Villanelle: All Your Sins

Why are you hiding, what is there to hide?

Your evil past? Your schlong?—
all your sins along for the ride.

You took the summer wind to be your bride,
your whole life just a song.
So why now? What is there to hide?

With only yourself alone to confide
in, speak right or speak wrong,
and all your sins along for the ride,

it’ll be like watching trains collide,
sparks as from a bellows blown,
blasting all you have to hide—

when you stole that gum in that drug store, Clyde—
better get your lawyer on the phone
and tell ‘em each disgraceful ride,

Satan driving, you shotgun on the side,
the pleasure yours, my friend, and yours alone.
Why are you hiding, what is there to hide,
all your sins along for the ride?

Sing the Gardens, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Sing the gardens, my heart, which you don’t know,

glass-enclosed gardens, clear, inaccessible.
Water and roses of Ispahan or Shiraz,
sing them blessed, praise them, nothing to compare.

Show, my heart, that you’ll never forget
that their ripening figs are about you,
that you are with them, among the blossoming branches,
like a strong breath of wind in the face.

Trade the mistake that there are trials and hardships
for the done decision to be these:
silken threads that get right into the weave.

Whatever your part in the pattern
(be it just a moment from a life of pain),
feel that the whole exemplary carpet is intended.

Rilke, Sonette an Orpheus, Second series, 21
Singe die Garten, mein Herz, die du nicht kennst; wie in Glas
eingegossene Garten, klar, unerreichbar.
Wasser und Rosen von Ispahan oder Schiras,
singe sie selig, preise sie, keinem vergleichbar.

Zeige, mein Herz, dass du sie niemals entbehrst.
Dass sie dich meinen, ihre reifenden Feigen.
Dass du mit ihren, zwischen den blühenden Zweigen
wie zum Gesicht gesteigerten Lüften verkehrst.

Meide den Irrtum, dass es Entbehrungen gebe
für den geschehnen Entschluss, diesen: zu sein!
Seidener Faden, kamst du hinein ins Gewebe.

Welchem der Bilder du auch im lnnern geeint bist
(sei es selbst ein Moment aus dern Leben der Pein),
fiihl, dass der ganze, der rühmliche Teppich gemeint ist.

Villanelle: The Vantage Point

Sitting in my limestone lookout place,

feet in the open char-pit hole again.
Too cold today, but I’ll do it one of these days.

I don’t know. A furious mallard race
down in the water. A sandaled man
sitting in their limestone lookout place.

Ok, so what can you find to praise
in the life of this man, lived all cross-grain?
Too cold today, but I’ll do it one of these days.

One thing that this man likes to do is gaze
far down streets of sorrow, streets of pain
from the vantage of their limestone lookout place.

And what do they see there but their own sad face,
the face of one whose life was lived in vain?
Too cold today, but I’ll do it one of these days.

And let’s suppose that they discover grace,
tasting the bitter savor that remains,
surveying from their limestone lookout place.
Too cold today, but I’ll do it one of these days.

Between the Stars, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Between the stars, how far; yet how much farther

in what you encounter near at hand.
For example, a child ... and a neighbor, a second,
O how incomprehensibly remote from one another!

Perhaps fate measures us with Being’s span,
so that we can’t fathom it;
think what a spread there is from a girl to a man,
when she is annoyed and shuns him.

Existence is wide - and nowhere does the circle close.
Look at the plate, on a cheerfully prepared table,
the face of the fish is strange.

Fish are dumb ..., ‘tis said. Who knows?
Isn’t there in the end a place where you can tell
what the fish’s words would be, without it speaking?

Rilke, Sonette an Orpheus, second series, 20

Zwischen den Sternen, wie weit; und doch, um wievieles noch weiter,
was man am Hiesigen lernt.
Einer, zum Beispiel, ein Kind ... und ein Nächster, ein Zweiter-,
o wie unfasslich entfernt.

Schicksal, es misst uns vielleicht mit des Seienden Spanne,
dass es uns fremd erscheint;
denk, wieviel Spannen allein vom Mädchen zum Manne,
wenn es ihn meidet und meint.

Alles ist weit -, und nirgends schliesst sich der Kreis.
Sieh in der Schüssel, auf heiter bereitetem Tische,
seltsam der Fische Gesicht.

Fische sind stumm ... , meinte man einmal. Wer weiss?
Aber ist nicht am Ende ein Ort, wo man das, was der Fische
Sprache wäre, ohne sie spricht?

Villanelle: Dear Boy

What was that line?—charmed by a fairy-elf?

If you’ve seen one unicorn, you’ve seen a few.
Amazing how a villanelle will write itself!

I guess you never knew, dear boy, you’re on the shelf.
A unicorn-horn’s aim is straight and true.
What was that line?—charmed by a fairy-elf?

But what were you doing while we were pitching camp
and sipping from the honey-pot
of days, the villanelle life writes,

or dragging our golf clubs up the old cart path?
You marched onto the course and then withdrew
deep into the woods, searching for your fairy-elf.

And were you ever the boy who cried Wolf?!
And then the real wolf came! a new
specter in view, when your villanelle wouldn't write itself.

And I guess you’re thinking there’s a deep, deep gulf
between your sad ass and the chosen few.
What was that line?—charmed by a fairy-elf?
Amazing how a villanelle will write itself!

Somewhere in the Rotting Bank, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Somewhere in the rotting bank, the gold lives, 

and with thousands deals confidentially. But every
blind man or beggar is himself the copper dime,
like a place of loss, like the dusty corner under the cupboard.

In the shops along the way, Money is king
and conspicuously disguises himself in silk, cloves and fur.
He, the silent one, stands in each pause of breath.
All who wake or sleep breathe gold.

O how does it close itself at night, this always-open hand?
Tomorrow repeats fate, and daily
holds it: bright, miserable, infinitely destructible.

That someone, a stunned spectator, their long existence
finally grasps and praises. Only visible to singers.
Only audible to the gods.

Rilke, Sonette an Orphus, Second seriers, 19

Irgendwo wohnt das Gold in der verwohnenden Bank,
und mit Tausenden tut es vertraulich. Doch jener
Blinde, der Bettler, ist selbst dem kupfernen Zehner

wie ein verlorener Ort, wie das staubige Eck unterm Schrank.

In den Geschäften entlang ist das Geld wie zu Hause
und verkleidet sich scheinbar in Seide, Nelken und Pelz.
Er, der Schweigende, steht in der Atempause

alles des wach oder schlafend atmenden Gelds.

o wie mag sie sich schliessen bei Nacht, diese immer offene Hand.
Morgen holt sie das Schicksal wieder, und täglich
hält es sie hin: hell, elend, unendlich zerstörbar.

Dass doch einer, ein Schauender, cndlich ihren langen Bestand
staunend begriffe und rühmte. Nur dem Aufsingenden säglich.
Nur dem Göttlichen hörbar.

Villanelle: Just Before the Battle of Aughrim

Green pagoda shelter, yellow jungle gym.

Woman in a turquoise top, walking her dog.
How would it be for me to give myself to Him?

Jesus’s bristly whiskers need a trim.
Dog’s in a halter.—So? What kind of dog?
by the green pagoda shelter, yellow jungle gym?

I’m not afraid to go out on a limb
and say that woman walks a pit-bull dog.
How would it be for me to give myself to Him?

I’d buy a rose with a long thorny stem
and gift it to that woman and that dog,
by this green shelter, yellow jungle gym.

All the dead Irish in the Battle of Aughrim!
Floppy ears not cropped on that bull hound!
How would it be for me to give myself to Him?

Nothing remains now but a pretty flim-
sy tale about the breeding of that spotted dog,
trotting past the green-and-yellow jungle gym.
How would it be for me to give myself to Him?

The Ballad of Christie, Booker, and Zuck

Based on Dale Russakoff, “Schooled” (New Yorker: May 19. 2014) 

In a shabby school in Newark 

on the west end of town,

a kid whose dad was shot and killed

puts their pencil down

. . .

Mayor Booker took a surveillance tour

of West Newark in a van,

and Governor Chris Christie rode

along at his right hand.

It was Christie’s old home neighborhood,

where he’d frolicked as a colt

(but he’d moved to the suburbs just before

the ‘67 revolt).

Booker had a brave new plan 

that on Christie he did try:

the Newark schools could be reformed

in the twinkling of an eye.

Waiting for Superman had just come out—

a flick of the opinion

that bad school performance is mainly due

to tenure and teachers’ unions.

“Let’s shut ‘em down,” Cory Booker said.

“Brutality is kind

when thousands of our innocent kids

are being left behind.

“Caution don’t feed the bulldog.

Consensus is too cute.

What’s needed is to tear out the whole

cancer at the root.

 “By this bold course, we can be sure

to make our children smarter,

because, for every public school we close,

we’ll open a new charter.”

This plan was in Christie’s slugging rink;

it caused his bell to ring:

“I got maybe six votes in Newark,” he said,

“Why not do the right thing?”

 

Now Booker needed a donor

so those charters could be built.

He met with young Mark Zuckerberg,

and he sold him to the hilt.

Zuck had built the Facebook app

and had billions in his fist.

And now he wanted to become

a venture philanthropist.

Booker had a crystal tongue;

he sure could blow the dope:

“We’ll go from islands of excellence,” he said,

“to a hemisphere of hope.”

At Facebook, Zuck had mottos hung 

as a motivational aid:

one was, MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS;

one was, WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN’T AFRAID?

Schools were the cause on which Zuckerberg

had resolved to spend his dough.

He pledged a hundred million 

on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Now Booker had his hundred mil,

so next what did he do?

He got a man named Christopher Cerf

to hire a consultant crew.

Communications, database,

HR, PR, IT:

consultants by the score were hired

at a thousand bucks per day.

Teacher eval., curriculum,

buildings, and on and on:

in a couple of years, the greater part

of Zuck’s hundred mil was gone.

A worried Zuck flew Booker out

and put him to the test:

“What metric can we use,” he asked,

“to measure your progress?

“You’re no less accountable, Booker, sir,

than that whole corrupt school district.”

And Zuck sent him home with a motivational poster:

DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.

 

Booker finally hired a superintendent,

Cami Anderson by name:

she found herself deep in the soup,

and she was not to blame.

Charter school enrollees are kids

whose folks make an active choice—

they’re likely less at risk than those

whose folks don’t raise their voice.

As the choosers move to charter schools,

taking their funding with them,

the needier ones are left behind,

as on a ship that’s sinking.

Now with all the high palaver

and swift activity,

no one really bothered to talk

to the Newark community.

And the parents were the last to hear,

what concerned them most of all,

that more than a third of Newark’s schools

would be phased out in the fall.

And the kids would have to find new schools,

maybe miles from their homes,

and they might have to walk to school

past crack houses and slums.

And a thousand workers would forfeit

their source of livelihood.

The reform would raise poverty in Newark, NJ

without doing the kids much good.

The Principal of Central High,

Ras Baraka (Amiri’s son),

became the voice for the dissent

that brought down Booker’s plan.

“Charter schools can provide a wedge 

against entrenched seniority,

but Superman’s not real,” said Ras,

“and neither’s his enemy.

“The reform is doomed, for all its show

of righteous urgency,

because it doesn’t address the root

evil, poverty.

 

“A delicate thing like a school reform

can’t dictate from on high—

Nobody’s going to do anything that’s going to affect my babies

without first talking to me.”

     Zuck’s keeping tighter reins on his mils these days,

Chris’s dealing with that bridge jam row,

Booker’s in the US Senate,

and Ras is Mayor now.

Chris, Booker, and Zuck in Newark,

when all is said and done, 

were a lot like Dubya in Iraq

or McNamara in Vietnam.

And if you want a take-away,

you can bear in mind this rule:

never let shoot-from-the-hip corporate guys

“reform” our city schools.

. . .

In a shabby school in Newark 

on the west end of town,

a kid whose dad was shot and killed

puts their pencil down.

Pho Soup Meditation

I’ve eaten all the goodies

out of my bowl of combo pho—
white-meat chicken this time;
tripe, of course, delicate but pigs'-feet-y;
flank; rare beef steak; tendon,
which is the soft-knuckle part of the bone,
neither marrow nor gristle;
and the nice big wad of rice noodles.
Now there’s only broth
left, a few basil-leaf scraps,
green-onion flakes, and sprouts.
It would be a nice meditation exercise
to finish the bowl by spoonfuls—
how many, do I think?—
Just wait, and I’ll tell you.

Ok, I lost track,
but I think it was at least twenty-five,
before I put the bowl to my lips
and drank the last few mouthfuls.

Why Aren’t Evangelicals Shocked by Stormy Daniels?

It's amazing to me
THAT the Evangelical Right
doesn't see Trump as a moral disaster, 

but maybe that's disingenuous of me.

Having an abortion
is the worst thing for them,
and they believe 
in the Second Coming - 

it's stupid 
to worry about climate change 
or the poor because God 
will rectify everything in

one fell swoop. (I don't mean
to make fun of this - I'm just trying
to understand.)
Also,

many or most evangelical men
are probably porn junkies—
what Trump did with Stormy Daniels
is just the kind of thing they do every day

on their smartphones,
and the women
mostly put
up with it. Evangelicals

see Trump every day
in their own behavior.
Maybe this makes them hypocrites,
but they probably feel

that blaming Trump
for their own moral failings
would be hypocritical. Anyway,
Jesus will fix it all on the last day.

Beyond that,
I've got
nothing.
:(

Look at the Flowers, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Look at the flowers, true to the earthly -

to them we deal fate from the lip of fate -
but who knows? If they rue their withering,
it's up to us to be their regret.

Everything wants to hover. We brag about our load,
taking everything upon ourselves, delighted with the weight.
Oh, what are we to things but exhausting pedants,
because eternal childhood blesses them?

If you took them into a deep inner sleep and slept
deep with things -: O how easily you would grow,
from one day to another, out of the common depths.

Or you might stay; and they flourish and praise you,
the convert, who now resembles them,

all the quiet sisters in the winds of the meadows.

Sonette an Orpheus, second series, number 14

Siehe die Blumen, diese dem Irdischen treuen,
denen wir Schicksal vom Rande des Schicksals leihn, -
aber wer weiss es! Wenn sie ihr Welken bereuen,
ist es an uns, ihre Reue zu sein.

Alles will schweben. Da gehn wir umher wie Beschwerer,
legen auf alles uns selbst, vom Gewichte entzückt;
O was sind wir den Dingen fur zehrende Lehrer,
weil ihnen ewige Kindheit glückt.

Nähme sie einer ins innige Schlafen und schliefe
tief mit den Dingen -: O wie käme er leicht,
anders zum anderen Tag, aus der gemeinsamen Tiefe.

Oder er bliebe vielleicht; und sie blühten und priesen
ihn, den Bekehrten, der nun den Ihrigen gleicht,
allen den stillen Geschwistern im Winde der Wiesen.

O Fountain-Spout, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

O fountain-spout, you giving one, you Mouth,
the inexpressible Pure One speaks,
you, before the water’s flowing
marble mask. And in the background

the aqueducts of origin. Farther on,
graves passed by, from the slope of the Apennines
they bring you your speech, that then
on the antique black of your chin

overflows onto the fosse in front of you.
This is the sleeping, inert ear,
the marble ear you always speak into.

An ear of earth. Only with herself
she speaks. If a pitcher shoves itself in,
it seems to her you’re interrupting.

Sonette an Orpheus, second series, number 15

O Brunnen-Mund, du gebender, du Mund,

der unerschöpflich Eines, Reines, spricht, -

du, vor des Wassers fliessendem Gesicht,

marmorne Maske. Und im Hintergrund

der Aquädukte Herkunft. Weither an

Gräbern vorbei, vom Hang des Apennins

tragen sie dir dein Sagen zu, das dann

am schwarzen Altern deines Kinns

vorüberfällt in das Gefäss davor.

Dies ist das  schlafend hingelegte Ohr,

das Marmor-Ohr, in das du immer sprichts.

Ein Ohr der Erde. Nur mit sich allein

redet sie also. Schiebt ein Krug sich ein,

so scheint es ihr, dass du sie unterbrichst.

An Unremembered Poem

I dreamt that someone

read me a poem
I expected to remember
when I woke up—

sonnet-like,
containing
a seven-line
list of

chickens: Rhode Island Red,
Sussex, Plymouth Rock;
or maybe egg colors:

sky-blue, brown, reddish-brown;
and sizes from big to small.
But that wasn’t it.

algorithm

icerainandsnow

snowrainandice

icesnowandrain

rainiceandsnow

Torn Open, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Torn open by us again and again,
God is the place that heals.
We are sharp, because we want to know,
but he is serene and scattered.

Even the pure, consecrated gift
he receives in no other way
than by setting himself apart,
unmoved.

Only the dead drink
from the fountain we hear
when God waves them silent, the dead.

We are proffered only noise.
And, out of a quiet instinct,
the lamb asks for its bell.

Sonette an Orpheus, second series, number 17

Immer wieder von uns aufgerissen,
ist der Gott die Stelle, welche heilt.
Wir sind Scharfe, denn wir wollen wissen,
aber er ist heiter und verteilt.

Selbst die reine, die geweihte Spende
nimmt er anders nicht in seine Welt,
als indem er sich dem freien Ende
unbewegt entgegenstellt.

Nur der Tote trinkt
aus der hier von uns gehörten Quel1e,
wenn der Gott ihm schweigend winkt, dem Toten.

Uns wird nur das Lärmen angeboten.
Und das Lamm erbittet seine Schelle
aus dem stilleren Instink

The Rotten Creep, Gustav Sack

The rain beats, as if whipped down

by the boundless sky’s wild winds,
chasing the old Creep,
and chipped
from the snow and smut and steam
of Summer’s naked coals.

It pours and blasts and hisses and smokes,
until overnight
Spring’s sheath is chopped
and – wide and rude,
Summer is looking forward to the world!

Der faule Mucker, Gustav Sack

Der Regen schlägt, als geißelten
des grenzenlosen Himmels wilde Winde
den alten Mucker jagend hoch
und meißelten
aus Schnee und Schmutz und Stubendunst
des Sommers nackte Glut heraus.

Das gießt und bläst und faucht und raucht,
bis über Nacht
des Frühlings Hülle fällt
und - breit und ungeschlacht
fiebert der Sommer durch die Welt!

The Hopsassa, Gustav Sack

Do what you want! Because you can rhyme

and in trendy Hopsassa
tell what happened to you, to your grief,
blaspheme every bulging gut,
that goes its sober, rhymeless way
and knows nothing of the foolishness
that brings you, while he eats and drinks,
into hungry ecstasy
and lets you crave ecstatically.
Should he pay for your foolish throes
with some of his own money? No,
your foolishness is a feast for you!
so pay for it yourself
and don’t be full of bragging
and hostile fantasies
about him and his well-fed calves,
you miserable Hopsassa
and Tschingterassa Bum!

Das Hopsassa, Gustav Sack

Was du nur willst! Dieweil du reimen kannst
und in beliebtem Hopsassa
erzählst was dir zu Leids geschah,
schmähst du auf jeden braven Wanst,
der reimlos seine Wege geht
und von der Narrheit nichts versteht,
die dich, indes er ißt und trinkt,
in schmerzliche Ekstase bringt
und dich ekstatisch hungern läßt.
Er soll dir deine Narrenqualen
etwa mit seinem Gelde zahlen?
Dir ist dein Narrsein ja ein Fest!
So zahle deine Feste selber
und neide nicht voll Prahlerei
und widriger Phantasterei
ihm seine wohlgeratnen Kälber,
du elendiger Hopsassa
und Tschingterassa Bum!

Where, in What Ever-Blessed Garden, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Where, in what ever-blessed garden, in what

trees, out of which delicately-peeled flower-buds
bloom the strange fruits of consolation? In these
you find your poverty. From one time to another

precious, in which perhaps in the trampled meadow

you wonder about the greatness of the fruit,
about salvation, about the softness of the shells

and the light-mindedness of the birds, unforeseeable to you, and their greediness 

among the worms. Are there then trees, flown by angels
and trained so strangely by slow, invisible gardeners
that they bear us without obeying us?

Shadows and schemes, have we never been able,
through our premature bloom and early wilt,
to disturb the calm summer’s composure?

Sonette an Orpheus, second series, number 17

Wo, in we1chen immer selig bewässerten Garten, an welchen

Bäumen, aus welchen zartlich entblatterten Blüten-Kelchen

reifen die fremdartigen Friichte der Trostung? Diese

deiner Armut findest. Von einem zum anderen Male

köstlichen, deren du eine vielleicht in der zertretenen Wiese

wunderst du dich über die Grosse der Frucht,

über ihr Heilsein, über die Sanftheit der Schale,

und dass sie der Leichtsinn des Vogels dir nieht vorwegnahm

und nicht die Eifersucht

unten des Wurms. Gibt es denn Baume, von Engeln beflogen,

und von verborgenen langsamen Gärtnern so seltsam gezogen,

dass sie uns tragen, ohne uns zu gehören?

Haben wir niemals vermocht, wir Schatten und Schemen,

durch unser voreilig reifes und wieder welkes Benehmen

jener gelassenen Sommer Gleichmut zu stören?

Dancing Girl, You Shifting One, Rainer Maria Von Rilke

Dancing girl: you shifting one,
over-treading all offences: how do you do it?
And your spin at the close, this hem of your movement,
didn’t it take total charge of the turbulent year?

Didn’t it bloom, that its sway would swarm 

suddenly around the peak of its own stillness? 

And over it, was it not Sun, was it not Summer, 

the warmth of these countless warmths from you.

But it also bears, it bears the tree of your Ecstasy.
Are these not its quiet fruits: the jug,
the striped ripening, and the ripened vase?

And in the pictures: does not the sketch remain,
dark mark your eyebrow made
quickly on the wall of its own winding.

Rilke, Sonette an Orpheus, Second series, 18

Tanzerin:  du Verlegung
alles Vergehens in Gang: wie brachtest du's dar.
Und der Wirbel am Schluss, dieser Saum aus Bewegung,
nahm er nicht ganz in Besitz das erschwungene Jahr?
Blühte nicht, dass ihn dein Schwingen von vorhin umschwarme
plötzlich sein Wipfel von Stille? Und üiber ihr,
war sie nicht Sonne, war sie nicht Sommer, die Warme,
diese unzahlige Warme aus dir?
Aber er trug auch, er trug, dein Baum der Ekstase.
Sind sie nicht seine ruhigen Früchte: der Krug,
reifend gestreift, und die gereiftere Vase?
Und in den Bildern: ist nicht die Zeichnung geblieben,
die deiner Braue dunkler Zug
rasch an die Wandung der eigenen Wendung geschrieben?

Wanderer's Night Song, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Over all the mountain-peaks

Is peace;
In all the treetops
You feel
Hardly a breath;
The small birds are still in the forest.
Only wait, soon
You’ll rest too.

Wanderer’s Nachtlied II

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen hauch;
did Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Rühest du auch.

Why I Like to Wear My Fox Cap

A fox'll
always keep
you guessing.