Photo by mkatenev
When we are two drunk suns
in the quiet of the figs
when clammy night crumbles far
over dead cities
when we hear
the compact cry of hidden seeds
under the thickness of the earth
we will make a great fire of mint
to announce the wedding
of the rivers' dark souls
and our multiple thirsts.
____________________
Night opens like an almond
Suns explode on the walls
Stars of healthy flesh
hang from our chests
Wounds drill into sand
The wild grass of our gaze
descends down to the heart
But in our blood we keep
the smell of rain in a forest
In our cold beds we pursue
the endless fall of silences.
_____________________
Child of silence and shadow
you lay in great beds
of wild nettles and mint
You dreamt on the immense river
devoured by a flame of moon
Your hands flowed into the wind
of oceans and forests
Where are your nights lost angel
Dawn Listen to the blood too heavy
throbbing in the castings of steel
Do you feel the fear entering you
like a knife into your chest
You pass through our lands
vessel lost in the mists
You don't see the sun shining
like the first morning on earth
______________________
I come to you with the vertigoes of the source
numbed into stone
Standing up to death entwined in the grasses
we penetrate into an empire without contours
wide open to our disproportion
Silence holds its breath
in the midst of a motionless wind
and the riotings of mirrors
High walls patiently conquered by our rites
keep watch over our movements
We are monotonous stars
astonished insects in worlds of feathers
_____________________
The limb of forests rises up
behind the foliage stirring
Ghost people gravitate beneath the bark
assail your castles of nutmeg
Sublime thorn planted in scarlet time
Winged heel of the stary arcanum
House of sulfur and mercury
held spellbound by a feather
increased by what weight
on the scales of dreams
Logic at the triple stage
of this bleeding communion
It made the white rose of winds revolve
Nothing can ever cloud
its incorruptible retina
______________________
Today's poetry is by (Francesca) Yvonne Caroutch, born in Paris in 1937, and was translated from the French by Willis Barnstone, Elene Kolb, and David Cloutier.
This week's Seed of the Week is Off the Beaten Path. What happens when you leave the straight-and-narrow, venturing off into the weeds and finding the road not taken? Do you come to a dead end, or the end of the rainbow? Are there dragons or pots of gold? What happens when you, at the age of 65 and against all logic, rescue a noisy, active little dog from the shelter, or go back to school, or embark on a new romance? Send your maps for Off the Beaten Path to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs.
______________________
Today's LittleNip:
BAPTISM
—Robin Gale Odam
eternal water
breath surrendered
rise to acclamation
living droplets of pardon
stream from my hair
eternal water
breath surrendered
rise to acclamation
living droplets of pardon
stream from my hair
______________________
—Medusa
Salvation
—Photo by Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento