not to take the curve of things
11:59 PM Posted by James Owens
Être mort
Quel effort pour ne pas prendre la courbe des choses
Pour ne pas épouser la forme de son ombre
L’angoisse sue aux portes de la nuit
Le vent charrie des oiseaux taciturnes
Mêlés de rires
Et l’eau se berce aux bras de ses noyés
Quel effort pour ne pas
Prendre la courbe du temps
Quand l’astre dit minuit
Et l’horloge est silence
Et l’heure est prisonnière
De son déroulement
Libre captée
Visage d’agonie
Visage spolié
Quel effort pour ne pas être mort
André Brochu
Being dead
Such effort not to take the curve of things
Not to marry the shape of one’s shadow
Anguish sweats at the doors of night
Wind carries away taciturn birds
Mixed with laughter
And the water rocks itself in the arms of its victims
Such effort not
To take the curve of time
When the star says midnight
And the clock is silence
And the hour is prisoner
Of its own unrolling
Freed captive
Face of agony
Stripped face
Such effort not to be dead
.
the sweet silence of now
9:34 PM Posted by James Owens

A review of Anthony Abbott's
New & Selected Poems, 1989 - 2009,
in The Pedestal Magazine
The Man Who Feels The Sleeves Of The Snow
On the day after the snow
he takes his usual walk.
The trees
reach out to him.
Their silver sleeves
have no history
no memory of grief.
Their long white fingers know only
the sweet silence
of now.
--Anthony Abbott
.
Sunday afternoon
2:31 PM Posted by James Owens
silly but harmless
3:50 PM Posted by James Owens
Par exemple
Le marteau de la rime,
Descendant du sublime
Avec les coups
D’un son qui réverbère,
Tape les bouts de vers
Comme des clous
Qui fixent la poésie sur la page.
.
already here and there in the meadows
11:09 PM Posted by James Owens
A translation from Rilke's French, Autumn's Hammer,
in Language and Culture
.
tracks at noon
3:14 PM Posted by James Owens
