Monday, January 24, 2011

Divagations (1)

Image borrowed from Bing


DIVAGATIONS (1)
The Birth of Time

Results run backward gathering in force until they end up
in some sort of cavern miraculously well lit
& everyone there feels surprise & wonder.

They are more like phantoms than like little men:
a symptom of the way they cough & breathe.*

From the depths the girl at center rises,
edges toward the stooping man & calls him father.+

She is a distant runner, trained to smash against the wind
& carry on until some place draws nigh –
where the whole point of speed is relaxation.#

It fits & lessens our predicament,
although no final strategy permits it.

Even so.

My hand in yours allows a sleep in which each dream
is like a hole in paradise.^

The more you fall through it**
the more it takes you to the birth of time.++

* bob & weave........+ [maybe the stupid man is what you meant.]
# execution..... ^ a holy paradigm. .....** stall in it .....++ of rhyme

Jerome Rothenberg

A series of new poems with footnoted variant readings, scheduled for publication as a Big Bridge Press E-Book with drawings by Nancy Victoria Davis.
Posted over on his site Poems & Poetics

No comments: