Tides: Stasis Betrayed

History dreams. Misplaced urges. Just as you think you can grasp a kernel the poem moves on in a kind of eddying reflective of the wanderings of thought and and its return to wander more. I quote at length the opening section of one set...

The Shape of Things

i

The idle days of autumn close. The planet moves itself
to a place where the thought of everything resides.

This is a place where history lies on its back and dreams.
This is a place where nature has misplaced its urge

to compose itself. The leaves tremble with the shifting earth.
The cooling wind turns itself inside and out.

We lie here beside the open window and wonder what
on earth can keep us from each other. Our sex is a shape

that finds itself taking the shape of the other. In coming
together there is no shape of things to keep in mind,

as if we knew the difference between this way and that.
First comes the hot invention of love, and then the silky stroke

of your bedclothes against me. There is the urgent need to make
sense of our inarticulate breath, our cold sweat, our absent fears.

What makes shape around us is a reflection of words, an island
of knowing one silence, pressed up, hard, agains another.

Edward Carson. from Taking Shape.

I like the skillful enjambement. Everything seems suspended for a moment before rushing on: urge / to compose ; coming / together there ; island / of knowing.

And so for day 2196
17.12.2012

Praise of Rural Life

Kenneth Rexroth gave this poem by Lu Yu the title "Evening in the Village". I like to call it "Retirement".

Here in the mountain village
Evening falls peacefully.
Half tipsy, I lounge in the
Doorway. The moon shines in the
Twilit sky. The breeze is so
Gentle the water is hardly
Ruffled. I have escaped from
Lies and trouble. I no longer
Have my importance. I
Do not miss my horses and
Chariots. Here at home I
Have plenty of pigs and chickens.

Translated by Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese

What I like about Rexroth's rendering is the stops inline. They clump words in interesting ways: doorway / twilit sky ; ruffled / lies and trouble. Just like the pigs and chickens the reader is getting plenty.

And so for day 2141
23.10.2012

Even More From Miller

George Miller. 30 (some odd) poems. Toronto: Three Tree Press, 1977.

One of the thirty odd is a poem entitled "30th Birthday Testament"

[…]
a gaggle of friends
who rejected the dance
in favour of
learning how to limp
[…]

Remark how the enjambement ("in favour of / learning how to limp") reproduces that very limp.

And so for day 1867
23.01.2012

Walking, Talking, Poking

Tracy K. Smith
Life on Mars

Let your fingers do the walking.

I think of your hands all those years ago
Learning to maneuver a pencil, or struggling
To fasten a coat. […]
At night, of the fingers wrangling something
from your nose, or buried in the cave of your ear.

"Song"

Dog walking.

Give a man a stick, and he'll hurl it at the sun
For his dog to race toward as it falls. He'll relish

"Eggs Norwegian"

Walking on.

Perhaps one day it will be enough to live a few seasons and return to ash.
No children to carry our names. No grief. Life will be a brief, hollow walk.

"The Speed of Belief"

The genius lies not only in the control of the enjambement but also in the gestural carrying on and a sense of a constant contemplation. A walk through the hollow. A short walk.

And so for day 1590
21.04.2011

Rough Male Kiss

from Rupert Brooke "The Great Lover"

[...] the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets [...]

It is the enjambement that helped catch my attention. The kiss hangs beautifully at the end of the line.

And so for day 512
08.05.2008