Poetry

Why I Am Not a Jew

Saint-Julien de Peyrolas Gard 18 October 1941 Mr Xavier Vallat Commissioner for Jewish Affairs Vichy Sir:      I must take you to be in some way my superior;      for while I have not yet come to grasp what now      is thought to be a Jew, I must hear the silence      that met my request, for a…

West of Here, East of There

1 A morning meditation in mid-May, the plane trees profligate on this island on Broadway and 105th, ten years of morning walks along these storefronts, the beautiful names before me now, Santerellos, Erik’s Hair King, Lucky Farm Fruits and Vegetables, the urban wind in the lindens, the shock of gray-black water on the downslopes of…

from Mandala: Lukianos

A weak man is like a broken jug: although you pour in every kindness, you pour in vain: nothing is contained. *     *     * The vile mouth of the exorcist drives away demons, not by virtue of his ritual, but by the shit he speaks. *     *     * The poor painter captures only form, no other. To find the…

from Sheffield Pastorals

Sheffield Pastorals has no plot—only the interweaving of a number of themes. Each section is a cluster of self-contained, slightly discon- nected lines, in the manner of a ghazal, but unlike the ghazal all the lines of the section focus on a common subject. I don't know how many sections the poem will finally have….

Above and Below in Mexico

1 I looked out over Mexico City's notorious skyless skies, and I looked further and the distances contracted to a fist. Diverging currents of traffic; skies without ocher and ultramarine. Over the jagged faded silhouette of the city; propane tanks perch like pigs at a trough on the rooftops. Five years ago the earthquake, five…

Heav’n Is Musick

     The two books I think I am cooking up are:      1. Thingsomeness. Orthodox verse (villanelles, etc.) plus            some less orthodox experiments in sound repetition (e.g.,            borzoi and for joy, echo and threshold).      2. Brass and Percussion: Pros Songs. Derived somewhat            frmo classical Greek (“logaedic”) and Chinese fu models            (Pound includes the…

Visiting Hour

My pale inner left arm pierced, and withdrawn; the sweat-heated pillow flattened under my neck;      I lay and fingered my mental parts. A draft stirred the red curtain: a figure at the foot of the bed, observing like a brother.      Not much trace of him, before our trouble. . . But I needed nothing there….