What Happens When The Dream Is Over

What happens when the dream is over

And What Now Of Dreaming

And what now of dreaming? We’ve failed the planet has published our failures.

Our crimes are perpetual methaneand sweltering, arrogant and endless—

poor fucks we are, breathing mindlesslyas the marsh grass floods,

and here comes the supermoon again,like it’s so special.

Article continues after advertisement

Weak and disordered become the governments,disquiet rules us now.

Onward, I thought,and so we were obscured.

The snow goes to the gallowsof a warm grass and what survives?

Seasons grow immodest,the bullet sun does parch

and drive us migratoryin search of new and fertile fields.

Article continues after advertisement

The long drought makes blaze the planktonmakes smoke the oceans

and insincere the governments—a demise indelicate.

We’re in a deep jelly nowno cause for applause

but try a little clemencymy body is warm today, and yours,

we have this small span of timeand in this way we’re millionaires.

Bright colors we make when pressed, see?Basta! dawdling on the edge again that’s me.

-- by Deborah Landau

Comments

Philip Levine's Acid Rage - They Lion (lie and) Grow

THEY FEED THEY LION by Philip Levine (1968) Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, Out of black bean and wet slate bread, Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, They Lion grow. Out of the gray hills Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties, Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps, Out of the bones' need to sharpen and the muscles' to stretch, They Lion grow. Earth is eating trees, fence posts, Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones, "Come home, Come home!" From pig balls, From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, From the furred ear and the full jowl come The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose They Lion grow. From the sweet glues of the trotters Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower Of the hams the thorax of caves, From "Bo...

From Academy to the Street, From Poetry To Prose

From academy to the street, from poetry to prose - Nicanor Parra – ‘My own antipoems use this blank verse. I’ve often been asked what an antipoem is and the most frequent response I’ve given, without realising what I was saying is – “an antipoem is quite simple a dramatic utterance”, and a dramatic utterance, we would have to add, is a Shakespearean blank verse. Or rather, it is a hendecasyllable that lengthens and shortens, and that oscillates between the academy, the street and the fairground. I’ve always worked with these elements: I’ve even managed to combine verse with eleven syllables and one with one syllable, and verses with prose. I thought it was a great invention of mine, but the Elizabethans were already working with these methods – Shakespeare used them in King Lear , where a large percentage of the work is written in prose, without us fully knowing what is verse and what is prose. This is very important: we could say that they are prosaic verses, or poet...

Poems Late In June - Joy and Presence in Zagajewski, Ammons, Blake and Clifton

Poems late in June 2021 – Part 1 I’ve been thinking about joy and presence The Polish poet, Adam Zagajewski, and his poem ‘Try to Praise the Mutilated World’ The word ‘mutilated’ has troubled me since I first read the poem years ago, and after seeing Cronenberg’s film ‘Crash’ (1996) ‘Mutilate’ – maimed, disfigure, cut-off - but before that, the word has an uncertain origin Try to Praise the Mutilated World (2002) by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June's long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You've seen the refugees going nowhere, you've heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Rem...

Aporetica

Search This Blog