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INTRODUCTION
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He walks
Now
1111 1
Map .
Room.
Harp .
Sunris e .
ln my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters
wi 11 think by this we mean what tradition
ms to have meant lately -- an historical
pa c hwork (whether made up of Elizabethan
qu t a t i ons, guide books of the poet ' s hom e
t < wn, or obscure hints of obscure bi ts of
11w gic published by Pantheon) which is used
l < cover up the nakedness of t'll e bare word.
'l'l'nd i tion means much more than that. It
111 ans generations of different po e ts in
Ii f erent countri es pati entl y telling th e
sn me s tory, writing the s ame poem, gaining
ri nc.l l os ing som eth i ng with ea ch transformation
- but, of cours e , never reall y losing a nything . This ha s nothin g to do with calmn es s ,
~ l assic i s m, temp erm ent, or a nything e l s e.
In ve nt io n is mer e l y th e enemy of poetry .
See how weak prose i s . I invent a word
I i kc i nvention. The s e paragraph s could be
tr a ns l a t ed, tran s form ed by a chain of fifty
11 t s i n fift y l ariguages, and th ey still
1~ ul d be t empor ar y , untrue , unable to yield
th s ub s tance of a s ingl e image . Pros e inv nts -- poetr y dis closes .
A ma d man is talking t o hi ms e lf in th e
room next to mine. He speaks in prose.
Presently I shall go to a bar and there on e
or two poets will speak to me and I to th em
and we will tr y to des troy each other or
a ttract each other or even listen to each
other and nothing will happ en because we will
be speaking in pros e . I will go home ,
dr unk en and dissatisfied, and sleep -- and
my dreams will be prose . Even the subcons cious is not patient enough for poetry.
You are dead and th e dead are very
patient.
Love,
Jack
.i l phab et
'1111r heart will never br eak a t what you are
Ii ;1ring
II I 111\ wud was older than you are when he was dead
1111r heart will never br eak at what you are
h aring .
It 11 you , darling, beauty was never as old as
Ii was
\11d your heart will never br eak a t what you are
il iring.
\ h
r o u
Rimbaud,
:i l phabet
\11d your heart will never br eak at what you are
hearing.
FROG
DEBUSSY
A Translation for the University
Upon the
~!\
~ater
in the ditch .
\11d ~1
ll1H111g.
Boong .
Boong.
liurncd .
Unmoving images.
1
II
( " p I ns h)
Ill
:i
ROOSTER:
Cockledoodledoo!
(Grabs a
Toowit
BUSTER KEATON:
THE OWL:
Hoo!
BUSTER KEATON:
Cockledoodledoo!
It ' s love l y !
Won ' t
Fool !
Hello.
( Buster Keaton smiles and looks at the shoes
of the girl . Those shoes! We do not have to
admire her sho_e s. It would take a crocodile
to wear them . )
llUSTER KEATON:
THE AMERICAN:
stone?
11 1 h1 I
ranches of laurel
Well?
(Four angels with wings of a heav enly gas balloon piss among the flowers . The ladies of
the town play a piano as if they were riding
a bicycle. The waltz, a moon, and sevent een
Indian canoes rock the precious heart of our
friend. As the greatest surprise of all,
autumn has invaded th e garden lik e water ex p lodes a geometrical clump of sugar . )
YOUNG GIRL:
Buster Keaton .
(The young girl faints and falls off the bicycle. Her legs on the ground tr emble like
two agoni zed cobras. A gramophone plays a
thousand versions of the same song -- "In
Philadelphia they have no ni ghtingales ".
BUSTER KEATON (kneeling) : Darling Miss Eleanor ,
pardon me! (lower) Darling (lower still )
Darling (lowest) Darling.
(The li ght s of Philadelphia flicker and go
out in the faces of a thousand policemen . )
1111
lhl
i!lh
11 I I
r the moon .
neighbours, I asked them,
I 11 111 y
111 111 y
11
on
naked maiden .
was the other
am I buried?
111 111 y tail , said the sun.
I ii 111 y craw, sai d the moon.
\\Ii
I' '
'
SUICIDE
A Translation for Eric Weir
II 1111 l ll
111
II
I
I ig
1111
111
111
11
~is
shadow stretched
xc hang ed my heart?
/\nd the figtree s hout s at me and advanc es
11 nible an d ex t ended .
A DIAMOND
A Translation for Robert Jones
1 1d,
A diamond
Is there
At the heart of the moon or the branches or my
na kedness
" Afternoon"
wa sn 't there .
o litt l e gir l.
II
I 1 rnoon"
..
be ll y.
t IH other one was tiny
The universe falls apart and disclos es a diamon d
The words call ed seagull ar e peacefully floati ng
out where the waves are
The dog is dead there with th e moon, with the
branches, with my nak edness
11tl
at e pomegranat es .
VERLAINE
A Transl a tion for Pat Wilson
lh 111 Lorca ,
A song
Which I shall never sing
Ha s fallen asleep on my lips.
A song
Wh ic h I s hall never sing--
11 1111
It is very difficult. We want to transhe immediate object, the imm ediat e emo1 Ion to the poem - - and ye t the immediate
11I1v:tys has hundreds of its ciwn words clinging
111 it, short-lived and tenacious as barnacles .
11 I i.t is wrong to scrape them off and subl I ute others. A poet is a tim e mechanic
1111t a n embalmer. The word s around the immeoll11
s hrivel and decay like flesh around the
l1od y . No mummy-sheet of trad i tion can be used
111 s top the process . Obj ects, words must be
I1 I across time not pres erved a,$ ain s t it.
i t 1
A so ng full of lip s
And f ar -o ff washes
A so ng full of lo st
Hours in th e sha dow
A so ng of a star that's a liv e
And endur i ng day .
...
:-
..
It
Jack
ha s cracked at th e br a nch .
Oh , you have fallen down on your head
u have fallen on your head .
..
ALBA
A Transla t i on f or Ru ss Fi t zgera ld
Ue th er e
Li ke the ear th
Wh en sha dow cov ers th e wet gras s .
..
1~ill
buy from me
II
1~e mblin g
Enemy of th e gr ape
And lov er of bod i es und er ro ugh c loth.
Not for on e moment, t ig ht-coc ke d beaut y ,
Who in mount a in s of coa l, a dv erti sements,
ro ads
l'hat one a l so , a l so .
Pa int ed fi ngers
Whil ~
f\
w eddin~
dr e s s
In t he darkness of a close t
r th e lo ne l y men i n bars
Who dr ink wi th sickness th e wa t ers of prostitution
Or th e men wi th gr een e ye l ids
Fo r i t is ju s t th a t a man not
Th e s ky
h ~s
coas tlin es
Pajaros of Havana,
Joto s of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cadiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Adelaidas of Portuga l,
Dea th
Watch ou t for th em .
AQUATIC PARK
A Tr ansl a tion for Jack Sp i cer
A gr een boat
Fi s hing i n blue wa ter
The gull s cir c l e th e pier
Ca lling th e ir hun ger
A wind ris es from th e west
Li ke th e pass ing of desire
Two bo ys pl ay on th e bea ch
Laughing
Their gang lin g l eg s . cast sh a dow s
On th e we t sand
Then,
Sprawli ng in th e boat
A beauti f ul bl ac k fis h.
FOREST
A Tr ans l a tion f or Joe Dunn
Yo u want me t o t e ll you
The se cre t of spr i ngtime
And I r e l a t e to that se cre t
Like a hi gh-branchin g f i rtr ee
Whose thou s and littl e f inger s
Poi nt a thousand littl e r oa ds .
I
How
Dear Lorca,
I would like to mak e poems out of real
objects. The lemon to be a lemon that the read er could cut or squee ze or taste -- a real lemon
lik e a newspaper in a collage is a real newspape r
I would like the moon in my poems to be a real
moon, one which could be suddenly covered with a
cloud tha t has nothing to do with the poem -- a
moon utterl y independent of images. The imagination pictures are real . I would like to poin t
to the real, disclose it, to make a poem that ha s
no sound in it but the pointing of a finger.
We have both tried to be independent of
i mages (you fro~ the start and I only when I gre
old enough to tire of trying to make things con nect), to ma ke things visible rather than to mak
pictures of them (phantasia non imaginari).
easy it is in erotic musings or in the truer
imagination of a dream to invent a beautiful bo y,
How difficult to take a boy in a blue bathing
suit tha t I have watched as casuall y as a tree
and to make him visible in a po em as a tree is
visible, not as a n image or a p i cture but as
s ome thing alive -- caught forever in the structur e of words . Liv e moons, liv e lemons, live
boys in bathing suits. The poem is a collage of
th e real.
But things decay , reason argues .
become garbage . The piece of l emon yo u s he llac
t o th e canvas begins to deve lop a mol d , th e new s
paper t ells of incredibly ancien t events in forgotten sla ng, th e bo y becomes a gra ndfath er . Ye
but the garbage of th e real still reaches out
i nto th e current world making its objects, in
turn, visibl e -- l emon call s to-lemon, newspaper
to newspaper, boy to boy. As thing s dec ay they
bring th eir equivalents into bei ng .
~
HE DIED AT SUNRISE
A Tra nslation for Allen Joyce
NARCI SS US
A Translation for Basil King
Poor Narciss us
Poor Narcissus
I~ i thou t
touch.
Japanese min e
Cl enche d i n my palm
Like some thing made of wax
Flow er of lov e
Poor Narciss us
A th e poin t of a nee dl e
Is
my lov e, spinning.
'
Lose me.
Dear Lorca,
The windows sag on the wall
When you had finished a poem what did it
want you to do with it? Was it happy enough
merely to exist or did it demand imperiously
that you share it with somebody like the
beauty of a beautiful person forces him to
search the world for someone that can declare
that beauty? And where did your poems find
I eople?
f'
NARCISSUS
A Translation for Richard Rummond
Child,
How you keep falling into rivers .
At the bottom there's a rose
And in the rose there's another river.
Look at that bird .
Look
Youngster!
Love,
Jack
A little river
I:
THE CHILDREN:
A little river
And a colored fountain
THE CHILDREN:
c~nyon
A little river
thirsty mouth?
I:
J'
song
..
in your hand?
THE CHILDREN:
song
A l i ttle river
And a colored fountain
THE CHILDREN:
of poets?
I:
THE CHILDREN :
I:
THE CHILDREN :
This
Sir , I am a pigeon .
The corridor is
BUSTE R KEATON:
In a mi nut e.
A littl e river
BUSTER KEATON : No .
chambermaids.
return.
Yes .
I am not a Ca tholi c .
No.
I hav e a little
Buster Keaton
No .
Dada is as da da do es .
VIRGIN MARY:
Did .
Oh!
BUSTER KEATON :
ALCOHOL :
I announce a n ew world .
(Three lit erary critics di sg uised as chamb er maids bring down the curtain. Bust er
Keaton, bleeding , br eaks through th e curtain. He s t ands in the middl e of th e stage
holding a fr es h pomegranate in hi s arms.)
BUSTER KEATON (even more sadly) : I announc e the
death of Orph eus.
(Everyone comes in . Policemen , wa itresses,
and Irene Tav ener . Th ey perform a compli cat ed symbolic dance. Alcohol nibbl es a t
th e legs of every dancer. )
BUSTER KEATON (bl ee ding profusely) : I love you.
I lov e you. (As a l ast effort he throws the
bl ee ding pomegrana t e from his heart. ) No
kidding , I love yo u.
VIRGIN MARY (taking him into her arms) :
You
VENUS
Becaus
Then
It is an empty house
In which there is nothing
'
Someo ne i s drowning
..
To Our La dy of Water
For th e girl i n tlrn poo l
Jack
The moon
AFTERNOON
A Translation for John Barrow
Is tossing money
Down through the black air .
Near the dead oak tree
"It is 1:36.
13 empty boats
A bl ack cloud
13 empty boats
And a seagull. "
Dear Lor ca ,
Thi s is the last l e tter. Th e connection
be twe e n us, which had been fading away with
the summer, is now fin a ll y broken. I turn in
anger a nd dis s at isfaction t o the things of my
l jfe and you return, a disembodi ed but con t agio us spir~ t, to the printed pag e. It is
over, thi s intimat e communion with the gho s t
of Garcia Lorca , and I wond e r now how it was
ever ab l e to happen.
It was a game, I shout to myself. A game.
Th ere a r e no angels , ghosts, or even sha dows .
It was a game made out of summer and freedom
and a nee d for a p6etry that would be more
th an th e exp r ess ion of my hatreds and des ir es .
It was a game like Yeats ' spook s or Blake ' s
sex l ess serap him.
Yet it was there. The poems are th e r e ,
th e memory not of a vis ion but a kind of
c as ua l friendship with an undramatic ghos t
who occasionally loo ked through my eyes and
whispered t o me, not rea ll y more important
then t han my other friends, but now achieving
a diff er ent l eve l of reality by bei ng missing.
Toda y , alone by myself, it is lik e having lo s t
a pa i r of eyes and a l over.
Wh a t i s real, I s uppo se , will e ndur e .
Poe ' s mechanical chessp l ayer was not the l ess
a miracle for having a man i nside i t, and when
th e man departed, the games it ha d played were
no less bea utifu l. The a na l ogy is false, of
course, but it holds both a promise and a
warnin g for each of us.
It is October now. Summer is over . Al mo s t eve r y trace of the month s that p:\oduced
these poems has been obliterat ed . Onl }'. ex planatio ns are possib l e, only regrets . ~
RADAR
A Postscript for Mariann e Moor e
See th e splash
Of th e water
Th e no isy movement of c loud
Th e pu s h of th e humpbacked mountains
Deep a t the sa nd ' s e dge.
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