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Poems
(And translations, bottom of page) It only starts With just a little art and form, Scarcely surprising, but a rising structure, Architecture born to keep you safe and warm, The vehicle of love's intentions for your heart. So reappears the chalice that your love lay in Long from the start A cup of heaven that has drawn you back within, Once more inside, Again to savor future memories of a bride. Sip just a drop, and your ability to stop Will melt away, abandoning all art And find you being, all-receiving, Yet another, long-awaited, willing victim of the heart. String Quartet Inside each man resides A little girl who waits The coming of that boy a woman hides, Her natural playmate... You reach me (every instant I'm with you), You teach me (all those things I never knew), You seduce me with your tender, smiling glance, And then you trounce me, bounce me, kick me in the pants. And when I run, you chase me, only to be caught By one in hiding, who you never might have thought Could be the self-same person that you thought you knew, While all the time the very rhyme's inside of you. Two boys, two girls go dashing, laughing at their play, Then fall exhausted, safe at home, at end of day: A perfect set, four playmates rendered from above, A string quartet, playing a symphony of love. New Moon Support all flown, all cover blown, Barely afloat, the sinking boat Abandons you as you abandon her To fortune cast away once more, With stroke uncertain, striking for a shore Whose voice unheard above the crashing swell Admonishes an ending not too well Performed by aging actors in a show Too-well directed to come from below The salt that rages silent in the wounds Of means deprived, of ends without a sound Of meaning just a seeming random tune's Finale come expectedly too soon: New Moon. Forfeit I am the sacrifice, I am the Lamb Do what you will with me, Do what you can When you are done with me Throw me away I will come back to you Day after day Morning and evening Never away Ever reentering Into the play so Unmisbegotten yet Misunderstood but Never forgotten I Always remain The very material Born to sustain The form of the forfeit Written in blood: I am the sacrifice, I am the Lamb Do what you will with me, Do what you can My Heart Collapsed My heart collapsed today, just after four, When with the brief slam of your taxi door, A door within flashed open wide, A crimson tide Of sorrow, ashen tears, and woe Is me, who cannot plug the hole So quickly drilled into my heart, A part That cannot be replaced So suddenly has raced Back to another world, While I am hurled into the afternoon, Alone again more soon than I would like, And no heroic child to place a finger in the dyke. Persona Who are you? the thought comes to my mind That I might know you by some other name Than what you told me or that I might find Some other person not at all the same Were I to name you just by what you see Within your mirror when you wonder who Looks back at you, or looking back at me You ask the very question I ask you Like who are we when we are what we claim To be, or should the vagrant thought arise, Is seeing you the same as seeing me, And who is left there when we close our eyes To thoughts that mirrors so succinctly show Us nothing that we don't already know. Spring In A Foreign Land Spring in a foreign land, Once so well-known to me, I thought would take me by the hand To lead me through eternity Now hems me in with harsher, new-found walls Where I within am beckoned from without By calls (like syrens in Ulysses' ears That promise less yet more the more he hears) To come and come about, Till this fell channel's put behind And sailing on a fairer wind Perhaps, withal, Remember that the warming days of spring Are yet a common, repetitious thing, And as their light is shed upon the heart Reveal but nature, all the rest is art. St. Stephen's Out of Christmas Comes St. Stephen's out of Christmas comes The Lamb of God unshod in all but Slippers that in dead of winter run The gamut of the oft-repeated song Only the strong recall The fall of lesser leanings History's gleanings to a single thread A final shred unfolds the thought That aught can know impelled into the only note The instrument is trained to play And to this day The sacrifice is bought By trades once taught Before exchanges still resounding Made accounting far beyond our ken The choice of men is still mankind But now and then upon the wind Remains an echo of that first repast When Christmas and St. Stephen's In an evening By the Lamb were cast. The Silent Bride Upon my instrument one time I played A single note that echoed through the void, Till its return a symphony displayed Before me like some serried host deployed. A family of children from it sprung Unrecognized, yet with familiar ring, A universe by but one sound begun, A winter's cry unfolded into spring. I could but join, though what I joined I knew Was not my own alone, but from a chance Encounter with another, whereon grew An host unnumbered: in an endless dance - Born of itself, inside itself it floats Within its bride, the space between the notes. Two Worlds Another world so far yet near my own Five straying fingers playing with a cat While I am doing business on the phone Betray next door dimensions only that Unknown one to another still remain Reflections of each other in their own Perfection of a vision brought to gain For each a separate realm that quite alone Should be enough entirely to explain The absence of the evidence whereby It could appear that nothing else remain But just a solo vision of the sky Beneath which unbeknownst to me alone A kitten purrs while I hang up the phone Waiting All things come to those who sit and wait, Things to love, things indifferent, things to hate, The waiting of the calm before the storm, Or struggling, while the guns are silent, with the form Of fear itself, impending death a breath away, When suddenly the bombs turn night to day, Each to his station, scrambling to engage A faceless foe, known only by his rage. Then time stands still, all in slow motion so it seems, Each action automatic, as in dreams, Until it stops, as if it never were, A silence falls, and nothing heard to stir. No less in lesser things you find So much anxiety just waiting in a line. Ever-ending Exile In ever-ending exile without end Our hope is recollection of the joy Of knowing the beginnings that we send Out like some faithful soldiers who deploy Their strategies of loving to unfold From seed to leaf to flower and decay Completion lost from sight and yet foretold To live and live to fight that other day Which beckons ever closer in retreat The enemy we cannot bring to bay The adversary sought from street to street Who daily pulls the victory away. So expectation's exile holds in chains The end we ever seek but no one gains. On The Dock So here I light my pipe upon the dock, Fresh summer breezes cool across my neck, By friends forsworn, a solitary rock, Eroded like an ancient schooner's deck, Exposed thereby to find that inner core Which lay there all along beneath the sleep Of visions, vain illusions gone before The promises I made I could not keep. Accretions thus acquired now pass away From that which yet remains, once locked within The gathering of years, until this day The water, harbor spray, and summer wind Reveal beneath the flesh enduring bone: The rocky core, untrammeled, stands alone. The Pearl A mermaid sits alone in silent grace Which bears her up like ripples on the tide Of memories that flicker on her face Reflecting currents surfacing inside A saddened smile which offers up again The quiet echoes of those distant times When hope triumphant conquered every pain Of reasons taking second place to rhymes Untrammeled in the very face of woe That like the tide relentless in its reach Returns again as if only to show The stranded shell bereft upon the beach Still holds the pearl that proud awaits the one Who knows to bear it, shining, to the Sun. It is... ...not for yourself or yet for you alone Among your friends to wander as a ship Unburdened by a cargo quite unknown But well-imagined rolling in the grip Of seas unseen except in others' eyes Who spy you unbelieving that the glass That you appear in does in fact disguise A different vessel bound only to pass Them by forsaking all they wish to have Inside its hold once anchored in a port It does not sail to and that all they crave For their deliverance is but a sport For longing eyes' imaginations' fare To hail a ship that wasn't ever there. Two Ships Two ships at sea, Not vessels passing in the night, Hull down, But yet their colors clear in sight, So long they sail Until the current brings them near, And then upon the wind you hear The bosun clear, "What ship are you? Where are you bound?" Seagulls surround the sudden sound Of sailors who have shared the self-same crew So many times aloft at sea, So many harbors where to be For so much sport, When on their transoms then they see They both come from the very self-same port. The Talisman A silver cross, suspended on a chain, A simple piece with no intrinsic worth, Except the threads of fortune it entrains, Entangling separate souls around the earth Whose separation singleness denies Through gathered vision, further to impart The radiance from ever-circling skies Into a light that sways above the heart, A pendulum, whose steady presence stays The tossing and the turning of the mind, That silently, continually prays, The voice of those that love you daily shines Right there, upon your breast, and as you roam, Like a candle in the window calls you home. Translations
And here are three song translations, just for copyright purposes, first two done in the summer of 2004, first publicly performed at the Chicago Maritime Music Festival, March 2005, the third done in 2009 and first performed at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art in June 2010: Pokarekareana (Maori song,
composed in about 1914 Round the While the calm is on the ocean, May they bring me back to you. Cho: Here in my heart (oh hear my heart) Across the sea (come home to me) Soft breezes that part us (soft breezes that start, to) Bring you home to me. I have written you my letter, I have given you my ring, Only time will tell us better Of what the tide will bring. Torn and tattered is my paper, And shattered is my pen, But my love is ever growing, Ever knowing you again. The sun will never dry, no The love that you and I know Forever in my eyes grow These tears of Waiapu. Here's a performance by yours truly from 2011...at the fall FSSGW Getaway...and a simple, better-recorded ukelele version by Dylan Noel October 2012. An extensive history of the song, original lyrics, other translation attempts here... The German Lyrics by Hermann Löns, 1866-1914, poem from collection Der Kleine Rosengarten (1911) Music
by Herms Niel, 1939 translated/adapted
by
John Townley Refrain II.
Our country's flag’s unfurled, our masthead warning Refrain III.
But comes the news, perhaps, that we have perished, Refrain Here's a rough performance in English by yours truly from the Chicago Maritime Music Festival, March 2005. And, of course, the original 1939 recording in German with the original German lyrics below it. Luiska (19th century German sailor song, trans. by John Townley, tune reset with 1932 German lyrics became "Panzerlied") Far over the cliffsides and down cross the sea, As the waves break to windward, the ship rolls to lee, The skipper at the tiller sees no haven land in sight (no land in sight) And storms crowd the sky, turning black as the night. Back home at the seaside all drenched with the spray, There stands a lone figure, her arms raised to pray, Ah yes, it is Luiska, and her heart is lost at sea (yes, lost at sea), Like her captain, adrift past the isles of Araby. For there went her sailor, for years unreturned, Leaving her hapless to pine and to yearn, Forsaking wife and lover, his children and his kin (oh yes, his kin), A prisoner for life of the sea and the wind. “Come rescue me soon in your life-saving arms,” Implores poor Luiska, her voice on the storm, And far away her skipper cries, “Oh, hear me if you can (oh, if you can), “Your captain, your lover, your husband, your man!” But like a bird on the ocean, her captain is lost, Luiska o’er the cliffside her frail life has toss’d, And the tempest’s tender orphans weep in sorrow through the night (all through the night), Till the sun calms the sea as the dawn brings the light. All grief is forgotten, their sorrow is o’er, Though the storm drives the waves crashing down on the shore, Unknown and still unknowing, they finally are free (oh, yes they’re free), United they lie in the arms of the sea. Original German lyrics here, and here's the tune with the later German tank corps words that made it famous, Panzerlied. |
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