After Ryokan*
In my cup
In the thin snow
In front of your window
In the window sky
In the blue distance
In the scattered doors
In the pool near your room
In the shadow on the highway
In every quarter of the evening land
In the staves of the sky
I seem to hear your voice
(In: New and Selected Poems - New Poems, p. 264)
Copyright ©: David Shapiro
*Taigu Ryokan, a Japanese poet
***
Gratuitous Oranges
There are those who feed only on oranges.
— S.Y. Agnon*
Nothing rhymes in English with an orange.
It stands alone, with luster in a far tinge.
It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.
On Saturday it’s blue like an orange
Or like a surrealist sight rhyme** in a garage.
Nothing rhymes in English with an orange.
But rime riche*** is rich enough for an orange.
Still my doorman sings, Put it away in storage!
It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.
Orange replies: I’m drunk from my last bar-binge
Half-rhymes like hangovers suddenly impinge.
But nothing rhymes in English with an orange.
While my wife in French eats one in her nude linge
Playwrights Synge and Inge flap forward on a car-hinge.
It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.
Pronounce it orange and then expunge.
So ends the story of the very violet orange.
Nothing rhymes in English with an orange.
It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.
Copyright ©: David Shapiro
(in: In Memory of an Angel, 2017)
*Shmuel Yosef Agnon (born Czaczkes,1888-1970) - a Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 1966
**sight rhyme is based on words that look similar but sound different
***rime riche (= rich rhyme) contains three identical sounds (phonemes)
***
Archaic Torsos*
after a dream
You must change your life fourteen times.
Change your way of living like writing.
You must change your method and your mind.
You have to transform life fourteen times.
Change life. It has become necessary to change your life.
You need this change. We need to change your life.
And now you'd better change it: you, yourself.
It's up to you to change your life. Change, change!
Alter your life, patch and reshape your life.
'A change come o'er the spirit of your change’.
You might shuffle the cards spin wheels change wheels.
You must convert resolve revolutionize your dissolves.
You might change life itself. And you might change.
You must change. You must not outlive your life.
(in: House (Blown Apart), p. 28)
*this title alludes to Rilke's poem Archaic Torso of Apollo
**the poem formally resembles a sonnet even though it doesn't rhyme
***
Little Mass
When Bach lay in prison
He could see the fugues in flight
Each necessary note
Converged in an immense (lack of) mercy
When Bach lay in death’s double bonds
He cried God is insensitive
He is irresponsible!
To the rotten ornament that was the world –
When Bach slept in the hospital*
He could not stop seeing the ignoble voices
He could see his children out simplifying
Old Bach remembered his opponent refusing to play at all
When Bach lay imprisoned and improvising in the dark
He remembered each of his enemies and begged God not to
Forgive them
Copyright ©: David Shapiro
(In: In Memory of an Angel, p. 60, 2017)
This poem could pass for a sonnet - if it rhymed and if it was less irregular...
*Bach underwent a cataract surgery which, performed without due diligence, led to his death.
***
To a Muse
Give me a first line, you who are far away.
The second line will almost write itself.
In times of pain, I open the dictionary.
Like a girl in the last row who will not say
The theoretical part of the dream was herself,
Give me a first lie, you who are far away.
A student laughs: I died once. Red is gray.
Cheat me like a quote, deceiving Elf.
In times of pain, I open the dictionary.
You who tried to carve this family in clay
Skeptical and frivolous as a filthy shelf
Give me another line, you who are far away.
It’s a small freedom on a revisionary day
As a jay imitates the human on an elm –
In times of pain, I open the dictionary.
And in ordinary happiness, I open the dictionary.
The words remain, but the guards are gone for help.
Give me a last line, you who are far away.
In times of pain, I open the dictionary.
Copyright ©: David Shapiro
(In: House Blown Apart, 1988, p. 55)
This poem is a villanelle. To learn more about the genre, see here.
***
On a line by FOH*
for Maureen OH
"music must die
but poetry is silent joy"**
or I thought poetry must die
but music is silent joy
or architecture might die
but silence is joy without doubt
or poetry must not die
but architecture must die,
that temporary shelter!
Or architecture must not die
But poetry is doubtful joy
(in: In Memory of an Angel, 2017, p. 62)
* FOH - Frank O'Hara
** from the poem entitled "Two Russian Exiles: an Ode" by F. O'Hara.
***
Forgetting a Dream dedication (to come)
Forget the dream
Forget the poetry received in a dream
Forget New York, forget language
Forget you love violent electric storms
Forget the slit open, opened
Forget a closed cloud, bread and lips
Forget David Shapiro
Forget yourself Buy and sell yourself
Forget the great globe itself
Forget the angels in Silesia*
Forget provisions for the trip
Forget that face
Forget eight arms for power
Forget peace Forget restless form
Forget whether it was an actor or a butcher
or a traitor at night
Forget whether it was interpretation or
Amelioration
Forget, forget!
Copyright ©: David Shapiro
(in: In Memory of an Angel, 2017)
*a reference to Angelus Silesius.
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