Always Die Before Your Mother , livre ebook

Ecw Press - Patrick Woodcock

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62 pages

English

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Like an embedded journalist, Patrick Woodcock writes his poetry from the front lines of experience. From cities reeling from the trauma of siege warfare to the stifling heat and politics of the Arabian Peninsula to the darkest corners of the South American rain forest, Woodcock's poems bear witness to a world that is equally immediate and remote... and far more complex than imagined.

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Poetry

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Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781554903658
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Always Die Before Your Mother

13 Executions

THE SADDEST INK
in memory of Sergei Yesenin
I don’t know what was used to leach
the ink, how flesh was made
word, or how much of it was needed
to write eight lines of vermilioned verse,
but I do know an old Russian woman
whose museum has abandoned it to dust.

ADMIRAL ADRIFT
for Admiral Mahic
He’s built like a mountain that’s been tunnelled for trains,
like a valley where all trees lean left
to reach for sunlight, that deft
hand of God, which clobbers him daily then vanquishes pain.
Mistakenly named like ‘The Righteous’ ‘The Holy’
he stands by the river, fleetless,
and sings The Redress
of poetry, that old floating city, that run-aground folly
is landlocked and torn! And toasts, If you fear it,
just tunnel beneath it — then drinks
till he’s captured and all he knows sinks.
But while his body may waver, his spirit
keeps digging, without their consent to lead
others to war. Admiral’s decision
though marred by elision
was to call those unwilling to suffer his seed,
and close to their river to remind these infertile
in the ‘house between houses’ where old sailors weep:
Remember I care more about your redemption
than the puerile whose sails never suffer a tear . . .
Only then could he dream. For months he would dream.

AJA’S EDUCATION REFORM
I will tear away its branches
and enwrap it in barbed wire.
When you touch a rotting tree,
you must masquerade as loving
while the monstrous acts you dream of
collide and spark within you . . .
I will cleave away its trunk
so it cants eastward in shame.
When you spy a rotting forest,
must you move within its currents
while the monstrous acts you long for
transform and sail toward you?
Will I dig within its borders?
Will I open up its rivers?
When you sense a rotting country,
you must feign a mother’s spirit
while the monstrous acts you tend to
ignite and blaze . . .
I will seed again this valley
and pray its earth is fertile.
I will sleep and die upon it
so it’s of my blood and soul.

THE PEASANTS OF BRAZO’S BEND
My tongue receded from the Seducer’s Sabbath
toward a fear that rose and boiled and fell
from His machicolation onto the pebbles below . . .
Look at the little peasants swimming in it —
oil fear — missile fear — an alligator
can topple their Kingdom by lowering its head —
Cut water can sound like children in chain-mail sacks
being dragged across planks, and when they sleep
El Lagarto will become a drawbridge
from which ignoble scutes leave the skin
to hiss and dance and drum the death roll.

EDITING HOWARD ASTER
Let me wrap this line around my waste, twice.
Sarajevo:
An orphan sits in a building with no windows or doorframes
through the hair of his mother tear two roseate palms.
Let me detonate this line when you are closer than err.
Delhi:
An orphan runs at a taxi with locked doors and closed windows
the radio asphyxiates the screaming and her malnourished thud.

FLOOD IN NIZWA
Beware of the stone
that’s a dog by the river.
Don’t enter while touching
the ritually unclean,
for it’s caution that places
one’s heart in the pillar
in the shadow of faith
while shadowing spleen.
Don’t plead for those willing
to jump in the river.
Don’t grieve for the drowning,
smitten and scourged.
Let water rush over
both goat legs and silver,
past camels in car parks
where men’s souls float purged.

DID I SLEEP IN THE JEWISH CEMETERY LAST NIGHT?
Did I wander from the mountains past cobbled snails
Did I light cigarettes that others left on the ground
Did I hide in the shadows beneath a bridge, drinking
Did I curse the rain and stomp in its mirrors
Did I walk along an unlit road humming Le Mort Joyeux
Did I find a fence and support it like a drunken friend
Did I think of returning home, the older one, alone
Did I lift my legs above my head, cut my hands on glass
Did I look around, drop the cardboard, then look around again
Did I sit upon the ground for hours and watch the city fade?
Did I sleep in the Jewish cemetery last night?
Did I lie down and watch the clouds until sleep arrived
Did I sit on a mule in Mexico with Antonin Artaud
Did I rest beside Charles on his mother’s brown couch
Did I rest upon Jacobsen’s balcony and sigh
Did I hold Anna’s old man when he was kicked in the face
Did I hear a knock before Seamus said, It’s no one. Leave it be
Did I hear Moraes say, In this cave I smell your blood
Did I hear the clouds say, Barrie died in the autumn of ’ 88
Did I rise with mud upon my face, a broken Ishmaelite
Did I cower when I felt the sun and pray for the curtain’s click?

KEITH AND THE KIRKJUG
It was near the centre of Reykjavik
in a cemetery, where people would later
dance and sing upon a mattress of moss,
that they found the Kirkjug.
There were even trees, yes,
and an upright bass lumbered
through the graves like a ship’s hull
dragging land to water over land.
Do you believe in their trumpeting?
They were building song
out of stone and lead.
They prayed hard that chanting
long live

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