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

Monday, January 10, 2022

Eliot Cardinaux: Poems & Music from the forthcoming trio album “Out of Our Systems” with a note by the author

 

 Photo in concert at iBeam in Brooklyn, by Peter Gannushkin

 “I am a poet of the lyric lineage, favoring the lucidly bent, bare syntax of George Oppen, & the strange torn off clarity of Paul Celan. Mine are poems of compressed language, of a self folded in on itself. It has been said that there is a void in my work, & a trace left by other poets. That void might be filled or left be, at the edge of our correspondence.

 “I am a musician as well. As a pianist & composer, music takes place for me as a process of correspondences — between lyric & melody, composition & arrangement, player & player, improvisation & audience — where images & phrases are loosed from their moorings into focused, energetic sound. My poems are therefore, likewise scored, by turns as inscription, & voiced for performance.

 “It should be noted that there is an ekphrastic component to some of these poems as well — that I wrote them while “diving in” to recorded sounds by other artists — correlating, in the case of “You Can Know Where The Bombs Fell,” to percussionist, pianist, & sound artist Flin van Hemmen’s recent release of the same name (Neither/Nor, Brooklyn), & in the case of “A Black Box For The Holy Ghost,” to the recently departed avant-grade jazz legend Henry Grimes’ double album of uninterrupted bass & violin improvisations, “Solo” (ILK, Copenhagen). This adds another layer to the process of correspondence for me as well.

 “I would particularly like to mention bassist/composer Will McEvoy & drummer Max Goldman for bringing these poems to life recently on our second trio recording together.  You can hear two of these poems here on “Lying in the House of You (Piano Day).” This composition of mine will soon feature as the opening track of “Out of Our Systems,” forthcoming on my label, The Bodily Press. This is a collaborative trio, with each player contributing in equal measure. We have no leader. Enjoy!”

 —Eliot Cardinaux

 

 Listen to “Lying in the House of You (Piano Day):

https://soundcloud.com/user-130352928-318430694/01-lying-in-the-house-of-you?si=a86bd434da3040e09759c854338a2c01&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

 LYING IN THE HOUSE OF YOU

I. The Silent

 Cold fire: the

wolves’ eyes flicker

into no one’s language.

 

II. The Victors

 Rain stings the pulse

of the fields we lie in.

Stare loudly into the flames.

 
 

III. The Named

 

Torn from the flowerless rose

I have a single thorn of light

to carve their constellation.

 

IV. The Lost

 

I am a stranger, & this is their bread.

The knife is a sky between us.

Break it with your hands.

 

V. The Hungry

 

The crater’s wheat is holy.

A whole spent earth

rises mutely over the rim.

 

VI. The Defeated

 

My heart still frightened

eases the grasses, lying

in the house of you.

 
 

YOU CAN KNOW

WHERE THE BOMBS FELL

                After Flin van Hemmen

 Right up

against a sound

of singing

 

Stilling awoken spaces

 

I can remember

 

All things

intact

 

The final creak of it

 

A sadness

 

Ghosts

 

Our dissatis-

faction

 

The snow static

 

Elusive

climbs

 

Led down through

this hope

forever

 

We did

so simply

 

Peddle

for all our sins

 

Your coming-

backness

haunts us sore

 

Flirtations

 

Our

bodies in limbo

 

Collect in

canyons

 

Holes in stumps

& on trails to

salvation

where mushrooms grow

 

& the child laughs

 

& the baby

moves

 

The scavenger

 

Floats over

everything

now

 

When you leaf through

paper

dolls

 

Each bears

witness a message

 

 

TOXIN

 I.

Trauma,

that blindness, that

lavender metal,

 

innocence

crouched like a wound

and its hollowed-out

 

double,

everthinking

mindbramblestorm.

 

Look, the way it

holds still.

 

II.

Remittal,

coin of the unexplored,

you fell upon a mute,

immobile mouth.

 

The glass erupted,

finger-grazed,

of a dime

of darkness.

 

III.

How can this leaf

belong to you, mother,

when all the morning sigils

moneychoke

that birthindebtedness;

when the airthorn

tore your voice.

 

IV.

Defenseless,

you

 

carve into

silence

 

the root-

taken

husk,

your

 

king-under

threat,

 

fall-silent.

 

 

A BLACK BOX

FOR THE HOLY GHOST           

               In memoriam Henry Grimes

Abusing the bass

in recalling the

tree

 

Wanting for

space & crowding

the voice with nothing

 

This specific

image threaded into

assumption

 

Maria

Maria

Maria

 

Uncontained testing

certain freedom

 

Doing

nothing & staying

ahead of anything

 

Playing the violin

 

Folk painting

of a dog

 

Who passed away

 

Silence

the way

out of sound

 

& sound

the way out

 

Someone made a shrine

 

The temple torn

down around it stands

for the midnight cipher

 

Somehow some-

where standing in the way of it

we have to move

 

& standing

 

In the way

we grow drunk

& tired

 

Having grown tired

we drink

 

There’s something in the way

 

You’re not the only mother

in town

 

Not the only

lady

 

Not

the only child

 

Who’s got his own


Negation

Negation

Negation

 

Pain

not the only

form of violence prone

to happiness

 

Leon & Henry

 

Form interrupted
by the bass

 

Only because it is

form

 

Only because it is

 

Uninterrupted

 

Only because it is 

 

What justification

of the unknown

death

 

What other violent

form

of happiness

 

Am I writing

 

Out of & into

 

Negating

 

Assumpta

est Maria

est Maria

est Maria

 

Feeling for the keys

 

For wrongness

& anything

 

Now that I listen

 

Finally in upheaval for

something’s sake

 

 

FEUILLES (LEAVING)

 

Heart

 

Blown through like

leaves

 

Obscured

 

Let the dark minor ring

against a distance

 

Along unnoticed

 

Outward

 

Designs

of frustration

 

Useless

 

Given

to fusing

 

Absence

 

Dwelling

in abrasion

 

Noiselessly

considers you

 

Red,

 

Was it you

who danced

 

With some

subtracted

sense

 

Wheeled-

about,

 

Un-

spoken 

 

 

A PATIENT

 

Sin

 

I’m leaving

 

Later told

 

How does morning

speak

 

Put on

your shoes

 

Like everyone

 

My younger

self put

up

 

A wall

 

If I ever get

my hands

on

 

The carillon

 

Wringing

 

What morning

spoke

 

Coming through

the din

 

You did something

kind

 

No comments: