Death rises and blows. Not with water nor sun
does it surround all that matters. What is rare
is its absence. In a century or two
natural forms decay, unless a sphere
of unity intervenes- a body
of perfection which challenges the gaze
of aesthetes emerging from a darker place.
Imagine the flea’s panic in ungroomed hair,
tossing at night, upon peregrine pillows,
and you will know the black hand, unlicensed fear
which hardens into the familiar, and then
loses itself in worlds askance and askew
from the adamantine world the senses show,
and eyes sifting the shapes of uncertain urns.
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
La mort souffle en rafales. D'eau ni de soleil
elle n'englobe le solide. Ni ne donne
guère de répit. Un siècle ou deux, et périssent
les formes naturelles, sauf si s'imposait
l'unicité d'un corps sphérique si parfait
que les esthètes éblouis croiraient rêver
en le voyant surgir d'obscures profondeurs.
Imaginez les affres du pou bourlinguant
d'oreiller en traversin sur une tignasse :
vous sentirez la main d'ombre, la peur panique
enkystée au sein du familier, diluée
ensuite par les traverses de mondes torves
loin de l'univers adamantin de nos sens,
quand l'œil disperse les cendres de l'incertain.
The spirit resigns. The trees grow higher
than the pain in the knee. What sense is pain?
It just alerts the almost mighty doctor
that the body is its own universe.
A comfort grows. In the mind it exists
as war emblem against the material,
as self and despair enjoy their brief reign
over the mind, which similarly rules
over its things divine and things mundane.
The spirit retains. The light grows greener
through estuaries of broken leaves, which shift
in the wind no spirit knows like the skin
which births those primal things, as desire
wonders:
will love be the last my mind will work?
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
L'esprit s'abandonne. L'arbre a autre mesure
qu'un mal au genou. À quoi rime la douleur ?
Elle fait savoir au Grand Manipresquetou
que le corps à lui tout seul est un univers.
Rassurant. On pense avoir trouvé l'étendard
du ralliement contre l'ennemi matériel,
dans ce bref règne qui est nôtre, qui unit
désespoir et raison, et qui s'exerce autant
sur ce qu'il a de divin que sur le profane.
L'esprit n'abandonne. Plus vert, le jour s'étale
en estuaires de feuilles brisées au gré
d'un souffle inconnu de l'esprit, il fait membrane
de première mise au monde, alors le désir
se demande
si mon œuvre ultime est l'amour.
Sing with your laugh, for I am reminded
of a day when your body was the river
that spun through my veins, split me, and blinded
me to duality. You were my lover,
though you knew it not then. A laugh like yours
is a song that floats through Alpine shadows
that seep through the summer grasses with more
coolness that blooms. Like carnations it grows
a peace which tangles with each inward breath,
the bounty of life at its most undead-
your laugh. Suddenly it is more than a laugh.
It brings me nearer to myself- the choice
of a knife that is brutal, or merely red
in the aftermath refreshness of its voice.
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
Chante dans ton rire car j'ai le souvenir
d'un jour où ton corps était fleuve qui roulait
dans mes veines, qui m'ouvrait et m'aveuglait
à la dualité. Tu étais mon amour
et tu l'ignorais. Ton rire était chant porté
par l'ombre qui se diffuse sur les alpages
et coule dans les herbes d'été en surcroît
de fraîcheur épanouie. Œillets, il est paix
qui se mêle à chaque souffle qui me pénètre,
récompense de vie au plus loin de la mort,
ton rire. Mais soudain c'est beaucoup plus qu'un rire.
Il me rapproche de moi-même : c'est le choix
brutal d'une lame, rouge tout simplement
dans le regain si rafraîchissant de sa voix.
What watches as I hold you, and skim your waist
with my forefinger? Is it smooth, transparent,
as the path from here to the moon? The best
one can hope for is that light is true, not bent
by the gravity of desire, or
a Manhattan morning. Is it Sunday
now? You are naked as your stride. Your hair
fills the empty streets in a spacious way
one cannot describe with words. Very like
that which observes us in slender vision,
inhabits our dreams, even as we deny
it power over us. Is it all a dream,
here in a north Broadway premonition,
that strikes at the waist from between us, and beams?
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
Quel regard nous tient quand je t'étreins et, d'un doigt,
t'effleure la taille ? Est-il de soie, transparent
comme une échelle de lune ? Le mieux qu'on puisse
espérer c'est qu'il tombe droit, sans s'infléchir
sous l'attraction du désir ou de l'ambiance
d'un matin à Manhattan. Serait-ce déjà
Dimanche ? Sans voile aucun tu vas par les rues.
Ta chevelure investit la ville déserte
d'une indicible omniprésence fort pareille
à celle qui pose un regard léger sur nous,
occupe nos rêves, mais dont nous refusons
la mainmise. Y a-t-il autre chose qu'un rêve
dans cette lumineuse prémonition
de North Broadway qui nous explose à la ceinture ?
The little world of the t.v. screen is made
not with wires and electrodes, but within
the mind of those who sit back and decide
pleasure is an option of life, and in
its indifference they grow comfort, for life
is like that, too. The t.v. is not hard
to understand. Its seasons roll on. No strife
occurs when the channels change. It is part
of the natural. The t.v. is a fruit
which opens in a crackling bitterness,
but ripens with its light. Ever on mute
it affects all about with its visual
reach, pushing against unnatural distress,
and inviting a freshness some call the soul.
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
Le petit monde télévisé n'est pas fait
de câbles et d'électrodes, il est installé
dans la tête de ceux qui se la coulent douce,
ont choisi l'option plaisir et trouvé confort
dans son indifférence. À l'image, d'ailleurs,
de la vie. La télé n'est pas si compliquée
que cela. Elle va de saison en saison.
Les chaînes passent sans anicroche. Tout va
de soi. Acerbe étincelle et puis déhiscence :
le fruit télé mûrit dans sa lumière. Même
sans le son il impose à l'entour son emprise
visuelle, repousse l'affreux cauchemar
et importe une vigueur qu'on dit être l'âme.
No healing inures. It only placates
the will and the ideal to grow some more.
Life’s raw fingers
motion
and summon this love which has to vacate
its original place- that you only saw
when you lingered
in one
you did not know,
with a flicker
of Eden’s new
grasp at the dark-smiled earth, which does not want
of anything quicker
than a new mind to haunt.
French Translation Copyright © by Jean Migrenne
Guérir n'est pas aguerrir. Ce n'est qu'apaiser
le vouloir, l'idéal qui pousse à davantage.
La vie ne met pas
de gants
pour intimer l'ordre à l'amour d'évacuer
cet asile premier, seulement aperçu
lorsque l'on s'attardait
en terre
inconnue, image
ténue d'Éden
repossédant
la terre au noir sourire, qui n'a d'autre envie
plus crue
que d'obséder à nouveau.
Laughter: again it clashes with my thoughts
of yestertimes, when lightning was merely
your backdrop, and your clothes fell like the snow
in a child’s dream of the past, or nearly
enough to it to agitate the highlands
of my body- which speaks to itself, and lets
listen its morning, breaking through love’s show
of itself, as it grips me firmly, and mans
me to force love from my lips; your body comes
closer to shadow, even as it appears
lighted and firm in its tone and its sum
before me, with the foliage of fire
crisping all senses- like your laughter my ears
or your lips bringing forth my hips’ entire.
The man on the bus has eaten it all-
the banana, the grapes, the tomato, too,
in an odd salad made of vegetables
and thought. The girl sits alone with the glue
of what was, and walks the small streets to school,
where no child embraces her, and the swings
are not warm with play, and the day has cooled
with the coming of decades in between.
The man on the bus was white. Now she says
to herself that the school would segregate,
and the walk was full of wandering eyes.
Yet, imagine the girl thought as one of us,
and the fruit just as fruit we can all relate;
then what of the hungry man on the bus?
HOLY SONNET 40
*for Michael D. Petti
Not sonnets are safer! Refuse that word!
No fire is truth. No heart wills its rise
into the poem as it heaves and it spurns
safety for this life- or some sort of prize.
No art makes its love by wresting control
from the mind. To the heart goes the thinking
of thoughts, of loves, and of poetry’s whole
numinous path- often left for the making
by ‘poets’ who are not. Their verse is astray
from what is the real; though they mutter return
in sonnets that somehow lead love away,
into a mass of petty confusion,
where love is not won. If only it could
be that simple, the poetasters would.
The body of Autumn Garcia imprints
Return to Cosmoetica
itself in the mind of a memory left
to wonder of her living, all these years since,
like a seduction unaccustomed, bereft
of touch. Her torso so perfect, her hips
like a dragon’s in that warmest December,
as her flawless face frames ungestured lips
leading down to huge breasts, unencumbered
by the bustier, drawing eyes’ desire
from men who will use her. If given a chance
she will outstrip the predicted sense of her,
to open her legs to more than circumstance,
unlike those women who love the death in men,
named in her posture, set apart by her grin.
