Louis Dudek: 19 Poems
By
Aug 1, 2010, 23:15
Listen to the poem
Alba
As you lay on the bed pale with
the humid breath of kisses
still moist on your cheek, openly,
like a leaf your water-lily limbs,
the river, past the bed, to the sea
below, to the city, dragged down our two
selves, slowly, down, to the sound of
cataracts in the street below, in
humming early morning light.
Pure Science
Poetry is a man-made kite
skating on an imaginary sky,
But nobody knows what the sky is
nor why there are kite-makers.
It is also like grandmother’s idea of heaven
that we have learned to do without
Because nobody cooks there,
sleeps with girls, or mints money.
It is a whirling
spark in a vacuum,
And only scientists seem to
enjoy the experiment.
62
In the middle of the night they burst out singing,
like drunken men everywhere, I thought,
and your nerves were overwrought;
but they had a guitar, & the player was no slouch,
and they loved their songs, though the wine
had unstrung their voices;
it was this also that I had expected
(kept us awake for an hour),
like the people of Pamplona dancing,
the art that is better than poetry
or even the oldest ruins—
the art we dream of in the others.
83
As for democracy, it is not just the triumph
of superior numbers,
but that everyone, continually,
should think and speak the truth.
What freedom is there in being counted among the cattle?
The first right I want is to be a man.
It takes a little courage.
The plain truth, I say, not a few comfortable formulas
that conceal your own special lies;
the simple facts everybody knows
are so, as soon as you bring them to the light.
Democracy is this freedom, this light
shining on the human mind,
light
in faces, actions—
as the Greeks once carved it in these stones.
95
The sea retains such images
in her ever-unchanging waves;
for all her infinite variety, and the forms,
inexhaustible, of her loves,
she is constant always in beauty,
which to us need be nothing more
than a harmony with the wave on which we move.
All ugliness is a distortion
of the lovely lines and curves
which sincerity makes out of hands
and bodies moving in air.
Beauty is ordered in nature
as the wind and sea
shape each other for pleasure; as the just
know, who learn of happiness
from the report of their own actions.
The Creative Element
The love I have in me comes rising in great waves
tossed at your mighty
small magnificent body, the floss of it
a heavy foam, tossed
at your belly and shoulders till it overwhelms
you, I feel it overwhelms you,
most beautifully, and makes an ocean around you.
Kiss me, kiss me now in this element! This
is what they say started things,
this is how they created whales and things
rolling it in a sea of storm,
overwhelmed and swirling in the fertile fury
when the gods took chaos in hand.
Lover to Lover
Desire that was wordless
for fear of each other
softly was spoken
louder than words:
body to body
diphthonged together
we know what a rhyme is,
a mouth to a mouth.
There was never a syllable
wasted on air,
we rocked to a rhythm
a thought laid bare,
and lie in a sleep now,
the world for a cradle,
silently spoken
and pious as prayer.
R.I.P.
How do you think we’ll rest
With tombstones on our chest?
I had rather recline
With your breast on mine,
Love, on violets.
Or how shall we know peace
Broken piece by piece
In decay? I’d rather fret
Now for what I get
From lips like these,
And leave nothing to wish
When we’ve become a dish
For the worms, my friend.
Leave them, hot heart, at end
Cold cuts to finish.
A Cracker Jack
If you and I ceased to exist, my dear,
and all other ghosts,
would the Manifold of Space and Time
collapse in its cupboards?
Would the quivering fiction of being
Joe, Paul, Patsy, May
be folded up like their Snakes and Ladders
and be laid away?
As if we had not been? Not only ‘as if’
but as it is.
Nature destroys itself: we are and are not.
Are now like this,
then never have been, when we cannot remember
and no one is there to see
where shadfly swarms go after rainstorms
or flies in a laboratory.
Our summer of strongest sunlight recalls
the greatest sadness;
and the quiet contemplation of our extinction
is called beauty, dearest.
Old Song
Since nothing so much is
as the present kiss
don’t let an old kiss
so disconcert you,
but know it is no crime
to give a new kiss time
and reason to convert you.
The first you ever had
was an eternal lad
whose smile was very May
no other mouth replaces,
but this today has an October way
to harvest his embraces.
Loves are the fruits of time
different and the same
the perfect and imperfect,
and in the body’s branches
where old kisses hang
and sweet birds sang
the wind fills his paunches.
And any kiss at all
is present after all
for now is all we have
now when we want them,
so grant your kisses leave
to give and to receive
nor waste your lips to count them.
From: En México
Someday we shall come again to the poem
as mysterious as these trees,
of various texture,
leaves, bark, fruit
(the razor teeth so neatly arranged,
so clean the weathered root).
There is the art of formal repetition
and the art of singular form—lines clean
as a wave-worn stone. . .
Study the ancient habits
of the most disorderly people.
Where did reason arise?
The science of cleanness—
fastidiousness in art?
Somewhere in this, the market, the church,
the commissary.
No matter how steamy the jungle,
small leaves are perfect in detail.
Order remains unimpaired
in man and in matter,
despite all poverty, insanity, and war—
the jungle, in its excesses.
From wherever you are, begin!
From: Atlantis
Speaking of coral, the white whirling wave
behind the ship
is like a Japanese painting of a wave.
It is not the painting that is like a wave
but the wave like a real painting—
as exact, as detailed, as white and delicate,
made of many tiny hands, of drops, of lacing lines,
a continuous flocculation of white light
that is unlike mere water as a Rembrandt is unlike mere paint.
That nature is the prime artist does not mean that
all nature is art.
The means are wasteful, but the occasional fragment
may be a masterpiece, a poem, or even a man.
From: Atlantis
Today we passed over Atlantis,
which is our true home.
We live in exile
waiting for that world to come.
Here nothing is real, only a few
actions, or words,
bits of Atlantis, are real.
I do not love my fellow men
but only citizens of Atlantis,
or those who have a portion
of the elements that make it real.
The Secret
Every poet at the beginning
has a lot to learn
of what is all his own
a uniqueness gradually revealed
never too much, never exposed—
the secret hinted at, left to discover.
Methods as new mazes, leading all astray
until his circumventions and contemplations bring us
to that quiet stage
where he, the chalk-faced immortal
stands mute and alone.
Vanished Beauty
‘Art’ is whatever endures, of the past,
and only what is made of durable stuff endures.
But who knows whether things that have happened
—gestures, speech, an embrace—
were not more memorable, more worthy of art,
and yet have perished?
Who knows, but the greatest moments have vanished
without a record?
as our lives have vanished, our youth,
vanished without leaving a trace?
Atlantis
It appears in fragments.
or whole, at certain moments—
real in every detail,
itself, or a false shine
of the real thing.
Else life would be a vast train wreck,
with all its items of foolish baggage,
combs, nighties, make-up
scattered over the tracks—
and nothing in it.
From: Continuation II
Straight from the clouds
by chance
out of nothing, everything comes of nothing,
the unrelated particulars that make up a world
Even as a single mind cannot be classified
as to what it thinks
Creativity neither random nor rational,
a surprising new mixture,
with a flair for design
Pink peonies, candy floss
of gigantic size
Or luscious lettuce leaves
used to support chunks of lobster, avocado,
and left uneaten
A unique event that happens
as it happens
To A Young Woman
You ask me whether you are beautiful
in discontent.
There’s many a woman asked this before you,
my innocent!
And got no better answer than you do
for compliment.
For know, there’s one thing that a beauty
must not know
for if she knew, who knows but she might put it
on for show—
and even what is beautifullest, pride
can overthrow.
I’d rather answer with a wondering look
or with a stare.
And yet, for comfort, you may know that soon,
too soon to care,
you’ll know the answer, and can tell a friend
that ‘once’ you were.
An Envoi
Go my song
Stand alone in the world
(Do not expect praise)
Speak of the one true glory
which is in art
and human freedom
Realizing an unknown power
but visible everywhere
invisible
Speak of the changing world
as if timeless
and everlasting
Do not seek praise
nor flatter nor cajole
Avoid the young and the intolerant
who are torn with envy
and ambition
Stand in the first light of morning
as sole witness
to a difficult truth
in an evil time.
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| Louis Dudek 1918-2001 |
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