Love Poem with Dark Face
J'aurais dans mes mains ton visage obscur
—Yves Bonnefoy
[1]
what should i call this poem i’ll call it a rush of chambers
a racket of foliage i’ll call it love poem with dark
face pretty title someone i don’t know who tells me watch
out for words with meaning don’t look for truth in beauty
learn to breathe with your gaze in an art gallery
a woman with sad eyes devours rats devours picassos
sleeps in hospital rooms listen to this story once upon
a time a princess bah death will not be long in coming
death with its blue eyes on my empty plate
[2]
she’ll never know who i am she’s blind and hates when people
look at her i offer her a bonfire a fistful of snow offer her
a freshly cut rose what should we talk about now? let’s talk
about the sky let’s talk about fear there’s going to be a storm tonight
a person would do better to drop and never get up how’s that i ask
but she disappears i don’t know if she’ll ever return still
i wait with my milk tooth with my old stamp
collection with my razor blade and a mirror at night
she comes whispers in my ear there’s no one but you
in a million years i’ll learn her real name know
her dark face flush with sky flush with fear
[3]
why am i writing this? you incandescent pupil i’m a swan
that dreams of dying in your dream inside a box where hell burns
where everything is blinding the storm doesn’t say a word stays mute
you should have seen me that time the vineyards were
in bloom the cows were grazing i was happy you were happy
the enigma’s transparence cooled our coffee the myth’s
dissection the death of any and all theories i’m a swan
my dream is to die in your dream why didn’t you look at me?
[4]
my students asked me what is the meaning of pain
so i sliced a doll’s finger with a razor blade there
was no blood no batting of lashes this i told them is pain
[5]
i read and write at the same time it’s only proper the mountains
overwhelmingly approve the night shuts one eye and looks at me
with the other there is nothing around but plastic flowers
purgatories on the brink of closure doors and windows the light
grows impatient time destroys clocks may i speak?
there’s no need to the pages are on fire your lamp is burning
i take off my clothes and let the cold ignite my penis
[6]
now i come to the hardest part of the story the part
where i talk about porpoises and dolphins the woman
with the sad eyes vomits rats into the toilet i speak of
my desire i don’t want her to know about it i’ll just say a word
brush my hand against her hair and if she runs ah the lost words
the dark rooms each with its death rattle of birds
all soaring skyward the woman closes her eyes
go in me she says i’ve forgotten your name i don’t have
a name from high above the bed a god observes us
his wounded body conveying how much she wants me
[7]
sorrowful boy come whenever you like i’ll burn in your memory sear
your tongue all kinds of confusion will find a place in your senses
any expression will be allegory in our hands i have a notebook
for you a glass of water some dead fish i said to her sorrowful girl
i love notebooks await every night a glass of water
on my tongue dead fish are a delirium my students
ask what’s delirium i unbutton my shirt and show them
your breasts this is delirium
[8]
a rush of overflowing chambers it’s playtime now you’re
the shadow and i’m the light you lick my wounds while i sink
into the lightning flash into both sets of darkness where you sleep
and i await the word smoke is the word tomorrow
your body and mine will sing and there will again be woods
unfurling before my eyes open venetian blinds a fount
of angels atop the dirty laundry tell me a story anything
what’s important is that we awaken and not give in to sleep
happy loves rot as surely as blighted ones do
bye bye she says bye bye flowers in her wounded hands
[9]
to let the body not love drift through other bodies
that’s how banishment how violent expulsion begins quite
a lovely light is dying amid the debris no one can see it
ice is deceptive when it shines bright the sky an irrevocable
past a voice inspiring pity a voice that never reaches us
[10]
disturbing the marble slab’s geometry beneath her feet
the sought-after metaphor is a blue cyclone the dark alley
the grave of all projects though nothing stands in our way
we can be happy but there’s no one here only me besides
the words the untimely trips and scarlet buses i remember
her light which made the pain grow dark and still she went away
i followed until i lost her trace no one ever taught me to lose a desire
a purple cloud envelopes my body the students ask me
what is a body i draw a word in the air the word bursts
and drops to the ground this i tell them is a body
Copyright Credit: Eduardo Chirinos, "Love Poem with Dark Face" from The Smoke of Distant Fires. Copyright © 2009 by Eduardo Chirinos. Reprinted by permission of Open Letter.