With dusk’s slow bleed, the scent comes back
from beyond our gate, sickly-sweetly powdering the yard
and its scattered buckets, chalk, decapitated
plastic fauna—how all the bright junk
rushes to the pixelated surface
in the final minutes before remorse
douses the world in itself. High-tops on the phone wire
already mortared into silhouettes, like crows.
Roof rat in the plum tree, synching its intricate listening
with the stop-start taps on my MacBook
ten feet beneath. Wondering what’s taking us so long
to vanish. Its tail pulses from its rich perch
with what I thought I had once—a hunger
so absorbing it becomes, while nothing changes,
its own reward. Some hidden dark
where you could crouch and find a pattern.
While nothing changes; while the scent of jasmine
flutters and drifts, like sympathy, living for itself.
Copyright © 2020 by Nate Klug. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 25, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
A firm hand. The shadow waves of satin.
I am not yet flesh. He calls me baby,
and I touch my face. I’m searching for god
when I oil my body in the mirror. To love it
means to love a man means an opening
to another man. When I take my glasses off
all the lines blur. A body is a body without
language, I tell my girlfriend and she laughs,
mouth wide enough to hide in. She shows me
my softest parts. I dissolve into what. I forget
hiding also means a good beating, the way
passion can be suffering. I can’t believe
my whole life I never touched what made me
holy. We have bread, butter and nowhere to be.
Copyright © 2022 by Dujie Tahat. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 26, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
I am sweetly perplexed by love sallies, releases,
By the countless retreats and the numberless captures,
By the petulant coldness and agreeable raptures,
By the whisper of phrases that hurts and then pleases,
I am drunk by the prodigal total of leases
From her body and spirit, her soul and her senses,
I revel in approaches and artless offenses,
In her challenging taunts and her tenderly teases.
Now will I disengage a red flower from her tresses,
And uplift her lithe form from a divan of roses,
For the zephyr of night too much passion opposes,
And in delicate folds now has rumpled her dresses.
On tomorrow’s new ventures the heart eager presses,
I repose now to ponder on life-soothing losses.
From Manila: A Collection of Verse (Imp. Paredes, Inc., 1926) by Luis Dato. This poem is in the public domain.
Translated from the French by James Sibley Watson
“I was witness of all the adornments with which he surrounded himself in spirit; garments, cloths, furniture; I lent him weapons, a different face. I saw all that touched him, just as he would have liked to create it for himself. When his spirit seemed to me apathetic, I followed him far in strange and complicated actions, good or bad; I was certain never to enter his world. Beside his dear, sleeping body, what hours I have watched at night, seeking to learn why he was so anxious to escape from reality. Never was there a man with such a vow as that. I recognized,—without being afraid for him,—that he might be a serious danger to society.—Perhaps he possesses secrets that will change life. No, I replied to myself, he is only looking for them. Finally his kindness is enchanted, and I am its prisoner. No other soul would have the strength,—the strength of despair!—to endure it, to be loved and protected by him. Besides, I would not picture him to myself with another soul: one sees his Angel, never another’s Angel,—I believe. I used to exist in his soul as in a palace, which they have made empty in order not to see so mean a person as yourself: that was all. Alas! I was very dependent on him. But what did he want of my colourless and facile being? He would not improve me, unless he were to make me die. Sadly mortified, I sometimes would say to him:
“‘I understand you.’ He would shrug his shoulders.
“Thus, with my vexation renewing itself daily, finding myself more and more altered in my own eyes—as in all eyes which might have cared to look at me, had I not been condemned everlastingly to the oblivion of all men!—I grew hungrier and hungrier for his kindness. With kisses and friendly embraces, it was indeed a heaven, a gloomy heaven, which I entered, and where I should have wished to be left, poor, deaf, dumb, blind. Already I had the habit of it. I used to see us as good children, free to walk in the Paradise of sadness. We were in harmony with one another. Much affected, we would work together. But after a poignant caress, he would say: ‘How funny it will seem to you when I am no longer here, through whom you have passed. When you no longer have my arms under your neck, nor my heart to fall asleep on, nor this mouth upon your eyes. For I shall have to go away, very far, some day. Besides, I must help others; it is my duty. Although this may not be especially appetizing to you . . . dear friend.’ All at once I foresaw myself, with him gone, the prey of dizziness, plunged into the most frightful shadow: death. I used to make him promise that he would not abandon me. He gave it twenty times, that lover’s promise. It was as frivolous as my saying to him:
“‘I understand you.’
extrait de «Une Saison en Enfer [Délires I]»
«Je voyais tout le décor dont, en esprit, il s’entourait; vêtements, draps, meubles: je lui prêtais des armes, une autre figure. Je voyais tout ce qui le touchait, comme il aurait voulu le créer pour lui. Quand il me semblait avoir l’esprit inerte, je le suivais, moi, dans des actions étranges et compliquées, loin, bonnes ou mauvaises: j’étais sûre de ne jamais entrer dans son monde. À côté de son cher corps endormi, que d’heures des nuits j’ai veillé, cherchant pourquoi il voulait tant s’évader de la réalité. Jamais homme n’eût pareil vœu. Je reconnaissais,—sans craindre pour lui,—qu’il pouvait être un sérieux danger dans la société.—Il a peut-être des secrets pour changer la vie? Non, il ne fait qu’en chercher, me répliquais-je. Enfin sa charité est ensorcelée, et j’en suis la prisonnière. Aucune autre âme n’aurait assez de force,—force de désespoir!—pour la supporter,—pour être protégée et aimée par lui. D’ailleurs, je ne me le figurais pas avec une autre âme: on voit son Ange, jamais l’Ange d’un autre,—je crois. J’étais dans son âme comme dans un palais qu’on a vidé pour ne pas voir une personne si peu noble que vous: voilà tout. Hélas! je dépendais bien de lui. Mais que voulait-il avec mon existence terne et lâche? Il ne me rendait pas meilleure, s’il ne me faisait pas mourir! Tristement dépitée, je lui dis quelquefois: «Je te comprends.» Il haussait les épaules.
«Ainsi, mon chagrin se renouvelant sans cesse, et me trouvant plus égarée à mes yeux,—comme à tous les yeux qui auraient voulu me fixer, si je n’eusse été condamnée pour jamais à l’oubli de tous!—j’avais de plus en plus faim de sa bonté. Avec ses baisers et ses étreintes amies, c’était bien un ciel, un sombre ciel, où j’entrais, et où j’aurais voulu être laissée, pauvre, sourde, muette, aveugle. Déjà j’en prenais l’habitude. Je nous voyais comme deux bons enfants, libres de se promener dans le Paradis de tristesse. Nous nous accordions. Bien émus, nous travaillions ensemble. Mais, après une pénétrante caresse, il disait: «Comme ça te paraîtra drôle, quand je n’y serai plus, ce par quoi tu as passé. Quand tu n’auras plus mes bras sous ton cou, ni mon cœur pour t’y reposer, ni cette bouche sur tes yeux. Parce qu’il faudra que je m’en aille, très-loin, un jour. Puis il faut que j’en aide d’autres: c’est mon devoir. Quoique ce ne soit guère ragoûtant . . . , chère âme . . .» Tout de suite je me pressentais, lui parti, en proie au vertige, précipitée dans l’ombre la plus affreuse: la mort. Je lui faisais promettre qu’il ne me lâcherait pas. Il l’a faite vingt fois, cette promesse d’amant. C’était aussi frivole que moi lui disant: «Je te comprends.»
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 24, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.