P/P NEWSLETTER | IV.9.2007

Clown

With blue-paper arrows on my cheeks
And a yellow star stuck to my head,
I stay, as a monkey takes my hand,
hanging upside-down on a balancing beam.

My master wants to make the world happy,
—"Satan's Apostle" I'm called by my sign—
And the people, a procession of mad pilgrims,
are sent here, and I am to entertain them.

They laugh at everything my craziness does,
I play dog, play human, play elephant:
I bark, I cry, I dig around with my snout—

Late at night the tent empties itself:
On the plain, where the lanterns are burning,
I lean against a pole, and call my deeds good.

Martinus Nijhoff (1894-1953) (tr. Cliff Crego)
from: The Wanderer (1916)

http://www.cs-music.com/features/snowballoons_b.html

Or visit the P/P nested website for DUTCH poetry
in new English translations at:

http://www.cs-music.com/features/r2c.html

* * * * * * * * * ****** * * * * * *
Featured at PhotoWeek:

*WHITE OAK!*

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/quercus-alba_3-29-07.html

*RED MAPLE, FEMALE FLOWERS*

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/acer_female_3-28-07.html

*RED MAPLE TEXTURES*

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/acer_textures_4-1-07.html

*FORSYTHIA*

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/forsythia_4-1-07.html

*MAGNOLIA, BUD OPENING*

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/magnolia_3-29-07b.html

Or go to the PhotoWeek Archive at:

http://cs-music.com/features/photos/photoweek-archive.html

Or go to the P/P Miniatures Archives at:

http://cs-music.com/features/cards/archive-miniatures.html

Guru

As the door closes, a jingle
of bells -- raining, cold,
the shop is warm but not crowded.
She looks out the display window
onto the narrow,
busy street -- small cars,
pedestrians, a woman with
a child on the

back of her
bike navigates the
flow...

She sees this,
amazed, the so determined look
of the young mother,
an envelope of
protection from somewhere. Thoughts cross
her mind this way -- cars, traffic, noise --
which she can't quite get
hold of...

The berries of the mountain ash
are almost too big
for the tiny winter wrens. He
stops, amazed, counts seven or more
all on the same tree;
they show no fear;
ecstatic with fall, they are gone.
The limbs of the bare

tree shiver,
his camera, covered
with wet snow...

She sees this
as the book slowly opens upon
a face, an image

of a man,
seated, eyes closed, with

a triangulated silence,
a projected calm,
the sound of words she repeats by
heart -- mantra, yantra, tantra, like
fingers ticking off
overtones on a
little drum. The face horrifies her,
yet fills the shop with

an intense
aura of longing.
"Go away!" she closes the book, [...]

INTRO: http://www.picture-poems.com/features/intro-guru.html

POEM: http://www.picture-poems.com/features/guru.html