MCCLXII


Underneath (13)

needed          explanation
because of the mystic nature        of the theory
and our reliance          on collective belief
I could not visualize the end
the tools that paved the way broke
the body the foundation the exact copy of the real
our surfaces were covered
our surfaces are all covered
actual hands appear but then there is writing
in the cave       we were deeply impressed
as in addicted to results
oh and dedication training     the idea of loss of life
in our work we call this emotion
how a poem enters into the world
there is nothing wrong with the instrument
as here I would raise my voice but
the human being and the world cannot be equated
aside from the question of whether or not we are alone
and other approaches to nothingness
(the term “subject”)(the term “only”)
also opinion and annihilation
(the body’s minutest sensation of time)
(the world, it is true, has not yet been destroyed)
intensification      void
we are amazed
uselessness is the last form love takes
so liquid till the forgone conclusion
here we are, the forgone conclusion
so many messages transmitted they will never acquire meaning
do you remember          my love my archive
touch me (here)
give birth to       a single idea
touch where it does not lead to war
show me    exact spot
climb the stairs
lie on the bed
have faith
nerves wearing only moonlight lie down
lie still patrol yr cage
be a phenomenon
at the bottom below the word
intention, lick past it
rip     years
find the burning matter
love allows it (I think)
push past the freedom (smoke)
push past     intelligence (smoke)
whelm      sprawl
(favorite city)   (god’s tiny voices)
hand over mouth
let light arrive
let the past strike us and go
drift        undo
if it please the dawn
lean down
say      hurt      undo
in your mouth be pleased
where does it say
where does it say
this is the mother tongue
there is in my mouth a ladder
climb down
presence of world
impassable       gap
pass
I am beside myself
you are inside me       as history
We exist         Meet me

SONG




SONG
A whole summer I spent listening to that record. 
So that the emotion would not leave it 
I listened to it once a day. 
If I ended up hungry I went out to walk. 

The light sang that song in its way, 
the sea sang it, a bird 
spoke it. 
In one instant I thought: 
all this is happening to me so I might fall in love. 

Then the summer went away. 
The bird 
dryer than the branch 
didn’t open its beak again.



© 2002, António José Ponte
© Translation: Julie Flanagan

© Translation: Julie Flanagan





Photography by Abigail Berenika


Out of the rolling ocean the crowd

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you..."
-- Walt Whitman


Photograph by Jock Sturges



somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

Paolo Roversi 
There's a sense of urgency in her face that I feel in my heart.

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands"


by E. E. Cummings

a spy game of sorts

Paolo Roversi
Paolo Roversi

New Endymion

BY W. S. DI PIERO


She visits still too much, dressed in aromas
of fir needles, mango, mold: I still get lost
knowing she’s close, me not getting younger
or more conscious. Sometimes I fantasticate
I’m broad awake: her witchy presence waits
for me to jump into her arms, but then she’s just
an incoherent ache in sleep’s freaked scenes.
I feel her frosty nitrogenous hands and wrists
vaporing nooses around my head and feet
and genitals, conjuring my drab hair
into a party bowl of oiled, desirable locks.
She makes me nervous, but what would I do
without her? So long as I can’t have her,
I want her and this alarming manic frequency.
Then again, who wants to wake to change,
its pulped, smelly suit of meat, drawing flies?
My night-watch hot girl, moon-maiden, mom,
let me get just one night’s sleep without regret,
released from your foxy ticklish fondlings,
your latest smell of windblown fresh-cut grass.

Maggie




 A family album so worth looking into and how can you resist Aunt Maggie and her magical orbs?










"Produced  as a collaborative family effort by celebrated photographers Emmet and  Elijah Gowin, and with a text by Edith Gowin, Maggie brings together two  generations to honor a beloved, elderly aunt, 98 year-old Margaret  Cooper."—the publisher





Maggie.  
Photographs by Emmet and Elijah Gowin. Introduction  by Edith Gowin.                                                                                                                                                                            
Tin Roof Press,    Kansas City, 2008. 56    pp.,  24 tritone and color illustrations.,  11¼x10".