R. Joseph Hoffmann's Blog: Khartoum, page 14

Until

In beauty, grace, and wickedness
she was unmatched. Her stride and her stroke
and petaled urgency, a hibiscus
among roses. To know that I forsook
the pandemonium of her heart and eyes
for cardboard looks and unreflecting faces
by dint of cowardice, hypocrisy and lies
condemns me, yielding only traces
of her: a headband orphaned or a birthday gift
but not an image, not a letter penned--
shadows of shadows to verify the rift
between us, no loving voice to urge us to an end.

Malika

She has found what she wants,
Young, roundfaced and uncontroversial,
a brain too, and a liking for novels.
And he is funny and acceptable.

What more can we hope for in this
gully of the ordinary,
where love is meted in blips
of interest and minor disappointment.

She was a creature propelled
by curiosity and the first pangs of need.
She said, Finish and let’s go upstairs
when coffee was ordered
And we did. And we did.
Her eyes full of wonder,
the outflux of expectation dripping;
mine bent from the familiarity of
another roll, another tickle and twirl
Of the tongue: No not there—there.
Christ Jesus, how many had there been,
How many colours and accents and can
You name them?:
No, and can you blame them, no.

I loved her for her infinite order:
Her foot raised to my palm on cue,
her hand sublimely extended,
and pale neck still unkissed.
Her curl and arch and scent and gasps.
Her rounding the booth to sit next to me.

There were knives between us,
bottles and inconvenience: pinches and
bruises, flung coffee and gin
and eyes struck out and wincing retreats.

By Seneca's god it was too hot for words,
and all suspicion,
and all designed
to murder love.

Well, she is gone. Here I remain.
She has her flat and roundfaced lover of books,
mainly I think of Russian.
I have my books,
but no one so incomparably to my taste,
to my taste, my most grievous taste,

Lo, we are bodies looking for souls,
digging for souls. But souls are not within.
We pause and dig again.

But in autumn, out of a fallow summer
when scholars stir, pages begin again to turn
and books turn to being read, there will be her:
A feint image of taxi rides and restaurants,
markets and beds and arguments--
hands raised and kisses spent
and blood spilled in innocence
and accusation. It will be her.

Two Religious Lyrics

Creation

Once God muttered
through his slumber
and the waters surged beneath his bed.
He woke at the sound
and land appeared, cattle,
and when he blinked an eye,
a solitary man

Oh, but what when he
stumbles to the window
to contemplate his vision
through the heavenly glass?
What of all he dreamed good
in that sleepy temptation?
That must turn to vapour
as he gets down to godliness again.
He was meant to be alone.
There is none like him:
he may sleep,
but must not dream us.

Memorare

Oh Blessed Lady!
Remember please
my calloused knees
and if you would
grant good
should come of this, my supplication.

Most chaste and mild,
thy child, like me
was driven to temptation--
true 'tis, he put the tempter down
while I more often yield--
yet have mercy.

Sea-star, Wisdom's seat
I squander thee
and those I love.
Let your name unbeaded
live in my heart,
no more a penance to be tallied;
and for my evil days
Thou, unsullied:
pray for me.

Yearlings

I am afraid the young deer
alerted by the new-mown grass
scampering towards the wood
have taken the green apples
and the half red apples,
their white tails a blur
of fear as I watch
almost naked on the stoop
trying to light the pipe you gave me
but thinking how noise drives
everything into the dark green twilight.

La Malinche

Para doña Marin


And in the end she dies
the white teeth stained
from every berry she had crushed
still happy in her lies.

Cortes had found her dear,
and useful too,
and where she was not useful
she owned pleasure, crushing him
between white teeth glistening
in the pulsing Nāhuati sun.

Don Martino says his grandmother
had countless sons,
white and brown,
but doted on one, his father.
And used to say:
"Una mentira es santo!"
That is, a holy act
when it means your skin,
even if it means skinning another.
"A body is a small thing to give
For life, when it's all we have.”
And she would laugh into the sky
distractedly, eat a berry,
laugh at her dark honesty.

The Fading

Dull green or brown
and piercing,
one is gone and it is green.
Its light shone on text
and conjugated verbs
in several languages
It said I love, I hate, I mean:
but now it no longer speaks
and its glow fails daily.

How odd is love
that cherishes
virginity.
But not discernment:
that wants a physical breach--
a hymen and a cataract
are the same thing,
a rule to be breached
by needles, needles thin and big.
But once the bolt is broke
and the sickle sears its way
there is only wound and puncture
and the ineluctable death of light.

Sometimes

I feel her eyes
black and condemning
burning through mine
though she is dead.
My brown study
is fixed on anything--
a weather report,
a misnumbered footnote,
a video from 1974,
Nixon has resigned--
whereon she hath rejoiced.

Hers was fixed on me and through
her, her father.
It is now a decade since
I held her hand, watched her
eyes go from light to dull
the smart brain tissued.
I had never seen death closely.
I had seen grandfathers in caskets;
I had wailed with German uncles
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine
in puerile spasms of feigned grief,
not even knowing
my grandfather’s brothers.

But now
the dead light
glows like lit coal
in my eyes
perpetually.

A Christmas Song

And as I watched your gaze drop low
I knew that you could let me go:
And when you raised your eyes to mine,
I knew we would not love again.

It’s said at Christmas love came down
and wiped away our every sin.
Is it a lie, or is it death--
or pretty like a Christmas wreath?

Love does not win: The love I know
will die whenever eyes drop low,
In looks drawn fierce, in lies I tell
in self-defense, in daily hell.

You loved me once, a pilgrim girl
determined over seas to sail.
But now with lowered eyes I see
the journey’s end: It is not me.

Иссык-Куль

Yes there are rituals
writing poems,
the hands
on the tense neck
soothing
the words out
with desperate jerks
the sphincter closing
on itself, nervous.

Why, is it age
leaking into the mood
like a sheared tooth
a planed hand raised,
saying
Be quiet: that is not
what I meant:
Not at all
Be quiet
Be quiet. Quiet.

Is it the sweat
rising from my mind?
The legs parted,
a crystal glass
raised in an inciting grip?

How like pus I ooze,
what this is:
The Nereid on my back
a brown tumultuous
tumor on my soul
deadly, wishing me dead?
And dead for my flesh.

For saying she is a fish
like the lake
where she rode:
Like my stories, all
fishy and lies
and dead young ideas
unflushed
unfished and sharp
as a sabre, or desire.

Oh she was fluent and smart
and curious
down to the bottom
of the warm lake. modestly:
down to the periphery
of the islands where
I aimed my boat:
she was the prow aimed,
and the island untouched
and touched--
the sand between my toes,
frisson and act
and cold cold death on top.

The thrushling, dark

She wipes her mouth
on her sleeve
this sauvage gris
who thinks napkins
are for parties,

then says
Please
brush your
teeth.
You have been
asleep.

She scans my eyes
for the price
of my
fidelity
which is
exorbitant.

It is her.
She smells of fish,
herring?

My grandfather
yes, my father;
But they were
Germania,
Nordsee
Vaterland and
Harvard
Veritas
and me.

What do
I know
but her,
the fish,
the breath:
this insouciance
is innocence
but just
so now.