SO LITTLE GETS BY

Dedicated to John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  No respect intended.

So little gets by

This petty customs inspector

Who scrutinizes the border

With eyes like bayonets

And the undeviating will

To lay bare and destroy

Every secret

Threat to his security.

Avid hands

Rifle my carefully-arranged clothes,

Shoveling them aside.

He interrogates:

“So. Whose agent are you?

“What is your true identity?

“Your covert agenda we already know.

“You will not, here in the Fatherland,

“Your disorder propagate.

“This will we not permit.”

And I am required to answer,

“No one’s, Sir,” and, “None, Sir,” and,

“No, Sir, I will not.”

I try, I try to look straight in his eyes as I declare,

With my most candid wide blank gaze,

“Sir, I have nothing to declare.”

_________________________________________________________________
Lower image from http://usmalesf.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html
Middle image from http://homodesiribus.blogspot.com/2014/06/blog-post_2624.html      
Upper image from www.http://thedailybeast.com/women-in-the-world.html

A ROSE / UNA ROSA

 

 

 

A ROSE

opens,
unfolds

a small
ecstatic
explosion

a hole
in the
fabric
of space

moist red
vortex
staining
the air

petal
bright lips

part
in the
sexual
pout

swell
to the
caress

 

puff out ...

ah your mouth

_

http://buzzerg.com/114320-red-rose-id-61822.htm

http://wallpaperstock.net/red-rose-wallpapers_w20535.htm

http://www.christopherpiercestudio.com/pic7-2.htm

tumblr_o2wbguqmkU1styvj8o1_500.jpg      

http://tam7246.tumblr.com/   

The following is a Spanish-language version of the original poem above. One of the challenges of writing it was the production of short lines, because Spanish has relatively few monosyllabic and dissyllabic words.

UNA ROSA

se desdobla

una ínfima
explosión
extática

agujero
en la tela
del espacio

vórtice
roja

llamarada
virginal
de carmines
y bermejos

en el aire
estremecido

se hinchan
los pétalos
húmedos

alrededor
de la íntima
herida

... ay tu boca
_

ELEGY FOR A FORGOTTEN POET

In Memoriam Hart Crane 

When first your serpent’s eye of wisdom

Lifted up to light, you might have known

There is no salvage from a sacrifice:

 

A flawed heart hurled like a broken die

Upon the altar of a prodigal quest

For the sperm whale’s fabled ambergris

Among the scattered seamen of the world.

 

Below the Southern Gulf ’s steep swell,

Beckoning onward but unseen,

The Inverted Cross arose and fell.

 

The alien constellation led

To Vera Cruz. (Night lay in wait,

A tangle of orchids rank with blood.)

 

Whirled from the Zodiac then, scarred

And pitted knuckles recoiled and struck,

And your myth collapsed like a House of cards. 

 

Into the dark obsidian sea,

Into the dark sea, bow-wave and stern-wake            

White with phosphor, arched and flung

Your long and lightly tossing bones.      

                                                             

Sleep now, poor castaway, and rest.

What’s cast away can’t be called lost,

And no dreams break

In the sea’s bed or the belly of the shark.

 

O Master and original, most rare

Mixed metaphor!  Among

Galaxies of islands your fantasy was spun,

In flights of stars and drifting foam.              

 

 

                     

 

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=30293 

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/crane/misc.htm

 

_