Jerome Rothenberg: Five dream poems, recovered
Dream Poem
A Fragment
Those who must wait, wait.
The machinery attended to,
the sheets turned back,
the steam released into the air,
the dirty particles released.
I am the foreign engineer,
the shirtless one.
I search where you are,
and I sweep
the absent leaves.*
* [the ancient leaves]
Dreaming of Buddha
A Fragment
the sky intersected
by two buddhas
strange to say
& beautiful
as when we dream
the particles
fall into place —
each finds its hole
its wholeness only now
allows it
& we’re helpless
to do more
the dream of buddha
BLUE DOG POEM
He bit me,
a blue dog,
& leapt
down from the blackened hills,
he clattered.
Blue dog
had a voice.
Call it elliptical.
Call it proud.
What possessed us
to be in love
when there were tombs
on top of tombs?
A little bird
has whispered us
to sleep.
How phantom rich
my life becomes
empty or full.
It is the fact of life
that stirs me,
not its demise
ABATTOIR
after Robert Doisneau
a man looks at
a cow’s head
all white
its eyes are shut
it sleeps
in death
“WE WERE THE LORDS OF WHAT WE LOCKED IN PLACE”
after Reverdy
A hand opens
High & dry & curved over the roofs
The loss of memory takes hold
Slogans go rapidly from bad to worse
Life’s got no chance
Something you push away & it attacks you
A fact
Night as it withers springs to life
Grows like a sponge
Flags fluttering restored
So everything is threatening to die
A hill looms up & still you turn from it
Not moon enough
But where the street has opened up is where our bodies
Come into sight
Eyes wide to everything
We were the lords of what we locked in place
Our groans died back in us
Sounds stayed unsounded
All that was once still is
Nights shutting down at nightfall
Too late the lonely ghost springs back to life
Beyond the fissures where men pan for gold
Poems and poetics