water from stone

A room

I took a hundred pictures of the room
from different angles, trying to catch
the way the sun crept on the floor, the fringe
of each scarf on the wall, the fall
of shadow on the carpet, books
in quiet celebration on the shelf—I held
my hand against the window, memorized
the edge of all my fingers on the pane,
the cars lining the lane, the colours
of the tree behind the glass.
I tried to stop time in my eyes, so that
the room would be there when I left,
so that my life would stop, revolve
inside a peaceful shell, so that I’d keep
a kind of refuge in my mind, preserve
a box of joy I could not rearrange.
But still the picture’s changed.
The minute that I handed back the keys
and gave away the room, I lost my right
to life inside. I could not freeze time
and should I have tried? Pictures do shift.
The glimpse of light inside them is a gift.

Solomon

Solomon, how many miles will she travel
before she arrives at your gate?
She won’t miss it, that’s certain—
it’s the only one blindingly bright
with gilt and stones, and inside
the city is going mad with knowledge,
and everyone carries their paperback copies
of your collected works,
and eats up words mashed into jam
on bread studded with statements, seeds
divided into diagrams.
When at last her carriage pulls up
at your house, built in your signature
architectural style,
slathered with gew-gaws, public art
covered in scales and owls and silhouettes
of your powerful visage, she’ll stop
and gather all her courage,
shout at the slave boy dropping her train
in order to pick his nose,
and sweep inside. The Queen of Sheba
knows herself to be a stunner,
knows her questions to be strong,
and has her chequebook ready: she will buy
it all: encyclopaedias, poems, psalms, and even
the dictums, provided your answers impress.
“What must I do, what must I do,” she stammers,
broken at the sight of you,
your massive throne, the wisdom
emanating from your ears—
“what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Sometimes my riches burden me. The smell
of saffron in the air just makes me want
to buy things. But surely you know God on earth:
show me how you found your joy.”
And when she drops her brilliant eyes
will you be kind? You will.
You know your time is running out. The binding
on the books is new
but it will fail. You look at this small Queen
and at her slave boy, at the way she bows
to you as to a god, and then you sigh
the earth’s own sigh, and then you lead her off
and show her all your wealth,
and when her vacation ends, she goes:
but what you answered her, no-one knows.

Seeing is believing

Don’t allow yourself to suffer much.
The tree outside your window is a sign
that something stands outside your life,

unknowing of your inner strife,
a lack of memory strong against your fear
that pain recalled must be preserved,

or worse, perpetually deserved.
This naked tree outside your window
stirs her branches and a rush

of new green hides the woody blush,
shuts out the fiercest aspect of the sky,
deflects the spectrum’s restless parts—

so you must let your heart
burst out in green; so you must sink
the wound beyond its power to be seen.

Excerpt from The Book of Merlyn:

"I hope you are not being stupid about children," asked Merlyn, looking vaguely about him. "We have high authority for being born again, like little ones. Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit lately, I notice, of comforting themselves for their degredation by pretending that children are childish. I trust we are free from this?"

"Everybody knows that children are more intelligent than their parents," [said Arthur].

"You and I know it, but the people who are going to read this book do not."

"Our readers of that time," continued the necromancer in a grim voice, "have exactly three ideas in their magnificent noodles. The first is that the human species is superior to others. The second, that the twentieth century is superior to other centuries. And the third, that human adults of the twentieth century are superior to their young. The whole illusion may be labelled Progress, and anybody who questions it is called puerile, reactionary, or an escapist. The March of Mind, God help them."

He considered these facts for some time, then added: "And a fourth piece of scientific clap-trap which they are to have, rejoices in the name of anthropomorphism. Even their children are supposed to be so superior to the animals that you must never mention the two creatures in the same breath. If you begin considering men as animals, they put it the other way round and say that you are considering animals as men, a sin which they hold to be worse than bigamy. Imagine a scientist being merely an animal, they say! Tut-tut, and Tilly-fol-de-rido!"

"Who are these readers?"

"The readers of the book."

"What book?"

"The book we are in."

"Are we in a book?"

"We had better attend to the job," said Merlyn hastily.

-T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn, from The Once and Future King. London: Voyager, 1977. pp. 710-11.

Directive for restlessness

Walk up on the bridges:
stand where you can see the arc
of low-flying seagulls on the water.

Think of places you have been
and places you have yet to see—
know your life to be a spark

of white on something
fast and dark and rippling.
Even now your feet are aching

to be gone from where they stand
precarious over the water,
erect against the ancient air.

Under where your hand
is clenched around the bar, mark
how the seagulls dance against the dark.

Neruda:

So many things fall from the pine--
green mustaches,
music,
cones like craggy stones
or armadillos--
like a book about to lose its leaves.

It too fell in my face,
the subtle petal
bearing a black seed:
it was a hymenopteran wing
of the pine tree,
a transmigration
of smoothnesses
in which flight unites
with the roots.

They fall,
drops of the tree:
punctuation,
vowels, consonants,
violins,
falling rain,
silence,
everything falls from the pine,
from the vertical air:
the fragrance falls,
the shadow riddled
by the daylight,
the night clear
as milk of moon,
the night black
as that absence.

Dawn breaks.

And a new day
falls
from the top of the pine,
falls with its clock,
with its needles
and its holes,
and in the dusk
the pine needles sew
another night to the light,
another day to the night.

Pablo Neruda, "House of Manteras in Punta del Este," (1968) from The Hands of Day, tr. William O'Daly. Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2008.

Bright end

I think you know because I told you
I see our fate, I see our past
Seconds from the aftermath
A heart that’s full up like a landfill

Throwing candy out to the crowd, dragging down the main
And we stare at the sun
Wanderers this morning came by
When are you gonna come down

Lookin back on my life
This car turned over without a key or gasoline tonight

In the sky the birds are pulling rain
Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth
Something’s happening, don’t speak too soon
You say what’s mine is mine
We’re at two feet down
Sjáum yfir rá

Something in me was dying
I was getting ready to be a threat
I heard that now you’re calling
Suppose I said
Here’s the bright end of nowhere

Some of this sound familiar? It should... here's the trick: pull the first line from 21 songs in a row on shuffle and voila: a sometimes surprisingly cohesive poem, and 21 violations of copyright! Ready, set, anarchy!