Jerome Rothenberg: Previewing 'A Field on Mars': Two poems & a coda from 'A Further Witness'

[The excerpts that follow are from a work in progress, A Field on Mars: Poems 2000-2015, scheduled for publication next year by Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre (Jusqu’a/To Books) in simultaneous English & French editions. The note below explains whatever else needs explanation.  (J.R.)]

 

A GOD CONCEALED

 

I is

ego

in another

tongue

 

a swollen

sense

of who

he is

 

one day

will fall apart

& leave him

hapless

 

reading

his words

on glass

& air

 

or looking

at the sky

he reads

your face

 

the eyes

like shards

of ice

aglow

 

a god

concealed

his mouth

askew

 

the word

is formidable                          [form-i-dabley]

in another

tongue

 

the words

dance

down the path

inside my ears

 

& come to rest

recalling

how you spoke

& wrote

 

remembered

friends

& comrades

ages gone

 

 

THE NAMES OF FRIENDS WE SHARE

 

the presence
of the dead
in every
corner
opens now
into a space
of names
& faces
that escape
from time 

the lonely dead

stare out at us

they learn

to play

a game

& teach us

how to read

the times

before

& after

 

gathered

in our minds

a faceless

swarm

of the departed

for as far

as we can see

the streets

of Paris

as they were

before

 

the names

of friends

we share

between us

on the flight

to berlin

other faces

with pale
substance
& grey hair                 (Amirgen White Knee)
a world
of strangers 

fathomless

across from us

they sit

& stare out

at the frozen

sky

barometers

of change

the living

& the dead

together

 

take my hand

in yours

& we will find

a passage

to a world

the mind

remembers

& the heart

can share

the resolution

that the dead man

saves for us

absent a face

 

 

CODA

for Diane

 

writing something
to leave behind
is yet another kind of dream
when I awake I know
there will be no one left
to read it.
IKKYU

immersed

in light

the final

blindness

seals him

shut

his body

crammed

into a moving

car

the future

& the past

colliding

blown apart

 

I sign
the final
email
who
the others are
unknown
to me
the corners
of my mind
are dark
now
like the universe
itself
unspoken

dropping

from my hand

the book

is not

a ball

of light

the pain

I feel

in leaving

cannot be

your pain

another kind
of dream
invades me 

loving you

the way

ahead

the far side

of a wall

arises

newly built

a further
witness
beckons
in the name
of love
as powerful
as this 

the present

tense

is all

we have

I count

the days

with you

our fingers

join

& come apart

again

we live
on borrowed
time 

words

left behind

the book

inside my dream

too bright

for those

to whom

we write

or speak

& know 

 

when we awake
there will be
no one left
to read it 

NOTE.  The poems in “A Further Witness” began as a tribute to Anselm Hollo while he was going through his final days & ended, or seemed to then, with his death on January 29th, 2013.  I had known him going back to first meetings in London in 1961 or 62 & our friendship lasted over the half century since then.  I suppose that the mysteries of death & life hang over all of us & that the pain of separation is what it is & can hardly be avoided, but with it too there’s a sense of the preciousness of what we can give to each other in the little time that we’re afforded.  With all of that I’m reminded too of what survives, both in his own works & in the lives of those who were a part of his life & thought, & mine as well.  To all of which bits & fragments enter from the big book of outside & subterranean poetry that I was assembling at that time, & the poem itself including the Coda for Diane continues up to the almost present.