Poem for Tuesday

The Weak Poet
By David Shapiro

          for Michal Govrin

When a poet is weak,
like a broken microphone,
he still has some power,
indicated by a red light.

The weak poet
is fixed to the wall
like an ordinary light.

Dependent and dismal by turns,
he is a nominalist
and a razor blade
and a light.

And the demons cry,
Cast him from the kingdom
for a copy of a copy!

Remove him
like the women who supported the temple —
slaves too free and alive.
His similes are ingenious, like science among lovers.

My friend, however early
you called, you had come
too late, again.

The weak poet
has not gone grey
but his sacrificed similes
lead nowhere.

And his I is like any other word
in the newspaper and he is cut up
like fashion.

Each window was seductive,
but even his diseases could be cured.
Your low voice alone
is major like a skepticism.

We had forgotten
the place and the stories,
and the fiery method, too familiar, too distant.

We had memorized the poems,
but only for prison.
With the first new year celebrated in chaos
above the red waters of Paradise.

Where a clayey groom
hears the bride’s voice
like a stronger world —

Sound is all
a snake can do —
and charming sense
and strangeness.

Now the old poet
loses his voice like a garden.
But finds it again, like a street in a garden.

In the injured house
made of local sun and stone —
In the city of numbers
which everyone counts and hates and wants—

We could read together in a dark city garden,
scribbling with language over
screens like lips, scribbling the first mistranslations.

--------

Relatively uneventful Monday except for huge afternoon thunderstorm and accompanying power flickers that stopped me from writing an article on Star Trek comics, quel dommage (I did finish the ones on Patrick Stewart's planned Merchant of Venice movie and the particle transporter). Amused son by finding Jeff Bridges, who is in Surf's Up -- which I will unquestionably be seeing this weekend -- quoted as saying that penguins are taking over the world, or at least Hollywood. In the evening we went to pick up the van, which fortunately only needed minor repairs to the air conditioning and not the entire cooling system replaced, then went to IHOP because we were right next door...eggs benedict can improve any evening even if, like me, you eat it without the Canadian bacon. Stopped at World Market on the way home, found fabulous nag champa incense set in wooden shadow box for $8; no Nestle Aero bars, but Cadbury Dairy Milk and UK Twinings tea for all.













So, cruisedirector, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 0% unique and 4% herdlike
(partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy monty python).
When it comes to friends you are a total whore. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are wary of trusting strangers. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.
Your overall weirdness is: 30(The average level of weirdness is: 31.
You are weirder than 56% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is!

Now, what's funny about my not being unique is that I've been careful not to have any interests that won't link to anyone or anything else...seems kind of silly if the point of a linked interests list is so other people with the same interests can find you. I could probably make my entire list unlinkable if I tried!

Watched the last episode for the season of The Tudors while folding laundry...continuing in the vein of rewriting history however the writers see fit, this installment has Wolsey do something historically preposterous (and excuses it by having Henry tell the only person who knows about it that no one else must ever know of it). But the episode redeems itself by its fascinating portrayal of Sir Thomas More -- hero of A Man For All Seasons and so many other stories in which Henry's lusts and Wolsey's greed establish them firmly as the villains -- as a religious fanatic obsessed with forcing his perspective on God and the Church upon everyone else, which is far scarier than Henry just wanting the power to do what he wants without Rome meddling or his people losing their affection for him. I find it ironic that the only character I have really liked in the series is the one always portrayed as the conservative old prude with the despicable bigoted parents: Catherine of Aragon.