Poets & Patterns

I’m not keen on talking about one’s own métier. But then again who should talk about it?

Patterns come to our senses without invitation. They’re made of particles of scattered information that once collected make a pattern discernible. The validity of a such a pattern might not be ascertained by the collector. It’s time and flow of information that will do it or undo it. 

Poets are collectors. Poets are recipients. Poets are absorbers, sponges. Poets suffer if there's no light to be consumed. And will then become poets of the mortified kind.

Patterns are not the poet’s fault.

A poem is but a temporary vault.

AGCT, AGCT, AGCT, AGCT:

Alphabetic Guardians of Comedy and Tragedy.

The Real Poets of Today

In Memory of Anthony Bourdain

I'm not a poet.

I do try to write poems, but whether they fully become poems or not is beyond my control.
A friend once said that if you write at least one good poem, then you are a poet.
Who would judge what is a good poem?

But I'm not a poet in another sense as well.
The primal poets were those who first used language in rhyme, making lines easier to memorize. It was the times of oral tradition. These days, oral tradition is almost exclusively reserved for online porn.
In my view, they ceased to be the poets with the emergence of the writer as a cultural star in the twentieth century.
Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, to name a few, or rather, to name only three.
They were sexy, they were it, they were poets.
And they were replaced by songwriters in the 1960s.
Who, in turn, were superseded by rappers in the 1990s.
And rappers, in the 2000s, were unseated by celebrity chefs.
Thus, chefs are the real poets of today.

And poets laureate are those chefs who cook with laurel.

Those Freckled Skies

Freckles are my punctuation of choice for a female skin. They make men look girlish yet girls look divine.

They've a frailty akin to wearing one’s soul out: For each sin, the blemish is eternally cast.

Divine as a constellation of impossibly far suns which rays are too strong for too fair a skin.

Freckles are a mapped universe, a maze on a milky celestial body.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Cruel Love Duel

   How many masks wear we, and undermasks, 
   Upon our countenance of soul, and when, 
   If for self-sport the soul itself unmasks, 
   Knows it the last mask off and the face plain? 

in Fernando Pessoa's Sonnet VIII, 35 English Sonnets


Though Pessoa took off every mask
And found but more masking of the soul,
He probably forgot one item in such task:
A Dorian mirror that we must face
Naked and unsure,
Vulnerable as the clinical eyes of Love
Reveal the masks and the masquerade
Our lifes have been.

Then our biological self kicks in:
We either freeze, pretend death, 
And believe in rebirth,
Or we flee the scene,
Or fight against the image obscene. 

Rodin's Riders

Auguste Rodin's "Centaur"

To ride with and be ridden simultaneously;
pure, coeval, ride and rider:
the very stuff of synchronicity.  

Abandoning self-control, sweaty, 
animal and anima together, 
the longer they trot the more
their minds bloom away disarmingly, 

Then they gallop:

road, dirt;
orchards, colours;
stones, moons;
town, church;
hilltop, silence;
beach, breeze;

Halt! A break: 

a verdant picnic ensues, new smells,
sight scanning the surroundings,
a radar which will bleep only once 
to tell love to home in on the lover
thus beginning their face à face,
coeur à coeur: il faut courir.  

Newark

for Jennifer


In Newark, a bird landed,
of skies weary, merry its eyes.

An entire continent of humanity
had been under its wings,
incontinent prattle by its side.

Yet, when we move up close,
birds that so gracefully soared
are the embodiment of anxiety.

Mostly so in Spring, nesting,
collecting twig and straw
out of the best tree and field
that while soaring they saw.

Drinking from a nearby pond,
they cool down for a new round
until down the sun goes,
their chirp piercing the dusk
before the tranquil night.

Half the work being done,
soon our bird will fully rest
its bright plumage and breast
amidst the fruit of its toil.

And then, seen from the soil,
secure, a work of much art,
its nest will become a new ark.

Intimacy - a maturing tendril

for Jennifer


Intimacy is time plus its tempo entwined,
rooted deeply into a soil as black as fertile, 
under which water rushes—

mineral urges—and undermines
all that is past, and turns it into a paste 
by the time and tempo intimacy's vivified.    






_______

photo by backyardnature.com

Faith, a puzzle out of bonds

The most important part
was left out of the scene;
the source of light that got in
was not part of the art,
each thought was locked within
each drawer, each head 
thus left alone to devise
what was being unseen.




______

watercolour by Jennifer Allison
One Street Shy

Walls

Frustration has a history of Walls:

Of Berlin for Berliners

Of China for a Mongol

Of Adrian for the Picts

Of Troy for the Achaeans

Of Constantinople for a Goth

Of Wailing for those who wail

Of Chevaliers outside the Krak,

Fated all to one important event.

The rise to a lunar eclipse

There’s not much light here in the deep sea,
where we raise particles of dust
in spite of a lazy undulating motion;
mysterious translucent membranes
and our eerie luminescence.

Underwater vents warm us for a while
and are a fireplace in a desert’s night
where we find both food and society,
which go hand in hand,
and mouth on mouth.

It’s all calm, and night after night goes by
here in life’s deep end.

But we’ll end by looking up, we always do,
the intriguing sky from where carcasses fall:
an headless whale, the head of a dolphin,
and a tentacleless cuttlefish--
to what are its tentacles clinging?

Divine sashimi! An offer from the gods above!
And, upon close examination, only decay.

Bodies and our desires went upwards,
from black to deep blue, from green to azure,
gods ourselves for the first time,
investigating mirth and tragedies,
old acts in a new scenario.

What strange creatures, whales.
Upon interview they said to be cows who,
tired of false promises of sacredness,
returned to the sea: "Better a blowhole
than hold our breath for a blowjob."

Dolphins, no matter how cute,
were engaged in atrocities too, chasing,
hurling themselves against their infants,
or the ever dreamy porpoise, on purpose.
We're yet to meet bigger blowholes!

And cuttlefish? They're a Mafia. 
Their short tentacles have an amazing reach,
as they use their ink to write and rule.
If pressed, they'll release a batch, 
to hide with a stain what they're writing.

Foam distorted the image of trees on the shore,
waves made mountains seem to jerk, 
as if inebriated by their own oxygen scarcity,
and so rocked we were in a daze
until night set in and calmed us down.

And thus floating we could have been found,
were it not for a Blood Moon that woke us up,
which we took for a symbol of what happens
when whales are hunted, dolphins adored,
and cuttlefish left alone to confuse us.  

We sank back to the deep end, our gloom,
but under another moon we might emerge again. 



_______

photo by John W. Johnson

From Red to Gray - A Scale

I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.
Anne Tyler


"Contrast," she said, "is what art's all about."
I stopped and ruminated on her leafy words.
Sometimes my mind's a giraffe,
and her idea was elevated enough. 

Contrast sensitivity was thought to be fixed,
and that it would only worsen with age. 
While as I age and experience more,
the more contrasts are my focus.

So I turned to stare again at my love's face,
her dark hair against her white skin.
Her dark moods against her smile,
my love for her against all others.

"Contrast," I said, "is what love's all about."
I stopped and ruminated on my starry words.
Sometimes my mind's a space shuttle,
and my idea was burnt by the sun.

My eyes melted under such luminance;
no contrast, no trace; all flamboyance.

In the Desert

In the Desert
By Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen


Half of me horse of myself I rein you in
I quell you by spur and rein

So that you don’t lose yourself in dead cities
So that you don’t lose yourself
Not even in Babylonian trades
Not even in Nineveh’s bloody rivers

I point your snout to the clean desert
To the clean perfume of the desert
To its end to end solitude

Because of that I quell I struggle I rein you in
And the bridle cuts the spur hurts the rein holds you back

To be able to release you in the desert
Where we are not us two but only one oneself
In the clean desert and its perfume of luminaries
In the vast clean brightness of the desert
Within each poem
Light and fire lost but so close
Where we are not us two but only one oneself



__________

Translated by António Dinis Lopes from the original poem "No Deserto" as found in Geografia, ed. Ática, 1967

Photo by Jennifer Allison, "Alone"
One Street Shy

X & Y Rated

for Jennifer


Perhaps our love making is not a creation.
Recreation? A frolic fuck, for a while, 
Then waves of otherness roll us over;
Another's on top yet not to subjugate,
Undercurrents tell us to surrender,
“Wave a white flag!” how can we?
Shades of white, our shivering skin, 
Our inner colours Pink and Punk,
Contiguous walls--buildings in Lisbon--
Our furnace rages on,
Levers are pulled, manipulated;
Is it too soon, too late, is it now?
Hair embroidering hands, needles
And needs met; all moist, all wet;
Over we roll, ensemble;
Synchronous dancers, swimmers
Of the deep, surfaced creatures,
Lazy lizards, trees, and ripe fruit;
Coffee in the morning,
And cock and tails later on;
Faces full of lips, nipples full, 
Food sources that more hunger fuel,
The ultimate richness of the poor, 
White trash meets Avalon;
A ghetto behind a neck and back, 
The privacy of chest on chest,
Teeth and tongue, so to speak;
Books shout from the bookshelves,
Dust and words fill in the air,
Pleasure shouts from within us,
And love garnished by lust.

Contemporary Superpowers

for Jennifer


I’m no hero on Meatspace
nor am I engaged by nature 
in any rodent’s race;
I just take a step at each time
at my own pace.

I’m not even incomplete,
too feeble, too weak;
I’m just limited
or awake as possible
to what I can perceive.

One day, in a curious Street, 
I saw her, admired her cape,
examined my own back
and a dusty piece of cloth
bedecked it.

I witnessed her, for a couple
of years, distractedly,
engaged in love and life,
glancing with half an eye
when she passed me by.

And then, by mistake,
I touched her shoulder and,
seeing who she was, I said,
“Hey! It sounds strange,
but I’m sort of entranced.”

She smiled back
and offered me questions
as others offer candy
or a selfie
of a dirty bit.

I took the bait.

And since then, every day,
she allows me to peek
at a vast array of worlds 
she flies in, my Heroine!

Her powers include
extra vision, femalespeak,
emotional storms, super scent,
a smiley mask,
and a fast flying pack.

Mark my words,
I fear for her villains’ health
and can see them trapped,
with one option left:
cry for mommy; help. 

She’s a Gem yet Ferocious,
and thus known in comics
as Gemyfer,
the defender of fair
opportunities to mortals
and immortals alike.

I fell for her. 

“I love you,” I wrote,
and then pressed delete
as I want to have it saved
for us again on Facemeet.




  

Late Bloomers

for Jennifer


Blackberries blooming late,
wild, tucked in thorned beds,
a flower for a throne, fruit
evolving colours: green,
rose, red, black;
a fruit which is many, 
a face each drupelet. 

Summer’s ending, thus
much longer shadows are being cast,
grapes and longing are being harvested,
reduced into wine.

Two blackberries are now jam;
sugar was added and they were boiled,
mixed first with other berries,
the right consistency was reached,
screwed was a jar lid, 
and a hand painted cupboard 
gathers dust, a daydream,
a kitchen door left ajar.




______________

photo by Sage Ross,
admin on Wikimedia Commons

Classic and New

for Jennifer


I don’t believe in soul mates, love.
That would be demeaning to you:
you who were born in years later
made specifically for me? Yikes! 

What I’m sure it exists is rhyme,
where we can rhyme with others
in couplets, strophes that we read
to others each, then to each other.

All our poems depend on factors
beyond reason and thus in poetry,
which is music in text fabricated,
from the mighty ode to the petty.

Even without text we still dance
and our common dance is tango:
the male holding you, directing 
your female self back to trance.

All of us slaves to our rhythms,
which rhyme even in dissonance, 
the length of our time revolving
on how we rhyme day after day.

My rhyme and dance with you
is scary: we might not stop ever,
thus I sense fever lurking yonder,
as music without silence is eerie.

Yet we rhyme as we never did:
to celebrate such new wonders
I opted here for a rhyme different
with alliterative letters or words. 

[pause for a tango nuevo arabesque]

As I write my love poems to you,
freedom of speech is decapitated
fundamentally, almost yesterday,
a vulgar yesterday that's yet to die.

I wonder if similar worldly events
that turn lovers' woo into wounds
should make my wooing you end 
or by rebel contrast gain weight.

This much I know: the structural
world is flawed, and we must try 
to bring back its humane stance 
by rhythm and structure of tango.

A pause, love. And here we go.



_______

image: a postcard of circa 1919.

A Matter of Personal Taste

for Jennifer


In my darkest night, / when the moon was covered / and I roamed through
wreckage, / a nimbus-clouded voice / directed me: / “Live in the layers, / 
not on the litter.”
--in Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Layers”


She loves cheese.
Cheeky, I love her.
So I like cheese.
I lick it through her.

I lick deeper and salivate.
I taste salt and freckles.
Lemony tones.
Stolen orange from a tree.
A relaxed Spring in Sicily.

And deeper.
And deeper. 
My tongue turned sandpaper.
Her layers wet picked away.

She tastes of warmth.
Warmth tastes like Yellow Stone.
A thin layer of crust.
Skin.
And a mega volcano within.

My tongue is aching now. 
So I bite her bit by bit.
Hunger triggered by taste.
My appetite increases.
And I rip her ribs apart.
I can’t help myself.

But that’s never enough.
I want her whole again.
To repeat my feat, my feast.
So I need a desperate trick.
I swallow her.

And I stop here to confess.
I’ve been lying the whole time.
Taste's nothing without sight and smell.
A sense that needs some help.

Well, the whole truth too is one.
My digestion’s in French. 
Soupe a l'oignon au fromage.

500th Post

I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state? 
-- Lord Byron, in a letter to Thomas Moore dated from July the 5th, 1821  


This is my 500th blog entry since I started in the last month of 2004, never minding the quality of those previous 499...  

For a while I entertained the idea of writing this post as a reflective story on how I changed or what I learnt through these almost ten years. That story would provide deep insight into the human nature, or then again it would only raise many a sneer, “Oh, how naïve António has been...”

Though the thought of writing that story was not abandoned completely, I decided to celebrate the 500th post in a lighter tone.

I've been in a long poetic state of late and it'll eventually end one day. While shaving I already cut myself twice. And three large plates and a wineglass tried to make a bloody adventure out of the simple walking on my otherwise dull grey-stone kitchen floor.

As poetry has been in my bloodstream, I think I must wrap it all up with one of my latest creations:    


Love is like reading through a stream of Facebook posts.
It'll make you laugh, shed a tear, think deeply, sing a song.
You'll feel an inner wave ranging from sweet to despair.
And the very next day, addicted, you'll do it all over again. 


I'm kidding with those who unlike me are addicted to Facebook. On a serious note now, and as the last line of André Breton's Nadja goes:

Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all. 

Poems and haikus by Ákos Fodor

Metaoptic
Keep a careful watch on the world,
Because you make it as you have seen it.


Little Renaissance
Because of love, I tossed and turned in bed without sleeping
Until dawn -- then
I counted, there were two holes in her nose.
I smiled and fell asleep.


Invocation
The fifth string that is tighten onto my violin;
I pluck the Invisible before starting to play
I tune myself to the absolute silence, because
Without the (normal) A sound of death, every
music is false, every word is
meaningless, my Euridicée
Euridicée


Notability
He never did anything for a while that is worth mentioning. And neither later.
But at the end in his last will, cut into stone,
He left the stone and chisel for us.


Be solved
Incurable mortality is my problem
And the remedy for it


Sleeping-pill
Every loss is relief wrapped in pain  


Haiku
A bird was standing on my legs, then it flew away -
I became more heavy


Romance
See, this kind woman grew older near me in the subway;
She changed her advantageous profile-position, and faced me.


Canticum Canticorum
I miss you as much as if you weren't here


Freedom
Before leaving, you find in the basket of your balloon
the dearest, the kindest which is really the only One.
And always, this is the very exact weight, even more:
this is the excess weight.
                           You can choose:


Judgement 
You will never
Forgive me
That you didn't love me. 


Status
To this wooden-world,
Nailed through the five bleeding wounds of the senses


X-ray image of an "HOMAGE"
I AM a GREAT admirer of you


Adolescent
Poor squanderer


Devotion and horror - song about time
              The    candle of    our
                   being together
                      is burning