My mind is clouded with poisonous thoughts

You've lost me.
Find me.

Go.

Look.

I can bear this no longer.
Must I find myself?
Can I find myself?

When I myself am in this strange land,
Where I know nothing, I speak nothing
I think nothing, I find nothing,
I am nothing,
How is it that I am to find myself?

There are no clues, no conceptions.
Only insinuations,
Only this fear.

And this fear, unexplainable,
Cannot be altered except to deal with it.

So allow me that,
That I may deal with it.

Stay away. Go.
You lost me within myself,
Thinking you found me.
You lost me within myself
And now I am not myself.

Now I am doubting myself.

Wouldn't I rather I had gone
Some other direction?
Some other way?

Used?! Used am I?
Yes, by my own self I am.
By my own weight I am,
My... my height, my width.
My thoughts, my keepings.

Leave me alone.
Without this, nothing would have happened.

My mind is clouded with poisonous thoughts.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.





Sonnet 116, Shakespeare

The Lay of Gudrun

Gudrun sat over Sigurd's dead body.
It was long ago that Gudrun intended to die,
when she sat sorrowful over Sigurd:
she did not weep or strike her hands together,
or lament like other women.

The very wise warriors stepped forward,
they tried to ease her terrible grief;
even so Gudrun could not weep,
she was so impassioned, she might have burst asunder.

The gleaming wives of warriors,
adorned with gold, sat by Gudrun;
each of them told of their great grief,
the bitterest which had been visited on them.

Even so Gudrun could not weep;
she was so impassioned by the death of the young man
and so fierce in mind at the fall of the prince.

Then said Herborg, queen of the land of the Huns:
'I have a heavier grief to speak of:
my seven sons, in the lands in the south,
my husband, as the eighth, all fell in slaughter.

I myself had to honour, I myself had to bury,
I myself had to arrange their journey to Hel.'

Even so Gudrun could not weep;
she was so impassioned by the death of the young man
and so fierce in mind at the fall of the prince.
She did not weep or strike her hands together,
or lament like other women.

Then said Gullrond, daughter of Giuki:
'You don't really know, foster-mother, though you are wise,
how to reply to a young wife.'
She advised against concealing the corpse of the prince.

She swept the covering from Sigurd
and pushed the blood-soaked pillows by the woman's knees:
'Look at your beloved, put your mouth to his moustache,
as you used to embrace the prince when he was alive.'

Gudrun looked at him one time only;
she saw the prince's hair running with blood,
the bright eyes of the lord grown dim,
the prince's breast scored by the sword.

Then Gudrun knelt, leaning on the pillow;
loosened her hair, scratched her cheeks,
and drops like rain ran down to her knees.

Then Gudrun wept, the daughter of Giuki,
so that her tears fell into her hair.

Gudrun said:
'So was my Sigurd, beside the sons of Giuki,
as if a leek were grown up out of the grass,
or a bright stone were threaded onto a string,
a precious gem, among the nobles.

I miss in his seat and in my bed
my friend to talk to, the kin of Giuki caused it;
the kin of Giuki caused my grief
and agonizing weeping for their sister.

So was Sigurd beside the sons of Guiki
like a green leek grown up out of the grass,
or a high-antlered stag among the sharp-eyed beasts,
or red-glowing gold next to dull silver.

Away I went from the conversation,
to the wood to gather the leavings of the wolves,
I could not weep nor strike my hands together,
nor lament as other women do.

Weeping I want to talk to Grani;
cheeks wet with tears, I asked the horse for new;
Grani drooped his head then, hid it in the grass,
the horse knew that his master was not living.

The night seemed to me as dark as the dark of the moon,
as I sat grieving over Sigurd;
it seemed to me the best of all things
if the wolves took my life.

I lay down then, I did not want to sleep,
obstinate in the bed of pain; that I remember well.'

I have come to stand alone like an aspen in the forest,
my kinsmen cut away as a fir's branches,
bereft of happiness, as a wood of its leaves,
when a girl cutting branches comes up on a warm day.'

Do you recall, Sigurd, what we promised,
when we two lay in bed together,
that, brave warrior, you would visit me from hell,
and I would come to you from the world.'





-Taken from four Eddic poems: The First Lay of Gudrun, The Second Lay of Gudrun, the Whetting of Gudrun, and the Lay of Hamdir.
~Trans. Carolyne Larrington from Icelandic

Agua nocturna

La noche de ojos de caballo que tiemblan en la noche,
la noche de ojos de agua en el campo dormido,
está en tus ojos de caballo que tiembla,
está en tus ojos de agua secreta.

Ojos de agua de sombra,
ojos de agua de pozo,
ojos de agua de sueño.

El silencio y la soledad,
como dos pequeños animales a quienes guía la luna,
beben en esos ojos,
beben en esas aguas.

Si abres los ojos,
se abre la noche de puertas de musgo,
se abre el reino secreto del agua
que mana del centro de la noche.

Y si los cierras,
un río, una corriente dulce y silenciosa,
te inunda por dentro, avanza, te hace oscura:
la noche moja riberas en tu alma.

-Octavio Paz

Harpies Bizarre

He selects the plainest face form a spiteful row of girls
Elegant insulted women, a flaw of cultured pearls.
He drops a name or two, she fails to catch
At last he's met his match
Unspoiled and unaffected, he wants her so much
She puts up half-hearted resistance, like she was taught to do
She's heard some of those small town playboys but this is
something new
His promise seems dangerous, she'd like to believe
He says "You'd better leave"
"You've only got yourself to blame, shame, or deceive"

The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies Bizarre

I looked on but hesitated
I failed to interrupt
You're so hard to tell the truth to
So easy to corrupt
I'll memorize your face
Your tragic smile
The hurt look in your eyes
As you betrayed yourself to the part of him that dies

The waiting lines are long
They never get too far
They're shining up their shoes to kick a falling star
You think you should be somebody
But you don't know who you are
Everyone wearing that medal with pride
Harpies Bizarre

-Elvis Costello

Cloudburst (lyrics)

The rain...

Eyes of shadow-water,
eyes of well-water,
eyes of dream-water.

Blue suns, green whirlwinds,
birdbeaks of light pecking open
pomegranate stars.

But tell me, burnt earth, is there no water?
Only blood, only dust
only naked footsteps on the thorns?

The rain awakened...

We must sleep with open eyes,
we must dream with our hands
we must dream the dreams of a river seeking its course,
of the sun dreaming its worlds,
we must dream aloud,
we must sing till the song puts forth roots,
trunk, branches, birds, stars,
we must find the lost word,
and remember what the blood,
the tides, the earth, and the body say,
and return to the point of departure...


~Octavio Paz
trans Lysander Kemp
adapted by Eric Whitacre

The Dance

Yugao
is dancing

the shelter
of the summer
moss
battledresses
gazers

sometimes
she is content
with her
thoughts

and other times
freedom
is the jealousy
of the sun

sweetly resting
with pomes
forming
the evening
sky



-yugao

There comes a point in a person's life
That they must be reborn to themselves.
To be reborn to onesself,
One must die.

But in the sense that one dies,
One may be reborn.

So die. Die tonight.

Die to the demons within you.
Die to your hatred,
Die to your anger,
Die to your greed, lust and power.

But allow yourself to have
The resurrection,
And live the rest of life
Alive in the resurrection.

Resurrect yourself to love,
Resurrect yourself to hope,
Forgiveness, freedom.

Then, love me.

Toward the Poem II

Words, phrases, syllables, stars turning about a fixed center. Two bodies, many beings meeting in one word. The paper becomes covered with indeible letters, spoken by nobody, dictated by nobody, that burn and flame up and go out. This, then, is how poetry exists, how love exists. And if I do not exist, you do.

Everywhere those in solitary begin to create the words of a new dialogue.

The gush. A mouthful of health. A girl lying on her past. Wine, fire, guitar, tablecloth. A red blush wall in a village square. Cheers, glittering cavalry that enter the city, the people in flight: hymns! Eruption of white, green, fiery. The easiest thing, that which writes itself: poetry.

The poem prepares a loving order. I foresee a man sun and a moon woman, he free of his own power, she free of her slavery, and implacable love shining through black space. Everything must give way before these incandescent eagles.

On the battlements of your brow song finds its daybreak. Poetic justice sets fire to fields of shame: no place for nostalgia, for I, the proper noun.

Every poem is made at the poet's expense.

Future noon, an immense tree of invisible leaves. In the streets, men and women singing the song of the sun, a fountain of transparencies. Yellow surf covers me: nothing of myself is to speak through my own mouth.

When History sleeps, it speaks in dreams: on the brow of the sleeping people, the poem is a constellation of blood. When History wakes, image becomes deed, the poem is achieved: poetry goes into action.

Deserve your dream.

~Octavio Paz
trans Muriel Rukeyser

Movement

If you are the amber mare
I am the road of blood
If you are the first snow
I am he who lights the hearth of dawn
If you are the tower of night
I am the spike burning in your mind
If you are the morning tide
I am the first bird's cry
If you are the basket of oranges
I am the knife of the sun
If you are the stone altar
I am the sacrilegious hand
If you are the sleeping land
I am the green cane
If you are the wind's leap
I am the buried fire
If you are the water's mouth
I am the mouth of moss
If you are the forest of the clouds
I am the axe that parts it
If you are the profaned city
I am the rain of consecration
If you are the yellow mountain
I am the red arms of lichen
If you are the rising sun
I am the road of blood

~Octavio Paz,
trans. Eliot Weinberger

Movimiento

Si tú eres la yegua de ámbar
yo soy el camino de sangre
Si tú eres la primer nevada
yo soy el que enciende el brasero del alba
Si tú eres la torre de la noche
yo soy el clavo ardiendo en tu frente
Si tú eres la marea matutina
yo soy el grito del primer pájaro
Si tú eres la cesta de naranjas
yo soy el cuchillo de sol
Si tú eres el altar de piedra
yo soy la mano sacrílega
Si tú eres la tierra acostada
yo soy la caña verde
Si tú eres el salto del viento
yo soy el fuego enterrado
Si tú eres la boca del agua
yo soy la boca del musgo
Si tú eres el bosque de las nubes
yo soy el hacha que las parte
Si tú eres la ciudad profanada
yo soy la lluvia de consagración
Si tú eres la montaña amarilla
yo soy los brazos rojos del liquen
Si tú eres el sol que se levanta
yo soy el camino de sangre

~Octavio Paz

He was full of tenderness;
She was very hard.
And as much as she tried to stay thus,
Simply, and with no good reason,
He took her into himself,
And set her down
in the softest, softest place.

~Hila Plitmann
trans. Hila Plitmann

The Third Hebrew Song

"Mostly," said the roof to the sky,
"The distance between you and I is endlessness;
But a while ago two came up here,
and only one centimeter was left between us."

~Hila Plitmann
trans. Hila Plitmann

An Old Song

What vengeful Demon thus with footstep dread,
Trampling the blood polluted ground,
Sternly cruel joys to spread
Horror, rage, and madness round?
Woe, woe is me! In man's frail state
Nor height nor greatness firm abides.

~From The Plays of Euripides
Trans: R Potter

During Wind and Rain

They sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows


Thomas Hardy

Fever bites me.
Warmth everywhere.
Sickness is me.
My ears are full
Of humming.

Buzzing ticking
Clocks upon
The walls of
My mind is
So full
Of dreams
Scapes engulfing

Razors

And then there was
The time when
I hadn't done
A thing at all
For fuzzy blankets
Filled the walls
Of my mind
Is so full
Of dreamscapes
Engulfing

Vials of
Coolness.

Monologue for lovers

I hid a rose in my rage
In my mind there are mountains between us.
It is a place where ships gather
at the very edge of the seas now waiting
for the wind.
Where the insane laughter of birds disturbs me.
I shut the windows and they call louder.
You own the bones, the magic.
You are the bearer of our entwined fate,
Held in significance by the crossing of clouds
in the blue sky.
A stone, a cross.
One night turning with the moon
I walk with hands held as water.
My tongue, it is bark,
My words, they are dired at the edges of rivers
Your face a mask, your face a river.

Your face the mask of a river

And so it shall always be
Between us from the future
Through the present,
The way the suns madness
can drive men to extortions of motion and voice.
Our brave faces look upon the dawning
as if the broken images we find
in the mirrors cracked on the ground
could ever reflect the darkness in our souls.

those places we try to hide in the cupboards
And closets of our summer rooms.

The world is alive with the sound of bees.
The lands are living with streams for eyes
and feilds with which to hear.
Suns set upon candles that are fingers
With which I touch your cool forehead,
your bitter eyes.
Oh, if only my ravaged hands
could bering temerity to that brow!

I call out to the gods,
"Come and cure us of this plague!
I have within my enfolding arms
the matter upon which have been built
foundations of brilliant desire."

How can I tell you what is wrong?
How can I judge the living doves within you,
Your breast is strong, your visions full,
Intrude upon the world again,
Walk tall among the city streets.
Take all offered to you as the most
valuable of commodities in this present state
of color.

Clamour with the might of armies!
Clatter upon the steps, the stones
With visions of justice.
Our days will remain precious to us
For as long as we breathe.

These are my words.
Around you I pivot until all words
Become symbols pointing to our inadiquacies.
Until the foundations of language
shake with an aged palsy.
Until the ships upon which we sail
Rove the seas of flowers.

Promise that I love you,
and I shall trace the lines of your hands
to the maps of your eyes.
My love, your bearing in these troubled hours
reveals to me the very destiny embodied in your mouth.
When speech fails as the days divulge forth,
Pulling the night into submission,
Breaking it down into simpler elements,
Scientists and philosophers can do no less
Than find answers by asking first to be set free.

When the days of our love come down
to the beating of the houses of music and lyric,
I will remind you of your duties this day.
Variegated colors make us tremble.
Send us to a sense of import,
Of doomsayers and truthtellers.

Say that I love you for I am strong within your hear
And hands, remember that I am yours for now
And will remain entwined within you.


~Todd Sanders

Earth, open your gates to me.
Sun, shine upon my face once more.
Wind, blow my heart to him.
Stars, tell him of my love.
Tears, no longer torment me.

Love is a rebellious bird
That nothing can tame,
And it is simply in vain to call it
If it is convient for it to refuse.
Nothing will work, threat or pleading,
One speaks, the other stays quiet;
And it's the other that I prefer
He said nothing; but he pleases me.
Love! Love! Love! Love!

Love is the child of the Bohemian,
It has never, never known any law,
If you don't love me, I love you,
If I love you, keep guard of yourself!

The bird you thought to surprise
Bat its wing and flew away;
Love is far away, you can wait for it;
If you wait for it no more, it is there!
All around you, quickly, quickly,
It comes, goes, then it comes back!
You think to hold it, it avoids you;
You think to avoid it, it holds you!
Love, love, love, love!

~Trans. Frey

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle,
s'il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière,
l'un parle bien, l'autre se tait:
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère,
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît.
L'amour! l'amour! l'amour! l'amour!
L'amour est enfant de Bohême,
il n'a jamais, jamais connu de loi;
si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime:
si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! etc.
L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
battit de l'aile et s'envola ...
l'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre;
tu ne l'attends plus, il est là!
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite,
il vient, s'en va, puis il revient ...
tu crois le tenir, il t'évite,
tu crois l'éviter, il te tient.
L'amour! l'amour!, lamour, l'amour!


~Meilhac/Halevy

The Infidel

Walking,
Foot falls on the ground
You feel like talking
You know she's not around
Someone is knocking
A haunted hollow sound
Upon the door.

Dreaming
You open it to find
Another scheming.
Offering her time,
You feel like screaming
Instead you blow your minds
And wait for more.

Dying
You roll up in her arms
You mind is crying
Lost within her charms
You go on lying
Until the fire is gone
And then you play an empty song
So she can gracefully move along.

Well you want her
You don't know what you want
You know you need her
You don't know what you need
You know you love her
Love, there is no meaning
Here for you.

Like thunder
It rolls out of the sky
You sit and wonder
There are no answers why.
As you grow under
The emptiness inside
Is everywhere.


Aztec Two Step