walks from to walks to
by strannikov
dogs' gods
high god of Cynics, Anubis: we've learned
the creed of dogs to their crosses bound fast
their growling teeth gnashing with barking bites.
what did Anubis once do for a dog?
—fill water bowls in Osiris's house?
—netherworld tours, mummy dogs on two legs?
what dog crucified in Rome prayed to his god?
before Anubis, Cynics growled and gnashed
their barking teeth howling with snarling bites:
with no dog letter prayers could not be growled.
filling thirsty moats
her cups held more spirits than Dylan's drinks,
his oxygenated pints of beer the same
discipline of drink (but for the proof—
and the volume). Dylan tossed thirsty gulps
to drown dead his cruel exile from green youth,
refused decades' distance from his green child.
Caitlin never lost her tongue, it grew stiff
and grew more stone than some men's coddled spines:
her tongue stayed sharp but for blunts from her bites
and burns to her teeth competing with thirst
intended to drown escapes from green pasts.
uncertain silence
the silence we hear this rain has rehearsed
for rinsing those corpses hiding outdoors
(more than we know do dead lie afield).
this silence the rain leaves for the alive
doesn't last like that that covers the dead:
our silence can be glimpsed through windows brief.
rain in all truth washing away the dead
is rain when seeing silence we look through.
walks from to walks to
hands slide into gloves unseen
eyes disappear behind glass
the crank turns the flywheel spins:
every octave has droppt low
sub-sonic shudders within—
die Zwischenwelt und Nungeist,
die Nunwelt und Zwischengeist!
whatever may have leaked out
the odd leakt in to replace:
'twixt attraction and repulse
racing from red desert rusts
velocities steered to sink—
in this unique and fresh day
beheld only with fresh eyes.
our alchemists are alive
the ones before Marlowe born
those who've given us today:
'twere their eternal intent—
ACCELERATE WHAT GESTATES—
to hasten every event:
so now hasten this world's ends.
there'll be careless days again
brilliant clouds will cross bright skies
strange waters will float downstream
much less tumult to go 'round:
some vegetation will thrive
some animals may survive
most cities will lose their voice.
no one dares to breathe one step—
anvils droppt could have sure aim
to punish future intents
(no tomorrows guaranteed
ever offer money back):
may sun and moon walk us through
the speeding moments that can wait.
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Author's Note
(Note for "dogs' gods": the date set annually for Roman dog crucifixion [after c. 387 BC] was our 3 August and continued for some five hundred years. I mangled the Egyptian and Greek content a bit.)
"Jetztgeist" instead of "Nungeist" may be the preferred German construction, I thought Anglophone readers might prefer the latter.
Formatted to PDF purpose.
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"—netherworld tours, mummy dogs on two legs?
what dog crucified in Rome prayed to his god?"
and
"with no dog letter prayers could not be growled"
- present a bizarre juxtaposition of hopelessness and inner faith - maybe similar to Rilke's panther pacing before the cage's bars at the zoo in the botanical gardens in Paris. The panther recognizes something akin to freedom but only for an instant before it disappears into the heart and then is gone. I get the same feeling here in "dogs' gods" - only the freedom lost in the panther's heart is more spiritual (Strange, but that's how it comes to me) - "prayers could not be growled". Good poem.
Especially like the closing image of "uncertain silence": "washing away the dead / is rain when seeing silence we look through". Good.
Also like the momentary slice shown between Dylan and Caitlin - the known poet and the unknown. That must have been a volatile togetherness that somehow worked in its own way - unlike Plath and Hughes.
"walks from to walks to" raises the spiritual element again - or at least the vast unexplainable - from "eyes disappear behind glass / the crank turns the flywheel spins" to the alchemists to "may sun and moon pull us through". Maybe it's the sacred and the profane or as in the German passage: the naughty and the new. At any rate, I like the atmosphere created here.
In the line "so now hasten this world's ends," "ends" is a deeper word than ending or endings. Good choice.
The diction in this poem presents an "otherness" within the present that's not as evident in the other works. As in the "classical" tone of:
"whatever may have leaked out
the odd leakt in to replace:
'twixt attraction and repulse
racing from red desert rusts
velocities steered to sink—"
- in the spirit of Hart Crane...
or, as in:
"no one dares to breathe one step—
anvils droppt could have sure aim
to punish future intents
(no tomorrows guaranteed
ever offer money back):"
...that is more Bishop-like. I'm thinking of her diction / syntax in "The Moose".
Both stanzas work for me in the same way music works. The phrasing or the sound, if read aloud, creates a place that carries the work.
That being said, the language in "walks from to walks to" may not rest easy with some readers. But then, should one read poetry for comfort or ease? I don't seek that in reading. I want the "otherness" of a different "place" than my actual moment may be. I'm not one who reads for entertainment or even clarity. Writing that stretches me. I want to be transported in some way - and "walks from to walks to" does that for me.
Good pieces, Edward. Enjoyed.
My mind is too anxious and my learning too prosaic for me to have attempted to read these poems without Sam's sidebar. And it would take me half a day and multiple reads of everything on this page thus far to be able to feel I've captured the tune and overtones of even some of the ideas and expressions herein. I'm by nature too unsettled and frail to seek stretching, as Sam puts it, having all I can do to hold the shit in my head sufficiently together in a recognizable (to me) semblance of coherence. I read poetry with hope for the occasional surprise of sublime insight and awful beauty. I found that here:
"there'll be careless days again
brilliant clouds will cross bright skies strange waters will float downstream much less tumult to go 'round: some vegetation will thrive some animals may survive
most cities will lose their voice."
Evidently you are one of those rare subconscious sublimisists I read about once in an essay so esoteric I cannot recall the author or venue without subjecting myself to deep hypnosis, which I am now of too advanced an age to risk. As to my Russian, altho I hold a degree in Slavic languages, I have found Google Translation a much nearer source of idiom than the remote, antiquated doors of my rusted recollection.
It all builds to these wonderful last lines:
"may sun and moon pull us through
the speeding moments that can wait."
Excellent!
Sam: I appreciate your careful, close, and generous reading as ever--thank you, thank you, thank you.
"dogs' gods" is plentifully grotesque and noirish (comic or no). I think I prefaced this selection with it to contrast its absurdist reality with the domestic Dylan/Caitlin piece. (Rilke's "Panther" remains one of my all-time favorites.)
"walks from to walks to" was enough of a challenge to put together, so if it poses any challenge to readers . . . GOOD!
Thank you again, Sam, for your patient and careful reading, grazie!
Matvei: welcome and thanks aplenty!
While I cannot account for your attribution of "sublimity" to anything I've written, don't let me stop you (!). Certo, I am pleased and gratified with your response, thank you, thank you, and thank you. (Keep this in mind, too: your Russian is far better than mine!)
Bill: grazie i spasibo! (Hope you're well and stay well, too.)
Bill's observation inspired me to continue revisiting those two closing lines. "Walk" now ties in with the title but may pose no other improvement.