Anne Sexton
(1928 - 1975)
INDEX:
LINKS:
Sites with many poems ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
"18 days without you" (poemas)
John Mitchell Site - 14 poemas
Anne Sexton lendo os seus poemas ◙ ◙
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eight years old
When he was
a little boy
Yesterday I
found a purple crocus
It is
special
Who are we
anyhow?
Alleluia
they sing.
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PASQUA PROTESTANTE
a otto anni |
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God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.
God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.
The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.
He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.
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La terra
Senza immagine
Dio vaga in paradiso
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Some women marry houses.
It's another kind of skin; it has a heart,
a mouth, a liver and bowel movements.
The walls are permanent and pink.
See how she sits on her knees all day,
faithfully washing herself down.
Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah
into their fleshy mothers.
A woman is her mother.
That's the main thing.
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Casalinga
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The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
Take for instance this night, my love,
I break out of my body this way,
Then my black-eyed rival came.
She took you the way a women takes
The boys and girls are one tonight.
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La ballata della masturbatrice solitariaLa fine della tresca è sempre morte. Lei è la mia bottega. Viscido occhio, sfuggito alla tribù di me stessa l’ansimo non ti ritrova. Fo orrore a chi mi sta a guardare. Che banchetto! Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Dito dopo dito, eccola, è mia. E’ lei il mio rendez-vu. Non è lontana. La batacchio come una campana. Mi chino Nel boudoir dove eri solito montarla. M’hai preso a nolo sul fiorito copriletto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Metti ad esempio, stanotte, amor mio, che ogni coppia s’accoppia rivoltolandosi, di sopra, di sotto, in ginocchio s’affronta spingendo su spugna e piume l’abbondante duetto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Così evado dal corpo, un miracolo irritante. Come posso mettere in mostra il mercato dei sogni? Son sparpagliata. Mi crocefiggo. Mia piccola prugna è quel che m’hai detto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Poi venne lei, la rivale occhi neri. Signora dell’acqua si staglia sulla spiaggia, con un pianoforte in punta di dita, parole flautate e pudore su labbra. Mentre io, gambe a X, sembro lo scopetto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Lei ti prese come una donna prende Un vestito a saldo dall’attaccapanni, e io mi spezzai come si spezza un sasso. Ti rendo i libri e la roba da pesca. Ti sei sposato, il giornale l’ha detto. Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
Ragazzi e ragazze son tutt’uno stanotte. Sbottonan camicette, calano cerniere, si levan le scarpe, spengono la luce. Le creature raggianti sono piene di bugie. Si mangiano a vicenda. Che gran banchetto! Di notte, da sola, mi sposo col letto.
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The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
Take for instance this night, my love,
I break out of my body this way,
Then my black-eyed rival came.
She took you the way a women takes
The boys and girls are one tonight.
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LA BALADA DE LA MASTURBADORA SOLITARIA
Al final del asunto siempre es la muerte.
Dedo a dedo, ahora es mía.
Toma, por ejemplo, esta noche, amor mío,
De esta forma escapo de mi cuerpo,
Entonces llegó mi rival de ojos oscuros.
Ella te agarró como una mujer agarra
Muchachos y muchachas son uno esta noche.
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The correct
death is written in.
A subway
train is
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EL ASESINO
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We are
America.
America,
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LOS BOMBARDEROS
La bomba se abre como una caja de zapatos.
¿Dónde están tus méritos, |
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Oh you brown
bacon machine, in the closet of my mind and count hogs in a pen, brown, spotted, white, pink, black, moving on the shuttle toward death just as my mind moves over for its own little death.
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CERDO
Por la noche estoy tendida en mi cama
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SONG FOR A RED NIGHTGOWN
No. Not really red, but the color of a rose when it bleeds. It's a lost flamingo, called somewhere Schiaparelli Pink but not meaning pink, but blood and those candy store cinnamon hearts. It moves like capes in the unflawed villages in Spain. Meaning a fire layer and underneath, like a petal, a sheath of pink, clea as a stone.
So I mean a nightgown of two colors and of two layers that float from the shoulders across every zone. For years the moth has longed for them but these colors are bounded by silence and animals, half hidden but browsing. One could think of feathers and not know it at all. One could think of whores and not imagine the way of a swan. One could imagine the cloth of a bee and touch its hair and come close.
The bed is ravaged by such sweet sights. The girl is. The girl drifts up out of her nightgown and its color. Her wings are fastened onto her shoulders like bandages. The butterfly owns her now. It covers her and her wounds. She is not terrified of begonias or telegrams but surely this nightgown girl, this awesome flyer, has not seen how the moon floats through her and in between.
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VERSI PER UNA CAMICIA DA NOTTE ROSSA
No, non proprio rossa, ma del colore di una rosa che sanguina. E' un fenicottero sperduto, da qualche parte detto Rosa Schiaparelli e non direi rosa, ma color sangue caramella cuoricini di cannella. Ondeggia come mantelli negli impeccabili villaggi di Spagna. Direi una falda di fuoco e disotto, come un petalo, una guaina rosa, tersa come pietra.
Direi una camicia da notte di due colori e di due falde che fluttuano dalle spalle le membra fasciando. Per anni la tarma li ha bramati ma questi colori sono cinti da silenzio e animali larvati ma brucanti. Si potrebbe immaginare piume e non averne cognizione. Si potrebbe pensare alle puttane e non figurarsi le movenze di un cigno. Si potrebbe immaginare il tessuto di un'ape, toccarne i peluzzi e avvicinarsi all'idea.
Il letto è devastato da tali dolci visioni. La ragazza è. La ragazza spicca aleggiando dalla camicia da notte e dal suo colore. Ha le ali legate sulle spalle come bendaggi. Adesso la farfalla la possiede, copre lei e le sue ferite. Non l'atterriscono begonie o telegrammi ma certo questa camicia da notte ragazza, questa mirabile creatura alata, non si avvede di come la luna l'attraversi fra due falde galleggiando.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie d’amore.
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The night of my cousin's wedding I wore blue. I was nineteen and we danced, Father, we orbited. We moved like angels washing themselves. We moved like two birds on fire. Then we moved like the sea in a jar, slower and slower. The orchestra played "Oh how we danced on the night we were wed." And you waltzed me like a lazy Susan and we were dear, very dear. Now that you are laid out, useless as a blind dog, now that you no longer lurk, the song rings in my head. Pure oxygen was the champagne we drank and clicked our glasses, one to one. The champagne breathed like a skin diver and the glasses were crystal and the bride and groom gripped each other in sleep like nineteen-thirty marathon dancers. Mother was a belle and danced with twenty men. You danced with me never saying a word. Instead the serpent spoke as you held me close. The serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me like a great god and we bent together like two lonely swans.
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COME BALLAVAMO
La sera del matrimonio di mio cugino ero vestita di blu. Avevo diciannov'anni e ballammo, Padre, andammo in orbita. Un movimento ondulato come d'angeli in vasca da bagno l'ondeggiamento di due uccelli infuocati l'ondeggìo lento del mare in bottiglia, sempre più lentamente ondulante. L'orchestra suonava "Come ballavamo la sera delle nostre nozze", nelle volute del walzer mi portavi rigirandomi come la mensola in cucina, ed eravamo cari, tanto cari. Ora che sei rigido inutile come un cane cieco, ora che non puoi più scrutarmi, la canzone mi risuona nella testa. Puro ossigeno fu lo champagne che bevemmo e il tintinnìo dei bicchieri nel nostro cin cin. Lo champagne respirava come un sub e i bicchieri furono cristallo e la sposa e lo sposo avvinghiati nel sonno, come una coppia alle vecchie maratone danzanti. Mamma ballò con venti uomini, faceva la bellona. Tu ballavi solo con me, senza dire una parola. Ma il serpente parlò quando m'hai stretta più forte. Quel serpente, beffardo si destò al contatto s'eresse come un grande dio. E noi, l'una dell'altro i colli reclini attorcigliammo come due cigni solitari.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in L’estrosa abbondanza.
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My God, my God, what queer corner am I in? Didn't I die, blood running down the post, lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost? Surely my body is done? Surely I died? And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this? Cold and queer, I sting with life. I lied. Yes, I lied. Or else in some damned cowardice my body would not give me up. I touch fine cloth with my hands and my cheeks are cold. If this is hell, then hell could not be much, neither as special nor as ugly as I was told.
What's that I hear, snuffling and pawing its way toward me? Its tongue knocks a pebble out of place as it slides in, a sovereign. How can I pray? It is panting; it is an odor with a face like the skin of a donkey. It laps my sores. It is hurt, I think, as I touch its little head. It bleeds. I have forgiven murderers and whores and now I must wait like old Jonah, not dead nor alive, stroking a clumsy animal. A rat. His teeth test me; he waits like a good cook, knowing his own ground. I forgive him that, as I forgave my Judas the money he took.
Now I hold his soft red sore to my lips as his brothers crowd in, hairy angels who take my gift. My ankles are a flute. I lose hips and wrists. For three days, for love's sake, I bless this other death. Oh, not in air - in dirt. Under the rotting veins of its roots, under the markets, under the sheep bed where the hill is food, under the slippery fruits of the vineyard, I go. Unto the bellies and jaws of rats I commit my prophecy and fear. Far below The Cross, I correct its flaws. We have kept the miracle. I will not be here.
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NEL PROFONDO MUSEO
Dio, Dio mio, in che angolo strano mi sono cacciata? Sono morta o no? Il sangue che scorre dal palo, i polmoni in affanno, morta per le peccata di tutti, dalla bocca amara l'anima mia esalo? Sicuro, sono morta? Veramente il corpo è andato? Eppure, lo so, ci sono. Ma dove sono qua? Freddo e strano, sono infernetichita. Ho simulato. Sì, simulato, o per stramaledetta viltà il mio corpo non mi ha renduta. Allora tocco fra le mani l'abitino e le guance infreddolite. Se questo è l'inferno, l'inferno mi par poco, né così tipico né così brutto come dite.
Cos'è quella cosa che mi sento grufando raspare vicino? La lingua che scosta un sassolino e lo boccia mentre scivola dentro sovrana. Come faccio a pregare? Sta ansimando, è un odore con una faccia che sembra pelle d'asino. Mi slappa le ferute. Mentre tocco la sua testolina: è ferito, deduco. Sanguina. Ho perdonato assassini e prostitute e ora aspetto come il vecchio Giona non già deceduto né vivo, carezzando una bestia maldestra. Un ratto. Mi assaggia coi denti, con la pazienza di una cuoca che sa a mente la ricetta. Gli perdòno ciò che ha fatto come perdonassi il mio Giuda per i soldi che cucca.
Ora porto alle labbra le sue rosse tenere piaghe. Ai suoi fratelli, turba di angeli pelosi, mi sacrifico. Ho caviglie scanalate, perdo fianchi anche e polsi. Per tre giorni un'altra morte santifico, per amor dell'amore. Oh, non in aere, in polvere. Sotto le vene marce delle sue radici, sotto i mercati, sotto un letto di pecore dove collina è cibo, sotto i frutti fradici della vigna, io scendo. Dentro mascelle e panze di ratti rimetto la mia profezia e l'orrore. Molto sotto la Croce, correggo le sue deficienze. Abbiamo mantenuto il miracolo. Per ancora poche ore.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio.
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FOR THE YEAR OF THE INSANE
a prayer
O Mary, fragile mother, hear me, hear me now although I do not know your words. The black rosary with its silver Christ lies unblessed in my hand for I am the unbeliever. Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, a small black angel. O Mary, permit me this grace, this crossing over, although I am ugly, submerged in my own past and my own madness. Although there are chairs I lie on the floor. Only my hands are alive, touching beads. Word for word, I stumble. A beginner, I feel your mouth touch mine.
I count beads as waves, hammering in upon me. I am ill at their numbers, sick, sick in the summer heat and the window above me is my only listener, my awkward being. She is a large taker, a soother. The giver of breath she murmurs, exhaling her wide lung like an enormous fish.
Closer and closer comes the hour of my death as I rearrange my face, grow back, grow undeveloped and straight-haired. All this is death. In the mind there is a thin alley called death and I move through it as through water. My body is useless. It lies, curled like a dog on the carpet. It has given up. There are no words here except the half-learned, the Hail Mary and the full of grace. Now I have entered the year without words. I note the queer entrance and the exact voltage. Without words they exist. Without words one may touch bread and be handed bread and make no sound.
O Mary, tender physician, come with powders and herbs for I am in the center. It is very small and the air is gray as in a steam house. I am handed wine as a child is handed milk. It is presented in a delicate glass with a round bowl and a thin lip. The wine itself is pitch-colored, musty and secret. The glass rises on its own toward my mouth and I notice this and understand this only because it has happened. I have this fear of coughing but I do not speak, a fear of rain, a fear of the horseman who comes riding into my mouth. The glass tilts in on its own and I am on fire. I see two thin streaks burn down my chin. I see myself as one would see another. I have been cut in two.
O Mary, open your eyelids. I am in the domain of silence, the kingdom of the crazy and the sleeper. There is blood here and I have eaten it. O mother of the womb, did I come for blood alone? O little mother, I am in my own mind. I am locked in the wrong house.
August 1963
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PER L'ANNO DELLA DEMENZA
preghiera
O Maria, fragile madre, adesso ascoltami, ascoltami adesso anche se non capisco le tue parole. Un rosario nero con Cristo d'argento si adagia fra le mie mani, si sconsacra perché io non ci credo. Ogni grano è rotondo e duro fra le dita, un angioletto nero. O Maria, concedimi la grazia di questa conversione, anche se sono brutta, anche se sono sommersa dalla pazzia, dal mio passato. Ho anche le sedie ma mi sdraio per terra. Sono vive solo le mani che toccano i grani. Snocciolando parole la lingua s'intreccia. Una principiante: la mia bocca aderisce alla tua, lo sento.
Come le onde mi schiaffeggiano i grani che conto derelitta, nella calura estiva, derelitta, la conta mi ammorba e la finestra che mi sovrasta è la sola che ascolta il mio ciocco di carne che borbotta. E' la consolatrice e elargisce. Come un pesce enorme dona il respiro e esalano i polmoni, mormorando.
S'avvicina, s'avvicina l'ora della mia morte mentre mi rifaccio il trucco e torno come prima come prima dello sviluppo, quando portavo i capelli lisci. E' così la morte. C'è nella mente il Viuzzo Morte ed io ci sguazzo. Il mio corpo è inutile. Si arrende. Come una cagna sullo stoìno acciambellata, inerte. Qui non ci sono parole, tranne l'imparaticcio avemmariapienadigrazia. E ecco entro nell'anno senza parola. L'entrata è assurda ed esatto il voltaggio. Esistono senza parola. Senza parole si può toccare e ricevere il pane senza fare nemmeno un suono.
O Maria, tenera medichessa, portami polveri e erbe perché sono esattamente nel cuore. E' troppo piccolo e l'aria è grigia come fossi in una casa a pressione. Mi versano vino come si versa latte a un bambino, offerto in un delicato bicchiere dalla coppa rotonda e dal bordo sottile, un vino impeciato che sa di stantìo e di segreto. Il bicchiere si solleva e s'avvicina alla bocca da solo. E io lo vedo e lo capisco Solo perché è successo. Ho paura, paura di tossire ma non dico niente, paura della pioggia e del cavaliere che galoppa e s'avvicina per entrarmi in bocca. Il bicchiere s'inclina da solo e io prendo fuoco. Vedo due rivoli sottili colare bruciandomi il mento. Vedo me stessa spezzata in due. Un'altra e me stessa.
O Maria, sbatti le palpebre. Sono nel dominio del silenzio, nel reame dormiente dei pazzi. Qui c'è il sangue, e l'ho mangiato. O madre dell'utero, sono venuta qui solo per il sangue? O mammina, sono dentro della mia mente. Sono rinchiusa nella casa sbagliata.
Agosto 1963
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio |
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Up from oysters and the confused weeds, out from the tears of God, the wounding tides, he came. He became a hunter of roots and breathed like a man. He ruffled through the grasses and became known to the sky. I stood close and watched it all. Beg pardon, he said but you have skin divers, you have hooks and nets, so why shouldn't I enter your element for a moment? Though it is curious here, unusually awkward to walk. It is without grace. There is no rhythm in this country of dirt.
And I said to him: From some country that I have misplaced I can recall a few things... but the light of the kitchen gets in the way. Yet there was a dance when I kneaded the bread there was a song my mother used to sing... And the salt of God's belly where I floated in a cup of darkness. I long for your country, fish.
The fish replied: You must be a poet, a lady of evil luck desiring to be what you are not, longing to be what you can only visit.
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IL PESCE CHE CAMMINAVA
Da valve d’ostriche e da scompiglio d’alghe, dalle lacrime di Dio, da maree che sfigurano, egli venne. Un cacciatore di radici divenne e respirava come un umano. Scarmigliato uscì dalle sterpaglie e fu conosciuto dal cielo. Io gli stavo appresso e lo guardavo. Chiedo scusa, disse, ma tra di voi ci sono i subacquei, avete ami e reti, allora perché io non dovrei entrare nel vostro elemento per un momento? Anche se camminare qui è strano e mi sento insolitamente goffo, e sgraziato. Non c'è ritmo in questo paese di polvere.
Ed io gli dissi: di un certo paese da cui fui smarrita posso rievocare qualcosa... ma la luce di cucina intanto l'impedisce. Eppure c'era una danza quando impastavo il pane, c'era una canzone che mia madre soleva cantare... E il sale della pancia di Dio dove galleggiavo in una tazza di tenebre. Ho nostalgia del tuo paese, pesce.
E il pesce replicò: tu devi essere una poetessa, una signora di mala fortuna, che desidera essere quel che non è, che si strugge per essere soltanto una figura.
Traduzione di Rosaria Lo Russo, in Poesie su Dio |
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For the Year of the Insane
a prayer
Closer and
closer
O Mary,
tender physician,
I have this
fear of coughing
O Mary, open
your eyelids.
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PER L'ANNO DEI
FOLLI preghiera
"O Maria,
fragile madre,
Conto i grani
come se fossero onde
Sempre più
vicina
O Maria, tenero
medico, vieni con polveri ed erbe
Io ho questa
paura di tossire
O Maria, apri
le tue palpebre,
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My faith is a great weight hung on a small wire, as doth the spider hang her baby on a thin web, as doth the vine, twiggy and wooden, hold up grapes like eyeballs, as many angels dance on the head of a pin.
God does not need too much wire to keep Him there, just a thin vein, with blood pushing back and forth in it, and some love. As it has been said: Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love. So if you have only a thin wire, God does not mind. He will enter your hands as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. |
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I am not
lazy.
Oh angels,
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Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward
Child, the
current of your breath is six days long.
Down the
hall the baskets start back. My arms
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1.
I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I'd never get you back again.
I tell you what you'll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.
I, who chose two times
to kill myself, had said your nickname
the mewling mouths when you first came;
until a fever rattled
in your throat and I moved like a pantomine
above your head. Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame,
I heard them say, was mine. They tattled
like green witches in my head, letting doom
leak like a broken faucet;
as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet,
an old debt I must assume.
Death was simpler than I'd thought.
The day life made you well and whole
I let the witches take away my guilty soul.
I pretended I was dead
until the white men pumped the poison out,
putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole
of talking boxes and the electric bed.
I laughed to see the private iron in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
go queer. You ask me where they go I say today believed
in itself, or else it fell.
Today, my small child, Joyce,
love your self's self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow's white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.
The time I did not love
myself, I visited your shoveled walks; you held my glove.
There was new snow after this.
2.
They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn't leave. I had my portrait
done instead.
Part way back from Bedlam
I came to my mother's house in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. And this is how I came
to catch at her; and this is how I lost her.
I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.
And she never could. She had my portrait
done instead.
I lived like an angry guest,
like a partly mended thing, an outgrown child.
I remember my mother did her best.
She took me to Boston and had my hair restyled.
Your smile is like your mother's, the artist said.
I didn't seem to care. I had my portrait
done instead.
There was a church where I grew up
with its white cupboards where they locked us up,
row by row, like puritans or shipmates
singing together. My father passed the plate.
Too late to be forgiven now, the witches said.
I wasn't exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.
3.
All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.
They hung my portrait in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn't answer.
4.
That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells' arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.
During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.
I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
nothing sweet to spare
with witches at my side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.
5.
I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts's okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.
All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cocktails as a wife
should, made love among my petticoats
and August tan. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid
stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the sea,
and two portraits hung on the opposite walls.
6.
In north light, my smile is held in place,
the shadow marks my bone.
What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,
all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone
of the smile, the young face,
the foxes' snare.
In south light, her smile is held in place,
her cheeks wilting like a dry
orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown
love, my first image. She eyes me from that face
that stony head of death
I had outgrown.
The artist caught us at the turning;
we smiled in our canvas home
before we chose our foreknown separate ways.
The dry redfur fox coat was made for burning.
I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.
And this was the cave of the mirror,
that double woman who stares
at herself, as if she were petrified
in time -- two ladies sitting in umber chairs.
You kissed your grandmother
and she cried.
7.
I could not get you back
except for weekends. You came
each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn't the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.
I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.
You came like an awkward guest
that first time, all wrapped and moist
and strange at my heavy breast.
I needed you. I didn't want a boy,
only a girl, a small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself. We named you Joy.
I, who was never quite sure
about being a girl, needed another
life, another image to remind me.
And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure
or soothe it. I made you to find me.
|
|
|
For my lover, returning to his wife
She is all there.
She has always been there, my darling.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
done this with her legs spread out
She has also carried each one down the hall
I give you back your heart.
for the fuse inside her, throbbing
for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
the curious call
She is so naked and singular
As for me, I am a watercolor.
|
Al mio amante che torna da sua moglie
Lei è tutta là.
Lei è sempre
stata là, mio caro.
Diciamocelo,
sono stata di passaggio.
Lei è molto di
più. Lei ti è dovuta,
ha messo
fiorellini sul davanzale a colazione,
l'ha fatto a
gambe spalancate
Lei li ha anche
portati a nanna dopo cena,
Ti restituisco
il cuore.
al fusibile che
in lei rabbiosamente pulsa,
al pallido
bagliore tremolante sotto le costole,
lo strano
richiamo
Lei è così
nuda, è unica.
Quanto a me, io
sono un acquerello. |
|
The Starry Night
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word
-- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. |
Notte stellata
La città non
esiste
|
YOUNG
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
Clover wrinkling over me,
The wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
|
Giovane
Mille porte fa,
|
|
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
|
Una come lei
In giro sono andata, strega posseduta Ossessa ho abitato l'aria nera, padrona della notte; sognando malefici, ho fatto il mio mestiere passando sulle case, luce dopo luce: solitaria e folle, con dodici dita. Una donna così non è una donna.
Come lei io
sono stata. Ho trovato nei boschi tiepide caverne, e pentole e amuleti, tavole e armadietti, infinità di oggetti e sete ho ammassato; per elfi e vermi cene ho preparato: mugolando ho sistemato le cose fuori posto. Una donna così non è capita. Come lei sono stata.
Sul tuo carro, o cocchiere, son salita, a braccia nude ho salutato paesi che passavano, e le ultime strade luminose, ho conosciuto, sopravvissuta alle tue fiamme che ancora rompono le gambe e alle tue ruote che ancora rompono le ossa. Una donna così non ha vergogna di morire. Come lei io sono stata.
|
|
Her kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
|
Tipo essa
Saí, bruxa possuída,
Com autorização da tradutora, Lavínia, reproduzo a tradução para Português encontrada aqui. Agradecido! |
|
Her kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
|
He salido al mundo, una bruja poseída, rondando el aire negro, más valiente por ello; soñando el mal, he sobrevolado las casas planas, de luz en luz: pobre solitaria, con mis 12 dedos, enajenada. Una mujer así no es una mujer, lo sé. Yo he sido de ésas.
He encontrado las cuevas tibias del bosque, las he llenado de sartenes, tallas, estantes, de armarios, sedas, de incontables bienes; he preparado la cena de los gusanos y los elfos: llorando, aullando, ordenando lo que estaba mal. A una mujer así no se la comprende. Yo he sido de ésas.
He viajado contigo, carretero, saludando con los brazos desnudos a los pueblos que pasaban, aprendiéndome las últimas rutas de la claridad, superviviente allí donde tus llamas aún muerden mis muslos y crujen mis costillas bajo la presión de tu carreta. Una mujer así no se avergüenza de morir. Yo he sido de ésas. |
|
Sleepmonger, deathmonger, with capsules in my palms each night, eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. I'm the queen of this condition. I'm an expert on making the trip and now they say I'm an addict. Now they ask why. WHY!
Don't they know that I promised to die! I'm keping in practice. I'm merely staying in shape. The pills are a mother, but better, every color and as good as sour balls. I'm on a diet from death.
Yes, I admit it has gotten to be a bit of a habit- blows eight at a time, socked in the eye, hauled away by the pink, the orange, the green and the white goodnights. I'm becoming something of a chemical mixture. that's it!
My supply of tablets has got to last for years and years. I like them more than I like me. It's a kind of marriage. It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside of myself.
Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupatin. Actually I'm hung up on it. But remember I don't make too much noise. And frankly no one has to lug me out and I don't stand there in my winding sheet. I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie eating my eight loaves in a row and in a certain order as in the laying on of hands or the black sacrament.
It's a ceremony but like any other sport it's full of rules. It's like a musical tennis match where my mouth keeps catching the ball. Then I lie on; my altar elevated by the eight chemical kisses.
What a lay me down this is with two pink, two orange, two green, two white goodnights. Fee-fi-fo-fum- Now I'm borrowed. Now I'm numb.
|
A viciada
Patroa da morte,
Com autorização da tradutora, Lavínia, reproduzo a tradução para Português encontrada aqui. Agradecido! |
SUICIDE NOTE
"You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is
"At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers
to my daughters and their daughters" - Anonymous
Better,
June 1965
|
BILHETE SUICIDA
Você me fala de narcisismo, mas eu respondo que é uma questão da minha vida... Artaud
Nesta hora, permita-me deixar de alguma maneira as sobras para minhas filhas e suas filhas... Anónimo
É melhor, apesar dos vermes falando com os cascos da égua no campo; é melhor, apesar do período das moças pingando seu sangue; é melhor de algum jeito eu me jogar rápido num velho quarto. É melhor (alguém disse) não nascer é melhor ainda não nascer duas vezes aos treze onde o colégio interno, cada ano um quarto, pegou fogo.
Querido amigo, Vou ter que afundar com centenas de outros num elevador de pratos para o inferno. Vou ser uma coisa leve. Vou entrar na morte como a lente de aumento perdida de alguém. A vida está meio aumentada. Os peixes e as corujas estão raivosos hoje. A vida balança pra frente e pra trás. Nem as vespas conseguem achar meus olhos.
Sim, olhos que já foram imediatos olhos que já foram despertos de verdade, olhos que contavam a história toda _ pobres animais burros. Olhos que foram vazados, cabecinhas de prego, tiros azul-claro.
E uma vez com a boca como uma xícara, cor de argila ou cor de sangue, abriam como uma barragem para o oceano perdido e abriam como a forca para a primeira cabeça.
Uma vez minha fome era de Jesus. Ah minha fome! Minha fome! Antes de ficar velho ele andou calmamente por Jerusalém procurando a morte.
Desta vez com certeza não peço compreensão e ainda espero que todos os outros se voltem quando um peixe não-treinado pular na superfície do Lago Echo; quando o luar, sua nota grave elevada, ferir algum prédio em Boston, quando os belos de verdade jazerem juntos. Eu penso nisso, claro, e pensaria nisso muito mais se não estivesse... se não estivesse naquele velho fogo.
Eu poderia admitir que sou só uma covarde choramingando eu eu eu sem mencionar as mosquinhas, as traças, obrigadas pelas circunstâncias a chupar a lâmpada. Mas certamente você sabe que todo mundo tem uma morte, sua própria morte, esperando. Então vou agora, sem doença ou velhice, descontrolada mas precisa, sabendo minha melhor rota, andando naquele burro de brinquedo que montei esses anos todos, sem jamais perguntar “Pra onde vamos?” Nós íamos (ah, se eu soubesse) Pra isso.
Querido amigo, por favor não pense que eu visualizo guitarras tocando ou meu pai arqueando seu osso. Não espero nem a boca da minha mãe. Eu sei que já morri antes _ uma vez em Novembro, outra em Junho. Que estranho escolher Junho de novo, tão concreto com seus peitos e ventres verdes. Claro que as guitarras não vão tocar! As cobras certamente não notarão. Nova York não vai ligar. À noite, os morcegos vão bater nas árvores, sabendo de tudo, vendo o que sentiram o dia todo.
Reproduzo aqui a tradução da Lavínia, que por ela gentilmente me foi enviada. Muito obrigado! |
SYLVIA’S DEATH
for Sylvia Plath .
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with two children, two meteors
with your mouth into the sheet,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
what did you stand by,
Thief --
crawl down alone
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we talked of so often each time
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death we drank to,
(In Boston
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
how we wanted to let him come
to do his job,
and since that time he waited
and I see now that we store him up
and I know at the news of your death
(And me,
And I say only
what is your death
a mole that fell out
(O friend,
O tiny mother, |
Menstruation at Forty
|
|
What is reality? I am a plaster doll; I pose with eyes that cut open without landfall or nightfall upon some shellacked and grinning person, eyes that open, blue, steel, and close. Am I approximately an I. Magnin transplant? I have hair, black angel, black-angel-stuffing to comb, nylon legs, luminous arms and some advertised clothes.
I live in a doll’s house with four chairs, a counterfeit table, a flat roof and a big front door. Many have come to such a small crossroad. There is an iron bed, (life enlarges, life takes aim) a cardboard floor, windows that flash open on someone’s city, and little more.
Someone plays with me, plants me in the all-electric kitchen, Is this what Mrs. Rombauer said? Someone pretends with me – I am walled in solid by their noise – or puts me upon their straight bed. They think I am me! Their warmth? Their warmth is not a friend! They pry my mouth for their cups of gin and their stale bread.
What is reality to this synthetic doll who should smile, who should shift gears, should spring the doors open in a wholesome disorder, and have no evidence of ruin or fears? But I would cry, rooted into the wall that was once my mother, if I could remember how and of I had the tears.
June 1958 – June 1965
|
|
Fear of drowning, fear of being that alone, kept me busy making a deal as if I could buy my way out of it and it worked for two years and all of July.
This August I began to dream of drowning. The dying went on and on in water as white and clear as the gin I drink each day at half-past five. Going down for the last time, the last breath lying, I grapple with eels like ropes – it’s ether, it’s queer and then, at last, it’s done. Now the scavengers arrive, the hard crawlers who come to élan up the ocean floor. And death, that old butcher, will bother me no more.
I had never had this dream before except twice when my parents clung to rafts and sat together for death, frozen like lewd photographs.
Who listens to dreams? Only symbols for something – like money for the analyst or your mother’s wig, the arm I almost lost in the washroom wringer, following fear to its core, tugging the old string. But real drowning is for someone else. It’s too big to put in your mouth on purpose, it puts hot singers in your tongue and vomit in your nose as your lungs break. Tossed like a wet dog by that juggler, you die awake.
Fear, a motor, pumps me around and around until I fade slowly and the crowd laughs. I fade out, and old bicycle rider whose odds are measured in actuary graphs.
This weekend the papers were black with the new highway fatalities and in Boston the strangler found another victim and we were all in Truro drinking beer and writing checks. The other rode the surf, commanding rafts like sleighs. I swam – but the tide came in like ten thousand orgasms. I swam – but the waves were higher than horses’ necks. I was shut up in that closet, until, biting the door, they dragged me out, dribbling urine on the gritty shore.
Breathe! And you’ll know… an ant in a pot of chocolate, it boils and surrounds you. There is no news in fear but in the end it’s fear that drowns you.
September 1962
|
|
Live or die, but don't poison everything...
Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch!
Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll.
Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer.
Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes.
Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed.
O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.
February the last, 1966
|
My Friend, My Friend
Who will
forgive me for the things I do? |
|
My mouth blooms like a cut.
Before today my body was useless.
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like |
Il bacio
La bocca sboccia come un taglio.
Prima d'oggi il mio corpo era inutile.
Un Tempo era una barca piuttost legnosa,
I nervi sono accesi. Ascolto gli strumenti.
Puro genio all'opera. Caro, il compositore |
|
The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut.
Before today my body was useless.
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like |
Mi boca florece como una herida. He estado equivocada todo el año, tediosas noches, nada sino ásperos codos en ellos y delicadas cajas de Kleenex, llamando llora bebé ¡llora bebé, tonto!
Antes de ayer mi cuerpo estaba inútil. Ahora está desgarrándose en sus rincones cuadrados. Está desgarrando los vestidos de la Vieja Mary, nudo anudo y mira, ahora está bombardeada con esos eléctricos cerrojos. ¡Zing! ¡Una resurrección!
Una vez fue un bote, bastante madera y sin trabajo, sin agua salada debajo y necesitando un poco de pintura. No había más que un conjunto de tablas. Pero la elevaste, la encordaste. Ella ha sido elegida.
Mis nervios están encendidos. Los oigo como instrumentos musicales. Donde había silencio los tambores, las cuerdas están tocando irremediablemente. Tú hiciste esto. Puro genio trabajando. Querido, el compositor ha entrado al fuego. |
|
Notice how he has numbered the blue veins in my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles. Now he goes left. Now he goes right. He is building a city, a city of flesh. He's an industrialist. He has starved in cellars and, ladies and gentlemen, he's been broken by iron, by the blood, by the metal, by the triumphant iron of his mother's death. But he begins again. Now he constructs me. He is consumed by the city. From the glory of words he has built me up. From the wonder of concrete he has molded me. He has given me six hundred street signs. The time I was dancing he built a museum. He built ten blocks when I moved on the bed. He constructed an overpass when I left. I gave him flowers and he built an airport. For traffic lights he handed at red and green lollipops. Yet in my heart I am go children slow. |
Signor Mine
Osservate come mi ha contato le vene azzurre |
|
On the southwest side of Capri we found a little unknown grotto where no people were and we entered it completely and let our bodies lose all their loneliness.
All the fish in us had escaped for a minute. The real fish did not mind. We did not disturb their personal life. We calmly trailed over them and under them, shedding air bubbles, little white balloons that drifted up into the sun by the boat where the Italian boatman slept with his hat over his face.
Water so clear you could read a book through it. Water so buoyant you could float on your elbow. I lay on it as on a divan. I lay on it just like Matisse's Red Odalisque. Water was my strange flower, one must picture a woman without a toga or a scarf on a couch as deep as a tomb.
The walls of that grotto were everycolor blue and you said, "Look! Your eyes are seacolor. Look! Your eyes are skycolor." And my eyes shut down as if they were suddenly ashamed.
|
Natanti nudi
Guizzarono via
in un momento
Acqua così
limpida da poterci
Le pareti della
grotta
|
When Man Enters Woman
When man, |
Quando l’uomo entra nella donna
Quando l’uomo
Quest’uomo e questa donna
|
|
I was
the one who
kept saying-
the one
the one
as soft and delicate as
April 19, 1963. |
Ero la ragazza
della catena di S. Antonio,
Quella con il
bavero
la ragazza che
si addormentava sempre,
tenera e
delicata come
|
|
An Obsessive Combination Of Ontological Inscape, Trickery And Love
|
|
Since you ask, most days I cannot remember. I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage. Then the almost unnameable lust returns.
Even then I have nothing against life. I know well the grass blades you mention, the furniture you have placed under the sun.
But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.
Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic.
In this way, heavy and thoughtful, warmer than oil or water, I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.
I did not think of my body at needle point. Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone. Suicides have already betrayed the body.
Still-born, they don't always die, but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet that even children would look on and smile.
To thrust all that life under your tongue!-- that, all by itself, becomes a passion. Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,
and yet she waits for me, year after year, to so delicately undo an old wound, to empty my breath from its bad prison.
Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet, raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon, leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,
leaving the page of the book carelessly open, something unsaid, the phone off the hook and the love, whatever it was, an infection. |
DESEANDO MORIR
Ahora que lo preguntas, la mayor parte de los días no consigo recordar. algo sin decir, el teléfono descolgado y el amor, lo que quiera que haya sido, una infección
|
|
Kind Sir: These Woods
For a man
needs only to be turned around once
Kind Sir:
This is an old game
Kind Sir:
Lost and of your same kind |
Amable señor, este bosque
Amable señor: le voy a contar un juego antiguo que jugábamos a los ocho y a los diez. A veces, en La Isla, al sur de Maine, a finales de agosto, cuando desde alta mar llegaba la niebla fría, el bosque entre Dingley Dell y la cabaña del abuelo se ponía blanco, raro. Era como si cada pino fuera un poste desconocido; como si el día se convirtiera en noche y los murciélagos volaran hacia el sol. Nos divertía dar una vuelta y, ¡ya!, saber que estabas perdida; saber que el cuerno del cuervo sonaba en la oscuridad, saber que nunca llegaría la cena, que el alarido maldito de la lejana sirena decía tu tata se ha marchado para siempre. Oh, señorita, la barca ha volcado. Y entonces estabas muerta. Gira una vez, los ojos apretados, pensando en eso.
Amable señor: perdida y de su misma naturaleza, he dado dos vueltas, con los ojos bien cerrados, y los bosques eran blancos y mi mente nocturna vio cosas tan extrañas, innombradas, irreales. Y al abrir los ojos, me da miedo mirar (con esta mirada interior que tanto desprecia la sociedad). Aun así, busco en estos bosques y no encuentro nada peor que mi imagen, atrapada entre la uvas y las zarzas.
|
|
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
If you danced from midnight to six A.M. who would understand?
The runaway boy who chucks it all to live on the Boston Common on speed and saltines, pissing in the duck pond, rapping with the street priest, trading talk like blows, another missing person, would understand.
The paralytic's wife who takes her love to town, sitting on the bar stool, downing stingers and peanuts, singing "That ole Ace down in the hole," would understand.
The passengers from Boston to Paris watching the movie with dawn coming up like statues of honey, having partaken of champagne and steak while the world turned like a toy globe, those murderers of the nightgown would understand.
The amnesiac who tunes into a new neighborhood, having misplaced the past, having thrown out someone else's credit cards and monogrammed watch, would understand.
The drunken poet (a genius by daylight) who places long-distance calls at three A.M. and then lets you sit holding the phone while he vomits (he calls it "The Night of the Long Knives") getting his kicks out of the death call, would understand.
The insomniac listening to his heart thumping like a June bug, listening on his transistor to Long John Nebel arguing from New York, lying on his bed like a stone table, would understand.
The night nurse with her eyes slit like Venetian blinds, she of the tubes and the plasma, listening to the heart monitor, the death cricket bleeping, she who calls you "we" and keeps vigil like a ballistic missile, would understand.
Once this king had twelve daughters, each more beautiful than the other. They slept together, bed by bed in a kind of girls' dormitory. At night the king locked and bolted the door . How could they possibly escape? Yet each morning their shoes were danced to pieces. Each was as worn as an old jockstrap. The king sent out a proclamation that anyone who could discover where the princesses did their dancing could take his pick of the litter. However there was a catch. If he failed, he would pay with his life. Well, so it goes.
Many princes tried, each sitting outside the dormitory, the door ajar so he could observe what enchantment came over the shoes. But each time the twelve dancing princesses gave the snoopy man a Mickey Finn and so he was beheaded. Poof! Like a basketball.
It so happened that a poor soldier heard about these strange goings on and decided to give it a try. On his way to the castle he met an old old woman. Age, for a change, was of some use. She wasn't stuffed in a nursing home. She told him not to drink a drop of wine and gave him a cloak that would make him invisible when the right time came. And thus he sat outside the dorm. The oldest princess brought him some wine but he fastened a sponge beneath his chin, looking the opposite of Andy Gump.
The sponge soaked up the wine, and thus he stayed awake. He feigned sleep however and the princesses sprang out of their beds and fussed around like a Miss America Contest. Then the eldest went to her bed and knocked upon it and it sank into the earth. They descended down the opening one after the other. They crafty soldier put on his invisisble cloak and followed. Yikes, said the youngest daughter, something just stepped on my dress. But the oldest thought it just a nail.
Next stood an avenue of trees, each leaf make of sterling silver. The soldier took a leaf for proof. The youngest heard the branch break and said, Oof! Who goes there? But the oldest said, Those are the royal trumpets playing triumphantly. The next trees were made of diamonds. He took one that flickered like Tinkerbell and the youngest said: Wait up! He is here! But the oldest said: Trumpets, my dear.
Next they came to a lake where lay twelve boats with twelve enchanted princes waiting to row them to the underground castle. The soldier sat in the youngest's boat and the boat was as heavy as if an icebox had been added but the prince did not suspect.
Next came the ball where the shoes did duty. The princesses danced like taxi girls at Roseland as if those tickets would run right out. They were painted in kisses with their secret hair and though the soldier drank from their cups they drank down their youth with nary a thought.
Cruets of champagne and cups full of rubies. They danced until morning and the sun came up naked and angry and so they returned by the same strange route. The soldier went forward through the dormitory and into his waiting chair to feign his druggy sleep. That morning the soldier, his eyes fiery like blood in a wound, his purpose brutal as if facing a battle, hurried with his answer as if to the Sphinx. The shoes! The shoes! The soldier told. He brought forth the silver leaf, the diamond the size of a plum.
He had won. The dancing shoes would dance no more. The princesses were torn from their night life like a baby from its pacifier. Because he was old he picked the eldest. At the wedding the princesses averted their eyes and sagged like old sweatshirts. Now the runaways would run no more and never again would their hair be tangled into diamonds, never again their shoes worn down to a laugh, never the bed falling down into purgatory to let them climb in after with their Lucifer kicking.
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Las doce princesas danzarinas
Si bailas desde la medianoche hasta las seis a.m., ¿quién lo entendería?
El muchacho fugitivo que rechazó todo por vivir en la comuna de Boston a base de anfetaminas y galletas saladas, orinando en el estanque de patos, robando con el profeta callejero traficando plática como puñetazos, otra persona perdida, lo entendería.
La esposa del paralítico que lleva a su amante a la ciudad, sentándose en el banco de un bar, comiendo stingers y cacahuates, cantando "That ole Ace down in the hole", lo entendería.
Los pasajeros de Boston a París mirando la película con el amanecer acercándose como estatuas de miel, habiendo participado de la champaña y la carne mientras el mundo gira como un globo de juguete, esos asesinos de piyamas lo entenderían.
El amnésico que se ajusta dentro del vecindario nuevo, habiendo extraviado el pasado, habiendo arrojado las tarjetas de crédito y el reloj con monograma de algún otro, lo entendería.
El poeta borracho (un genio durante el día) que hace llamadas de larga distancia a las tres a.m. y entonces te deja sentado deteniendo el auricular mientras vomita (él le llama "La noche de los cuchillos largos") excitándose con el llamado de la muerte, lo entendería.
El insomne escuchando su corazón golpeando como un insecto de junio escuchando en su transistor a Long John Nebel discutiendo desde Nueva York, acostado en la cama como una plancha de acero, lo entendería.
La enfermera de noche con sus ojos abiertos como persianas venecianas, ella la de los tubos y el plasma, escuchando el monitor cardiaco, el grillo de la muerte cantando, ella que te llama "nosotros" y está en vigilia como una bala de misil, lo entendería.
Había una vez un rey que tenía doce hijas, una más bella que la otra. Dormían juntas, cama con cama en una especie de dormitorio para niñas. Por la noche el rey cerraba y pasaba el cerrojo de la puerta. ¿Como era posible que escaparan? Cada mañana sus zapatos estaban desgastados por el baile. Tan usados como un suspensorio viejo. El rey envío la proclamación de que cualquiera que pudiera descubrir dónde iban a bailar las princesas podría tomar a la que quisiera de las literas. De cualquier modo había un detalle. Si fallaban, pagarían con su vida. Bueno, así pasó.
Muchos príncipes probaron, sentándose fuera del dormitorio, la puerta entreabierta para poder observar qué encantamiento se desprendía de los zapatos.
Pero cada vez las doce princesas danzarinas daban al hombre sabueso una Mickey Finn y así era degollado. ¡Puff!, como un balón de basquet. Entonces sucedió que un pobre soldado escuchó sobre estos extraños sucesos y decidió hacer la prueba. En su camino al castillo se encontró con una vieja vieja mujer. Por una vez, envejecer servía de algo. Ella no había sido embutida en un asilo. Le dijo que no tomara una gota de vino y le dio una capa que lo volvería invisible cuando llegará el momento justo. Entonces se sentó fuera del dormitorio. La princesa de mayor edad le trajo un poco de vino pero él amarró una esponja detrás de su barba pareciendo lo opuesto a Andy Gump.
La esponja chupó todo el vino y así él se mantuvo despierto. Sin embargo fingió dormir y las princesas brincaron de sus camas agitándose alrededor como en un concurso de Miss América. Entonces la mayor fue a su cama golpeó encima y ésta se hundió dentro de la tierra. Ellas descendieron por la apertura una tras otra. El astuto soldado se puso su capa invisible y las siguió. ¡Ups!, dijo la princesa más joven, algo traspasó mi vestido. Pero la mayor pensó que había sido un clavo.
Llegaron a una avenida de árboles, cada hoja hecha de plata sterling. El soldado arrancó una hoja como prueba. La más joven escuchó el crujido de la rama y dijo: ¡Uf! ¿Quién anda ahí? Pero la mayor dijo: Son las trompetas reales tocando triunfalmente. Los siguientes árboles estaban hechos de diamantes. Él arrancó uno que refulgía como una campana de latón y la menor dijo: ¡Esperen, él está aquí! Pero la mayor dijo: Trompetas, querida.
Más tarde llegaron a un lago donde flotaban doce botes con doce príncipes encantados esperando para conducirlas al castillo subterráneo. El soldado se sentó en el bote de la más joven y la lancha estaba tan pesada como si una hielera hubiera sido añadida, pero el príncipe no sospechó.
En seguida vino el baile donde los zapatos hicieron lo suyo. Las princesas bailaban como taxi girls en Roseland como si esos boletos pudieran agotarse. Estaban pintadas con besos en su cabello secreto y pensando que el soldado estaba borracho ellas bebieron su juventud sin pensarlo siquiera.
Ampolletas de champaña y copas llenas de rubíes. Bailaron hasta el amanecer y el sol salió desnudo y enojado y entonces regresaron por la misma ruta extraña. El soldado fue de regreso al dormitorio y hacia su silla de espera para fingir su narcótico sueño. Esa mañana el soldado, los ojos encendidos como la sangre en una herida, su propósito brutal como si enfrentara una batalla, corrió con la respuesta como si fuese con la esfinge. ¡Los zapatos! ¡Los zapatos! El soldado habló. Trajo consigo la hoja de plata y el diamante del tamaño de una ciruela.
Había ganado. Los zapatos danzarines no bailarían nunca más. Las princesas fueron arrancadas de su noche como un bebé de su chupón. Puesto que era un anciano, escogió a la mayor. En la boda, las princesas desviaban los ojos doblegadas como sudaderas viejas. Ahora las fugitivas no escaparían de nuevo y nunca jamás su cabello estaría entretejido con diamantes, nunca jamás sus zapatos consumidos por una risa, nunca más la cama conduciría al purgatorio para dejarlas subir después con la patada de Lucifer.•
Traducción: Patricia Rivas |
In Celebration of My Uterus
|
EN CELEBRACIÓN DE MI ÚTERO
|
MUSIC SWIMS BACK TO MEWait Mister. Which way is home?They turned the light out and the dark is moving in the corner. There are no sign posts in this room, four ladies, over eighty, in diapers every one of them. La la la, Oh music swims back to me and I can feel the tune they played the night they left me in this private institution on a hill. Imagine it. A radio playing and everyone here was crazy. I liked it and danced in a circle. Music pours over the sense and in a funny way music sees more than I. I mean it remembers better; remembers the first night here. It was the strangled cold of November; even the stars were strapped in the sky and that moon too bright forking through the bars to stick me with a singing in the head. I have forgotten all the rest. They lock me in this chair at eight a.m. and there are no signs to tell the way, just the radio beating to itself and the song that remembers more than I. Oh, la la la, this music swims back to me. The night I came I danced a circle and was not afraid. Mister? 1959 |
LA MÚSICA VUELVE A MÍ
|
The truth the death know
For my
Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959and my Father, born February 1900,
died June 1959 |
LA VERDAD QUE LOS MUERTOS CONOCEN
|
|
YOUNG
A thousand doors ago when I was a lonely kid in a big house with four garages and it was summer as long as I could remember, I lay on the lawn at night, clover wrinkling over me, the wise stars bedding over me, my mother's window a funnel of yellow heat running out, my father's window, half shut, an eye where sleepers pass, and the boards of the house were smooth and white as wax and probably a million leaves sailed on their strange stalks as the crickets ticked together and I, in my brand new body, which was not a woman's yet, told the stars my questions and thought God could really see the heat and the painted light, elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight. |
JOVEN
|
The Starry Night
The town does not exist
|
NOCHE ESTRELLADA
Eso que no impide que tenga una terrible necesidad de –pronunciaré la
palabra- religión. Entonces salgo en medio de la noche a pintar las
estrellas. |
|
Something cold is in the air, an aura of ice and phlegm. All day I've built a lifetime and now the sun sinks to undo it. The horizon bleeds and sucks its thumb. The little red thumb goes out of sight. And I wonder about this lifetime with myself, this dream I'm living. I could eat the sky like an apple but I'd rather ask the first star: why am I here? why do I live in this house? who's responsible? eh? |
La furie des soleils couchants
Extrait de The Death Notebooks, 1974/Les Furies. Traduit de l'américain par Christine Rimoldy. Ce poème, inédit en français, est extrait du numéro 13 de la revue Les Episodes (avril 2002). |
THE SUN
I have heard of fish Coming up for the sun Who stayed forever, Shoulder to shoulder, Avenues of fish that never got back, All their proud spots and solitudes Sucked out of them.
I think of the flies Who come from their foul caves Out into the arena. They are transparent at first. Then they are blue with copper wings. They glitter on the foreheads of men. Neither bird nor acrobat They will dry out like small black shoes.
I am an identical being. Diseased by the cold and the smell of the house I undress under the burning magnifying glass. My skin flattens out like sea water. O yellow eye, Let me be sick with your heat, Let me be feverish and frowning. Now I am utterly given. I am your daughter, your sweet-meat, Your priest, your mouth and your birth And I will tell them all stories of you Until I am laid away forever, A thin gray banner.
May 1962.
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O SOL
|
|
18 days without you
A cat-green
ice spreads |
Diciotto giorni
senza te
Al bacio
d'addio
Verde-gatto il
ghiaccio s'adagia |
|
And where
did we meet?
No. It was
Harvard Square
And one hour
later he was dead.
And we both
wrote poems we couldn't write |
4 dicembre
E dov'è che ci
siamo conosciuti?
No. Eravamo ad
Harvard Square,
E un'ora dopo
era morto,
Entrambi
scrivemmo poesie, ma non ci riuscimmo |
|
Two years
ago, Reservist,
But I wrote
no diary
Manual Minus
Number
This is the
stand
All
considerations
And then
brought into The Cave,
|
9 dicembre
Due anni fa,
Riservista,
Ma io non tenni
un diario
Lo Starlifter
dal
Manuale Meno
Numero
Questa è la
posizione
Quali riguardi
E vengono poi
portati nella Caverna |
|
The day of
the lonely drunk
No whatever
it was we had, |
15 dicembre
Eccoci alla sbronza solitaria.
Niente di quanto c'è stato tra noi, |