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One Morganatic Leer
You think you complain
of the ugliness of people.
Meet your own bed.
Smell what you said.
Your words, unmitigated, dead,
Sink like a noon sun in the crass tomb
beneath the steeple.
Two feet above the sand,
look down
A tartan shore,
A clan, a clack, a whore,
A mobile open door,
To the dog against the tree,
the brittle mugging clown.
Claws like tumbled fingers here
Stand for hands,
Elastic bands,
Minds and trends.
Thighs sprout here enough to breed
the honor of your morganatic leer.
Joan Murray
(1917-1942)
One Morganatic Leer
from: Poems (1947)
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More in: Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Joan Murray
Ta-Ra-Ra Boom De-Ay
I had a job once threshing wheat, worked sixteen hours with hands and feet.
And when the moon was shining bright, they kept me working all the night.
One moonlight night, I hate to tell, I “accidentally” slipped and fell.
My pitchfork went right in between some cog wheels of that thresh-machine.
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
It made a noise that way.
And wheels and bolts and hay,
Went flying every way.
That stingy rube said, “Well!
A thousand gone to hell.”
But I did sleep that night,
I needed it all right.
Next day that stingy rube did say, “I’ll bring my eggs to town today;
You grease my wagon up, you mutt, and don’t forget to screw the nut.”
I greased his wagon all right, but I plumb forgot to screw the nut,
And when he started on that trip, the wheel slipped off and broke his hip.
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
It made a noise that way,
That rube was sure a sight,
And mad enough to fight;
His whiskers and his legs
Were full of scrambled eggs;
I told him, “That’s too bad —
I’m feeling very sad.”
And then that farmer said, “You turk! I bet you are an I-Won’t Work.”
He paid me off right there, By Gum! So I went home and told my chum.
Next day when threshing did commence, my chum was Johnny on the fence;
And ‘pon my word, that awkward kid, he dropped his pitchfork, like I did.
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
It made a noise that way,
And part of that machine
Hit Reuben on the bean.
He cried, “Oh me, oh my;
I nearly lost my eye.”
My partner said, “You’re right —
It’s bedtime now, good night.”
But still that rube was pretty wise, these things did open up his eyes.
He said, “There must be something wrong; I think I work my men too long.”
He cut the hours and raised the pay, gave ham and eggs for every day,
Now gets his men from union hall, and has no “accidents” at all.
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
That rube is feeling gay;
He learned his lesson quick,
Just through a simple trick.
For fixing rotten jobs
And fixing greedy slobs,
This is the only way,
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
Joe Hill
(1879-1915)
Ta-Ra-Ra Boom De-Ay
Song
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The Poet
The poet sits and dreams and dreams;
He scans his verse; he probes his themes.
Then turns to stretch or stir about,
Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out.
Then off to bed, for he must rise
And cord some wood, or tamp some ties,
Or break a field of fertile soil,
Or do some other manual toil.
He dare not live by wage of pen,
Most poorly paid of poor paid men,
With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,—
And editors among the foes
Who mock his song, deny him bread,
Then sing his praise when he is dead.
Raymond Garfield Dandridge
(1882 – 1930)
The Poet
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More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, CLASSIC POETRY
Ta fine bouche est un fil rose…
Ta fine bouche est un fil rose
Tendu sur un masque de soie,
Ta chevelure qui s’éploie,
Est-ce un arc-en-ciel qui se pose?
Tes yeux noirs ont un coeur vermeil
Pailleté d’or et de rubis,
Ce sont deux boucliers fourbis
Avec des gouttes de soleil.
Ton souple corps est une tige
Flexible d’aubépine blanche,
Le svelte ruban de la branche
D’une liane qui voltige.
Tes seins crémeux sont deux cocons
Pomponnés de satin grenat,
Avec deux bourgeons d’incarnat
Crevant la neige des flocons.
Ton ventre comme une cuirasse
Couverte de moire argentée
D’une javeline plantée
A son coeur garde la trace.
Tes deux mains sont les coques d’or
D’une grenade au sein creusé
Où brille d’un éclat rosé
Le chapelet des grains qui dort.
Ta fine bouche est un fil rose
Tendu sur un masque de moire;
Au coeur d’une houppette noire,
C’est un calice qui repose.
Ces deux gouttelettes de pluie
Qu’un nuage pleura pour toi,
Ta petite main les essuie:
Mon coeur, je veux savoir pourquoi.
Ce n’est qu’une gaminerie:
Il ne faut pas pleurer, mon coeur;
Ne pleure pas, ô ma chérie –
La pluie est un amant moqueur.
Elle aime les plantes, et tresse
Le tercet du trèfle en quatrain,
Et sous son humide caresse
Fait craquer le corset du grain.
Elle aime les arbres, et tisse
Aux vieux de moussus corselets,
Aux jeunes une robe lisse
Pour draper leurs bras maigrelets.
Marcel Schwob
(1867-1905)
Ta fine bouche est un fil rose…
Portrait: Félix Vallotton
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Félix Vallotton, Marcel Schwob
Nightmare
The silver and violet leopard of the night
Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang;
And though three doors stood open, the end of light
Closed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.
Under the leopard sky of lurid stars
I strove with evil sleep the hot night long,
Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars,
Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong.
I saw a pale imperial pomp go by,
Helmet and hornèd mitre and heavy wreath;
Their high strange ensigns hung upon the sky
And their great shields were like the doors of death.
Their mitres were as moving pyramids
And all their crowns as marching towers were tall;
Their eyes were cold under their carven lids
And the same carven smile was on them all.
Over a paven plain that seemed unending
They passed unfaltering till it found an end
In one long shallow step; and these descending
Fared forth anew as long away to wend.
I thought they travelled for a thousand years;
And at the end was nothing for them all,
For all that splendour of sceptres and of spears,
But a new step, another easy fall.
The smile of stone seemed but a little less,
The load of silver but a little more:
And ever was that terraced wilderness
And falling plain paved like a palace floor.
Rust red as gore crawled on their arms of might
And on their faces wrinkles and not scars:
Till the dream suddenly ended; noise and light
Loosened the tyranny of the tropic stars.
But over them like a subterranean sun
I saw the sign of all the fiends that fell;
And a wild voice cried “Hasten and be done,
Is there no steepness in the stairs of hell?”
He that returns, He that remains the same,
Turned the round real world, His iron vice;
Down the grey garden paths a bird called twice,
And through three doors mysterious daylight came.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874 – 1936)
Nightmare
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A luminous new collection from Keetje Kuipers, All Its Charms is a fearless and transformative reckoning of identity.
By turns tender and raw, these poems chronicle Kuipers’s decision to become a single mother by choice, her marriage to the woman she first fell in love with more than a decade before giving birth to her daughter, and her family’s struggle to bring another child into their lives. All Its Charms is about much more than the reinvention of the American family—it’s about transformation, desire, and who we can become when we move past who we thought we would be.
Keetje Kuipers is the author of three books of poems: Beautiful in the Mouth, The Keys to the Jail, and, most recently, All Its Charms, which includes poems honored by publication in both The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.
Her poetry and prose have appeared in Narrative, Virginia Quarterly Review, The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and over a hundred other magazines. Her poems have also been featured as part of the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and read on NPR. Keetje has been a Stegner Fellow, a Bread Loaf fellow, and PEN Northwest’s Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. She lives with her wife and children on an island in the Salish Sea, a short ferry ride away from Seattle where she is Editor of Poetry Northwest.
(. . .)
I climbed the red rocks robed in their red dust.
I put the earth—all its charms—within me,
into each waiting pocket. Lip and ear.
What will happen when my body can no longer
hold this fragrant salt, its hardened tears,
inside? Let mine into the dirt. The names
I’ve chosen for my children are already fast
across the sky like the ochre feathers that frame
the blackbird’s shrug.
(. . .)
Fragment of ‘Landscape with Sage and the Names of My Children’
All Its Charms
By: Keetje Kuipers
Language: English
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.
Publication Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN-10: 1942683766
ISBN-13: 978-1942683766
Regular price $ 17.00
# new poetry
Keetje Kuipers:
All Its Charms
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Kuipers, Keetje, MODERN POETRY
Victoire
Donne-moi tes baisers amers comme des larmes,
Le soir, quand les oiseaux s’attardent dans leurs vols.
Nos longs accouplements sans amour ont les charmes
Des rapines, l’attrait farouche des viols.
Repousse, délivrant ta haine contenue,
Le frisson de ma bouche éprise de ta chair.
Pour crier ton dégoût, dresse-toi, froide et nue,
Comme un marbre funèbre aux lueurs d’un éclair.
Tes yeux ont la splendeur auguste de l’orage…
Exhale ton mépris jusqu’en ta pâmoison,
O très chère ! — Ouvre-moi tes lèvres avec rage :
J’en boirai lentement le fiel et le poison.
J’ai l’émoi du pilleur devant un butin rare,
Pendant la nuit de fièvre où ton regard pâlit…
L’âme des conquérants, éclatante et barbare,
Chante dans mon triomphe au sortir de ton lit
Renée Vivien
born Pauline Mary Tarn;
(1877–1909)
Victoire;
Etudes et préludes
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Maude.
A Ballad Of The Olden Time
Around the castle turrets fiercely moaned the autumn blast,
And within the old lords daughter seemed dying, dying fast;
While o’er her couch in frenzied grief the stricken father bent,
And in deep sobs and stifled moans his anguish wild found vent.
“Oh cheer thee up, my daughter dear, my Maude, he softly said,
As tremblingly he strove to raise that young and drooping head;
‘I’ll deck thee out in jewels rare in robes of silken sheen,
Till thou shalt be as rich and gay as any crowned queen.”
“Ah, never, never!” sighed the girl, and her pale cheek paler grew,
While marble brow and chill white hands were bathed in icy dew;
“Look in my face – there thou wilt read such hopes are folly all,
No garment shall I wear again, save shroud and funeral pall.”
“My Maude thou’rt wilful! Far away in lands beyond the sea
Are sunny climes, where winter ne’er doth wither flower or tree;
And there thou’lt journey with me, till I see thee smile once more,
And thy fair cheek wear the rose’s hue as in the days of yore.”
“Ah, no roses shall I gather beneath a summer sky,
Not for me such dreams, dear father, my end is drawing nigh;
One voyage is before me, ’tis no use to grieve or moan,
But that dark, fearful journey must I travel all alone.”
“My precious child! last of my race! why wilt thou grieve me so?
Why add by such sad words unto thy grey haired father’s woe?
Live – live, my pearl! my stricken dove! earth’s joys shall all be thine;
Whate’er thy wish or will through life, it also shall be mine.”
Fast coursed the diamond tear drops down that fair, though faded, cheek,
And she whispered, but so softly, one scarce could hear her speak:
“Ah! father, half those loving cares when summer bright was here
Would have kept thy daughter with thee for many a happy year.
“But, ah! thy heart was marble then, and to thy direst foe,
More stern, relentless anger thou couldst not, father, show.
What was my crime? The one I loved, not rich but nobly born,
Was loyal, true, on whom no man e’er looked with glance of scorn.
“He wooed me fairly, father dear, but thou did’st often swear
Thou’dst rather see me in my grave than bride to Hengist’s heir.
Reckless, despairing, he embarked upon the stormy main,
To seek an end to grief and care, nor sought he long in vain.
“Calm and untroubled sleeps he now beneath the salt sea brine,
And I rejoice to think how soon that sweet sleep shall be mine!”
No answer made the father but a low and grief-struck moan;
And silence reigned again throughout that chamber sad and lone.
Sudden the girl starts wildly, with bright and kindling eye,
Her cheek assumes a crimson tint like hue of sunset sky,
“Father! that voice, that rapid step, ah, me! they are well-known,
Hengist who comes from ocean’s deeps to claim me for his own!”
Say, does she rave? No. See yon form, with proud and gallant brow,
Bending above her, whisp’ring low, fond word and tender vow:
“Maude, my own love! no spectral form, no phantom’s at thy side,
But thy girlhood’s lover, now returned to claim thee as his bride.”
The story runs that love and youth o’er death the victory won,
And again did Maude, a happy wife, play ‘neath the summer sun,
While the old lord, grateful to the Power that Hengist’s life had spared,
Henceforth in all his children’s bliss, hopes, sorrows, fully shared.
Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
(1829 – 1879)
Maude.
A Ballad Of The Olden Time
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Archive K-L, CLASSIC POETRY
Art
In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt–a wind to freeze;
Sad patience–joyous energies;
Humility–yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity–reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel–Art.
Herman Melville
(1819 – 1891)
Art
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Helian
In den einsamen Stunden des Geistes
Ist es schön, in der Sonne zu gehn
An den gelben Mauern des Sommers hin.
Leise klingen die Schritte im Gras; doch immer schläft
Der Sohn des Pan im grauen Marmor.
Abends auf der Terrasse betranken wir uns mit braunem Wein.
Rötlich glüht der Pfirsich im Laub;
Sanfte Sonate, frohes Lachen.
Schön ist die Stille der Nacht.
Auf dunklem Plan
Begegnen wir uns mit Hirten und weißen Sternen.
Wenn es Herbst geworden ist
Zeigt sich nüchterne Klarheit im Hain.
Besänftigte wandeln wir an roten Mauern hin
Und die runden Augen folgen dem Flug der Vögel.
Am Abend sinkt das weiße Wasser in Graburnen.
In kahlen Gezweigen feiert der Himmel.
In reinen Händen trägt der Landmann Brot und Wein
Und friedlich reifen die Früchte in sonniger Kammer.
O wie ernst ist das Antlitz der teueren Toten.
Doch die Seele erfreut gerechtes Anschaun.
Gewaltig ist das Schweigen des verwüsteten Gartens,
Da der junge Novize die Stirne mit braunem Laub bekränzt,
Sein Odem eisiges Gold trinkt.
Die Hände rühren das Alter bläulicher Wasser
Oder in kalter Nacht die weißen Wangen der Schwestern.
Leise und harmonisch ist ein Gang an freundlichen Zimmern hin,
Wo Einsamkeit ist und das Rauschen des Ahorns,
Wo vielleicht noch die Drossel singt.
Schön ist der Mensch und erscheinend im Dunkel,
Wenn er staunend Arme und Beine bewegt,
Und in purpurnen Höhlen stille die Augen rollen.
Zur Vesper verliert sich der Fremdling in schwarzer Novemberzerstörung,
Unter morschem Geäst, an Mauern voll Aussatz hin,
Wo vordem der heilige Bruder gegangen,
Versunken in das sanfte Saitenspiel seines Wahnsinns.
O wie einsam endet der Abendwind.
Ersterbend neigt sich das Haupt im Dunkel des Ölbaums.
Erschütternd ist der Untergang des Geschlechts.
In dieser Stunde füllen sich die Augen des Schauenden
Mit dem Gold seiner Sterne.
Am Abend versinkt ein Glockenspiel, das nicht mehr tönt.
Verfallen die schwarzen Mauern am Platz,
Ruft der tote Soldat zum Gebet.
Ein bleicher Engel
Tritt der Sohn ins leere Haus seiner Väter.
Die Schwestern sind ferne zu weißen Greisen gegangen.
Nachts fand sie der Schläfer unter den Säulen im Hausflur,
Zurückgekehrt von traurigen Pilgerschaften.
O wie starrt von Kot und Würmern ihr Haar,
Da er darein mit silbernen Füßen steht,
Und jene verstorben aus kahlen Zimmern treten.
O ihr Psalmen in feurigen Mitternachtsregen,
Da die Knechte mit Nesseln die sanften Augen schlugen,
Die kindlichen Früchte des Hollunders
Sich staunend neigen über ein leeres Grab.
Leise rollen vergilbte Monde
Über die Fieberlinnen des Jünglings,
Eh dem Schweigen des Winters folgt.
Ein erhabenes Schicksal sinnt den Kidron hinab,
Wo die Zeder, ein weiches Geschöpf,
Sich unter den blauen Brauen des Vaters entfaltet,
Über die Weide nachts ein Schäfer seine Herde führt.
Oder es sind Schreie im Schlaf,
Wenn ein eherner Engel im Hain den Menschen antritt,
Das Fleisch des Heiligen auf glühendem Rost hinschmilzt.
Um die Lehmhütten rankt purpurner Wein,
Tönende Bündel vergilbten Korns,
Das Summen der Bienen, der Flug des Kranichs.
Am Abend begegnen sich Auferstandene auf Felsenpfaden.
In schwarzen Wassern spiegeln sich Aussätzige;
Oder sie öffnen die kotbefleckten Gewänder
Weinend dem balsamischen Wind, der vom rosigen Hügel weht.
Schlanke Mägde tasten durch die Gassen der Nacht,
Ob sie den liebenden Hirten fänden.
Sonnabends tönt in den Hütten sanfter Gesang.
Lasset das Lied auch des Knaben gedenken,
Seines Wahnsinns, und weißer Brauen und seines Hingangs,
Des Verwesten, der bläulich die Augen aufschlägt.
O wie traurig ist dieses Wiedersehn.
Die Stufen des Wahnsinns in schwarzen Zimmern,
Die Schatten der Alten unter der offenen Tür,
Da Helians Seele sich im rosigen Spiegel beschaut
Und Schnee und Aussatz von seiner Stirne sinken.
An den Wänden sind die Sterne erloschen
Und die weißen Gestalten des Lichts.
Dem Teppich entsteigt Gebein der Gräber,
Das Schweigen verfallener Kreuze am Hügel,
Des Weihrauchs Süße im purpurnen Nachtwind.
O ihr zerbrochenen Augen in schwarzen Mündern,
Da der Enkel in sanfter Umnachtung
Einsam dem dunkleren Ende nachsinnt,
Der stille Gott die blauen Lider über ihn senkt.
Georg Trakl
(1887 – 1914)
Helian
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
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Brought together for the first time, here are 100 pieces of ‘Oulipo’ writing, celebrating the literary group who revelled in maths problems, puzzles, trickery, wordplay and conundrums.
Featuring writers including Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau and Italo Calvino, it includes poems, short stories, word games and even recipes. Alongside these famous Oulipians, are ‘anticipatory’ wordsmiths who crafted language with unusual constraints and literary tricks, from Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll.
Philip Terry is a translator, and a writer of fiction and poetry. He has translated the work of Georges Perec, Stéphane Mallarmé and Raymond Queneau, and is the author of the novel tapestry, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.
His poetry volumes include Oulipoems, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Dante’s Inferno (a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, London Review Bookshop Book of the Week, and recipient of a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship Prize), Quennets, and Dictator, a version of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Globish.
He is currently translating Ice Age signs from the caves at Lascaux.
• ‘Philip Terry’s collection is packed with fabulous, wide-ranging work that displays the full ingenuity, brio and originality of Oulipian ideals in action. An exhilarating feat of in-depth reading, and translating, it takes its place as the definitive anthology in English for decades to come.’ – Marina Warner
• Philip Terry’s playful selection will appeal to lovers of word games, puzzles and literary delights.
The Penguin Book of Oulipo
Queneau, Perec, Calvino and the Adventure of Form
Edited by Philip Terry
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Published: 31/10/2019
ISBN: 9780241378427
Hardcover
Length: 576 Pages
Dimensions: 240mm x 49mm x 162mm
RRP: £25.00
# new books
The Penguin Book of Oulipo
Queneau, Perec, Calvino and the Adventure of Form
Philip Terry (Edited by)
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More in: #Archive Concrete & Visual Poetry, - Book Lovers, - Book News, - Objets Trouvés (Ready-Mades), Archive C-D, Archive O-P, Archive Q-R, Art & Literature News, AUDIO, CINEMA, RADIO & TV, Carroll, Lewis, Dadaïsme, Georges Perec, OULIPO (PATAFYSICA), Surrealisme, Swift, Jonathan
These never-before-published poems by Johnny Cash make the perfect gifts for music lovers and fans alike.
Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon with a foreword by John Carter Cash, this poetry collection is illustrated with facsimile reproductions of Cash’s own handwritten pages. Now an album with music by Rosanne Cash, Brad Paisley, Willie Nelson, Kacey Musgraves, Elvis Costello, and more.
Since his first recordings in 1955, Johnny Cash has been an icon in the music world. In this collection of poems and song lyrics that have never been published before, we see the world through his eyes and view his reflection on his own interior reality, his frailties and his strengths alike. In his hallmark voice, he pens verses about love, pain, freedom, and mortality, and expresses insights on culture, his family, his fame, even Christmas. Forever Words confirms Johnny Cash as a brilliant and singular American literary figure. His music is a part of our collective history, and here the depth of his artistry and talent become even more evident.
JOHNNY CASH (1932–2003) was an American icon and country music superstar. He performed everywhere from Folsom State Prison to the White House. In 1980 he became the youngest living person to be chosen for the Country Music Hall of Fame; he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2010. A recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors as well as the National Medal of Arts, he won nineteen Grammy Awards, four of them posthumously.
PAUL MULDOON is the author of twelve collections of verse, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor at Princeton University, and between 1999 and 2004 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Since 2007, Muldoon has been poetry editor of The New Yorker. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Forever Words
The Unknown Poems
By Johnny Cash
Cat.: Poetry | Music
Paperback
$18.00
ISBN 9780399575150
144 Pages
Nov 12, 2019
Published by Plume
# new poetry
forever words
the unknown poems
by johnny cash
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Music Archive, - Book News, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Archive M-N, Art & Literature News, AUDIO, CINEMA, RADIO & TV
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