonder,
Till the Spaniards heard it, and lost their minds, bewitched;
Somewhere in Venezuela’s interior, it was said,
Lived a people so rich in gold and emeralds,
That such treasure was mere baubles and trinkets to them,
A magnificent ciivilstaion, remote from the world;
Surely it was God’s will that such unworthy heathens
Should also yield proper tribute to their rightful masters,
The noble race of Spaniards, whose every endeavour
Was ordained by the Creator, and assured of success?
Soldiers, scholars, adventurers, noblemen and rogues
All saddled their horses and set out to find their dream,
Audacity their watchword, honour their professed belief,
In whose name they wreaked havoc and destruction;
Forsaking home and comfort, daring fate’s decree,
Driven mad by the sun, where no tree cast a shadow,
Scorched by furnace winds, drenched by monsoons,
Stumbling into swamps and chasms, leaving their bones
As warning to the next fool, they perished in oblivion,
Stricken by Indians’ poisoned arrows, by starvation
And disease, incinerated and frozen, attacked
By hunger, thirst and despair, following mere rumours
And legends, in lands where no white man has trod,
Ignorant of destination, without maps or guides,
Tricked by hostile natives, doomed to false trails,
Yet they struggled on, and the greater the adversity
The stronger their conviction that somewhere near
Must lie the fabulous kingdom, whose limitless riches
Would yield themselves to him who had travelled
Most, and suffered most, and sacrificed all he had.
Everywhere they ventured, they admonished the Indians
To renounce their heathenism and accept the true God,
Else suffer his wrath; thus, they razed hostile villages,
And slaughtered and enslaved the rebellious,
And instead of glory they found misery, madness and death,
But still the myth seemed reality, and the least encouragement
Revived hope and energy, and drove them on again,
Immensity forever extending beyond another horizon,
Meagre facts transmogrified by fierce imagination,
Till only the impossible sufficed to keep them alive,
And miracles and marvels bewitched them at every turn.
When at last the Spaniards came upon the Chibchas,
They reckoned them a miserable worthless people,
And within months they had massacred thousands
And conquered and looted their realms, disgusted
To find no Golden City, no fantastic riches,
And, peering into Lake Guatavita, looking for gold,
They saw only the sky’s reflection, and the clouds,
And turned away, back into the emptiness.
Budapest
In the Writers’ Bookshop on Andrassy út,
I sit sipping tea, watching the scene,
All the strangers leafing through books and reviews;
What dreams and ideas pullulate in those heads,
Inexplicable as my own?
On the stairs of the Pest riverbank,
Midway between the Chain bridge and Elizabeth bridges,
Two lovers kiss with ridiculous passion,
As if the Turks were about to reappear
And sever them with a sabre.
Riding the escalators in the underground stations,
I stare pretty girls in the face with sudden boldness,
A different man down here in the dark,
More human, less afraid.
On Nepsziget island,alighting,I hear
The sound of dancing from a restaurant,
The summer pleasures of the proletariat…
How alien my body is to me now.
In the Café Gerbeaud,staring into an empty coffee cup,
I feel the tremor of the Metro beneath,
The Minotaur’s doleful roar.
We live on the blades of our ice skates,
Whirling round the frozen lake below the castle,
Thrown outwards into space by centrifugal forces,
In this infinitely expanding universe.
Tricks and illusions become more beautiful than truth.
A billion baby spiders burst from the egg,
Hanging mysteriously by a thread.
What is it –frustrated love, perhaps-that drives me
To the night pharmacy, in search of something
For my pains, my ills, my unfortunate weakness.
Some call it hypochondria,
But I know better.
City of sieges, of deaths and rebirths,
Your stones are cemented with horror and grief,
The myriad permutations of grief.
Alone on the night bus, passing the windows
Of secret lives silhouetted by artificial light,
I watch the puppets dance inside my mind.
In the Király Baths I bask like a walrus,
Mesmerised by rainbow light-beams,
Spectres in the steam.
Perhaps, in my way, I might even attain
The effortless élan of Andras Hadik the hussar,
There on Castle Hill, horse and rider fused into one,
And the horse’s balls shiny from the superstitious touching
Of countless students on their way to exams.
Inexorably, the sad streets draw me:
Streetwalkers hawking their skin and bone,
Purgatorial hovels in dark wynds,
Where forgotten souls huddle in perpetual twilight,
Burning naked light bulbs in the darkness of day.
At dusk, when streetlamps’ novas ignite,
Too many thoughts and feelings come,
Too many phantom bridges across the flood.
I wander among the toppled colossi
Of dictators for whom the crowd once roared
In ecstasy and adulation, begging to be led,
Now cast aside,unvisited,unloved.
I sit sipping tea, watching the scene,
All the strangers leafing through books and reviews;
What dreams and ideas pullulate in those heads,
Inexplicable as my own?
On the stairs of the Pest riverbank,
Midway between the Chain bridge and Elizabeth bridges,
Two lovers kiss with ridiculous passion,
As if the Turks were about to reappear
And sever them with a sabre.
Riding the escalators in the underground stations,
I stare pretty girls in the face with sudden boldness,
A different man down here in the dark,
More human, less afraid.
On Nepsziget island,alighting,I hear
The sound of dancing from a restaurant,
The summer pleasures of the proletariat…
How alien my body is to me now.
In the Café Gerbeaud,staring into an empty coffee cup,
I feel the tremor of the Metro beneath,
The Minotaur’s doleful roar.
We live on the blades of our ice skates,
Whirling round the frozen lake below the castle,
Thrown outwards into space by centrifugal forces,
In this infinitely expanding universe.
Tricks and illusions become more beautiful than truth.
A billion baby spiders burst from the egg,
Hanging mysteriously by a thread.
What is it –frustrated love, perhaps-that drives me
To the night pharmacy, in search of something
For my pains, my ills, my unfortunate weakness.
Some call it hypochondria,
But I know better.
City of sieges, of deaths and rebirths,
Your stones are cemented with horror and grief,
The myriad permutations of grief.
Alone on the night bus, passing the windows
Of secret lives silhouetted by artificial light,
I watch the puppets dance inside my mind.
In the Király Baths I bask like a walrus,
Mesmerised by rainbow light-beams,
Spectres in the steam.
Perhaps, in my way, I might even attain
The effortless élan of Andras Hadik the hussar,
There on Castle Hill, horse and rider fused into one,
And the horse’s balls shiny from the superstitious touching
Of countless students on their way to exams.
Inexorably, the sad streets draw me:
Streetwalkers hawking their skin and bone,
Purgatorial hovels in dark wynds,
Where forgotten souls huddle in perpetual twilight,
Burning naked light bulbs in the darkness of day.
At dusk, when streetlamps’ novas ignite,
Too many thoughts and feelings come,
Too many phantom bridges across the flood.
I wander among the toppled colossi
Of dictators for whom the crowd once roared
In ecstasy and adulation, begging to be led,
Now cast aside,unvisited,unloved.
Sibelius
When he closed his eyes he saw a late summer’s afternoon,
The sun slowly sinking towards the horizon,
The scent of geraniums in the windowsill,
In the house, as tea was being served,
While his beloved aunt played the piano…
The little boy crawled beneath her feet,
And the music flowed over him, the sounds were colours
In the carpet, they were glittering spheres in the air,
And in the woods he could understand
The birdsong, the most refined differences of pitch,
And at dusk among the trees he could see them,
Trolls and goblins and witches,loomoing.
He leaned the names of all the ships in the harbour,
And made little wooden boats with his own hands,
Then launched them ,watching them sail out of sight.
Already there was melancholy in the joy,
His father’s ghost in the house filled with books,
And all he could remember was sitting in his lap,
Looking at animal pictures in a book,
And the pungent smell of cigar smoke;
While his father lay in a coffin in the drawing room,
Little Jean played with a hunting horn,
And when the coffin was carried out, he started up
With his favourite song, “Run away, good reindeer!”
And afterwards he asked his mother again and again:
“Won’t papa ever come back, however many times I call him?”
Mother told her thoughts to no one but God,
Prayers and premonitions her obsession,
Withdrawn behind the blinds, in mute confession,
Withholding her mystery with exquisite cruelty.
At dawn the fields and forests were covered
With mist, and suddenly a woodlark flew straight up
And hovered still for a moment, then vanished,
And the trick was to shoot at just the right moment,
When the bird paused in the sky, as an act of grace.
He would take his violin with him out into the countryside,
And climb up onto a rock by the shores of Lake Vanajavesi
And play concertos to the birds,and,in his sailing boat,
Weaving among the archipelago’s isles,
He stood at the prow, improvising to the waves,
Praying for some mermaid to surface and take him
Down into the deep, that he might never return.
He roamed the butterfly summer, running his hand
Over sculptures of music in the air, thrilling to shapes
And volumes, laughing with sky-blue mischief;
Exultant animal trembling with sensation’s fire,
He wandered alone along the beaches of the Gulf,
Bathing and sunning his naked body on the rocks
Under sweet-smelling pines, while the waves
Chanted the Kalevala, and lifted him on swans’ wings.
Tall and pale, he stretched out his arms in flight,
Lifting the orchestra, trembling with the weight of the earth,
Embracing it, as the universe surged through him,
His blue eyes hypnotising the air into revelation.
His great troll’s head and thin-lipped mouth
Glowered with suffering, his large ears tuned
To subtle harmonics; exultation and despair were one
In his rude primeval force, never still from moment to moment,
Always about to explode in jovial farce.
At his villa on the wooded slope overlooking Lake Tusby,
Where foals and sheep would nose through the doors,
He stood scanning the skies with binoculars, following
The geese in flight over the lake, and hearing the screech
Of cranes, and the curlews’ cries echoing over the marsh.
Anamnesis was salvation; to descend into the underworld
And bring back wisdom, then strive forth with greater strength,
To discover the secret ,to become more than human;
Observing the movement of water, how the river’s flow
Determined the shape of its bed, he began to understand.
Then ,one autumn, he travelled to the Koli mountain, in Karelia,
And climbed to the summit, in the fierce cold, with the wind
Singing through him, through cold sparkling sunlight
And sudden hailstorms; from the top, wherever he turned
He saw wonder; blue-grey waves, white cliffs, endless forest,
The past and the future both contained in the present,
Urging him to concentrate, sublimate and abstract.
The sun slowly sinking towards the horizon,
The scent of geraniums in the windowsill,
In the house, as tea was being served,
While his beloved aunt played the piano…
The little boy crawled beneath her feet,
And the music flowed over him, the sounds were colours
In the carpet, they were glittering spheres in the air,
And in the woods he could understand
The birdsong, the most refined differences of pitch,
And at dusk among the trees he could see them,
Trolls and goblins and witches,loomoing.
He leaned the names of all the ships in the harbour,
And made little wooden boats with his own hands,
Then launched them ,watching them sail out of sight.
Already there was melancholy in the joy,
His father’s ghost in the house filled with books,
And all he could remember was sitting in his lap,
Looking at animal pictures in a book,
And the pungent smell of cigar smoke;
While his father lay in a coffin in the drawing room,
Little Jean played with a hunting horn,
And when the coffin was carried out, he started up
With his favourite song, “Run away, good reindeer!”
And afterwards he asked his mother again and again:
“Won’t papa ever come back, however many times I call him?”
Mother told her thoughts to no one but God,
Prayers and premonitions her obsession,
Withdrawn behind the blinds, in mute confession,
Withholding her mystery with exquisite cruelty.
At dawn the fields and forests were covered
With mist, and suddenly a woodlark flew straight up
And hovered still for a moment, then vanished,
And the trick was to shoot at just the right moment,
When the bird paused in the sky, as an act of grace.
He would take his violin with him out into the countryside,
And climb up onto a rock by the shores of Lake Vanajavesi
And play concertos to the birds,and,in his sailing boat,
Weaving among the archipelago’s isles,
He stood at the prow, improvising to the waves,
Praying for some mermaid to surface and take him
Down into the deep, that he might never return.
He roamed the butterfly summer, running his hand
Over sculptures of music in the air, thrilling to shapes
And volumes, laughing with sky-blue mischief;
Exultant animal trembling with sensation’s fire,
He wandered alone along the beaches of the Gulf,
Bathing and sunning his naked body on the rocks
Under sweet-smelling pines, while the waves
Chanted the Kalevala, and lifted him on swans’ wings.
Tall and pale, he stretched out his arms in flight,
Lifting the orchestra, trembling with the weight of the earth,
Embracing it, as the universe surged through him,
His blue eyes hypnotising the air into revelation.
His great troll’s head and thin-lipped mouth
Glowered with suffering, his large ears tuned
To subtle harmonics; exultation and despair were one
In his rude primeval force, never still from moment to moment,
Always about to explode in jovial farce.
At his villa on the wooded slope overlooking Lake Tusby,
Where foals and sheep would nose through the doors,
He stood scanning the skies with binoculars, following
The geese in flight over the lake, and hearing the screech
Of cranes, and the curlews’ cries echoing over the marsh.
Anamnesis was salvation; to descend into the underworld
And bring back wisdom, then strive forth with greater strength,
To discover the secret ,to become more than human;
Observing the movement of water, how the river’s flow
Determined the shape of its bed, he began to understand.
Then ,one autumn, he travelled to the Koli mountain, in Karelia,
And climbed to the summit, in the fierce cold, with the wind
Singing through him, through cold sparkling sunlight
And sudden hailstorms; from the top, wherever he turned
He saw wonder; blue-grey waves, white cliffs, endless forest,
The past and the future both contained in the present,
Urging him to concentrate, sublimate and abstract.
Little Dragon: Bruce Lee (1940-1973)
Electric Napoleon; sculptor of the fight,
Patiently paring away inessentials
To reveal the pure battle of energies,
The ebb and flow inside every atom,
He trained his mind on emptiness,
And raised his body to irradiant art.
He fought false limits to the death,
Chose the extreme, the impossible way;
Better to kill oneself in the struggle
To understand, than to live in illusion.
No man could borrow another’s soul;
Each must make his own pact with life,
And build his house with his own hands.
Shadowboxing, taking on the demons ,
He hammered perplexity into affirmation,
Determined to ride the tiger or die;
How to turn impatience into patience,
And violence into the purest calm?
Vicious impulse too often skewed him,
Brashly flaunting its ugly devil mask,
Lashing out to smash all opposition.
Born in the Dragon’s Year and Hour,
He sleepwalked to destiny’s summons,
Between nightmare and blissful dream;
He loved the straight line, the direct link,
Weaving patterns out of breath and flesh,
Always seeking the immediate opening,
To enter, transfigured, into the higher self.
Even blindfolded, he could see the moves,
Feel the patterns, the rhythms, yielding
As he overcame, surrendering as he won.
Heaven and earth united in an instant;
Fire and water reacted with each other;
He walked through the rain to cool his mind
And learn the acrobat’s sly intuition,
Watching the ships in the harbour come
And go, and the ripples on the surface
Spreading outward, gathering him in.
Sudden in his skin, he changed his shape
At will, now the joker, now the avenger,
The Devil teaching the Fool to be wise;
He lived to confront, to conquer, to simplify.
Fighting, he could read the mind of life,
Become his opponent, enter the dance,
Dissolved to perfection in the flow.
He struck like a cobra, simple and direct,
Fierce cruelty in his clairvoyant gaze,
The stronger spirit demanding its tribute,
Offering sacrifice, destroying to create.
There was no fear, only perfect form,
Stillness and movement in accord,
Freedom now, and nothing to lose,
No life, no death, only singular music.
Patiently paring away inessentials
To reveal the pure battle of energies,
The ebb and flow inside every atom,
He trained his mind on emptiness,
And raised his body to irradiant art.
He fought false limits to the death,
Chose the extreme, the impossible way;
Better to kill oneself in the struggle
To understand, than to live in illusion.
No man could borrow another’s soul;
Each must make his own pact with life,
And build his house with his own hands.
Shadowboxing, taking on the demons ,
He hammered perplexity into affirmation,
Determined to ride the tiger or die;
How to turn impatience into patience,
And violence into the purest calm?
Vicious impulse too often skewed him,
Brashly flaunting its ugly devil mask,
Lashing out to smash all opposition.
Born in the Dragon’s Year and Hour,
He sleepwalked to destiny’s summons,
Between nightmare and blissful dream;
He loved the straight line, the direct link,
Weaving patterns out of breath and flesh,
Always seeking the immediate opening,
To enter, transfigured, into the higher self.
Even blindfolded, he could see the moves,
Feel the patterns, the rhythms, yielding
As he overcame, surrendering as he won.
Heaven and earth united in an instant;
Fire and water reacted with each other;
He walked through the rain to cool his mind
And learn the acrobat’s sly intuition,
Watching the ships in the harbour come
And go, and the ripples on the surface
Spreading outward, gathering him in.
Sudden in his skin, he changed his shape
At will, now the joker, now the avenger,
The Devil teaching the Fool to be wise;
He lived to confront, to conquer, to simplify.
Fighting, he could read the mind of life,
Become his opponent, enter the dance,
Dissolved to perfection in the flow.
He struck like a cobra, simple and direct,
Fierce cruelty in his clairvoyant gaze,
The stronger spirit demanding its tribute,
Offering sacrifice, destroying to create.
There was no fear, only perfect form,
Stillness and movement in accord,
Freedom now, and nothing to lose,
No life, no death, only singular music.
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Cruising among the Parisian salons,
Discreet and correct in dark suit and white shirt,
He scanned the room for odalisques,
Sultan of a sad and secret place;
Where was she, imagination’s siren,
Mistress and mother, black widow on the skin?
He seemed so high spirited ,debonair, and witty,
Who would suspect the melancholy beneath,
Deep in those dark gold-flecked eyes?
So much tenderness and passion yearned
For honest consummation, reticent lest
It choose the wrong refuge, the false confidante.
The slightest praise would give him courage
To return to solitude, to seek again the miracle
Of melody and harmony, fusing in a whole;
But still he would wake in the night, in despair,
Certain that all he had ever done was mediocre,
That he had deceived himself all along:-
Fool, you presume to express the inexpressible,
That which lies beyond music itself?
His supple hands touched the piano keys
With meticulous sincerity, with a horror
Of affectation and mere virtuosity;
Only the clearest, simplest, most absolute sound
Deserved to disturb the perfection of silence.
What nonchalance shot through with fury!-
The soul’s abundance conjured atmospheres.
To live and die and live again, in music:
That was the trick, a lifetime’s quest.
Could reverie make real the pure ideal?
The veiled seductress stood waiting
In the garden, among the classical statues,
Voluptuous, yet chaste, mysteriously smiling.
The game was on ,as ever, too good to end.
The greatest audacity called for the finest discretion:
Extreme compassion had a violence of its own.
If only he could make music like the light
On Lake Lugano,in summer, reflecting the snows,
To render the jeopardy of delicate things,
Subtle as a priest or a mathematician.
Discreet and correct in dark suit and white shirt,
He scanned the room for odalisques,
Sultan of a sad and secret place;
Where was she, imagination’s siren,
Mistress and mother, black widow on the skin?
He seemed so high spirited ,debonair, and witty,
Who would suspect the melancholy beneath,
Deep in those dark gold-flecked eyes?
So much tenderness and passion yearned
For honest consummation, reticent lest
It choose the wrong refuge, the false confidante.
The slightest praise would give him courage
To return to solitude, to seek again the miracle
Of melody and harmony, fusing in a whole;
But still he would wake in the night, in despair,
Certain that all he had ever done was mediocre,
That he had deceived himself all along:-
Fool, you presume to express the inexpressible,
That which lies beyond music itself?
His supple hands touched the piano keys
With meticulous sincerity, with a horror
Of affectation and mere virtuosity;
Only the clearest, simplest, most absolute sound
Deserved to disturb the perfection of silence.
What nonchalance shot through with fury!-
The soul’s abundance conjured atmospheres.
To live and die and live again, in music:
That was the trick, a lifetime’s quest.
Could reverie make real the pure ideal?
The veiled seductress stood waiting
In the garden, among the classical statues,
Voluptuous, yet chaste, mysteriously smiling.
The game was on ,as ever, too good to end.
The greatest audacity called for the finest discretion:
Extreme compassion had a violence of its own.
If only he could make music like the light
On Lake Lugano,in summer, reflecting the snows,
To render the jeopardy of delicate things,
Subtle as a priest or a mathematician.
Egypt
The river and the desert,
The black and the red,
Life and death,
Breathing in and breathing out,
Man and woman,
Heaven and earth.
The scorpion is under his rock,
The cobra is in your head.
Dust in your eyes, dust of ruined cities,
Dust of stars and worlds, of dreams;
Night settles on your skin like a mosquito,
To suck the sweet juice of your veins.
Cairo: the men sit in the cafés,
Friends talking and sharing the sheesha,
Mint tea, and blood-red karkaday;
At Ramadan all are drawn into communion,
At sunset the lamps are lit on the minarets,
And beautiful calm and joy falls on the streets,
As everyone eats fuul and taamiya,
And celebrate with music and singing,
Purifying their lives day by day.
It is the time of the moulid:
Crowds gather at the saint’s tomb,
Singing, dancing, eating and praying,
While horses dance to music,
Acrobats and conjurers amaze the throng,
Sufi dervishes chant and sway for hours,
Attaining oneness with God,
And they lay down to let their beloved sheikh
Ride his horse over them,
Demonstrating their absolute obedience;
Hear the dulcimer, the lute, the flute, the viol,
Join in harmony, as the planets turn.
One hand holds sand, the other ashes,
Black horror rots your lungs away,
Florid salutations trumpet the air,
And everywhere:“Maalesh, maalesh.”
Anubis comes, vigilant protector of the dead,
With gilded ears and silver claws;
And Tutankhamen plays senet in the afterlife,
With ebony and ivory pieces;
He races across the desert in his chariot,
Hunting antelope and ostriches,
Trampling his enemies on the battlefield;
Serene Ankhesenamun offers her husband
Lotus, papyrus and mandrake.
Blind beggars lie with palms outstretched,
Barefoot urchins hump rubbish pails,
While elegant women browse the shoe shops,
And hotel guests lounge by the swimming pool.
Narrow streets thick with jostling crowds,
Slimy with donkey shit and burst water mains,
The smell of sheeshas and offal in alleys,
Cries of beggars, muezzins and hawkers,
Memories of old brothels and hashish dens.
In the Mosque of Saiyidna Hussein,
The head of Hussein watches over the centuries,
Remembering the moment of severance,
The fountain of blood from the wound;
Under the moon the Sufi brotherhoods
Parade with banners and drums,
Music fills the night with splendour,
Turning dusk into dawn into dusk.
The Mausoleum of Sultan Qalaoun:
Viridian, ultramarine and gold
The stained glass of the lofty dome,
And there by the tomb once hung
A stick used for curing fools and idiots
By beating them about the head;
Qalaoun the handsome Qipchak,
Purchased for a thousand dinars,
Rose to the throne through the ranks,
In the world of the Mamlukes,
Raised in barracks, adored and sodomized
By powerful amirs.
The khalif Al-Hakim moves among us,
Cursing Christinas, Jews, women and merchants,
Banning wine, chess and dancing girls,
Calling for all the city’s dogs to be killed
Because their barking disturbs him,
And, entering terrified merchants’ shops
On surprise inspections, happy when he discovers
A cheat to punish, standing upon his head
While his Nubian slave sodomizes the wretch;
His followers proclaim his divinity
In the Mosque of Amr, and the people revolt,
For which Al-Hakim orders the destruction
Of Fustat, watching from the hills
While the accursed city burnt below.hy
In the Cities of the Dead the living
Squat among and in the tombs,
Close to their ancestors, absorbing baraka
From the bones of saints and martyrs.
Here is the derelict Tomb of Shagar al-Durr,
The widow of Sultan Ayyub, who ruled
As sultana of Egypt for eighty days
Before the Abbasid khalif pronounced
“Woe unto nations ruled by women,”
Compelling her to marry the Mamluke Aybak
And govern from behind the mashrabiya;
Jealous of her power and warned by astrologers
That he would die at a woman’s hands,
Aybak planned to take another wife,
Whereupon she ordered his assassination
But after his death the Mamlukes rejected
Her offer to marry their new sultan Qutuz
And handed her over to Aybak’s former wife,
Whose servants beat her to death with bath clogs
And threw her body to the jackals.
In the Coptic quarter, the Christian liturgy
Is sung in the tones of the ancient Egyptians,
And the desert anchorites in their caves
Struggle with demons and temptresses,
And bathe by rolling naked in the sand;
Isis suckling Horus becomes the Madonna;
The ankh becomes the Cross of Christ.
At the Camel Market the emaciated beasts
Are beaten into ranks, shitting where they stand,
Hobbled and exhausted, while the traders
Inspect them with dispassionate expertise,
While herdsmen and merchants sit talking over tea,
While around them knackered animals
Are promptly throat-cut and disembowelled.
Beside the Nile a wedding party fills a casino,
With ululations, drums and tambourines,
And the belly dancer shakes and spins,
While street urchins peer through the gates,
Shouting blessings and ribald comments.
In the shanty tenements the sick and mad
Turn to magicians and exorcists for help,
Where celebrants whirl to ancient incantations,
Cymbals clash, and doves and rams are sacrificed,
Their blood daubed on the frenzied dancers.
Re travels in his solar barque across the sky
Over Heliopolis, over the primal mound
As the Flood recedes, and the black benben
Sings through eternity to the souls of Egypt,
While the Spring of the Sun waters the tree
Of the Virgin, the sycamore-fig whose branches
Sheltered the Holy Family in their exile,
And here Mary washed the swaddling clothes
Of the baby Jesus in the stone trough.
Under Sirius and Orion, the Pyramids of Giza
Call the astronomical soul to attention,
To seek for answers in this world of illusion,
To climb ever higher, and face the greatest fear.
The solar barques set out from the shore,
Heavenly cedarwood bright with the light
Of distant stars, as they sail through the sky,
Glinting in the pharaoh’s eye, the eye of Horus.
Exquisite, these titanic ashlars’ finish,
Wedded fast and true by flying djinns;
Weightless tonnage carved out of Time
Ascends in stages to the stars’ matrix.
The ghost of the open sarcophagus
Leads you through narrow passages,
Inward and upward, darker and deeper,
Promising wisdom and eternal life.
The scorpion hides you under a stone;
The viper maddens you with poison;
The spider catches you in secret webs;
The vulture comes to pick your bones.
Ride across the desert to Saqqara,
Companion of the gods, creature of stardust
And catastrophe, quickening with wisdom
At the dazzle of the soul’s pyramidion.
Now, before the spirit escapes once more
Through false doors, follow it to the source,
Through the heart’s chambers, into the light,
Weighed against a feather in heaven’s scales.
In the Serapeum I wander the galleries
Of titanic granite ahd basalt sarcophagi
Whxcih held once the mummfieid bodies
Of the Apis bulls,the soul of Ptah,
Who,with a word,brought the universe
Into being….
Hoopoes, turtledoves, bulbuls, bluethroats,
Redstarts, wheatears, egrets, hawks and falcons
Throng the river; the cobra and the vulture
Are joined, the lotus and the papyrus;
The White Crown and the Red Crown
Are made one; the Djed column arises;
The crook and the flail are crossed
Upon the pharaoh’s chest; the cosmos
Is gathered safe within his cartouche.
Allah’s fellaheen sail feluccas in the sky,
Mudbrick villages, painted blue for safety
Against the evil eye, sprout from blackness.
Tell el-Amarna is desolate desert plain,
Low mounds and litter of potsherds,
Nothing remains of Akhenaten’s royal city,
Dedicated to the new supreme god Aten,
When the old gods were toppled,
Where Akhenaten sang his hymns to the light,
And artists turned to nature and home,
And Akhenaten and Nefertiti ride in their chariot
Along the Royal Road, shining with glory.
At Abydos the pharaoh opens the shrine,
Offers the god sacrifices, washes and dresses
His statue, presenting it with gifts,
Then scatters sand on the floor, sweeps away
His footprints and withdraws with solemn reverence,
Leaving the god alone again until the morning.
Go west, into the desert hills, soul, beyond Abydos,
For there lies the entrance to the underworld;
The buried head of Osiris comes to life,
And calls to Isis, searching for his scattered limbs.
White and gold the pillars and pylons
Of the Temple of Isis on the isle of Philae
Shine against the blue water and black rock;
In the sunken rooms in the roof
After the long lamentation,
Isis gathers the limbs of Osiris,
And the slain god lies naked and tumescent
(the phallus vandalized by iconocloasts)
Upon his bier; mourned by Isis and Nephthys,
He revives to impregnate his sister-wife,
Then, transformed into hawk-headed Sokar,
He is borne away to a papyrus swamp
By the sons of Horus, to be anointed with holy water
With Anubis in attendance.
At Karnak, the priestesses masturbate the statue of Amun,
Hymning the glory of his ithyphallus,
Pylons, courts, columned halls, obelisks, and colossi
Recede into infinity, in shadow and sunlight.
In a Luxor nightclub until dawn, amid seedy décor,
The dancers come, one after another, on the stage,
Each more beautiful and beguiling than the last,
Tantalising and cajoling the rich businessmen
To throw money at them, and any dancer who fails
Toa rouse the raucous crowd, the manager shoos off
And immediately orders the next girl on,
As the customers call out, demanding blondes,
Or come to blows over their favourite dancers,
Getting drunk and smoking bango in a haze.
At Deir el-Bahri the Temple of Hatshepsut
Rises in terraces against the cliffs, monument
To a woman in pharaoh’s kilt and beard,
With her devoted lieutenant Senenmut at her side;
Once the terraces were cooled by fountains,
And planted with myrrh trees, the queen’s delight,
While in a cave to the north is a graffito
Of Senenmut buggering his queen Hatshepsut.
At Siwa Oasis, among thick palm groves,
Freshwater springs and salt lakes;
Think of the army of Cambyses that vanished
On the way here, sent to destroy the Oracle,
Caught in a sandstorm in the desert,
They separated, panicked and got lost,
And were buried forever beneath the restless sands;
Look, Alexander is coming across the desert,
To speak with the oracle, and be transformed;
At her ritual bath the young bride stands
And removes the disc from her silver collar,
Handing it to her younger sister, as she lays aside
Her maidenhood, offering herself to the future.
In the Eastern Desert, the hermit in animal skins
Emerges from his cave, with an escort of lions,
And a lone gazelle stands praying on a rock;
In the monastery, ostrich eggs hang from the ceiling,
Ready to hatch the resurrected Son of Man.
The black and the red,
Life and death,
Breathing in and breathing out,
Man and woman,
Heaven and earth.
The scorpion is under his rock,
The cobra is in your head.
Dust in your eyes, dust of ruined cities,
Dust of stars and worlds, of dreams;
Night settles on your skin like a mosquito,
To suck the sweet juice of your veins.
Cairo: the men sit in the cafés,
Friends talking and sharing the sheesha,
Mint tea, and blood-red karkaday;
At Ramadan all are drawn into communion,
At sunset the lamps are lit on the minarets,
And beautiful calm and joy falls on the streets,
As everyone eats fuul and taamiya,
And celebrate with music and singing,
Purifying their lives day by day.
It is the time of the moulid:
Crowds gather at the saint’s tomb,
Singing, dancing, eating and praying,
While horses dance to music,
Acrobats and conjurers amaze the throng,
Sufi dervishes chant and sway for hours,
Attaining oneness with God,
And they lay down to let their beloved sheikh
Ride his horse over them,
Demonstrating their absolute obedience;
Hear the dulcimer, the lute, the flute, the viol,
Join in harmony, as the planets turn.
One hand holds sand, the other ashes,
Black horror rots your lungs away,
Florid salutations trumpet the air,
And everywhere:“Maalesh, maalesh.”
Anubis comes, vigilant protector of the dead,
With gilded ears and silver claws;
And Tutankhamen plays senet in the afterlife,
With ebony and ivory pieces;
He races across the desert in his chariot,
Hunting antelope and ostriches,
Trampling his enemies on the battlefield;
Serene Ankhesenamun offers her husband
Lotus, papyrus and mandrake.
Blind beggars lie with palms outstretched,
Barefoot urchins hump rubbish pails,
While elegant women browse the shoe shops,
And hotel guests lounge by the swimming pool.
Narrow streets thick with jostling crowds,
Slimy with donkey shit and burst water mains,
The smell of sheeshas and offal in alleys,
Cries of beggars, muezzins and hawkers,
Memories of old brothels and hashish dens.
In the Mosque of Saiyidna Hussein,
The head of Hussein watches over the centuries,
Remembering the moment of severance,
The fountain of blood from the wound;
Under the moon the Sufi brotherhoods
Parade with banners and drums,
Music fills the night with splendour,
Turning dusk into dawn into dusk.
The Mausoleum of Sultan Qalaoun:
Viridian, ultramarine and gold
The stained glass of the lofty dome,
And there by the tomb once hung
A stick used for curing fools and idiots
By beating them about the head;
Qalaoun the handsome Qipchak,
Purchased for a thousand dinars,
Rose to the throne through the ranks,
In the world of the Mamlukes,
Raised in barracks, adored and sodomized
By powerful amirs.
The khalif Al-Hakim moves among us,
Cursing Christinas, Jews, women and merchants,
Banning wine, chess and dancing girls,
Calling for all the city’s dogs to be killed
Because their barking disturbs him,
And, entering terrified merchants’ shops
On surprise inspections, happy when he discovers
A cheat to punish, standing upon his head
While his Nubian slave sodomizes the wretch;
His followers proclaim his divinity
In the Mosque of Amr, and the people revolt,
For which Al-Hakim orders the destruction
Of Fustat, watching from the hills
While the accursed city burnt below.hy
In the Cities of the Dead the living
Squat among and in the tombs,
Close to their ancestors, absorbing baraka
From the bones of saints and martyrs.
Here is the derelict Tomb of Shagar al-Durr,
The widow of Sultan Ayyub, who ruled
As sultana of Egypt for eighty days
Before the Abbasid khalif pronounced
“Woe unto nations ruled by women,”
Compelling her to marry the Mamluke Aybak
And govern from behind the mashrabiya;
Jealous of her power and warned by astrologers
That he would die at a woman’s hands,
Aybak planned to take another wife,
Whereupon she ordered his assassination
But after his death the Mamlukes rejected
Her offer to marry their new sultan Qutuz
And handed her over to Aybak’s former wife,
Whose servants beat her to death with bath clogs
And threw her body to the jackals.
In the Coptic quarter, the Christian liturgy
Is sung in the tones of the ancient Egyptians,
And the desert anchorites in their caves
Struggle with demons and temptresses,
And bathe by rolling naked in the sand;
Isis suckling Horus becomes the Madonna;
The ankh becomes the Cross of Christ.
At the Camel Market the emaciated beasts
Are beaten into ranks, shitting where they stand,
Hobbled and exhausted, while the traders
Inspect them with dispassionate expertise,
While herdsmen and merchants sit talking over tea,
While around them knackered animals
Are promptly throat-cut and disembowelled.
Beside the Nile a wedding party fills a casino,
With ululations, drums and tambourines,
And the belly dancer shakes and spins,
While street urchins peer through the gates,
Shouting blessings and ribald comments.
In the shanty tenements the sick and mad
Turn to magicians and exorcists for help,
Where celebrants whirl to ancient incantations,
Cymbals clash, and doves and rams are sacrificed,
Their blood daubed on the frenzied dancers.
Re travels in his solar barque across the sky
Over Heliopolis, over the primal mound
As the Flood recedes, and the black benben
Sings through eternity to the souls of Egypt,
While the Spring of the Sun waters the tree
Of the Virgin, the sycamore-fig whose branches
Sheltered the Holy Family in their exile,
And here Mary washed the swaddling clothes
Of the baby Jesus in the stone trough.
Under Sirius and Orion, the Pyramids of Giza
Call the astronomical soul to attention,
To seek for answers in this world of illusion,
To climb ever higher, and face the greatest fear.
The solar barques set out from the shore,
Heavenly cedarwood bright with the light
Of distant stars, as they sail through the sky,
Glinting in the pharaoh’s eye, the eye of Horus.
Exquisite, these titanic ashlars’ finish,
Wedded fast and true by flying djinns;
Weightless tonnage carved out of Time
Ascends in stages to the stars’ matrix.
The ghost of the open sarcophagus
Leads you through narrow passages,
Inward and upward, darker and deeper,
Promising wisdom and eternal life.
The scorpion hides you under a stone;
The viper maddens you with poison;
The spider catches you in secret webs;
The vulture comes to pick your bones.
Ride across the desert to Saqqara,
Companion of the gods, creature of stardust
And catastrophe, quickening with wisdom
At the dazzle of the soul’s pyramidion.
Now, before the spirit escapes once more
Through false doors, follow it to the source,
Through the heart’s chambers, into the light,
Weighed against a feather in heaven’s scales.
In the Serapeum I wander the galleries
Of titanic granite ahd basalt sarcophagi
Whxcih held once the mummfieid bodies
Of the Apis bulls,the soul of Ptah,
Who,with a word,brought the universe
Into being….
Hoopoes, turtledoves, bulbuls, bluethroats,
Redstarts, wheatears, egrets, hawks and falcons
Throng the river; the cobra and the vulture
Are joined, the lotus and the papyrus;
The White Crown and the Red Crown
Are made one; the Djed column arises;
The crook and the flail are crossed
Upon the pharaoh’s chest; the cosmos
Is gathered safe within his cartouche.
Allah’s fellaheen sail feluccas in the sky,
Mudbrick villages, painted blue for safety
Against the evil eye, sprout from blackness.
Tell el-Amarna is desolate desert plain,
Low mounds and litter of potsherds,
Nothing remains of Akhenaten’s royal city,
Dedicated to the new supreme god Aten,
When the old gods were toppled,
Where Akhenaten sang his hymns to the light,
And artists turned to nature and home,
And Akhenaten and Nefertiti ride in their chariot
Along the Royal Road, shining with glory.
At Abydos the pharaoh opens the shrine,
Offers the god sacrifices, washes and dresses
His statue, presenting it with gifts,
Then scatters sand on the floor, sweeps away
His footprints and withdraws with solemn reverence,
Leaving the god alone again until the morning.
Go west, into the desert hills, soul, beyond Abydos,
For there lies the entrance to the underworld;
The buried head of Osiris comes to life,
And calls to Isis, searching for his scattered limbs.
White and gold the pillars and pylons
Of the Temple of Isis on the isle of Philae
Shine against the blue water and black rock;
In the sunken rooms in the roof
After the long lamentation,
Isis gathers the limbs of Osiris,
And the slain god lies naked and tumescent
(the phallus vandalized by iconocloasts)
Upon his bier; mourned by Isis and Nephthys,
He revives to impregnate his sister-wife,
Then, transformed into hawk-headed Sokar,
He is borne away to a papyrus swamp
By the sons of Horus, to be anointed with holy water
With Anubis in attendance.
At Karnak, the priestesses masturbate the statue of Amun,
Hymning the glory of his ithyphallus,
Pylons, courts, columned halls, obelisks, and colossi
Recede into infinity, in shadow and sunlight.
In a Luxor nightclub until dawn, amid seedy décor,
The dancers come, one after another, on the stage,
Each more beautiful and beguiling than the last,
Tantalising and cajoling the rich businessmen
To throw money at them, and any dancer who fails
Toa rouse the raucous crowd, the manager shoos off
And immediately orders the next girl on,
As the customers call out, demanding blondes,
Or come to blows over their favourite dancers,
Getting drunk and smoking bango in a haze.
At Deir el-Bahri the Temple of Hatshepsut
Rises in terraces against the cliffs, monument
To a woman in pharaoh’s kilt and beard,
With her devoted lieutenant Senenmut at her side;
Once the terraces were cooled by fountains,
And planted with myrrh trees, the queen’s delight,
While in a cave to the north is a graffito
Of Senenmut buggering his queen Hatshepsut.
At Siwa Oasis, among thick palm groves,
Freshwater springs and salt lakes;
Think of the army of Cambyses that vanished
On the way here, sent to destroy the Oracle,
Caught in a sandstorm in the desert,
They separated, panicked and got lost,
And were buried forever beneath the restless sands;
Look, Alexander is coming across the desert,
To speak with the oracle, and be transformed;
At her ritual bath the young bride stands
And removes the disc from her silver collar,
Handing it to her younger sister, as she lays aside
Her maidenhood, offering herself to the future.
In the Eastern Desert, the hermit in animal skins
Emerges from his cave, with an escort of lions,
And a lone gazelle stands praying on a rock;
In the monastery, ostrich eggs hang from the ceiling,
Ready to hatch the resurrected Son of Man.
Lúghnasadh
To the hero, called to the Land
Of the Ever-Young, comes the Goddess,
Smiling, untouchable, offering
The jewelled and musical apple branch.
I turn to the East and sing to the sun,
Beloved light that marries darkness,
Each nurturing the other’s seed;
Let darkness turn light inward
To fertilize the womb.
Now for the fruits of the year,
The hidden harvest
When the lion’s claw
Draws blood in heaven’s name.
Now for the games,
The funeral games,
To hallow the furrows
With exultation’s fire.
Lightning, strike me,
Impale me on the sky,
Skill my hands
With tricky craft
To shape the world’s dreams.
When Lúgh arrives in Tara,
To claim his place among the Tuatha Dé Danann,
He announces:
“I am a poet from the Land of Apples,
Rich in swans and yews.”
Come, thunderstorms and rain!
Purge the air and refresh the earth,
That the sun’s fierce heat has seared
And withered with excess.
After fire, water:
Naked riders race their horses
Across the river, swimming them low
To stagger up clean
And shining on the far side.
The Janus head
Facing two ways
Stands on the hilltop
Where the people gather
To celebrate the god.
And the young men
Clash their staves
In sacred battle.
The chieftain, facing the rising sun,
Cuts the first sheaf with his sickle
Then holds it up to the heavens,
Turning three times deosil on his heels,
Chanting the paean.
Amid dancing and singing,
The Fairy Queen sits
On her stone throne, accepting
Flower garlands from the boys.
And at the hilltop fair
Poets recite their latest verses,
Musicians play and sing,
Craftsmen sell their handiwork.
I am a keen spear that pours forth battle:
Now is the turning,
The darkness regaining,
As the baleful Sun, jealous of lost power,
Rages, oppresses,
And must be checked.
Whoever holds the burning spear
Holds the joy of victory;
Lúgh of the Long Arm
Launches his thunderbolt
Into the sky’s heart.
See, the moon is waxing,
And, coming from afar,
The menacing shape
Of the Spear, whose target
Is your heart, my heart.
Of the Ever-Young, comes the Goddess,
Smiling, untouchable, offering
The jewelled and musical apple branch.
I turn to the East and sing to the sun,
Beloved light that marries darkness,
Each nurturing the other’s seed;
Let darkness turn light inward
To fertilize the womb.
Now for the fruits of the year,
The hidden harvest
When the lion’s claw
Draws blood in heaven’s name.
Now for the games,
The funeral games,
To hallow the furrows
With exultation’s fire.
Lightning, strike me,
Impale me on the sky,
Skill my hands
With tricky craft
To shape the world’s dreams.
When Lúgh arrives in Tara,
To claim his place among the Tuatha Dé Danann,
He announces:
“I am a poet from the Land of Apples,
Rich in swans and yews.”
Come, thunderstorms and rain!
Purge the air and refresh the earth,
That the sun’s fierce heat has seared
And withered with excess.
After fire, water:
Naked riders race their horses
Across the river, swimming them low
To stagger up clean
And shining on the far side.
The Janus head
Facing two ways
Stands on the hilltop
Where the people gather
To celebrate the god.
And the young men
Clash their staves
In sacred battle.
The chieftain, facing the rising sun,
Cuts the first sheaf with his sickle
Then holds it up to the heavens,
Turning three times deosil on his heels,
Chanting the paean.
Amid dancing and singing,
The Fairy Queen sits
On her stone throne, accepting
Flower garlands from the boys.
And at the hilltop fair
Poets recite their latest verses,
Musicians play and sing,
Craftsmen sell their handiwork.
I am a keen spear that pours forth battle:
Now is the turning,
The darkness regaining,
As the baleful Sun, jealous of lost power,
Rages, oppresses,
And must be checked.
Whoever holds the burning spear
Holds the joy of victory;
Lúgh of the Long Arm
Launches his thunderbolt
Into the sky’s heart.
See, the moon is waxing,
And, coming from afar,
The menacing shape
Of the Spear, whose target
Is your heart, my heart.
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