IN THE MIST

by Brett Rutherford

I have grown into
my solitude,
the cloud
of not seeing;
the echo back
of my own voice
assures me of what
is beyond the veil
of viral fog.

O visitors, visitors!
A social interdict
lies between us.
Men came one night
(handsome criminals!).
They rifled through
everything, my honor
more injured than anything.
Some silverware
has gone missing,
a toppled clock,
an antique
barometer gone
to some pawn shop.

I gave them only
slight amusement,
the last dregs
of old green tea,
the savor
of lime marmalade,
dry rolls
from the cold oven.

The leavings of little
cigarettes
on the winding stairs,
the violated door
that will no longer close
entirely — my penalties.

I am fine.
I sleep without locks.
No one comes.
My voice has a certain
monotony; my poems
say, stay, away,
stay away.

And who am I?
Only a lighthouse,
my voice
the foghorn’s
dismal
utterance.

ROUGH VERSION IN FRENCH

Je suis devenu
mon solitude,
le nuage
de ne pas voir,
l’echo de ma voix
m’assure

de ce qui est
au-delà du voile
du brouillard viral.

O visiteurs, visiteurs !
Entre nous
il y a un interdit social.

Un soir, des hommes
ont fait irruption
(beaux criminels).

Ils ont fouillé
tout,
ma fierté plus blessée
que tout.

Il manque
de l’argenterie ;
une horloge
renversée,
un baromètre antique
pris
dans un prêteur sur gages.

Je ne leur ai donné
qu'un petit amusement :
la dernière lie
de vieux thé vert,
la saveur
de marmelade de citron vert,
petits pains secs
du four froid.

Les cendres
de peu cigarettes
sur les escaliers sinueux,
la porte violée
qui ne fermera plus
entièrement — mes sanctions.

Je vais bien.
Je dors sans serrures.
Personne ne vient
de toute façon.

Ma voix possède
un certain monotonie;
mes poèmes dis,
gardes tes distances,
gardes tes distances.

Et qui suis-je? Seul
un phare. Ma voix,
le discours lugubre
de la une corne de brume.

Being Too Much With the Stars

JOSÉ ASUNCIÓN SILVA (1865-1896)

BEING TOO MUCH WITH THE STARS

     translated by Brett Rutherford

Stars range between
the gloom of obscurity
and sheer immensity,
some like pale wisps
of incense in a vacuum;
nebulae you burn so far
into infinity it frightens me;
that all that reaches earth
is but your light reflected;
suns fallen, gone
into an unknown abyss
shedding an unknown radiance;
constellations – mirages
the magicians once worshiped;
millions of distant planets,
flowers in a fantastic brooch,
clear islands afloat in night,
a sea without end or bottom.

Burning stars, far pensive lights,
dim eyes with wavering pupils —
Burning stars! Why are you silent,
if you live, and why do you shine
if you are already dead?

Estrellas que entre lo sombrío
de lo ignorado y de lo inmenso,
asemejáis en el vacío
jirones pálidos de incienso ;
nebulosas que ardéis tan lejos
en el infinito que aterra,
que sólo alcanzan los reflejos
de vuestra luz hasta la tierra ;
astros que en abismos ignotos
derramáis resplandores vagos,
constelaciones que en remotos
tiempos adoraron los magos ;
millones de mundos lejanos,
flores de fantástico broche,
islas claras en los océanos
sin fin ni fondo de la noche ;
¡ estrellas, luces pensativas!
 ¡Estrellas, pupilas inciertas !
¿Por qué os calláis si estáis vivas,
y por qué alumbráis si estáis muertas ?

The F--- Poem

by Brett Rutherford

Word I won’t say,
Word I won’t write,
Word I wince
to listen to,
and pity the speaker
for ignorance
and verbal incontinence,

word that should make
even a peasant blush.
Films laced with it
I leave, postings and memes
I hide from all view.

Citizens:
how will peace come
when f---
is your mantra?

Will blessings come
by invoking
Mother F---
day in and out?

I am glad to know
that Shakespeare did not
put an f---
into the mouth
of a single actor.

Strange to think
that so much depends
not on inspirations,
compulsions, labor
for love, or for the sake
of a red wheelbarrow.

Instead, the whip
that keeps them going
is the endless flashback
to penetration:

active, passive,
past, present,
subjunctive,
imperative,

F--- on,
F--- off,
like breath
or a heartbeat.

Why not just name
the whole planet F---
and be done with it?

Guests at Our Country Place

by Brett Rutherford

Apocalypse impending,
guests flock
to our country home.

The vising Surrealist painter
arranged our furniture
at impossible angles,
then signed his name
on our ceiling.

When you sell,
he assures us,
you can name your price.

The visiting poet,
eats but doesn’t write,
burns up the last
of our emergency
candles for inspiration.
As hint we put
his suitcase at the door.
He moves it back.
The guest room smells
of ganja
and burnt paper.

The visiting English prof
found the cream sherry,
the Riesling wine.
Empty bottles,
green-stemmed Rhine glasses
toppled and broken;

our daughter

seduced.

This being a rural town
we can call the police
from a remote location
to report a trespass.

The resulting raid
with paramiltary gear
will clear the lot out
since sheriffs now
come in shooting
and sort out who
at the county morgue.

Nocturne (A Spanish Gothic Poem, 1892)

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from a poem by José Asuncion Silva (1865-1896)

On such a night — how shall I describe it? —
A night all full of murmurings, of the brush
of invisible wings, of perfumes indefinable,
a night within whose glooms of vague forest,
fireflies went on and off sepulchrally —
or was it a nuptial flickering that led us on? —
as meekly you accompanied me, silent,
slender, hushed, and pale, as though such thoughts,
such double presentiments of joy and doom
troubled the very depths of your soul, too.
Glow-worms and the night-ghosted asphodels
spelled out our distant path across the plain.
One sandaled foot before the other tread,
you walked with me, and the spherical moon,
bloated in heaven’s serge and indigo,
shed light, a beacon out of infinity.

Your shadow, so delicate and languid,
and my shadow, graven by white lunar light
upon the sands of the path before us,
were joined together
deep umbra as one, indefinite shades
of edged penumbra, joined as one,
two as one in a great, single shadow,
two as one in a great, single shadow,
two as one in a great, single shadow.

Gone is that night! Gone! But now another,
solitary, choked full of infinite
woes and the sharp agony of mourning,
on the same path as then, still and lonely
I came — why here again on such a night? —
parted from you by the passing of time,
by the door of your tomb, by arguments
unreconciled, the leaden density
which neither your voice nor mine pierced through.
Still and lonely — why here again at night?

And the hounds of the wood (or were they wolves?)
bayed at the moon (did they not care for it,
this moon of pale visage, bloodless?)
Were they not troubled, as I was,
by the frogs’ croak at the bottomless mere?

Cold came and pierced me to shuddering,
cold such as the chill that on your bed
stole color from your cheeks and neck and hands,
the chill in its snowy whiteness, the white
of the winding sheet, the bleached shroud.
It was the cold of mausoleum air,
it was the chill of the advancing tread
of Death, the unwanted frost of shut eyes.

And my shadow, graven by white lunar light,
went on the path alone,
went on the path alone,
not calling out your name (I have no right!),
went on the path to the wastes of solitude.

But then your shadow, so delicate and languid,
slender, hushed, and pale, as on that night
of your dying on the first moon of Spring,
as on that night all full of murmurings,
of the brush of wings, of perfumes indefinable,
came up close by and walked with me,
came up close by and walked with me,
came up close by and walked with me —
my shadow with its black umbra,
my shadow with its vaguely-edged penumbra
(yours the fluttering edge of penumbra only,
O shadow without a living source!)
two as one joined in a great, single shadow,
two as one joined in a great, single shadow.
Oh, shadows of the living and of the dead, joined
as one, two shadows running
each to the other in nights of woe and tears!

“Nocturne” was written in 1892 by Colombian poet José Asuncion Silva.  He had lived in Europe and knew Mallarmé. His poetry is a precursor of modernism in Latin American poetry, and, in this poem in particular, he inhabits the world and esthetics of Poe’s poems. Suggestive of “Ulalume,” hypnotic with its repetition and its shadowy images, this poem was also doubtless provoked by the death of his beloved sister in the same year. Three years later, all the poet’s unpublished works were lost in a shipwreck. A year later, Silva committed suicide. “Nocturne,” written in free verse, defied the classical, formal mode of most poetry in Spanish.

In this adaptation I have made the supernatural suggestiveness of the poem stronger – it is not possible to work on a piece such as this without being completely overshadowed by “Ulalume.” I have also introduced the concept of the double-shadow: the umbra is the dark, solid part of a shadow, and the penumbra is a shadow’s vague, poorly-defined edges. Silva does not employ these terms, so this is my addition. I have also removed the gender of the dead loved one, because, well, that it what I do. Silva repeats lines almost with a hypnotic intent, so I have done the same in my version, also permitting some exact phrases from the opening of the poem to find their way in again near the end, like a musical reprise.

It is simultaneously, a very Gothic poem, and a very modern poem. It is one of the most important Spanish-language poems I have engaged with.

From the Lips of the Last Inca

by Brett Rutherford

freely adapted from a poem by José Eusebio Caro (1817-1853)

I left the white men far behind —
in vain they search the canyon’s deep.
Today I have scaled Pichincha’s rim.
I pace its edge as the sun does,
wandering, passionate, and free.

Much’aykusqayki, Tayta Inti!
Hail, Father Sun! Though Manco’s throne,
the nearest seat on earth to your
flaming presence, lies in the dust,
though everywhere your sacred altars
groan profaned, I come alone, but free.

Much’aykusqayki, Tayta Inti!
Hail, Father Sun! No brand or chain
makes me a slave of any nation.
No white man shall boast he killed me —
I kill myself, and free I die!

Sun, when you begin to sink, this
volcano will burn and hold me.
Regard me from the distant sea
as I walk downward, resolute,
singing your hymns to lava’s brink.

Tomorrow, raying forth, your crown
will shine anew on the east slope,
and then at your blazing noon-time
your rays shall gild my new ashes:
some bones, some scattered beads of  me,
glint of a gold armband, my bow
and ten consecrated arrows.
O Pichincha, hearth of freedom!

Much’aykusqayki, Mallku Kuntur!
Hail, King of the Condors, come down
and make this summit your palace.
There will be scant of me to feed you,
but on my soft ash take respite,
for mate and nest and eggs anew.
And I, King of Nothing, unknown,
shall with you fly, invisible,
nameless forever, and forever free.

José Eusebio Caro (1817-1853) lived in New Granada (present-day Colombia), and was co-founder of his nation's first literary journal, Le Estrella National in 1836. I have added salutations in Quechua, the language of the Incas, which were not in the original poem.

Regarding the volcano named Pichincha, which is in Ecuador, Wikipedia notes, "On May 24, 1822, General Sucre's southern campaign in the Spanish–American War of independence came to a climax when his forces defeated the Spanish colonial army on the southeast slopes of this volcano. The engagement, known as the Battle of Pichincha, secured the independence of the territories of present-day Ecuador."

Photograph of Rucu Pichincha approach taken from the southeast near Quito, Ecuador in 2009. Photo by Tim Ryan, from Wikipedia.

Moonlight in the Cemetery "Au Cimitière: Claire de Lune"

     Adapted from Théophile Gautier’s "Au Cimitière: Claire de Lune"

 That white tomb — do you know the one

and whose it is? — where in the yew’s shade
there floats a plaintive sound?
Upon the yew, always the same pale dove
lonely and sad at each sun’s setting
utters his night-long threnody:

an aria tenderly morbid,
as charming as it is fatal,
a song that gives you pain
yet which you long to hear forever;
an air like the other-worldly sigh
of a love-sick angel.

One imagines the dead soul wakes
to weep down there in unison
with the forlorn lament, and in the misery
of being forgotten, it too complains
as soft and sweet as dove-song.

On the wings of this melody
all kinds of recollections return.
Whose shade is that? What form
angelic hovers in a beam of light?
O veil of whiteness! Yet linger not,

beware the night-bloom beauty,
closing and opening, rich
in hypnotic scent around you; beware,
in yew-shade cast in moonlight
upon that white tomb inescapable
the phantom’s outstretched arms,

the gesture vaguely beckoning,
and just as vaguely warning you away,
the almost inaudible murmuring:
Flee now! But will you not
come back again in moonlight?

O never again when night
drops its black mantle

upon the yew, the tomb,
and the obsessive-singing
dove who its its captive, never
shall I return to hear
that plaintive, mourning song!

Au Cimetière : Claire de lune

Théophile Gautier (1811-1872)

Connaissez-vous la blanche tombe,
Où flotte avec un son plaintif
L'ombre d'un if?
Sur l'if une pâle colombe,
Triste et seule, au soleil couchant,
Chante son chant:

Un air maladivement tendre,
À la fois charmant et fatal,
Qui vous fait mal,
Et qu'on voudrait toujours entendre;
Un air, comme en soupire aux cieux
L'ange amoureux.

On dirait que l'âme éveillée
Pleure sous terre; à l'unisson
De la chanson,
Et, du malheur d'être oubliée
Se plaint dans un roucoulement
Bien doucement.

Sur les ailes de la musique
On sent lentement revenir
Un souvenir;
Une ombre de forme angélique,
Passe dans un rayon tremblant,
En voile blanc.

Les belles-de-nuit demi-closes,
Jettent leur parfum faible et doux
Autour de vous,
Et le fantôme aux molles poses
Murmure en vous tendant les bras:
Tu reviendras!

Oh! jamais plus, près de la tombe,
Je n'irai, quand descend le soir
Au manteau noir,
Écouter la pâle colombe
Chanter, sur la branche de l'if
Son chant plaintif!

They Closed His Eyes

by Brett Rutherford

     after Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

I went to visit a dying friend,
for one last time. His eyes
were open. I took his bony hand
and pressed it. His fingers clutched
at life, and he gasped a name
(not mine) and said, "I always
loved you best of all." I lied,
and said I loved him equally.

No mother, brother, lover, son,
no sister, cousin or father
came to stand by as the tubes
were removed, the machine
silenced and wheeled away.

They closed his eyes
that were open still
and wanted to be open
still for the coming sunrise
mirror red on the East River.
They hid his face
with a white linen.

And out of nowhere
anonymous mourners came,
some sobbing, some silent.
They come each day, I am told,
and they come for everyone
who has no one. They stood
as the bed frame was dropped
and the wheeled death-cart
was moved to its side.
From the sad sickroom,
they moved away like shadows
and vanished in the corridor.

In a dish, the night candle
burned on a low table.
It cast on the wall
the deathbed's outline,
and in that shadow
the sharp lines
of his wasted body.

The dawn appeared
pearl white and then ruby red.
With a thousand noises
the city exploded to life:
horns, sirens, jackhammers
and the mournful hum
of traffic far below.
As ordinary light
cascaded into the death-room,
I thought a moment:

How much more lonely than we
are the newly-dead!

On the shoulders of men
who did not know his name,
gloved and face-masked
against the feared contagion
they bore him away
and in a chapel left
the freshly-wrapped body
on a plywood bier.
A number was stenciled there.
Then others surrounded
his pale body
with yellow candles
and things of black crèpe
disposable grief that had
no shape but the wing-edge
of a dusty raven, no use
except to fill the space
between the corpse
and the imaginary public.

No one came. Well, almost
no one: a bag lady crone
put down her burden and knelt,
mumbled some prayers
and shuffled off. She crossed
the narrow nave. Door moaned,
opened without a hand
upon it to let her out.
The holy place was quiet,
a cell of silence as a barrage
of taxi hails and basketball
court echoes filtered in
through a broken window.
One pigeon fluttered in,
cooed disapproving
that it was not a rice-wedding
then flapped away.

I was directed there.
Some hours had passed.
I stood alone, or nearly so.
A young priest approached,
saw who and what was there
to be blessed and buried,
covered his face,
and hurried away.
My ears reached out
until I could hear
the chapel's one clock
in measured ticking.
A bank of candles
to one side of the nave
took to guttering
at the same beat
as my own breathing.

All things here
were so dark and mournful,
rigid and cold,
not even a tear was welcome,
and I thought for a moment:

How much more lonely than we
are the newly-dead!

Should there not be
a legion of mourners?
Should he not be
where all who knew him
could gather and mourn?
I imagine the high belfry
of his New England town,
the iron tongue clanging
of the funeral bells,
mournful in last farewell.
Veils and black suits,
eyes cast down in grief,
his friends and relatives
passed in a line and shook
each other's hands, and hugged.

And in that high place
in the old family's last vault,
dark and narrow,
crowded with his ancestors,
the crowbar opened
a niche at one end,
and they laid him away there,
then sealed it up
amid a hecatomb of camellias.
Newspapers would show
the memorial plaque;
friends would come annually.

But this was not to be.
New England paid no dues
to a death in New York,
a death of that kind among
those kinds of people.

The body, on its plywood
plinth, would go instead
into a plywood casket,
then onto a barge,
with hundreds of like kind,
piled high and hauled across
to the Potter's Field
on desolate Hart Island.

Pick-axe on shoulder,
the convict gravedigger,
cursing his lot in dawn-fog,
stood on a mound. His box,
among many other
numbered boxes, dropped
into a numbered plot.

Not a word was said,
not even a prayer.

It was silent. Only now,
after years of dream-dread
can I see it: headlong,
crooked, piled one
upon another at crazy angles,
a quilt of coffins, at last
death's final suffocation
into a nameless grave.

And I sit up in my bed
and think:

How much more lonely than we
are the unmarked dead!

On winter nights
in bitter darkness,
when wind makes
the rafters chatter,
when whipped rain
lashes the window panes,
in such a lonely time
I remember my poor friend,
and the nameless dead
heaped up with him:
how many had I touched?
how many had touched me?

There on Hart Island,
in the pit full of brother-souls,
do they hear the rain
with its same yet ever-
changing monody?
Do they hear the winds'
stern fights across the bay,
the tug boats, the fog-horns,
the sway-song of tides buoyed
by the revolving moon?
Do their bones freeze
with the cold of winter?

Does dust to dust return?
Do souls abandoned by earth
have any place in any heaven?
Or is it all the rot of matter,
organic filthiness and worms?

I do not know. I tramp most
graveyards merrily. I am not
a morose or gloomy soul, and yet,

something there is — something
that treads behind my nights
with loathing and terror.

City of a billion lights, city
of symphonies and towers
aspiring to Promethean heights:
how did a hundred thousand souls
perish in your averted gaze?
A hundred thousand brother-dead
I cannot begin to mourn and cannot
even count.

How much more lonely than we
are the hundred thousand dead
who have gone on without us?

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870), a Spanish poet from Seville, influenced by E.T.A Hoffmann and Heinrich Heine, wrote an elegiac poem titled "They Closed Her Eyes." I have gender-changed, "written over," and expanded upon his poem for this work, which is in memory of the 100,000 fatalities from HIV in New York during the 1980s, specifically those who wound up in Potter's Field because no family would claim their bodies.