Intrusive Beauty. Joseph J. Capista
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Название: Intrusive Beauty

Автор: Joseph J. Capista

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Зарубежные стихи

Серия: Hollis Summers Poetry Prize

isbn: 9780821446652

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ that my touch won’t startle you,

      won’t wake you from unquiet dreams,

      I’ll hold my hand out to the night

      and let it grow a little cold.

       A Child Bird-Scarer

      After an illustration in Life in Victorian England

      I started at six with tin and a stick

      scattering creatures from sharp seed sown

      in Shalbourne furrows. Stones moved

      what clamor couldn’t—starlings, crows,

      a clattering of jackdaws rose

      to perch on dormer sills and startle

      their own glass-bent reflections, escape

      a joke at which they alone cackled.

      My boy, master chastened, mind

      those beasts—see that seed takes.

      So I lurked fencerows and puddles,

      frightening what I knew would fly.

      Sometimes a cruelty rose in me

      I could not tell apart from all

      I pitched at them. The stick I clutched

      has doubled now in length, the tin

      turned tines. Haymaking days, I wade

      knee-deep in crop to stook, then bale.

      I’ll steal away tonight and lie

      atop the brittle piles, watch stars

      as small as seeds I’d sown myself.

      What I remember best is chasing

      a field full of black wings knowing

      they would only lift, loll, and drift

      one hill over, far enough they might

      forget whatever it is they feared.

       Weep, You Prophets, in the Shadow of Heaven

      Night. Prayer. The city is dangerous again.

      Sounds rise skyward in countless concentricities.

      Think them inverted bells yoked

      To some geography of lines. Municipality.

      Think them the sound of turning earth.

      I unfold the map across the tabletop, take care

      To feel the rise of crease beneath my palm.

      First I touch those spots I’ve been,

      Then touch the spots I’ll never be.

      The largest bell ever made,

      The Great Bell of Dhammazedi,

      is lost at the bottom of a river.

       History of the Inevitable

      Fire wants to be ash, which wants

      a bucket to hold it with unseeping certainty.

      The bucket wants to look like the moon,

      which it does some nights, while the moon

      wants to be the storefront window, full

      of something. But the window’s coats

      are tired of town’s dull hooks and long

      to be pitchforks, which long to be trees.

      The trees envy the slow-moving cow

      beneath their boughs, and the cow wants

      an engine to propel it though the sharp

      fence where the man rests, wondering

      how he will ever go to his desire when

      the universe so needs his tending hand.

       Domestic Intelligence

      Best trash this tulip spray

      lest, come A.M., drooped

      blossoms drop,

      lest tabletop become

      again some variegated

      scattergram

      impelling you to measure,

      plot those points chance

      and beauty intersect,

      lest gorgeous red-gold

      nonchalance grace

      faience eggcups,

      patinaed grapefruit spoons

      you set while upstairs

      wife and daughters slept,

      lest over salmon crème fraîche

      and warm pear tarte tatin,

      your mind threads petals

      back to florets, transfixed

      all day by what remains

      detached yet correlates.

      Best nix this vase entirely.

      Avert. Preclude. Forestall.

      Best obviate astonishment

      at each blossom’s way

      of falling into just-the-place.

      As if you’ll ever understand.

       The Beautiful Things of the Earth Become More Dear as They Elude Pursuit

      Another wave rolls over me before

      I clear its crest. I haven’t surfed since June.

      Foam СКАЧАТЬ