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When he claimed to be
my angel guardian winged
I thought I heard a rustle
of paper and silk
A flutter of fins
angel, man or fish?
a thousand bubbles
before it all fizzled out
Angel sweet, defiled, finned
spread your wings
though we could never
fly with
No Daedalus flights in sight
or Icarus dives
only runes of black ink
on your paper wings
Angel sweet bereaved
read my elegies
on the parchment
of your flimsy fins
Guardian Angel
My poems, the products of my emotions,
the products of my thoughts, the products
of my inspiration, the products of my brain
and of my heart – they are my offering,
my individual contribution,
my unique and peculiar contribution,
my generous contribution –
to this old and ancient profession,
this ancient profession of poetry,
this ancient profession of poesy:
the ancient profession of trading in words.
translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
It is an image,
a dream of Grace
caught in Time,
imprisoned
by the blink
of a camera's
aperture,
trapped by the lens
of a mechanical
eye.
Naked, her lithe,
sinuous body,
more muscular than
the average Jane Doe,
is bathed in glowing
silvery light,
the shadows
of the dark room
in which she poses
running like ink
over the contours
of her nudity,
... exposed and yet invulnerable...,
while the cold,
patrician beauty
of her face,
framed by a tumbling
lion's mane
of dark hair,
is stamped with
the cruelty
of a jagged scar,
a lightning bolt
of old pain,
that reveals
the humanity
her Art denies.
She is not
anonymous.
She has survived
the caress
of Life's talons.
The cracks in the glass
of the dirty window's pane
are the bitter smile
of an urban predator.
**************************
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Bruise On a Female Back", by Linnik (Olga Zanchurina), dreamstime_3411577.jpg
I counted the tears of a thousand men
and clasped in my arms
they almost suffocated.
My god I feel dizzy
and the ground is giving way
under the weight of the nights
spent with them
I felt weak
today when I think of it
I was rather brave
to have dared to spend
so many nights in the caves full
of violence and absence,
of bodies going into trance.
Her father used to call her
Leptir
which is Serbian for
Butterfly
because she used to chase after the Monarchs
flapping her little girl arms
in an effort to fly just like them.
Now, her thin hands flutter like
butterflies
working quickly
over her project
while there is still
light of day.
first published in BMP
In the desert
lost
grains of sand
sing in the wind
the whistling
refrains
of the ravaged childhoods
and broken loves.
The muse split, man
Like, she was with me
Pale and fair as a damsel out of Keats
So hip she could step into a Lou Reed lyric and not miss a beat
I blinked
And she vaporized
Or something
Not a sign remained
Not even her beret
Or those black tights
That really kind of do it for me
When she murmurs
Sweet pentameters
In a chanteuse voice
That pours light through a wind
Blown off the dark Mediterranean
From five centuries ago
What happened
I let the wage slavery beat me down
She would not put up with that
It was steady income
And gainful employment
That drove her underground
Left to my own dubious devices,
I ventured out
Through the boulevards
And alleyways of verse
High on Surrealism
I gave myself over
To chance encounters
With sewing machines and umbrellas
Subway trains and illuminated manuscripts
Miss America, Mary Shelley, and the ghost of Gregory Corso...
In cramped quarters of rented rooms,
I trafficked in trope
Handcuffed to the bare page
As if the fierceness of my gaze
Alone might transport me
To whatever paradise
We mujahedeen of poetry
Are apt to know
The paradise we make or accept
Through each act of love
That brings vision
Into this life the life of each of us
The old troubadour sings
to his own heart
imploring himself
to keep faith
in love
while all the rest
floats away
even the lively audience
of foreigners, who imagine
that all tropical music
must be happy.
whoever weeps tonight
my soul weeps for you
if you are broken
my heart breaks for you
if you are desolate
my spirit goes with you
for tonight,
no one weeps deeper
than this broken,
orphaned soul!
© Danny C. Sillada
Like a migrant Thai worker I pedal
my bicycle on the village path. Hunched over, dark,
my face covered against the dust. The dogs bark at me,
the bees slam into my forehead, and the scent
of a distant homeland assaults my nostrils.
And like his letters home, silverplating
the sweat of his brow, my poems too are wrapped
with the darkness that covers the land of my longing.
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
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