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Psalm IV

Atemwende

"I am the stone that kills me;"

                                                                     Kamau Brathwaite, "Stone" 





In age the words are whisper distant.

The violence and precision
into which the Ism is divided;
watery, brittle and then fragile.
The ennui is such an old friend
that the beasts in the walls
recede into the fog
to love each other faithfully.

Angular breath decants
wheeze clank of the whether machine
the odd assortment of evergreens
diaspora of days shadow the shrunk voice
whispers at the vine covered altar
and wheels the putrid sky
songdeath of afternoon;
slow slant of pauses
that allow uneasy leisure at the threshold.
The wheat libelled and hacked away
The soil churned and reborn
the body turned under.

Chopped breath
hurries the pilgrim along--
new raiment for the angel
coughs dry labia lips crack

fingers curl
words between rasp
with cruel gasps,
a gentle descent in company with the asp;
to shed skin
thoughtrifts remain stitched with debt
songbird echo deep within

Mother of bare branches
breathlake empty of wave.

Author notes

Atemwende; "a turning of our breath," Essay Paul Celan 1960.

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Comments


  • IronIcecream
    February 15, 2008

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    the only turning allowed by self is on to self
    it is the only right
    to search for own axis

    the only choice
    the only point from where you start spiraling
    mending into the collective illusion
    of tasting time
    and running places

    the only space
    where informal takes form
    and reality shape

    there - unaware
    you taste the sleep of your dreams


  • cvillelisa
    February 10, 2008

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    "Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way - the way of art - for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa's head, the abyss and automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction - it is perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa's head shrivels and the automatons run down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?"

    from Celan's essay


    This is a special poem. A turning for Lute, I sense. Away from the poems of old and toward a sort of comfortably unknowning, seeking more while realizing less (I heard that somewhere).

    The part nature plays here - very New really, for you. Advanced from those poems where the chipmonk gathered acorns, a keener language and understanding perhaps or if not understanding - knowing in the unknowing. Acceptance and fearlessness.

    There are parts of that Sea Talk in A Long Day's Journey into Night - when Edmund explains how he became one with the sun, melted into the sea -- was God -- I see here. How when he returned from his visions and his experience - he returned with the acceptance of the dread - and the dread was even Beautiful.

    Some of the finest imagery you've penned, I think. Though far from finished this journey

    more please.

    Last two lines are
    very good.

    This in all its sort of dreadness makes me feel very comforted.



  • Night Hope gold member
    February 10, 2008

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    "thoughtrifts remain stitched with debt
    songbird echo deep within

    Mother of bare branches
    breathlake empty of wave."

    Jesus. Holiness pulses upon this page, Scribe. Pure holiness, I tell you. Wanda

    from my author's page:

    "Among the Haida Indians of the Pacific Northwest, the verb
    for 'making poetry' is the same as the verb 'to breathe'."

    ~ Tom Robbins, from the book: "Another Roadside Attraction"