Guest Authors – Page 7

September 29, 2016 by Jean Morris

Open Day

The old Dulwich burial ground

This ground heaves, lurchingly
uneven through its mulch of leaves,

tips us towards the tilting graves,
the shade of tall, stooped trees.

The stone sarcophagi are empty – burial
was below, in now unfathomable depths.

Toppled headstones sink slowly
in a green lawn where the nameless

are marked by darker green hollows
that tempt today’s visitors to lie down,

and a girl in a vintage print frock
carries a golden bowl — her cycle helmet,

its glinting curves reflecting miniature
monuments, tiny people, old light.

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 by Dick Jones

Just you and I in the attic,
My father.
The walls have collapsed.
Flesh has given way.
The debris of the blue sky tumbles all around.
I see your face more clearly.
You’re weeping.
Tonight we share the same age
Before these her remembered hands

10 o’ clock.
The wall clock striking
And blood recoiling.
Everyone’s gone.
House closed.
Far away the wind pushes at an early star.

No-one remains.
But you are there,
My father,
And like bindweed,
My arm tugging at yours,
You wipe away my tears,
hot across your fingers.

Il n’y a plus que toi et moi dans la mansarde
Mon père
Les murs sont écroulés
La chair s’est écroulée
Des gravats de ciel bleu tombent de tous côtés
Je vois mieux ton visage
Tu pleures
Et cette nuit nous avons le même âge
Au bord des mains qu’elle a laissées

Dix heures
La pendule qui sonne
Et le sang qui recule
Il n’y a plus personne
Maison fermée
Le vent qui pousse au loin une étoile avancée

Il n’y a plus personne
Et tu es là
Mon père
Et comme un liseron
Mon bras grimpe à ton bras
Tu effaces mes larmes
En te brûlant les doigts.

(René-Guy CADOU, Amis les Anges, 1943)

August 22, 2016December 7, 2017 by Jean Morris

Lute

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Louise Labé

After Louise Labé, Sonnet XII

Lute, you’ve always been there for me –
true friend in the worst of times,
companion of all my sorrows,
you’re my comforter when I weep.

I know my tears really get to you
because every tune becomes a lament,
every rising note plunges
to a melancholy key.

If I try to play something uplifting
you go silent on me –
sad songs are all you let me sing
and they give me such sweet closure.

Lut, compagnon de ma calamité,
De mes soupirs témoin irreprochable,
De mes ennuis controlleur veritable,
Tu as souvent avec moy lamenté:

Et tant le pleur piteus t’a molesté,
Que commençant quelque son delectable,
Tu le rendois tout soudein lamentable,
Feignant le ton que plein avoit chanté.

Et si te veus efforcer au contraire,
Tu te destens & si me contreins taire:
Mais me voyant tendrement soupirer,

Donnant faveur à ma tant triste pleinte:
En mes ennuis me plaire suis contrainte,
Et d’un dous mal douce fin esperer.

Picture: Le luth, Henri Matisse (1943), which I didn’t know till last week – trying for a sort of poignant flatness in the poem, inspired by the vibrating flatness of the painting.
Louise Labé in Wikipedia.
More posts on Louise Labé here, here, here and here.

July 29, 2016December 7, 2017 by Jean Morris

Soulmate

Detail from a lithograph by André Minaux

This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Louise Labé

After Louise Labé, Sonnet VII

We’ve all seen death –
the soul, the subtler part, depart the body
and if I’m the body you’re the soul, my better half.
Where are you now, beloved?
How could you leave me for so long?
I know you, you’ll be thinking
just to stretch your legs and you’ll be back –
it doesn’t work like that! You left my soulless body
swinging in the wind, unloved, unanchored.
I’m at risk, I’m nothing, you are all my worth.
So come to me, my love, but never undermine
my sanity again – no more demands,
mixed messages. Show me your softer face.
You’ve been so cruel. Time now to make amends.

On voit mourir toute chose animée,
Lors que du corps l’ame sutile part:
Je suis le corps, toy la meilleure part:
Ou es tu donq, o ame bien aymee?

Ne me laissez par si long temps pamee,
Pour me sauver apres viendrois trop tard.
Las ne mets point ton corps en ce hazart:
Rens lui sa part & moitié estimee.

Mais fais, Ami, que ne soit dangereuse
Cette rencontre & revue amoureuse,
L’accompagnant, non de severité,

Non de rigueur: mais de grace amiable,
Qui doucement me rende la beauté,
Jadis cruelle, à present favourable.

Louise Labé in Wikipedia.

Picture: detail from another lithograph by André Minaux.

July 22, 2016August 22, 2016 by Jean Morris

Louise Labé – Sonnet XXIV (her last)

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Louise Labé

Don’t scorn me, Ladies, just for having loved.
Yes, I have felt a thousand torches’ fire,
a thousand sorrows, thousand biting pains.
Yes, I have spent a lot of time in tears…
look, think before you start maligning me –
if I’ve done wrong I’m suffering for it now,
don’t make things worse than they already are.
You’d do well to remember Love appears
unbidden, needs no Vulcan to inflame
your ardour or Adonis leading you astray –
its merest whim can leave you overcome.
Think you’re immune, strangers to violent
passion as you are? So sure you’re not like me?
Beware: you could be all the more undone.

Ne reprenez, Dames, si j’ay aymé:
Si j’ay senti mile torches ardentes,
Mile travaus, mile douleurs mordentes:
Si en pleurant, j’ay mon tems consumé,

Las que mon nom n’en soit par vous blamé.
Si j’ay failli, les peines sont presentes,
N’aigrissez point leurs pointes violentes:
Mais estimez qu’Amour, à point nommé,

Sans votre ardeur d’un Volcan excuser,
Sans la beauté d’Adonis acuser,
Pourra, s’il veut, plus vous rendre amoureuses:

En ayant moins que moy d’ocasion,
Et plus d’estrange & forte passion.
Et gardez vous d’estre plus malheureuses.

Thank you, Louise Labé, for continuing to surprise and engage me across the centuries.

June 29, 2016August 22, 2016 by Jean Morris

Louise Labé – Sonnets VIII & IX

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Louise Labé

VIII

I’m living, dying, drowning, burning up –
extremes of heat and then I’m cold again.
Life is too soft on me and then too hard –
my trials are great, but intertwined with joys.

I burst out laughing and then into tears,
smile through the torment of my many wounds.
My happiness dissolves and yet endures:
I wither and I flourish, both at once.

So Love’s inconstant but remains my guide
and when the pain seems at its very worst
I rise above it unexpectedly.

Then just when I think joy has really come,
that peak experience is mine at last,
I find myself back where I started from.

Je vis, je meurs: je me brule & me noye.
J’ay chaut estreme en endurant froidure:
La vie m’est & trop molle et trop dure.
J’ay grans ennuis entremeslez de joye:

Tout à un coup je ris & je larmoye,
Et en plaisir maint grief tourment j’endure:
Mon bien s’en va, & à jamais il dure:
Tout en un coup je seiche & je verdoye.

Ainsi Amour inconstamment me meine:
Et quand je pense avoir plus de douleur,
Sans y penser je me treuve hors de peine.

Puis quand je croy ma joye estre certaine,
Et estre en haut de mon desire heur,
Il remet en mon premier malheur.

IX

As soon as I allow myself to rest,
safely tucked up in my own comfy bed,
my stupid, sorrowing mind can’t help itself –
it leaves my body, flies straight back to you.

It strikes me then: within this tender breast
I harbour still the very thing I’ve craved,
the object of my deepest sighs, of sobs
I’ve often felt would break my heart in two.

Oh sweetest sleep, oh night of happiness!
May joyful, calming rest bring me this fond
illusion every time I close my eyes.

If my poor lovesick soul is destined now
to never really know such love again,
at least let me have dreams and fantasies.

Tout aussi tot que je commence à prendre
Dens le mol lit le repos desiré,
Mon triste esprit hors de moy retiré
S’en va vers toy incontinent se rendre.

Lors m’est avis que dedens mon sein tendre
Je tiens le bien, où j’ay tant aspiré,
Et pour lequel j’ay si haut souspiré,
Que de sanglots ay souvent cuidé fendre.

O dous sommeil, o nuit à moy heureuse!
Plaisant repos, plein de tranquilité,
Continuez toutes les nuiz mon songe:

Et si ma pauvre ame amoureuse
Ne doit avoir de bien en verité,
Faites au moins qu’elle en ait en mensonge.

Louise Labé in Wikipedia.

Paintings by André Minaux (1923-86) – I came across his work by chance for the first time this week and the sharp, stylized imagery, often of women alone in interiors, somehow resonated with the sonnets; also an exquisite concert on the radio of short pieces by J S Bach and Jörg Widmann made me think about how mutually enhancing old and new(er) works can be.

June 18, 2016 by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Improbable Blessings

After the Eucharist, the clean
up, every plastic cup consigned
to the trash, pottery chalice
and plate rinsed in the sink.

I take the bread to the butterfly
garden. I tear scraps
of unleavened rounds into crumbs
which I scatter across the ground.

The children delight in pouring
the undrunk but consecrated
wine into the flowers, where it drips
down to the soil below.

I imagine caterpillars drunk
on God’s love made visible
in sacrament, birds pecking
in the dirt, surprised
to find a blessing,
bushes bursting with blooms
in improbable colors.

Inspired by Dave Bonta’s “Inner city” and Luisa A. Igloria’s “What can you do with day old bread?“

June 15, 2016July 29, 2016 by Jean Morris

Louise Labé – Sonnet XIV

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Louise Labé

Vermeer – Woman with a Lute — Vermeer – *Woman with a Lute*

As long as these old eyes can fill with tears,
reliving some sweet hour I spent with you,
and this old voice can hold a tune through all
my sighs and sobs and still be faintly heard,

as long as this old hand can pluck the strings
of my beloved lute, pick out your song,
as long as this old spirit can still yearn
for that complicity we used to share,

I’m far from feeling that I want to die.
But come the time I find myself dry-eyed,
with broken voice and hand too weak to play

a note, my spirit shrinking in its mortal frame,
no longer capable of any sign of love,
I’ll beckon Death to dim my brightest day.

Tant que mes yeus pourront larmes espandre,
A l’heur passé avec toy regretter:
Et qu’aus sanglots & soupirs resister
Pourra ma voix, & un peu faire entendre:

Tant que ma main pourra les cordes tendre
Du mignart Lut, pour tes graces chanter:
Tant que l’esprit se voudra contenter
De ne vouloir rien fors que toy comprendre:

Je ne souhaitte encore point mourir.
Mais quand mes yeus je sentiray tarir,
Ma voix cassée, & ma main impuissante,

Et mon esprit en ce mortel séjour
Ne pouvant plus montrer signe d’amante:
Prirey la Mort noircir mon plus cler jour.

With thanks to Dave and Via Negativa for encouragement and inspiration over the past year.

Written in the mid-16th century, this well expresses how I feel about starting, and continuing, latish in life, to write and translate poetry.

Louise Labé in Wikipedia

May 30, 2016 by Kristin Berkey-Abbott

The Transports of History

But as always the taxicab
of history picks up its passengers, takes them where
they think they want to go; then leaves them there.
“Current Events” by Luisa A. Igloria

Some people take the taxicab of history,
dingy with worn seats
and a strange smell that no one can identify.

Our rulers travel in their own vehicles,
a glamorous car with a crew of soldiers
to protect them from the ones they serve
or an airplane high above the land.

Many will take the Greyhound bus of history,
if they’re lucky. It can be crowded,
with a restroom too dreadful to use,
but at least the progress is usually swift and steady.

Most of us have no vehicle.
We walk our shoes to shreds as we trudge
across deserts that were once ancient seabeds.
We take that last desperate swim
between continents, the savage
sea creatures surrounding us no more harmful
than the predators left behind.

May 26, 2016 by Jean Morris

Escher: Metamorphosis

I am a loner drawn to multiplicity.
I like it when things change but stay the same,
as a village in Italy creeps around and around a hill.
In reflections I see another world – or is it this one?
Over and over, bees and birds in flight and swimming fish –
patterns repeat, both infinite and contained,
shapes tumble into creatures, houses, streets and shapes again.
When each thing separates and all things coalesce I am complete.
Shapes tumble into creatures, houses, streets and shapes again,
patterns repeat, both infinite and contained –
over and over, bees and birds in flight and swimming fish.
In reflections I see another world – or is it this one?
As a village in Italy creeps around and around a hill,
I like it when things change but stay the same.
I am a loner drawn to multiplicity.

Inspired by Via Negativa: In the beginning and Fractal (this time the shape).

Category: Guest Authors