For Billie Holiday

Your voice,

like smoked honey,
like creaking mahogany,

like roasted chestnuts in late November,

or a rainy Sunday afternoon

in a faded part of town.

Your voice,

an owl's plaintive cry

drifting through an opened window,

weaving in with the purr of the cat on the lap

and the crackling of the fire.

Your voice,

a hung-over clarinet,

throaty and full of regret

after a night of heady carousal.

I hear you now

as I wash these dishes,

alone on this grey morning,

after my own sweet share

of boozing and tomfoolery.

I hear you,

ghostly from the radio,

telling me not to be afraid,

not even of loneliness,

because that’s a gift too –

reminding us we're alive

and one day we won't be.

I hear you telling me,

despite it all, Lady Day,

that everything

will be okay.

We know that’s not true

but it’s important to say it;

even more so to sing it.

And no one sang it, Lady Day –

still no one sings it – 
like you.

Herring Gull

The bird

that still thinks

it’s a velociraptor.

*

Gull choreography:

Stalk, strut,

strike a pose;

thrust out neck,

snap wide zealous beak

– tongue rearing like an irate snake –

scream victory at the world.

*

With its

jerky motions,

vitric eyes and

swazzle screech;

its red-stained

hook of a nose –

avian cousin

to Mr Punch.

*

Hobbies include:

scavenging,

squabbling,

jeering,

thievery.

 *

City-slicking atavist –

how at home you are

in this domain

of men!

For Skip James

When Skip James sings

‘Hard Time Killing Floor Blues’

with a voice as high and light and sad

as the silhouette of a sparrow

           against a winter sun,

and somehow makes the strings of his guitar

tug shivers

from a heart you’d thought was set,

know that this is music

not from the soul

or for the soul

but of the soul.

Don’t expect

to find in it a flake of comfort.

It pretends to answer nothing,

offers no guidance or praise.

This is no hymn.

It is the song of a sparrow

that flew steeply into the blue,

and came back none the wiser –

          as lonely as the sun.

Objects and Apparitions

To Joseph Cornell

(Translated from the Spanish of Octavio Paz)

Hexahedrons of wood and glass,

scarcely bigger than a shoe box.

Night with all its lights fits inside them.

Monuments to every moment,

made with the scraps of every moment:

cages of infinity.

Marbles, buttons, thimbles, dice,

pins, stamps and glass beads:

tales of time.

Memory weaves and unweaves the echoes:

in the four corners of the box

shadowless ladies play hide-and-seek.

Fire buried in the mirror,

water asleep in the agate:

solos by Jenny Lind and Jenny Colon.

‘One should commit a painting,’ said Degas,

‘the way one commits a crime.’ But you built

boxes where things quicken from their names.

Slot machine of visions,

meeting glass for memories,

hotel for crickets and constellations.

Minimal, incoherent fragments:

contrary to History, creator of ruins,

from your ruins you made creations.

Theatre of spirits:

objects make the laws

of identity leap through hoops.

‘Grand Hotel Couronne’: the three of clubs

in a carafe, and wide-eyed

Thumbelina in the gardens of a reflection.

A comb is a harp

strummed by the gaze of a girl

born mute.

The reflector of the mind’s eye

scatters the spectacle:

solitary god above an extinct world.

The apparitions are manifest.

Their bodies weigh less than light.

They last as long as this sentence.

Joseph Cornell: inside your boxes

my words became visible for an instant.

Objetos y apariciones

A Joseph Cornell

Hexaedros de madera y de vidrio
apenas más grandes que una caja de zapatos.
En ellos caben la noche y sus lámparas.

Monumentos a cada momento
hechos con los desechos de cada momento:
jaulas de infinito.

Canicas, botones, dedales, dados,
alfileres, timbres, cuentas de vidrio:
cuentos del tiempo.

Memoria teje y destejo los ecos:
en las cuatro esquinas de la caja
juegan al aleleví damas sin sombra.

El fuego enterrado en el espejo,
el agua dormida en el ágata:
solos de Jenny Lind y Jenny Colon.

"Hay que hacer un cuadro", dijo Degas,
"como se comete un crimen". Pero tú construiste
cajas donde las cosas se aligeran de sus nombres.

Slot machine de visiones,
vaso de encuentro de las reminiscencias,
hotel de grillos y de constelaciones.

Fragmentos mínimos, incoherentes:
al revés de la Historia, creadora de ruinas,
tú hiciste con tus ruinas creaciones.

Teatro de los espíritus:
los objetos juegan al aro
con las leyes de la identidad.

Grand Hotel Couronne: en una redoma
el tres de tréboles y, toda ojos,
Almendrita en los jardines de un reflejo.

Un peine es un harpa
pulsada por la mirada de una niña
muda de nacimiento.

El reflector del ojo mental
disipa et espectáculo:
dios solitario sobre un mundo extinto.

Las apariciones son patentes.
Sus cuerpos pesan menos que la luz.
Duran lo que dura esta frase.

Joseph Cornell: en el interior de tus cajas
mis palabras se volvieron visibles un instante.

Art by Joseph Cornell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cornell

Poem by Octavio Paz

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/octavio-paz

English translation by Benjamin Palmer

The Devil Clears Up a Misconception

People have got me all wrong.

They think I’m against goodness,

loathe it, am sickened 
by its very sight.

None of that is true.

My misfortune

is to love goodness

too much.

I need

to feel it

pulsate.                                                                              

So I take it in my hands –

whenever chance comes my way –

to press it, prod it, play with it,

and give it

a little

squeeze.

(It is in my nature, you know,

to be something of a tease.)

But it’s when the fighting flutter comes,

and the beating thing takes flight,

that wonder 
             takes over
and this devil 
                          delights

The woolly mammoths were performing their spring ballet to the music being cranked out by the cosmic organ grinder. Their movements were careful, controlled and extraordinarily graceful. Yet, despite the delicacy of their steps, the vibrations they produced were causing thousands of earthworms to wriggle to the surface, fleeing the enormous mole they feared was digging their way.

Once the worms had taken in the sight of the mammoths pirouetting and glissading before them, they were even more terrified than they'd been when imagining the size of the mole they'd thought was about to eat them up. But the older, more experienced worms (who'd arrived late as usual to outwit the early birds) soon reassured their nervous young colleagues.

'Fear not!' they told them. 'It's the Magnificent Mammoth Ballet! We're lucky to be here today. Just keep your eyes out for those blackbirds over there.'

So the worms stayed to watch, swaying to the music and smiling with wonder at such an elegant spectacle. They needn’t have worried about the blackbirds. Because although they might at first have appeared to be loitering menacingly, they were actually gazing at the mammoths too, just as tightly spellbound as their erstwhile prey.

And this was the remarkable thing about the Magnificent Mammoth Ballet. It was the only instance in nature when all the creatures of the world would stop what they were doing, put instinct on hold for a few moments, and sit back to enjoy a great piece of performance dance. Was it art? Was it mere entertainment? Who cared? It was the greatest show on earth!

However, there was one animal who never showed much interest in the ballet, and that animal was man. Because while the rest of the world was captivated by the mammoths' performance, man would spend his days contemplating his reflection in lakes and ponds, trying to decide if he really was as good-looking as he suspected. He certainly was, he decided every time, but the satisfaction gained from this conclusion never stayed with him for long and he always had to go back for another look, just to make sure.

Then one day, quite suddenly and without a word to anyone, the woolly mammoths disappeared. Nobody knew where they’d gone, but each animal had its own theory. The worms said that the mammoths had grown tired of living on the increasingly cold, inhospitable outer shell of the world and used their trunks (which, as the worms pointed out, were ideal tools for digging) to burrow to the Earth's core, where it was warm and they'd finally be able to take off those shabby fur coats they’d been wearing so long.

The blackbirds thought this was nonsense and that it was much more likely that the mammoths had at last mastered the art of flight (a feat for which, the birds maintained, the troupe had been training with every grand jeté they’d ever performed) and migrated to the sun where it was warm and they'd finally be able to take off those shabby fur coats they’d been wearing so long.

Whatever the truth was, one thing almost all the animals agreed on was that they felt very sad they’d never get to see the mammoths dance again. As before, man was the only exception. He said he didn’t care one way or the other. In fact, he claimed, the only significant thing he’d noticed about the mammoths when they were around was their ‘objectionable pong’ – and that, he made clear to anyone who asked, was something he could definitely live without. 

Yet, despite his harsh words, man did begin to feel sad after the mammoths left, and he grew sadder and sadder as the years went by, though he couldn’t understand why. He certainly never connected the onset of his sorrow with the disappearance from the world of the woolly mammoth.

The animals had their theory however, and this time all were in agreement, worm and bird alike. Man was sad, they whispered to each other – the saddest among all the beasts – because he hadn't seen the Magnificent Mammoth Ballet when he’d had the chance. And now he never would.

Illustrations by Jordi Llobet
jordillobet.blogspot.com
Story by Benjamin Palmer

A Spanish translation of the story, also by Jordi, can be seen on his own magnificent blogspot. 

Se puede leer una traducción en español del cuento, también hecha por Jordi, en su magnifico blogspot.