R. Joseph Hoffmann's Blog: Khartoum, page 13

Aphrodite

Below Hangzhou sits
in purple silence
dejected by the festival,
and above
Venus gesturing to me
and no one beside--
only to me, virgo perpetua
perpetual virgin always unsatisfied
so far away.
Love is not enough
to make this trip possible.

Fargo

There once was a girl from Connecticut...
but I could never finish it.

Is it possible to crouch like a sentry,
a chipped plaster goose in a garden
of dry geraniums, for ten years? Pardon
the question but it was March. We
had exchanged looks, and I thought
there is no way home separate tonight--yes a wife
and two children, different sizes. I coughed
like a scholar in the anapests of a solitary life.
It was March and brown around the Inn
and the lake and the sky matched her dark eyes.
She gazed, shivered a little, and like a soft rake
in one motion swept away my lies--
her lips warm and full on mine, her hand
searching against my chest and her head
burrowing for heat in little swirls
upon my arm. In March by this lake
you understand the pain that ceremoniously unfurls
when you admit this novice to her vows--
such private fire to pass between two souls,
such souls to be extinguished in the flame,
such flame as only loneliness allows.

王青

The girl slept on a bed
of goose feathers
enwrapt in ivory silk
and embroidered pillows
with golden tassles.

Each day before she slept
the mui tsai placed
the jade emerald under
her pillow, the green jewel
given her by the dragon-slayer
who had said,

"Wait for me at Xī Hú,
Wang Qing:
After a year
I will come to collect the gem,
which is the symbol of our love.
And do not let
the Night Goddess see the stone
or she will come for you
and kill you in cold blood.

In the daylight she is
blind as a beggar,
yet she sees everything
at night: You must hide it to keep it.
Do not be tricked;
she is the ruler of masks."


At evening
Wang Qing's mui tsai
walked with her
to the edges of Xī Hú to see
the larks darting wildly
above the water's brim.

After a while the girl would say

"Now we go back,
for I need to sleep."

The young men
would look away
when she passed
for she was a royal princess,
and to see a princess
eye to eye was certain death.

She moved swiftly
in small assured steps
towards her alabaster palace.
For if she waited until the moon was high,
the Night Goddess could see
the glistening gem,
and then she would slay Wang Qing
with a single word and retreat
with her reward
back into the black heavens.

One day, after a year, at dusk
the sky turned dark
and the maid said,

"Today we cannot go to Xi Hu.
Heaven is angry
for the Queen of Heaven
has lost a jewel,
the one she stole from the golden dragon
in the high mountains,
the one beloved
by the jade phoenix.
Now they are attacking heaven
and that is why the sky is dark,
the thunder flashing and lightening.
But she is stronger--
They can never defeat her."

But Wang Qing
knew that she would
never see the Dragon Slayer
if she did not wait at Xi Hu.
And so she said to the servant,

Girl We will go as we always do.
but this time bring me
the emerald the Dragonslayer gave me.
For today I believe
I will see him at the lake.

The maid did as she was told.
She placed the emerald
in a silk purse
and on a thin chain of gold
suspended it
between Wang Qing's breasts
beneath her blouse.
"Hurry," she said, "we haven't much time
before the storm comes
and turns the lake
from a calm meadow
into a white frothed sea."

As they approached
the rain became a white mist,
and the bridges were like spindles
stretched across the gray water.

On the third bridge
Wanq Qing saw a thin shadow
vague, an ink wash
moving in the way of a man.

As they came close
the figure became more distinct;
It was surely the Dragonslayer,
dressed in a carnelian tunic
sword at his side,
helmet in his left hand.
She could not see his face.

"Princess," he said,
"Do you have have the jade prize,
the green emerald
I gave you as token of our love?"

"Yes," she said, her heart
leaping in disbelief,
"I have it safely here
between my breasts.
It is yours for the asking,
Does it mean you will always love me.
Does it mean I will come to live
with you as your wife?"

"Of course," said the figure
in a thin voice,
"It must mean that,
or why have you troubled
to hide it it so carefully
for all of a year?
Why would I ask you
to keep it from the prowling eyes
of the Dark Goddess?"

She reached the chain
from round her neck,
and the beautiful stone
shot forth the radiance of a moon beam.
But when the shape
stretched forth its hand to take it,
it was not the hand of a man.

Before Yan Qing
could fetch it back
the ancient witch grasped
the gem in her fleshless hand
and began her ascent into the sky.

"Aha," she said glowering,
rounding the last black cloud.
"So much now for your lovely prince
and your dreams. For I killed him
and fed his bits to my dogs a year ago
when he came near to my palace
in search of treasure. Yet for one night--
disguised as you Wang Qing--
he was mine--as he will never be yours,"

And so the Night Goddess
fled into heaven with her treasure,
and Wang Qing and the maid
returned to the albaster palace.

After a year,
the dragon and the Jade phoenix
abandoned their war
against the heavenly witch.

After twenty, the Night Queen died,
as the owls mourned and
the jewel slipped from her hand
through the clouds into the lake,
into Xī Hú

The First Ghazal of Hafiz

I thought love was an easy matter
But now I am stumbling over the rocks.
At night the scent of jasmine in her hair
sleeps in my nostrils but cannot stay,
though I have begged the wind to send it.

Oh bearer of cups, arise and bring
to her parched lips the refreshment they need!
My heart weeps tears of blood.
And the tavern-keeper has advice:
"Drink my friend, and let your wine
stain the carpet."

He knows what no young traveller knows:
the road is uncertain, and rest is uncertain.
There is no sleep; the night is forever, and quiet
beyond the gateway. As my heart aches
the bells of the camels weep and jangle:
They say, "Go: Pack up your bags and Go."

But the sea is in turmoil and the night is thick with fear.
Deathly swirls clash and roar;
My pleading voice cannot reach the ears
of men whose seaworthy boats are nestled in their harbor.

I looked for you, and the years answered me:
They answered me in disappointment and foolishness.
Where can I hide the wretchedness I feel,
when every mouth jeers at my fortune?
"Poor Hafiz! He wants an end to his misery."

Keep close to your heart what the wise have said:
"If you should find the object of your love in this life
Abandon the world, and seek for nothing more."

Mr. Maseer

Fate is a young man in a green Polo Shirt.
He wears a Sox cap
and prefers Hebrew National to Nathan's
but this is a disguise--
like on Fridays when he
makes appointments with a realtor named Joan
to look at houses, usually bungalows
in foreclosure, that only young
married couples would want,
because the roofs are bad
and the septic system isn't up to code.
But he never offers when the agent says
"Just between us, the seller is motivated."
He just chuckles and says, "I know."

He worked for a while
as a school psychologist.
Because people who had known him for twenty years
couldn't figure out why he never aged
and always looked 42, and he thought
a day job would stop the rumours
that he was a vampire or something.

A girl came into his office office one day,
her eyes wet as rain, and said
she couldn't focus on anything
because her boyfriend didn't love her
and was sleeping with someone else.
"I know," he chuckled. "Is that all
You've got to say?" she said to him.
"No," he said. "You are pregnant."

أمل

I can promise you white jade and
ginger biscuits and cabanas near a topaz sea,
but I cannot promise you your dreams
because you have not told me
what you dream. When the face
that I have not touched touches
the pillow, what do you dream, Amal?

Do you pray for me
to be a better Muslim? not an outsider--
or for a life full of calm and grace?
Cool days in the hottest summer,
--dates in the bowl and plenty of bread,
or dances with silk scarves flying blue against the moon
while the old men snap their fingers and applaud?
Rain to keep the dust invading
every corner of the sitting room?
A pot of incense burning in the corner?
Do you want a new dress. Yes,
And earrings that fall like silver rain
From your dark and succulent ears.
Do you think of children, how they would
make your heart smile and how your smile
would draw my whole world together?
Do you want to travel to Paris or Copenhagen,
or to the Green Dome in Medina
where the prophet rests
or the Grand Mosque at Cordoba
where Iqbal wept?
When the moon is high and you lay your face
on the pillow, what do you want Amal?
Tell me.

What the Sun Said

The Sun said to the Moon:
You are little and dark and cold.
Yet lovers have happily gone
To their grave unconvinced when they're told.

They say you are like a pearl
Flung in the midnight sky
By a God who was chasing a girl
And wanted her never to die,

So changed her into a gem
And dangled her over the foam--
A single translucent beam
Adrift from her human home.

But facts are facts, said the Sun:
You are little and dark and cold
And you have no light of your own,
And your beauty is growing old.

The god who loved you has died,
And men have touched your face.
And nothing of love can abide
In such a desolate place.

The Moon clenched the seas like a skirt.
Wolves howled and lunatics ran
From their lairs into the thick night--
Is it true, they said to the Sun?

That love has lost its place,
And you are king alone,
That light is gone from her face
That love is dead and gone?

The Sun reconsidered his word
As she dimmed in the midnight sky.
It's a matter of science, he said,
And science knows better than I.

But in my view her status above
Is not hers alone to decide,
And her role in the matter of love
Is the place of a heavenly bride.

She is fickle and changes her face,
And her moods come and go too soon
But she lightens the darkest space
Like any respectable moon.

Let it be, he said to the wolves.
Though small and cold she may be.
More love has been shed in her troves
Than water exists in the sea.

Wolves nuzzled. The lunatics slept.
The Sun shook his forelocks of gold.
The marriage between them had kept
And love did not die, I am told

Dodo

Love like a flightless bird is Nature’s cough:
Meant for the sky it clings as penance to the ground
Because an ancient raven said to Thoth
'My wings are lovelier than thine, my brain profound,'

And so the golden beak became a horn
And wings that spanned as great as eagles’ shrank
To the size of gills; the bulging eyes forlorn
And dull surveyed the dust, the body swelled and sank.

So when we love we spite the gods who hate us--
And hate love, too, for love was never theirs:
It is our eternity which they cannot possess
Though they have tried, and punish us in pairs.

When Hevah came along, God, as to the raven, said
'You shall not love him, but you will be his mate,
In fleshly comforts thou shalt make thy bed,
Thinking that it is love—when it is just your fate.

'For what I know is this: that thou’rt higher than me
And speculate a higher god than gods allow,
And sometimes in another’s eyes an image see
Of everlasting happiness. So I say Bow

'And like the flightless bird begin to roam
Believing love is flesh and not divine.
Forsake your wings —the sky is not your home.
Train your eyes downward, and happiness is thine.'

And that is how we lost our mortal wings:
Believing what the loveless gods had said.
Though love breaks through the dullness when it sings
The truths forever nesting in our heads.

What We Both Knew

THAT one day soon you’d look and find no word
from me.
Or you’d say we must stay in touch since friends
can love each other just as much or more
than incongruous lovers. So, love ends.
It ends because the half-unconscious heart
that skipped whole measures when I said, “Your eyes
are black as death," closed me in their smart
and cunning stare. It ends because your tales
were false and I believed them, and you rained
like the hot rain of Pakistan on my desire.

And when it ended, and the winter trained
its white and honest judgement on the fire,
I thought, Just one more try, just one more try
For love. It ended when you said, I am not Eve
And you were foolish ever to chase me
Among these thorns and call it Paradise

Evensong

Near the Steuben grave marker
in King’s Cemetery, Ithaca,
I last heard your voice,
cautious and full of plans
I would discover in a few days.
Being tugged by a dog past
granite ripostes of our fragility
I hear you say, Show me you
But being pulled by a dog
I cannot manage showing you me,
I cannot steady my phone, or stop him
wanting to rush into the woods.
But for a few taut minutes
you are with me as surely you
walked with me in Bishkek parks and
among deserted carnival rides,
in hills and down the long
rows of seamstresses in bazaars.
You are with me like the girl who floated
above my hospital bed in a morphine vapour.
Like nothing within my power that
I can ever pull out of me or want dead.
Besides I think adjusting the lead, I had shown you
me a hundred times: me in an office chair,
me rounding a bend in my life,
me with you atop me like a detachable
set of arms and legs. I had shown you me.
Max pulls harder. He is tired of christening
gravestones and the dead Steuben clan.
He wants to pad home, to his dish
and mat. He does not know me, has
never really seen me. I walk slowly toward the gate
of King’s cemetery in Ithaca with you saying,
Laughing, No—show me you.