HomeArchivesSubmissionsCorpse CafeCorpse MallOur GangHot SitesSearch
Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life
Poesy
Two Poems
by Robert Bly
Author's Links


Noah Watching the Rain

I never understood that manyness leads to war,
Nor that stones are like gasoline on the fire.
I never knew that the horseshoe longs for night.

All through my twenties I worked in the opal mines.
No one could open the door to Saturn's house.
I had no choice but to live in my father's night.

I am still a mouse nibbling the chocolate of sadness.
I am an Albigensian reading Bulgarian script.
I am a boy walking across England by night.

Each time we fold in the fingers of our left hand
We bring our ancestors close to each other again,
So they can lie on top of each other in the bed at night.

Soon our grandfather and grandmother will kiss
Once more. Then death will come in his Jewish hat,
And tell Noah to start praising the rainy night.

Even though I know that whenever I say the word
"Abundance," I am laying up trouble for ourselves,
I have no other way to express my love for the night.



Walking Backward

Friends, there is only one joy and hundreds of sorrows.
We live down here in the Abode of Smelly Bones
Near the window's door, near Whitman's retarded brother.

Even though it's dawn on the rooftops, it's still night
Here, among cabbages and shoats, among
Glints from the wings of the mice-seeking owls.

Grown men are often strange. Savanarola
Was uncomfortable in a strawberry patch,
And Aristotle was uneasy beside the generous sea.

Something in mother's milk frightened both
The Italians and Greeks. A drop of milk
Creates a crown when it falls back into milk.

The Sumerians, pressing their stylus into wet clay,
Found their way to the sites of their great
White-walled cities by the smell of milk.

In our messy world, we all walk backward,
Each holding a potato that points to the grave.
The night of infidelity and longing goes on forever.

 


BROKEN NEWS || CRITIQUES & REVIEWS || CYBER BAG || CYB FI || EC CHAIR
FAREWELL, GREGORY: A POESY BURST FOR CORSO || FICCIONES || THE FOREIGN DESK
GALLERY
|| LETTERS || POESY || SERIALS || STAGE & SCREEN
|| ZOUNDS
HomeArchivesSubmissionsCorpse CafeCorpse MallOur GangHot SitesSearch
Exquisite Corpse Mailing List Subscribe Unsubscribe

©1999-2002 Exquisite Corpse - If you experience difficulties with this site, please contact the webmistress.