four poems: in paris

I wrote these for an assignment, which was first to write a love poem without any pronouns, and second to make a series in which only 25, 50, and 75% of the poem is represented. I'm not so sure about "experimental poetry," but because I decided to write a bit about Argentine tango (getting rid of pronouns by making people into shoes), and to some extent the cliché (oh, the very real cliché, what's with that?), you get to read it... Et voila.


IN PARIS
I.
In the Argentine tango one shoe longs for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a sole
In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
…
…
… A milonguero is a lonely man,
A milonguera a troubled woman.
At the end of a dance
To remember a name is useless,
While like a panther the leather flesh senses across the room
A new lover: more stylish, younger,
Perhaps more experienced, burning eternally
To step in the space of a sole
On a night of champagne and violins.


II.
The Argentine longs for a partner,
Seeking always in the slow brush of the grip of a
Buenos Aires
France –
Leather, suede, gold
never fails to find
A counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
… A milonguero is
A milonguera is useless.
Like a panther the flesh senses across the
Lover, younger
Perhaps more
To step in the space of a night.


III.
Displacement
In the grip of languages and nations –


fabriqué en France
A shadow…
a lonely man,
a woman.
a dance
a name
a panther
A new lover
in the
night.


IV.
In the one shoe for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a…
…In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace
is a lonely man,
a troubled woman
At the end.
To remember is useless.
While a panther, the leather flesh, senses the room
A lover more stylish, younger,
Perhaps experienced eternally
To step in champagne.

-j.a.

snow, snowstorm, snow

In celebration of both the snowstorm and my love for Doctor Zhivago, I just have to model my fur hat for you:

I don't know if you can see it in the background, but there is a photo from Doctor Zhivago on the wall, with Yuri and Lara wearing hats quite similar!

Dear J. Peterman: One rabbit fur hat, flaps can be tied up or worn down. Made especially for coming in on dark winter nights to a Turkish rug and a fire burning in the fireplace. Or for a quick stroll to the counter-revolutionary artists' café, The Stray Dog, in St. Petersburg, 1912.  Also quite useful for deserting the Red army and making your way, somehow, sometime, to Paris.      

What does one do in a snowstorm??  Anna Akhmatova, the great Russian poet, has some ideas:

Empty white Christmastide.

Snow, snowstorm, snow.

Let the roads be an ice-rink -

I've nowhere to go!

A.A. January 1914

j.a.

the cavafy house, alexandria

I took this video in the Cavafy House in Alexandria last month.  The sound in the background is the afternoon prayer.  The house is on Rue Lespius downtown.  Old Alexandria...  This, I believe, is one of his best poems.

The City

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”


You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.

It has been established in related circles that Constantin P. Cavafy was one of the greatest Greek poets who ever lived, and we were lucky enough to have him narrate a bit of his 20th century for us...  When I read this poem I always think about Cairo and Alexandria, about Egypt, and how I came here to study - not to study - but to be a part of this country which still seems so important to me.  I couldn't tell you why, exactly, because I don't care about the things that most people talk about when they talk about Egypt.  I suppose it's best described by the feeling one can get by a corner in a room with a table, an ashtray, a candle.  A river that goes on forever...  Or an image from a book, a woman waiting by the shores of the Mediterranean, eating an apple and reading a newspaper, or a secret message that was once written on a page that's been torn out. 

...  How can you explain to someone over a coffee that this is Egypt?  Not even the tall minarets or the highways or the look in a poor man's eye, no.  Egypt is a fantasy corrupted by 4,000 years of human tragedy.  Which is why, even in the dirt, I will always call this place home.