Soma
Resources => Poetry [Public] => Topic started by: nichi on October 29, 2008, 05:16:15 AM
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I carved a wind-harp
Dar Óma
out of aged cherry-wood
I carved a wind-harp
and placed it far
from the eyes
and ears of men
a hawk watches over it
no fingers touch
its delicate strings
the breeze it is
that plays the tune
breeze of morning
breeze of night
warm breeze from the south
throughout the day
it sings but You
wordlessly
effortlessly
never the same tune
Gabriel Rosenstock
Gabriel Rosenstock is the author/translator of over 100 books, including 12 volumes of poetry in Irish and a number of volumes of bilingual haiku. A member of Aosdana, the Irish Academy of Arts and Letters, he has given readings in Europe, the US, India, Australia and Japan. He has translated into Irish the selected poems of, among others, Francisco X. Alarcon, S. Heaney, G. Grass, W M Roggeman, Said, M. Augustin, P. Huchel, G. Trakl, G. Heym, H. Schertenleib and his Irish-language versions of haiku masters Issa, Buson, Shiki, Santoka and others are much loved in his native country.
The selections form Uttering Her Name are addressed to Dar Óma, a Celtic goddess, daughter of OGHMA who gave the gift of writing to the Celts. The communication to Dar Óma at times seems addressed an impersonal God and, at others, to someone immediate, felt, touched. Gabriel Rosenstock describes the work as neo-bhakti and, indeed, it has a strong feel of some of the great bhakti poetry, like that of Mirabai.
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why was the veil rent
Dar Óma
why was the veil rent
why did I ever see Your face
what madness
does my purpose hold
I bleed in my core
at least a stigmatist
has wounds to show
dark One, quickly,
send vultures
Gabriel Rosenstock
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the herring gull repeatedly lifts a crab
Dar Óma
the herring gull
repeatedly lifts a crab
carries it aloft
and drops it
on rocks below
until it is satisfied
the shell is truly shattered
the meat devoured
not a scrap left behind
You take me ever higher
clawing air
I forget my fate
submitting to Your hunger
Gabriel Rosenstock
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in a Transylvanian mud-bath
Dar Óma
in a Transylvanian mud-bath
I cover myself in black
oily ooze
Ganesh smiles
mud cakes in the sun
an elephant grey
I lift You with my tusks
like a log far into the forest
all my past
spread out
laid bare
I trample on it
what else to do
carefully I let You down
You stand
where no one has stood before
the ivory silence
as You recline
Gabriel Rosenstock
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These are definitely.....interesting.
I guess I'd say they touch the reader in a different way then I've experienced with Poetry before.
Thanks for sharing V, these are quite mysterious and intriguing.
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Dar Óma
holding Your image before me
on a screen
increasing percentages
until You disintegrate
like some forgotten galaxy
calling You back again
a retrieval
a respite from senseless oblivion
I know that stars are born
only to die
we see the light
of heavenly bodies
long since gone
this also I know:
Your light shines in me
the universe holds no terror
Gabriel Rosenstock
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Dar Óma
I have written a symphony for You
You should hear it
You probably never will
I'm having fierce trouble
with the orchestra
the triangle player
reminds me
rather sternly
that there are only three sides
to a triangle
the lead violinist shrieks
<you have notes here
that do not exist!>
I blush and stammer
<well, do the best you can ...>
<what do you mean softly?>
complains the cymbalist
<cymbals clash and that is that!>
oh, I don't know,
I fear it may never be heard
unless I perform it all on my own
Gabriel Rosenstock
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Dar Óma
I dreamt
I’d been to the ends of the earth
not to seek You
to avoid You
armed with talismans
I drew a circle with white chalk
a protection against Your smile
an inner circle with red chalk
against Your mouth
I gibbered in lost languages
the air was thick
with cabalistic formulae
then I heard You singing
shape-shifting
I became whiskered rat
You looked away
when You looked again
I was barn-owl
descending on rat
then I flew
for a day and a night
and came to a dark place
an even darker time
that time and place
before we met
Gabriel Rosenstock
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Dar Óma
I went to my excellent physician
author of Addiction Replacement Therapy
he put me on heroin
and monitored my progress steadily
<is your need for Her
greater than your craving for the drug?>
I nodded, sagely
he put me on LSD
<what do you see?>
<blazing yellow harvest moons
orbiting one another
their beams are peacock feathers
showering on crab-apple trees
in the Isle of the Blest
their taste is dry>
<you don’t see Her at all?>
<who else am I describing?>
the doctor is perplexed
the universe perplexed
GR
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Dar Óma
let me find You in a meadow
in that tart herb
we ate as children
sour sally we called it
find You in simple days
when hens roamed freely
scratching the earth
from elderberries I squeezed ink
imagining poems
I’d dedicate to You
I first discovered You
in a hen’s egg
round warm
I thought aloud:
the world could be like this
as it is now
Cloud Woman was there ever a time
I did not hear You
promising to return
Star Woman invoked a million times
Long Grass Woman were You not always present
when I played and hid from enemies
Earth Woman that opens up when I’m gone
GR
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Dar Óma
You are not yet of my time
we do not eat together
sleep together
rise together
I will get up three hundred hours earlier
make toast in the middle of the night
smother it with honey
the moon will look in the window
curiously
out on the street
an urban fox
scavenging
his tail catching
the first light of dawn
Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering her name
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Dar Óma
snake unwinding
from a lightning-blasted tree
I’ve spotted You
why should I flee?
I am already deep in Your eyes
come
take all of me
mercifully
let me assist You
here’s my head firmly in Your jaws
do not use Your fangs
to stun me
let me live
this death in You now
inch by slow inch
GR
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Dar Óma
many deities
and higher beings were jostling –
readers over my shoulder
waiting to hear
the next utterance
each in his and her own way
prompting me
helping me to find
a word-entrance
rhythm-entrance to Your heart
it was a veritable Babel I can tell You
in the end
I banished them to lonely towers
on high
composed and gathered in silence
with one finger
I typed out Your name
GR
:)
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Dar Óma
I prepare to close this book a while
and leave it on the table
near some flowers
as I plan some other route
to Your being
the road so far was long
but seemed to only last a day
part of the night
You were my staff of hazel
my guide and companion
there was pain not seeing You
pain seeing You
I will read the lives of explorers
adventurers
imitate their courage and guile
faced by storms, pirates,
drought, deluge
unmapped territories
the knowledge that one is lost
I will go to sea as a Bedouin
GR
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Dar Óma
I could cut myself off
from the world of men
but not of crows
I cannot recall a time
not being of the crow nation
the way they fly alone
and assemble
their silence
a disused well
in the distance
near at hand –
that’s me
the one that’s left behind
brazen in the morning
they rule evening time
painting their shadows on roofs
they hide
practise ventriloquism
expose tail feathers
say <here I am>
I try not to eavesdrop
on their intimate conversations
but am drawn in
Crow - You see -
battle cry, lullaby, lament,
subtleties of grammar, nuance,
Crow is my first language
GR
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This is my favorite one.
(http://www.iayork.com/Images/2007/9-22-07/crow104.png)
Dar Óma
I could cut myself off
from the world of men
but not of crows
I cannot recall a time
not being of the crow nation
the way they fly alone
and assemble
their silence
a disused well
in the distance
near at hand –
that’s me
the one that’s left behind
brazen in the morning
they rule evening time
painting their shadows on roofs
they hide
practise ventriloquism
expose tail feathers
say <here I am>
I try not to eavesdrop
on their intimate conversations
but am drawn in
Crow - You see -
battle cry, lullaby, lament,
subtleties of grammar, nuance,
Crow is my first language
GR
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great crow-pic!
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Dar Óma
after years of rigorous training
going from one master to another
breathing exercises
careful regulation of diet
avoiding loose women and strong liquor
I have finally qualified
as a basso profondo for You
last night was my debut
I sang the Dar Óma Lieder
like a deranged nightingale
the audience showered me with flowers
I threw them back
<silence!> I bellowed, profoundly
(I could feel You in the hush)
<these flowers are for Her! for Her!
She who has crafted my voice
grab your staffs! your blackthorn sticks!
take your bouquets and posies
on pilgrimage to Her
place rose garlands around Her neck
and at Her feet
She is the source of your delirium
She it is that sings through me
wildly, melodiously,
the song of the seal in its lair
when tides are full>
GR
:)
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Dar Óma
on first hearing its name
I wanted its shock
had I found an electric eel
I would have kept it close to me
jolted into awareness
whenever vagueness or revery set it
at the end of my fiftieth year
You appeared like an eel, a naga
from the depths
I bristle like a furry animal
sure of its doom
never so alive
as in the force of Your current
that moves and twists in me constantly
cell to delighted cell
~GR
Uttering Her Name
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Dar Óma
I create silences
wherever I go
in silence You come to me
I close my eyes and ears
to worlds
my lips
if people ask for directions
I point to the gibbous moon
when asked how I am
I smile the cusp of an eclipse
should someone ask the time
they'll see in my eyes
it is Dar Óma time
to pray
and to praise
all of creation
is getting in the mood
insects flit silently
movement
but no rustle from trees
I cannot hear my heartbeat
in a distant land
You move noiselessly
sunlight briefly strokes the haggard face of a mountain
a hare cocks his ears
You listen
GR
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Dar Óma
yesterday
I went looking
for You
and found You
everywhere
particularly
in the flight of swallows
innumerable
in the darkening air
it seemed they wished
to fan the dying sun
to flame
GR
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Dar Óma
I became a goatherd for You
searching for our lost goats
where can they be?
sometimes I think I see them
they turn out to be lichen-flecked rocks
men have been singing
such desperate songs for centuries
my herding is an old art
partly forgotten
I can no longer do it alone
You must come
let’s pool our skills
listen and watch
I say,
what You hear is a curlew>
later You exclaim
You run ahead
the sun, low on the horizon,
strains to caress Your ankles
one last time –
am I chasing goats?
we rejoice
when we find the herd
we milk the white nanny together
in bonfire light
swapping teats playfully
milk in the bucket
splashes of whitish laughter
GR
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Dar Óma
not the slaked thirst
of Bayazid
but the prayer of the Prophet
eternally on my lips:
more thirst
like a dog
my tongue hangs out
asleep or awake
how could it be different
I lick Your dew
from grass
howling
I create thunder storms
the air fills
with Your rain
long after it has ceased
trees drip
Your sound
I hear it
even when not listening
seeping
deeper than roots
GR
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Not from the Uttering Her Name volume...
Spring With a Thousand Clichés
Spring with a thousand clichés has arrived
Hafiz puts each one to work as though never employed before
Those swallows, for instance, he is their loopy flight
(Though ostensibly holding up a corner, eyes half closed)
Peach blossoms? He has taken on their scent
Oozing, literally, from every pore
All this without willing it to be so
Spring with a thousand clichés has arrived
And Hafiz, friskier than a kid goat, dozes outside a half-door
Lengthening days; he stretches his feet
Light trickles into the world. More more!
Somebody gives him a well-aimed kick. 'Drunken useless poet!'
The heart of Hafiz bursts open, a rose
Without willing it to be so
Until there is no cliché left. Not a sight. Not a sound.
No doves moan
A breeze from the desert comes suddenly to a halt
Recognising home
A stork tidies her nest. Could that be -? Is that
Hafiz again, helping out with her annual chore?
All this, all this without willing it to be so
~Gabriel Rosenstock
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Not from "Uttering..."
I OPEN MY POEM
I open my poem to bright things
here come oranges, dandelions,
come in
take a seat
I’ll be right with you
into my poem
comes a lovely cuckoo snow in its beak
welcome
what’s this?
oceans of sunshine
I open my poem to all that is
that will be that was
that could be
bad move
here comes
an old cat
a pigeon’s leg in its mouth
(shit happens)
sit yourself down
mind the cuckoo
it’s got snow in its mouth
make room for yourself
between
the oranges and the dandelions
where are you from your catself?
where’s the rest of the pigeon?
I open my poem to all the elements
alive and dead and
some ivy comes in trailing
its own wall
the wall falls on the cat
this poem is a tragedy
of sorts
somewhere in the world
a wall is falling on a cat
on a child
I open my poem again to bright things
but there’s nothing left
2006, Gabriel Rosenstock
From: Rosenstock – selected poems
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(From Uttering)
Dar Óma
I come knocking at Your door
and say I’m here to check the –
mutter something
You let me in
will you be long? You ask
an eternity
I mumble under my breath
and begin probing walls
with a stethoscope
Your eyes grow large
what exactly do you think you’re doing
You enquire, melodiously,
in a voice that will never die
I sigh something about trapped voices
in walls
prayers in the middle of the night
songs that nobody sings any more
I can hear something, I say,
a macaw, possibly,
but You are already on the phone
the police aren’t all that bad
they allow me listen to prison walls
and grin when I recite aloud
the lost sonnets of the damned
~G.R.