Two Red Roses: Then and Now

Posted by Ace on June 24th, 2011 filed in poetry
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Got into an extended discussion with my friend Ylva this morning on writing and poetry, which led me inevitably to bring up the Bad Poetry story, but also led me to bring up the couple of poems I’ve ever written that I thought were any good.  One of them is the nameless “summer clouds and honeyed vales” poem I’ve already shared in this space.  Another is a piece entitled “Two Red Roses”, which I wrote on the bus after a few minutes of being Totally Present in the streets of the City of Mists, in an attempt to capture that experience before it faded.  My closer friends are generally familiar with this latter piece, as I’ve shared it with them or given them copies of it on a variety of occasions.  But I couldn’t find any of those copies at hand, so instead I pulled open the word processor and recreated it from memory:

TWO RED ROSES

I walked down the street on 8th Avenue holding two red roses

And the porn sellers turned away

Because when you have one red rose they think that someone has given it to you

And you might want to dally

But when you have two red roses they think that you are going to meet someone

And you have better things to do

Than sit in a nudie bar

I saw a soft brown chiquita in a white dress laughing and licking a vanilla cone

Washing her feet in an open hydrant

I thought about giving her one of my two red roses

When you have two red roses you can meet the gazes of strangers

Because you have something to keep without fear

And something to give away without hesitation.


Subsequent to doing that, however, I became possessed by a suspicion that it was impossible for me not to have some copy of it somewhere, given that I remembered e-mailing it to the friends in question, and because my Archives are…  well, my Archives.  So I wrung them until they screamed (my Archives, not my friends,) and sure enough, in the end they coughed up a version of it recorded in 1997–  which is not the original version either (that was written by hand, on paper,) but is arguably closer or identical to the original, having been set down by me at a point much closer to when the original was created:

two red roses

I walked down the street on Eighth Avenue holding two

red roses, and the porn sellers turned away,

because when you have one red rose they

think that someone has given it to you, and

you might want to dally, but when you have

two red roses they think that you’re going to

meet someone, and you have better things to

do than sit in a nudie bar…

I watched a soft brown chiquita in a white dress

eating an ice cream cone and washing her

feet in an open hydrant. I thought about

giving her one of my two red roses…

When you have two red roses you can meet the gazes

of strangers, because you have something to

keep without fear and something to give away

without reservation.

I like that in the 2011 version the little girl is “laughing and licking a vanilla cone”, rather than just “eating an ice cream cone.”  (She really was laughing and licking it, and it was vanilla.)  I like that the 1997 version says “watched” instead of “saw”, though, as it creates the feeling the speaker is involved, active rather than passive.  And I like the way “washing her feet in an open hydrant” doesn’t take a whole separate line in the 1997 version.  I’m not sure how I feel about “reservation” versus “hesitation”.  “Reservation” fits the point being made by the end of the poem more accurately;  “hesitation” communicates something different and related, but what it communicates has its own, good flavor, and is not inaccurate.  Perhaps I need to do a hybrid.

Now if I could find a complete copy of the Valentine’s Day poem I wrote for Faye lying around somewhere, THAT would be a coup.


His Name is Athansor

Posted by Ace on January 3rd, 2010 filed in poetry
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The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With a threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.

How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And waken the stable-hands

To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?

The Ride by Richard Wilbur


Yes, I Remember

Posted by Ace on November 15th, 2009 filed in poetry
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Remember the 1340’s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called “Find the Cow.”
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790’s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

–“Nostalgia”, Billy Collins


Long After Never

Posted by Ace on May 1st, 2009 filed in letters from Ace, poetry
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For some reason that poem made me think of this one, which I wrote myself long ago, in the Time of Legends, as a gift for someone whose friendship and company I enjoyed for a few short years.

If thy green eyes should dim from hurt, what then my pain?

If dusken hues imbued within thy cheek should fail

As Autumn’s majesty in sullen Winter’s rain

Thy golden hope-flowers lost to this unseasonable gale

How were’t?

This God-kissed clay, these vernal forms, shall fade at last

And leave us soon enough to rest with quiet hearts and memories of evenings warm

And summer clouds and honeyed vales like blossoms pressed in pages

Evermore beyond the chastening storm

But not this way

If Malice masks as Age’s ken, let Patience serve to keep a Spring within my arms

And Love to save its colours, paint them back again

Restore without the gardens of thine inner charms

Mayhaps among the rows I’ll find a peace, and then

I’ll rest at last.


Better Late Than Never

Posted by Ace on April 30th, 2009 filed in memes, poetry, Tales of the Interregnum
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April is apparently National Poetry Month, at least according to Nickykaa, who tends to be apprised of such random matters.   He claims that if you love poetry, and you’ve got an on-line journal, you can best celebrate this fact by putting up a poem thereon.  And as it is still April for another 2 hours and 45 minutes, and oh look!-  I have an on-line journal!-  I will obey the Orbital Mind Control Lasers and capitulate.

It is the first poem I turned to, in a book I purchased less than half an hour ago.  You may make of that what you will.

Wake up lovers, it is time to start the journey!

We have seen enough of this world, it is time to see another.


These two gardens may be beautiful but

let us pass beyond them and go to the Gardener.


Let us kiss the ground and flow like a river

towards the ocean.


Let us go from the valley of tears to the wedding feast,

let us bring the color of blossoms to our pale faces.


Our hearts shiver like autumn leaves about to fall,

in this world of dust there is no avoiding pain or feeling exiled.


Let us become like beautifully colored birds

and fly to the sweet land of paradise.


Everything is painted with the brush of the Invisible One

let us follow the hidden signs and find the Painter.


It is best to travel with companions

on this perilous journey only love can lead the way.


We are like rain splashing on a roof

let us find our way down the spout.


We are like an arched bow with the arrow in place

let us become straight and release the arrow towards the target.


We have stayed at home scared like mice

let us find our courage and join the lions.


Let our souls turn into a mirror

longing to reflect the essence of Beauty.


Let us begin the journey home.

–Rumi (transl. Azima Melita Kolin & Maryam Mafi)


Two

Posted by Ace on December 8th, 2008 filed in poetry, Tales of the Interregnum
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Again and again, however we know the landscape of love

and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,

and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others

fall:  again and again the two of us walk out together

under the ancient trees, lie down again and again

among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I have learned to mould and sculpt in matter,

And to pour the lights of the soul.

On the heights of the mountain summits

Stands the princess,

Her body moulded in marble.

All glory gleams from her sculpted eyes,

Till grace dissolves in fainting.

The sun of Jerusalem shone on her…

Terribly did I burn and yearn for her,

And I long for her still…

And she called in her pride:  “He who sings my song,

His shall I be!…”

Now I shall go, now I shall come, and say:

“I have learned your song, here it is in my mouth:

Your body is fairer than the marble of skies,

O daughter of kings,

And the radiance of your eyes than the radiance of souls;

With prayer and fasting I have discovered your secret-

Be mine!…”

-“I Have Learned to Mould”, I. Z. Rimon (translated by Richard Flantz)


Interlude, with Pomegranates

Posted by Ace on July 22nd, 2008 filed in from the Comments, poetry
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This wonderful piece was forwarded to me from Orchidwile, who placed it (having no other recourse) in the comments for Fruit:

The Mad Pomegranate Tree

In these bright courtyards where the south wind blows
Whistling through vaulted arches, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who leaps in light scattering her fruitful laugh
With wind’s stubbornness and whispering, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who quivers the dawn with foliage newborn
Opening all her colors aloft with a shiver of triumph?

When in awakening fields naked girls
Harvest clover with blond hands
Roaming the ends of their sleep, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who unsuspecting places lights in their verdant baskets
Who overflows their names with birdsong, tell me
Is it the mad pomegranate tree who fights the world’s cloudy skies?

On the day that jealousy adorns herself with seven kinds of feathers
Girding the eternal sun with thousands of blinding
Prisms, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who running seizes a man with a hundred lashes
Never sad and never grumbling, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who shouts the new hope now dawning?

Tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree who greets the expanse
Fluttering a leaf handkerchief of cool fire
A sea about to give birth to a thousand ships
With waves that a thousand times move and go
To unscented shores, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who creaks the rigging aloft in pellucid aether?

Very high with the glaucous skycluster that lights and celebrates
Proud, full of danger, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who mid-world breaks the demon’s storms with light
Who spreads from end to end the saffron bib of day
Richly embroidered with sown songs, tell me is it the mad pomegranate tree
Who hastily unhooks the silks of the day?

In petticoats of April first and cicadas of August fifteenth
Tell me, she who plays, she who rages, she who seduces
Casting off from threat its evil black glooms
Pouring intoxicating birds on the sun’s bosom
Tell me, she who opens her wings on the breast of things
On the breast of our deep dreams, is it the mad pomegranate tree?

— Odysseus Elytis, Orientations 1939