There’s No Forgetting (Sonata)

I have been aching for words to say it; but words are failing me again, and again, and again... And in the end I just return to this haunting poem by Pablo Neruda, perhaps my favorite of his, and on which I based my thesis, "Memory for Forgetfulness”: Registering/Effacing the Memory of the Lebanese War, which has, at once, tragically come back to life and become laughably irrelevant...

Ask me where I have been
and I’ll tell you: “Things keep on happening.”
I must talk of the rubble that darkens the stones;
of the river’s duration, destroying itself;
I know only the things that the birds have abandoned,
or the sea behind me, or my sorrowing sister.
Why the distinctions of place? Why should day
follow day? Why must the blackness
of nighttime collect in our mouths? Why the dead?

If you question me: where have you come from, I must talk
___with things falling away,
artifacts tart to the taste,
great, cankering beasts, as often as not,
and my own inconsolable heart.

Those who cross over with us are no keepsakes,
nor the yellowing pigeon that sleeps in forgetfulness:
only the face with its tears,
the hands at our throats,
whatever the leafage dissevers:
the dark of an obsolete day,
a day that has tasted the grief in our blood.

Here are the violets, swallows—
all the things that delight us, the delicate tallies
that show in the lengthening train
through which pleasure and transience pass.

Here let us halt, in the teeth of a barrier:
useless to gnaw on the husks that the silence assembles.
For I come without answers:
see: the dying are legion,
legion, the breakwaters breached by the red of the sun,
the headpieces knocking the ship’s side,
the hands closing over their kisses,
and legion the things I would give to oblivion.

—Pablo Neruda

© Translation: 1974, Ben Belitt
From: Pablo Neruda, Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970
Publisher: Grove Press, New York, 1974
Hear this recited at Poetry International Festival Rotterdam, 2004 by Krip Yuso.

No Hay Olvido (Sonata)

Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado
debo decir "Sucede".
Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras,
del río que durando se destruye:
no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden,
el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando.
Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día
se junta con un día? Por qué una negra noche
se acumula en la boca? Por qué muertos?

Si me preguntáis de dónde vengo, tengo que conversar con
      cosas rotas,
con utensilios demasiado amargos,
con grandes bestias a menudo podridas
y con mi acongojado corazón.

No son recuerdos los que se han cruzado
ni es la paloma amarillenta que duerme en el olvido,
sino caras con lágrimas,
dedos en la garganta,
y lo que se desploma de las hojas:
la oscuridad de un día transcurrido,
de un día alimentado con nuestra triste sangre.

He aquí violetas, golondrinas,
todo cuanto nos gusta y aparece
en las dulces tarjetas de larga cola
por donde se pasean el tiempo y la dulzura.

Pero no penetremos más allá de esos dientes,
no mordamos las cáscaras que el silencio acumula,
porque no sé qué contestar:
hay tantos muertos,
y tantos malecones que el sol rojo partía,
y tantas cabezas que golpean los buques,
y tantas manos que han encerrado besos,
y tantas cosas que quiero olvidar.

—Pablo Neruda

The Worst Is Yet to Come

Shed them one by one
like recent habits,
perhaps, or ancient loves.

Feel the world denting under your knees--
bury your face deeper in the pillow,
and let it out.

Listen to the grinding of Fate's stone
chaffing your thighs,
pencil a smirk across your face
and raise it to the light.

The worst is yet to come.


In lawns that knew nothing
but the breeze dabbling in poetry,
a hammock strung
like angels to the skies;

In dusks wrapped in their own perfection,
and beaches slumbering at the lap of forever;

You sat, eyes wide, words few,
absorbing the sand like it's all that is left,
spitting it out variations on the divine.

The horizon blinked under your gaze,
and repeated itself, fumbling and hurried,
waiting for reassurance
at the corners of your mouth.


Plunge it, once more, into darkness
and burn a sigh.

We make alliances of convenience,
greeting smiles with a stare,
showcasing the cleared lots
like something’s there.

But the words dim, and scramble,
and shift direction on the page.

They know, too, like I do,
like the night falls,
they sing it under their breath:

The worst is yet to come.

(To Katyssima, originally posted on September 12, 2006)

VI. The Sinking River at Stevensport

Closing your eyes, you can see 

What nobody ever saw:  

It is midnight, past midnight,  

The figure just visible  

In the moonless, dew-laden dark 

Where river empties into  

River, and the water makes  

No sound, or a sound like time, 

Which stands still now on the bank. 

He, too, stands still on the bank, 

Late-summer night wind whipping 

The white linen of his coat-  

For, yes, he always did have  

A sense of style in such things.  

Behind him, the white car shines 

Under what starlight there is.  

He stares at what stars there are 

And remembers—or does he?- 

The flowered dress he bought you 

And raised above your waist here 

So you could straddle his lap. 

Does he think of the river  

Lit at Louisville, where some- 

Thing he can hardly admit  

To himself happened?—happened 

To you, though you both agreed 

It was the best thing to do. . . . 

Does he speak aloud now to  

No one? Does he say a name? 

Does he say your name before  

He walks into the river?  

Or does he just walk away?  

You must believe both stories  

Till the world makes up its mind. 

Either way, the white car shines 

As dawn fights the water, and

 -—All this behind your closed eyes—— 

That wide water seems to hold 

The dead in their element.  

- Joe Bolton, from "The Last Nostalgia"

SONG (re)CYCLE 2019: Lebanese Revolution Edition

As Sylvia Plath wrote:

"I have done it again.   

One year in every ten   

I manage it——"

Well, maybe not every ten, but every few years it seems to happen. Something momentous happens (in the Middle East) that I feel the need to respond to. But since my words have not been serving me as well in recent years, I've resorted to this poem recycling.. I resumed this edition without planning, a reaction, a need to borrow words from my past self to respond too current events. Thus Absolution appeared in Kalam Thawra. I'd left the previous cycle unfinished a couple of years ago. So I thought I'd continue where I left off, auspiciously I'd like to think, towards the end of grief and beginning of hope. So let's hope..

Perduto

“You’ll never be great,” he said.
“And I am fine with that,
“But you are not.”

I sleep
But wake up like I haven’t
The skyline looks at me
Grey and cold
The same green windows
That soon won’t be there

I sit
I stare
I breathe deep
And suffocate
A beam, check where it is
Erase
Damn, it’s gone
Irretrievable

Songs rush through my head
In tiny white tubes
I am numb
Numb is good

I revolt
Against good
Against beautiful
Against my own ill-defined self
But I don’t have the energy
So I let it be

“Perduto…”
She sings in my head
Like memories of our life there
Like the train tracks we waited in front of
And the night wrapped us with a dream
Flavored of hazelnut gelato

On it goes
We laugh together again
It is snowing
I can’t wait to be home
With you

(Originally posted on January 20, 2005)

Alternatives

Tomorrow, don't wake me up
Nor the day after
You are not mine anymore
And I'm not sure
I like that world

I know I opened the door
So how could I blame you
For walking out
Heart first?

"It ain't exactly easy
But what’s the alternative?
Tread water
For the rest of our days?"

I have known the darkness:
I have looked into the abyss
And seen my name
Written in absence.
So how am I to write it now
In lights?

I have seen the exit signs.
I know other
Alternatives.

(Originally posted on July 11, 2018)

Here

Here,
Here I mourned you,
And now it’s over.

A wall of brushed concrete—
How I hated its birth;
A breeze squeezing its last breath
Through the cracks.
An angel in the mud,
Smiling from below
To a chime that keeps sighing.
Here, on these steps,
With the azure flanking me,
She told me.
Here, in this hallway of a room,
Over salad greens,
I wept.
And there you still hang,
On top,
In the row of the deceased.

I’ve got cat hair all over my sweat,
A furry smile,
And eyes that squint like yours.
I’ve got rooftops aplenty,
And branches to match,
All of magnolias in bloom.
I’ve got skylines to give,
A blue open wide,
And insinuated stars.
Here, at the heel of the world,
I’ve got similes run amuck!
I’ve got graffiti, and Tupperware
Filled with yesterday’s blood.
I’ve got you running in circles
Under my breath.
Here, where you ended,
An immense yawn began,
A treetop, a squirrel, and a humming bee.
Here, in the silence,
You still crumble down the wall
As long as my cat chases ghosts.

(Originally posted on June 16, 2005)

Prison

We made of love a prison
To hold us both
Like we couldn't hold each other

We furnished it well
With all the love
We couldn't show one another

And in it we drowned
In a display of domesticity
Born of our fevered dreams

But we ended up forgetting
Where we started
Or what it was all about

(Originally posted on May 21, 2017 )

Myself to Blame

I only have myself to blame
for you, my victory, my downfall,
my need, my hunger, my flame...

I only have myself to blame,
hoping endlessly, as my mother
waits for my dad, against hope
for you to change,
for you to become
what I want, to be
somebody else...

I only have myself to blame
for this, the burn that is my life,
this lie that I insist on telling,
waiting, against the odds,
for me to become
someone I want...

(Originally posted on May 14, 2013)

"Autumn Fugue" by Joe Bolton

I remember how the silver leaves fell down,
Extravagantly, as if in prefigured spirals,
From the fig tree you couldn’t keep alive,
And how, when you’d sat watching for a while
That lovely dying, then turned your face to me,
Your face seemed the same silver of the leaves.

It had to do partially, I suppose,
With the light--how the brief and intense dusk
Along 14th Street gathered in the canopy
Of chestnuts choked with vine, filtering
In through the three windows of your white room
To make a luminous lake in which we swam.

Looking all that autumn for a holier way
Of talking about things, you found yourself
Hardly able, at last, to speak at all;
And so, for long moments, no word would pass
Between us, when we had only to listen
To the quarter-hourly noise from a nearby church.

There was something greater to the sadness
Than simply the going away of your lover,
Or even our own past failure at love.
What sadness there was carried with it the weight
Of something intensely formal, and which would not
Be overcome by anything so commonplace

As a gesture shared between the two of us.
And so, as the light faltered and the leaves fell down,
I’d light a cigarette and sip my drink,
And you’d arrange your body at the window
Like some unfinished portrait of yourself. . . .
If there is nothing between a man and a woman

Except the light by which they see each other,
And a past in which they appear continually smaller,
And a future that seems already to have acquired
The irrevocability of the past,
It seems important, nevertheless, to acknowledge
Their brief victory: the surviving it.

- Joe Bolton, from The Last Nostalgia

On the Prowl

To Foxy

It's the absence—always the absence—that gets us.
A habit lingering long after, a slip of the tongue,
a look in the direction of what remains...

And the night—always the night—mercilessly
weaving ghosts out of shadows, the cold
confrontation of mind facing sleep.

Your stained bed turned a wailing pad,
where your smell lingers we now muffle our cries.
Your bowls soaking in the kitchen sink,
your leash by the door, your food going stale
in the closet, along with half-chewed bones.
We no longer have to sneak out, but
nor is there a bark now to welcome us back.
The only sound is his sobbing,
like a jackhammer to my gut.

The last time I saw you,
after you drew your last breath,
I buried my face in your neck
to take one more breathful of you.
I think of the first time we saw you,
shivering in a cage,
big brown eyes I melted in,
and the way you drooled over
the backseat all the way home.

But I can't think of where you are now,
can't give substance to your absence,
cannot materialize it.
I turn my head, bite my tongue,
stifle a sob, and start cleaning.
And when the night comes again,
when your absence is back out
on the prowl, I'll be here...

(Originally posted on March 22, 2014)

When You’re Gone

To Wojtek 


And now you’re gone.
After I’d gnashed my teeth at you
After I’d snarled and flipped my insides out
After I’d cursed you in every tongue and slant
And hissed like a viper sloughing its shame
I lie tame as a mothball
Rolled in your clothes
Vacant as the streets on a Sunday night
I lie here on your side of the bed
Barely filling your dent
And pretending that the heat
Is the hair on your arms

After I’d spewed hatred in your face
With the aftertaste of regret
After I’d peeled the ceiling
With the pungency of my breath 
After I’d promised you I’d never write
Another melodramatic poem
When you’re across the street
I lie here in your spot
Replaying your voice
Cranky and digitized
To fill the quiet of the hour
I turn the clocks on their faces
I flip off all the lights
And I shrink the rooms to my size

I had tried to empty the fridge
Of yesterday’s trash
But even my blind hunger had failed me
I wish I can pop a happy thought
To get me through my sleep
But tomorrow weighs on my teeth
And grinds them to dull nubs
I wish I can, like the cat
Reach between my ears
And lick the lint that
Has grown in the trap
I wish I can
Go back to yesterday
When I was biting your head off
Just to grow you another

(Originally posted on November 07, 2005)

"The Story" by Joe Bolton

If it rained tonight
I’d lie down
For a thousand years.

—As if nothing had happened;
As if the story
Wouldn’t tell itself forever:

No more mother, no remembered loves, and my pulse
Purified, the only sound
As I lowered myself into the depths…

But the bells are ringing up the hill,
Punishing bells,
Recounting all the arguments against me.

If I’ve created the story of my life,
Why not now the story
Of not having ever lived at all?

Maybe then there wouldn’t be this burden
Of what was lost
Almost before it had arrived.

Maybe then there wouldn’t be this weight
Of what is
And what I can feel myself already losing.