To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Jerome Rothenberg: Previewing “A Field on Mars”: Two Poems & a Coda from “A Further Witness”

[The excerpts that follow are from a work in progress, A Field on Mars: Poems 2000-2015, scheduled for publication next year by Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre in simultaneous English & French editions. The note below explains whatever else needs explanation.  (J.R.)]

A GOD CONCEALED

I is
ego
in another
tongue

a swollen
sense
of who
he is

one day
will fall apart
& leave him
hapless

reading
his words
on glass
& air

or looking
at the sky
he reads
your face

the eyes
like shards
of ice
aglow

a god
concealed
his mouth
askew

the word
is formidable                                [form-i-dabley]
in another
tongue

the words
dance
down the path
inside my ears

& come to rest
recalling
how you spoke
& wrote

remembered
friends
& comrades
ages gone

THE NAMES OF FRIENDS WE SHARE

the presence
of the dead
in every
corner
opens now
into a space
of names
& faces
that escape
from time

the lonely dead
stare out at us
they learn
to play
a game
& teach us
how to read
the times
before
& after

gathered
in our minds
a faceless
swarm
of the departed
for as far
as we can see
the streets
of Paris
as they were
before

the names
of friends
we share
between us
on the flight
to berlin
other faces
with pale
substance
& grey hair                     (Amirgen White Knee)
a world
of strangers

fathomless
across from us
they sit
& stare out
at the frozen
sky
barometers
of change
the living
& the dead
together

take my hand
in yours
& we will find
a passage
to a world
the mind
remembers
& the heart
can share
the resolution
that the dead man
saves for us
absent a face

CODA
for Diane

writing something
to leave behind
is yet another kind of dream
when I awake I know
there will be no one left
to read it.
ikkyu

immersed
in light
the final
blindness
seals him
shut
his body
crammed
into a moving
car
the future
& the past
colliding
blown apart

I sign
the final
email
who
the others are
unknown
to me
the corners
of my mind
are dark
now
like the universe
itself
unspoken

dropping
from my hand
the book
is not
a ball
of light
the pain
I feel
in leaving
cannot be
your pain
another kind
of dream
invades me

loving you
the way
ahead
the far side
of a wall
arises
newly built
a further
witness
beckons
in the name
of love
as powerful
as this

the present
tense
is all
we have
I count
the days
with you
our fingers
join
& come apart
again
we live
on borrowed
time

words
left behind
the book
inside my dream
too bright
for those
to whom
we write
or speak
& know                                                                                                                                       
when we awake
there will be
no one left
to read it

NOTE.  The poems in “A Further Witness” began as a tribute to Anselm Hollo while he was going through his final days & ended, or seemed to then, with his death on January 29th, 2013.  I had known him going back to first meetings in London in 1961 or 62 & our friendship lasted over the half century since then.  I suppose that the mysteries of death & life hang over all of us & that the pain of separation is what it is & can hardly be avoided, but with it too there’s a sense of the preciousness of what we can give to each other in the little time that we’re afforded.  With all of that I’m reminded too of what survives, both in his own works & in the lives of those who were a part of his life & thought, & mine as well.  To all of which bits & fragments enter from the big book of outside & subterranean poetry that I was assembling at that time, & the poem itself including the Coda for Diane continues up to the almost present.

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