Monday, March 26, 2012

Charles Baudelaire - Poet

The Fountain

BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY HECHT

My dear, your eyes are weary;
Rest them a little while.
Assume the languid posture
Of pleasure mixed with guile.
Outside the talkative fountain
Continues night and day
Repeating my warm passion
In whatever it has to say.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.

Thus your soul ignited
By pleasure’s lusts and needs
Sprays into heaven’s reaches
And dreams of fiery deeds.
Then it brims over, dying,
And languorous, apart,
Drains down some slope and enters
The dark well of my heart.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.

O you, whom night enhances,
How sweet here at your breasts
To hear the eternal sadness
Of water that never rests.
O moon, o singing fountain,
O leaf-thronged night above,
You are the faultless mirrors
Of my sweet, bitter love.

             The sheer luminous gown
                           The fountain wears
             Where Phoebe’s very own
                           Color appears
             Falls like a summer rain
                           Or shawl of tears.


Source: Poetry (September 2011).



This poem originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Poetry magazine.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Breather






"Just as in the horror movies
when someone discovers that the phone calls
are coming from inside the house


so too, I realized   
that our tender overlapping
has been taking place only inside me.


All that sweetness, the love and desire—
it’s just been me dialing myself
then following the ringing to another room


to find no one on the line,
well, sometimes a little breathing
but more often than not, nothing.


To think that all this time—
which would include the boat rides,
the airport embraces, and all the drinks—


it’s been only me and the two telephones,
the one on the wall in the kitchen
and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs."

Source: Poetry (July/August 2008).

I can see..



 how she holds your heart.



Egon Schiele

Friday, March 16, 2012

Thursday, March 8, 2012

a woman is an onion


Lee Friedlander - Photographer





[From behind,

 standing, from a distance]

BY PATRIZIA CAVALLI
TRANSLATED BY GEOFFREY BROCK
From behind, standing, from a distance,
in passing, the taxi meter running,
I'd watch her, I'd watch her hair,
and what would I see? My stubborn theatre,
curtain won't fall, my always-open theatre . . .
Best to leave as soon as the show begins.
Source: Poetry (December 2007).