1247 Love poems

there is ghazal swimming inside of her, wanting to be born. on the matter of foretelling, of small miracles, cactus flowers in bloom on this city fire escape, where inside your tongue touches every inch of her skin, where you lay your hand on her belly and sleep. here, she fingers the ornate remains of ancient mosques. here, some mythic angel will rise from the dust of ancestors’ bones. this is where you shall worship, at the intersections of distilled deities and memory’s sharp edges. the country is quite a poetic place; water and rock contain verse and metaphor, even wild grasses reply in rhyme. you are not broken. she knows this having captured a moment of lucidity; summer lightning bugs, sun’s rays in a jelly jar. this is not a love poem, but a cove to escape the flux, however momentary. she is still a child, confabulating the fantastic; please do not erode her wonder for the liquid that is your language. there is thunderstorm in her chest, wanting to burst through her skin. this is neither love poem nor plea. this is not river, nor stone.

(Francisco X. Alarcón) asleep you become a continent— undiscovered, mysterious, long, your legs mountain ranges encircling valleys, ravines night slips past your eyelids, your breath the swaying of the sea, sprawled across the bed like a dolphin washed ashore, your mouth is the mouth of a sated volcano, O fragrant timber, how do you burn? you are so near, and yet so far as you doze like a lily at my side, I undo myself and invoke the moon— I’m a dog watching over your sleep

O absent presence, Stella is not here; False flattering hope, that with so fair a face Bare me in hand, that in this orphan place Stella, I say my Stella, should appear. What say’st thou now? Where is that dainty cheer Thou told’st mine eyes should help their famished case? But thou art gone, now that self-felt disgrace Doth make me most to wish thy comfort near. But here I do store of fair ladies meet, Who may with charm of conversation sweet Make in my heavy mould new thoughts to grow: Sure they prevail as much with me, as he That bade his friend, but then new maimed, to be Merry with him, and not think of his woe.

Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly! See there that boy, that murd'ring boy, I say, Who, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye; There himself with his shot he close doth lay. Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did, And stay'd, pleas'd with the prospect of the place, While that black hue from me the bad guest hid; But straight I saw motions of lightning grace And then descried the glist'ring of his dart: But ere I could fly thence it pierc'd my heart.

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town folks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think Nature me a man of arms did make. How far they shot awry! The true cause is, Stella look'd on, and from her heav'nly face Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

When he called, there were 261 emotions at play. I thought there were only wistfulness, humiliation, and mere bitterness left, but lo, I see now the brilliance in the numbers. Emotions 75 and 78 made me happy just to know they existed. I felt less alone, more impervious. I was emboldened by the existence of 152. Though, how was I supposed to accept 9, 14, and 179? We deserved better, distress and indigence aside. Something about 260 broke the spell inside me and offered up a tiny shift: I opened my eyes in the fog and tore off the surfaces of 261 and 4 with a great shout.

She said what about San Francisco? Another second chance. There would be bridges "shrouded in fog." Streets "pregnant and glowing" with traffic. Dawn, she didn't know, would maybe "draw near." He said dawn draws near everywhere. She said a city but a city close to nature. A backyard scattered with birds he wouldn't be able to identify and something exotic rotting. Avocadoes. They'd play a game on the bridge, she'd lose control of the car, he'd kick her foot away and mash the gas pedal to the floor until she screamed and they'd have a name for the game and later it would be a story for their kids if they had any kids later. But no city is close to nature. Her body is a white slash beneath the green sheet. Or "a sterilized instrument." Last night's wine dregs are both "the color of the valley as it ignites" and in fact that color. He pulls the sheets from her again and says he'll cut their coffins from a wazi'hcaka even if it leaves a gray jay homeless. The lumber's astringency. Fuck guacamole. Deep in her knots and sap. Faster and faster. Second nature. And now a different dawn drawing near.

Both lying on our sides, making love in spoon position when she’s startled, What’s that? She means the enormous ship passing before you— maybe not that large, is it a freighter or a passenger ship? But it seems huge in the dark and it’s so close. That’s a poem you say, D. H. Lawrence—Have you built your ship of death, have you? O build your ship of death, for you will need it. Right here it would be good if there were a small orchestra on board, you’d hear them and say to her, That piece is called Autumn, that’s what the brave musicians played as the Titanic went under—and then you could name this poem “Autumn.” But no, the ship is silent, its white lights glow in the darkness.

In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth, Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie: And to the ground her eie lids low embaseth Most goodly temperature ye may descry, Myld humblesse mixt with awfull majesty, For looking on the earth whence she was borne: Her minde remembreth her mortalitie, What so is fayrest shall to earth returne. But that same lofty countenance seemes to scorne Base thing, and thinke how she to heaven may clime: Treading downe earth as lothsome and forlorne, That hinders heavenly thoughts with drossy slime. Yet lowly still vouchsafe to looke on me, Such lowlinesse shall make you lofty be.

Clamber out of the morning river with water beads like fish eggs clung to your pubis the calluses on your buttocks from sitting, writing on flat rocks, your goose-pimpled thighs—the bumpy tongues of two dogs licking each other—and river-slather and slather at the edge of my mouth. You are smiling, straining out your hair, flicking your hands, and then see me watching you with the cloth and pots I was taking to wash. Before I have time to be embarrassed, the smile lifts into your eyes. Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .