BREYTENBACH, Breyten


Catastrophes

…..
we pray each day to give thanks for the sand

where we walk and sleep and which we scoop

to wash the bodies for worship –

when a prince of the capital comes to the wasteland

we prepare over the coals in the fire pit a camel

crammed with a goat stuffed with pheasant

farced with a desert dove stopped with two eggs

and present the steaming fragrant caravel carcass

as if crouched for praying on the festive table –

high against the fingertips of the towers of convocation

two ostrich shells are built into heaven

to catch and hold the full moon's light,

nothing ever decays in this burning away of time –

then we show to our guest in the holy writings

how these arabesques of the revelation of faults

like so many consonant insects of God

are silently mounted by the shifting dunes

of a timeless dream of oblivion,

and our words become sand
…..


In a burning sea

ow often were we wrapped in coolness on the floor

the smell of turpentine and fire

the canvases white to our empty eyes

night's indifference

and the moon a smile somewhere outside

out of sight

days decompose like seasons beyond the panes

leaves of rain, a face, a cloud, this poem

I wanted to leave my imprint on you

to brand you with the flaming hour

of being alone

no fire sings as clear

as the silver ashes of your movements

and your melancholy body

I wanted to draw that sadness from you

so that you might be revealed

the way a city opens

on a bright landscape

filled with pigeons and the fire of trees

and silver crows also out of sight in the night

and the moon a mouth that one can ignite

and then I wished that you could laugh

and your body bitter

my hands of porcelain on your hips

your breath such a dark-dark pain

a sword at my ear

how often were we here

where only silver shadows stir

only through you I had to deny myself

through you alone I knew I had no harbor

in a burning sea


This the Season

this is the season when the dreamer,

swathed in dark remembrances

like an infant swaddled in the weavings of night,

often sobs in his sleep

this is the season when he finds a copper coin

under stripped trees in the lane,

the bankrupt moon, a rusted leaf,

the barking dog,

and precipitously the heart tumbles

and memory brings back

widgeons in the reed-bush,

crackling evenings,

waves combed in tresses on the beach,

your beautiful hips

a violin with a scroll at heaven's door

for the tongue to enter your bliss

awareness is a boat nosing for the open sea

and life a body slithering over its side,

sinking like a sob

to wash up tomorrow among rocks

for the postmortem opening-up

in search of meaning

when the moon is full of rot

I shall go to Santiago de Cuba

I shall go to Santiago

in a carriage of black water

this is the season when church bells peal

and snow must slip over towers and spires and peaks

silence shroud the hollows of the city

like cold come from heaven

Estos dias, iguales a otros dias de otros años:

these days exactly like the days of earlier years

with people exactly like those of then

with the same hours and the dead

with similar desires

and the old-old restlessness of before

is here

nothing happens

you're not alone

with the sleepless cold, you come

you go, you don't know where

or why

put on angel wings, love,

and I'll suck my tongue

while playing the violin

in a carriage of black water


Today I Went Down

today I went down on your body

while windows were thick white eyes

and hearkened the clogged cavities

in the small darkroom of your chest,

hedging an eternity over the aching voice

from your gorgeous throat,

agony and exaltation flow in one divide

if I may make so bold,

your thighs are a loveword your hair

night's glittering lining of secret disport:

I aimed for the innermost moon

and rent, moved by the syntax and the slow

of sadness and of joy, so

I love you, love you so

when the blinding comes,

the discomposure of silence,

it must be high up the hills

where hundreds of poor

stamp their feet in the dust, and drums

and woman voices like this ululating skyline

gag the final ecstasy


rebel song

give me a pen
so I may sing
that life is not in vain
 
give me a season
an autumn a spring
to see sky with open eyes
when the peach tree vomits its white plenitude
a tyranny will be brought to earth
 
let mothers lament;
may breasts become dry
and wombs shrivel
when the scaffold finally weans its own
 
give me that love
which won't rot between fingers,
give me a love like this love I must give you,
my dove

grant me a heart
that will pulsate its throb
more strongly than the white thrashing
heart of a terrified dove in the dark
knock louder than bitter bullets

give me a heart
small fountain of blood
to spout blossoms of bliss
for blood is never for naught
 
I need to die before I'm dead
when my heart is still fertile and red
before I eat the darkened soil of doubt
 
give me two lips
and bright ink for tongue
to write the earth
one vast love letter
swollen with the milk of mercy
 
sweeter day by day
spilling all bitterness
burning as summer
burns sweeter
 
then let it be summer
without blindfolds or ravens
allow the gallows to give the peach tree
its red fruit of satisfaction
 
and grant me a love song
of doves of atonement
so I may sing my life was not in vain

for as I die
to wide eyes
under sky
my red song will not lie
my red song will never die