R. Joseph Hoffmann's Blog: Khartoum, page 16

Isle au Haut Boy

Once I was a lobsterman
at nineteen in Seal Harbour.
Up at five and hearing the whirr of
engines spackling me with warm oil,
lost in fog and spray
the cold whitecaps on my face
so big and dark I didn’t strive
to think about the limits.

I didn’t come from lobstermen
but they were kind to me
and forgave me being from Away
and brought me clams on Tuesday
and clam broth and corn
and lobster for my kin on Fridays.
Because I weren’t too bad.

They beat their wives,
these lobstermen
and drank beer and Jack
and wanted steak
for lobstermen don’t eat fish much.

Now near forty years,
I think they are dead and their sons
are just like them.
I go over
the same water in the boats they hated
and I stare at salty faces
and I think, are you Nathan
are you Paul? I knew you
when you were boys, we were boys
and your mothers made us chowder.

Trina Helen

Once There was a smiling diva
Named Helena or Trina,
And she was a circus dancer
Oh she danced on wires
And high places, and after hours
On men's faces, but nobody
But a body knew the truth.
For she was pure inside out
And never stretched her rosy mouth.
She left hair upon the pillow
And pins and ribbons on the floor
And gasped politely when he bellowed,
Never had to be shown the door.

And when it came to jealousy
Helen or Trina would run outside
And climb the nearest highest tree
Looking for a place to hide.
Two days later, wrath behind her,
She'd shimmy down and go to bed
Which is where he hoped he'd find her
With a ribbon on her head.

Postlude

...But this time
through the forest--
though she searched
high and low--by the stream
and deep into the wood--
no wolf could be found.
Not even a faint growl
or musty scent.
There was not even a trace
of his coarse fur on
brambles and bark, where
he occasionally groomed his mane.
She listened for the sound
of his call: nothing came.
The forest was dull
and strangely gray--like him.
But he was nowhere.
She had killed him--brutally--
and sewn stones in his belly.
And now every day,
on the safe footpath,
she would miss him
and long to see him

Sentience

You want it suddenly
hard and now throb
your wish with tiny
breaths of yes and more.
They are pitched perfectly
to make every jolt a song
in my loins that vibrate
again and again, again stirring
Devils from their fog-encased
depths driving them deep
into hardening flesh.
There is no escape for demons
but into the mystery of your body
now open to me like a thorny
arbor gate. You are full of monsters
full of the smell of caves
but the notes hidden in your breath
drive devils harder again on

The Nereid

Just those minutes on my back
(Which you've forgotten) --
me plying the cold gray water
under a wet sky, like Nereus
guarding the fish, you Thetis
wanting a way out to sea or to the sky.
You are so light I can barely feel you
but I know my responsibility.

When Zeus seduced Europa he came to her
as a bull with such a stretch of horn
and yet such cunning gentleness
she felt one touch, one small stroke
would satisfy her passion. But
by some strange maneuver, some sleight
only a Greek god knows, he flung her
on his back and plunged into the sea,
unto the dark Bosphorus. She hung on
until they reached Byzantion. By then it was too late.
She was famous. She was Europa.
And he was satisfied after that long swim,
not even breathless as she dismounted.
He galloped on, ascended into heaven
and smiled down at her.

We move quickly and you are happy
on my back. The water slips in front of us.
I can feel your breath on my neck.
It says Move on, Do not stop now.
It is the same as her breath three
thousand years ago in Anatolia.

False Poet

I think in epithet
And deadly rhyme.
I think I simply do it
To save time.

I do not ever say
“I love you so.”
I say, in Auden’s way,
“It’s sad to go...”

I see your face before me
And I cry,
Quelle peine! Nécessité!
How love doth die!

I have no subtlety
That’s truly mine.
What I call poetry
Is others’ rhyme.

I thieve the threads
Of poets who are better;
I tear them into shreds
Or add a letter.

I think in epithet
And deadly rhyme.
I think I simply do it
To save time.

A Blouse

You are wearing a sailor suit
with stripes,
proper Matrosenkragen--
It fits loosely.
It is blue and white.
You stand on the end
of the dock shielding
your eyes against
the noon sun.
In the distance the same
colour as the wave caps
you see my sail catching
the wind that skirts between
the islands and the reach.
You smile and turn away.
You know seeing you will
bring me to shore.

The Simplicity of Love (Diotima in Plato’s Symposium: 210a-212c)

для caboxat, который делает все новым


It is the state of wanting to be reborn
Not as yourself, but as the object of craving and desire--
As what you see in the eyes of another.
It comes to you in flashes and dreams
That leave you drenched in sweat
Even in winter: and what you feel is the
End of feeling, the closing of eyes—your eyes,
Yes--but the eyes in which you have seen
The beauty of possibility, in which you have
Seen a nest of birds hatched out in April,
A wave regathering itself to rush back into the sea,
The young man in the tomb saying He is not here,
The parched earth receiving rain with an open throat
A fire blazing across a cold field on a January night,
The bright jewel in the porcelain interior of a rough oyster.

By Moonlight*

In the old story
she is taken captive by a witch
(or was it her mother?)
because she is beautiful
and is thrown into a filthy room.
To make matters worse the witch
forbids her water for bathing
and, lest she should escape, a broom.

She asks for soap--a bar--
The hag gives her a sliver
saying This will go far
we're a mile up from the river.

She uses her daily glass of milk to moisten the soap,
So her mother forbids her milk and gives her apples.
She uses the wet core of the apple to moisten the soap,
and every day she is clean,
but day by day her radiance fades,
her beauty fades
and she becomes as dull as the room.
The mother is happy at last.

The shutters are closed each day to the sun;
The girl uses her spittle to moisten the soap,
but after a time the soap is done
and the witch laughs wildly the night it is gone,

O Child, fair child, what will you do
No sun or soap is left for you?

But the moonlight cuts though a broken lattice
and when the girl stands in its cleansing glow
the filth of the house begins to go
for that is what moonglow does, in practice.

Each night she stands in the little crescent patch of moonlight,
each night she is brighter--her face and hair shine with beauty.

Her mother has not seen her for days
Her mother expects to find her dead
in a dirty heap of rags upon the floor.

Dear Child she says scratching at the door,
I have been so poor a mother to you,
taking your water, your milk and your apples.
But, you know, beauty like yours
is far from natural.

My child? She tries the latch,
the door swings open, and before
her stands the girl more radiant
than ever:
her hair shining like the moon
her face the colour of fresh milk
her arms as white as the meat of the apple.

*(from the prose rendition by Margaret Mahy)

Vilanden

She is as quiet and improbable
as the wild duck feather
you found skating along the path,
surprised it was not grey
but flecked with dull vermilion,
beautiful to turn over in the sun.
It will make a bookmark
as she is a bookmark
dividing what I have read
from what I will read in her eyes,
the cold decision to escape
into her own dark sky, where
sodden hunters cannot see her,
the colder decision to love me--
for a while at least--until I finish
her unspoken words and the sad quiet
again settles along the path.