Blue Hour (5 page)

idam agnaye, na mama

idam agnaye, na mama
(this is for the fire, not for me)

if he exists to another, that is need

if rope were writing he would have hanged himself

if you ask him what happened he will tell you

if you bring forth what is within you

in a bowl polished by the morning light

in a village where the women know how to piss standing up

in carceral silence

in glimpses, broken messages, cryptic signs

in his address book, a pressed poppy chosen from his mother’s poppy bed

in his coat, a small cage of canaries

in his hand a clod of himself to wipe on the walls

in memory: the music of an open spigot

in reverse until you were floating in a flat green boat

in solitary reverie we can tell ourselves everything

in stone is written
in stone

in the bardo of becoming

in the black daybreak, passing through

in the casket window, a face

in the cellar, three crates: rifles, gold & cognac

in the cesium fields

in the chaotic light in the coal-smoked heavens

in the cities of what can be said

in the country of advanced years

in the ecstasy of standing outside oneself

in the fact of parting

in the garden: heliotrope, phlox, rose trees, trellised roses, blue torenia, hibiscus, blue lobelia, lichen, a bamboo grove

in the garden in winter with my son

in the mathematical language of a time to come

in the morning, a white shirt on the line waving

in the night photograph: electric cities, burning forests

in the pole-and-rag tents

in the still-bandaged pines

in the summer, weeds took over the city: horse weeds known as railway weeds grew taller than people

in the surround of that word

in the time after

in the tin lamp’s punched light

in the toy store, a parcel of toys explodes

in the white infinity of mist

in the window a veil of winter

in their radiance a tub of dry milk

in this camp, how many refugees

in this the child’s blue hour

in thought, where they were lost

incapable of imagining annihilation

inhabiting a body to be abolished

inter alia, inter nos

intercessor

into a duration deep within her

into the world, further illuminated by thought

iris, illuminant

is there anything else?

it appears to be an elegy, put into the mouth of a corpse

it became what it was because of us—in that sense
loved

it is as if space were touching itself through us

it is more ominous than any oblivion, to see the world as it is

it is not possible to find you in death’s heaven

it is not raining in the catacombs

it is not you who will speak

it is the
during
of the world

it is the morning of the body’s empty soul

it is worse than memory

it ruins time, the chiasmus of hope

it was all over

it was all there, written in stone, a record of munitions

it was
cinema

it was gruel refused: blue wedges of bread, maggot soup, rice drippings

it was just before the second war, and she had no time for me

it was raining in the catacombs

it was the first time in my life I tasted fish

it was the name of a time, and over there, a place

it was the simplest way to know one another

J’ai rêvé tellement fort de toi

J’ai tellement marché tellement parlé

journey of two thousand kilometers

journey that will have no end

keeping a record of oneself

keepsake, knell, Kyrie

knowing oneself from within

l’heure bleue,
hour of doorsteps lit by milk

le musée hypothétique

lace patterned after frost flowers

language from chance to chance

languid at the edge of the sea

lays itself open to immensity

leaf-cutter ants bearing yellow trumpet flowers along the road

left everything left all usual worlds behind

library, lilac, linens, litany

lifting the wounded

light and the reverse of light

light impaled on the peaks

light issuing from the wind’s open wounds

light mottling the forest floor, crows leaving one limb for another

light of cinder blocks, meal trays

light of inexhaustible light

lighted paper sacks sent downriver to console

like the handkerchief road

like the whispering in a convent garden

like tomb flowers, the ossuary’s skull works

lilac and globeflower, clouds islanding the tilled fields

linked as flame to burning coal, as one candle lighted from another

listening to the stove mice and chimney swallows

little rain holes where the bullets went, rains crater the field, raising each a ring of soot, striking the catch pails and stabbing the tarpaulin.

we live in fog tents, awake, whispering what could once be written on a sliver of rice

lost in paper, shellfire

lupine wind, lingering daylight

lute music written for severed hands

manuscripts in the cold part of the house

matchbooks flaring in a blank window

matinal, mirage, mosaic

meaning did not survive that loss of sequence

memory does not interfere

memory the presence of the no-more

metal soup pots hung to dry, crazed porcelain basins

mirrors, vials, furnaces

misprision
of moments lifted from their concealment

moments of rain ascend in the manner of smoke

more ominous than any oblivion

mortar smoke mistaken for an orchard of flowering pears

mud from the bowels of the city

mud from the disheveled night

music loosening floor tiles, a moon washed in earthly light, the dawn sirens calling men to the mines

music of the hurrying fountains

must release the dead from bondage

must rise from the dead while we live

my dear, I think
yes

my father crossed the field and stood

my hair a cold flag of rain

my hands coated with tomb dust

my mother’s hand broken by a fierce wind

my own: I was utterly there. and when I came back I was still there

naked beneath our names, thrown up by the wit-lost

near dawn, near the river wasn’t it? if one of us

near the lake, where the fireweed was

neither a soul nor a body

neither for us nor near itself

never repeating itself

nevertheless, noumenon, november

new pasts, whole aeons are invented

night shift in the home for convalescents

nightshirt, razor strop, boot-heel

night-voiced viola

no breath of God, no words, and no possibility of restoration

no content may be secured from them

no one prayer resembling another

not a house but a stagnant hour

not blood, flesh and bread but an earthly ecstasy

not isolation but a lack of solitude

not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest

not wishing to know anything more about oneself

nothing as it was

nothing other than mind

nothing was exiled from itself

now and again like a voice grown suddenly tired

now on the plane in a white-out

objects [heavenly bodies]
as they were in the past

oder nicht

oil soap, orchard, ossuary

old books snowing from our hands

older than clocks and porcelain, younger than rope

older than glass, younger than music

on each tip of grass a wet jewel

on her hand, a moment of ring-light

on lave les corps, on les prépare pour l’ensevelissement

on the blanket then, government issue

on the fifty-fourth day, loss of sight and hearing

on the platform between trains, holding a bottle

on the shortwave, the high whine of the world’s signal

one for the other

one sees and is seen

one sees and is seen approaching the other with empty hands

one stands in line for butter

only the walls that did not face the blast remained white

open shell of heaven

or a failed letter

or that she would admonish me for the years of my silence

or when it first occurred to them to have graves with markers

our atelier of passing trains, citronella smoke, a veiled bed

our hymnic song against death

our most secret selves

past and present sliding into each other

pear trees espaliered along the walls

pen and ink across the boundaries

pink snow downwind of the test site

pinning their intentions to a saint’s dress

pitch smoke chalks the sky over the roof

poppy seed, portal, portrait, prayerbook

present though most often invisible

question after question

quiescent, quiet, quinine, quivering

rain falling into their open eyes

rain in the catacombs

raising each a ring of soot

redemption not an accounting or a debt

refugee, relic, reverie

relief sacks loaded into trucks

relief tents until the horizon

remaining in fear of death but remaining

responsible beyond our intentions

resting language or language under surveillance

reverses itself as we read it

riddles the statues of martyrs and turns

rinses limbs then craters the field

rinses limbs then

rises as wet smoke

rising in bodily light

roads rivered with waste and a tea-colored rain

sacks of soy and manioc, dry milk, rice

sanctuary, sea glass, sorrow

scoop of earth: slivers of femur, metacarpals

searching for something one knows will not be found

set in language and deserted by God

she heard no one’s footsteps, then nothing

she holds lilacs to her face

she meets a man on the mule-steps who has been dead for months

she pulled the lilacs to herself

she puts the rice pot down in the snow

she sees nothing of what is to come

she went with him willingly and without knowing where she was, she saw the country very much as she would have had she walked through a film about herself

she within me

she would never again wander too far into the past

sheltering in the open

shore birds, smoke, the ferris wheel turning

signature by signature in triplicate, rice and dry milk

since last night on the bridge

six hours under fire along the road

six inches from my belly

sixteen clicks after the flag of fire

slow questioners, there was no place in the world for them

smacking the hands of children who miswrote

small talk like white smoke from kindling

snow clicking as it falls into itself, hushed, a little smoke crawling from a stovepipe, following the wind or rising straight, the village so quiet that one can hear the iced branches

snow in the shadow folds,
impasto, gouache

snow on the shoulders of the statuary

so as not to take a single word into my mouth

so as to be taken for refugees

so emptiness cannot harm emptiness

so it appears as if it were what we wanted

so that the dead climb up out of the river to blacken its banks

so that the other comes back

so this is how the past begins—

so we walked, pretending our empty suitcases burdened us

some dance, one holds a dove aloft

some flaw in the message itself

some were burned with cigarettes, some doused with turpentine. every night they poured turpentine through their hair and slept like that, so as to keep the leeches from giving them head wounds

some with wicker baskets, others with gathered flax, some with children in their arms, others with brooms, some dance, others hold aloft a dove someone will be pouring milk while another perishes

something broken and personal, a memory

something holding back the pouring, a turn of the kaleidoscope, a turn again, radiant, beautiful, meaningless so it is easier to choose stones from the ground, a sack of words, pieces of language from something larger, and if a single event caused this ruin, what was that event? what made night a country of terror?

something within me is no longer with him

snow catching on razor wire, searchlit fields

snow through open windows

soul on its way toward earth

sparks of holiness

spoken in unknown words of a known language

stepping back into an earlier life

strands of hair, blood, corpuscled light

streets iced with shop-glass, a flock of stones

stripped trees against winter fields

take no words by mouth

tangled lilacs, peeling walls, darkening lindens

tedium taught me an imaginary world

tendril, torpor, tributary

that even this refuge might be taken:

that ing-ing of verbs in an eternal present

that light traveled from the eye to the world

that nothingness might not be there

that you might become one among others

the after-touching memory of relief

the air around the ringing bells filled with ash

the being that lies half open

the birds became smoke

the blue whorling that once spoke

the blue-stoned streets of river rock

the boiling, sudden clouds of August

the border. anywhere. but the war zone. mattresses roped to the roof