May Swenson: Всі вірші поета

Всі вірші Оригінали Переклади

« ‹ 1 2

The James Bond Movie

The popcorn is greasy, and I forgot to bring a Kleenex.

A pill that’s a bomb inside the stomach of a man inside

The Embassy blows up. Eructations of flame, luxurious

cauliflowers giganticize into motion. The entire 29-ft.

screen is orange, is crackling flesh and brick bursting,

blackening, smithereened. I unwrap a Dentyne and, while

jouncing my teeth in rubber tongue-smarting clove, try

with the 2-inch-wide paper to blot butter off my fingers.

May Swenson

Blue

Blue, but you are Rose, too,

and buttermilk, but with blood

dots showing through.

A little salty your white

nape boy-wide. Glinting hairs

shoot back of your ears' Rose

that tongues like to feel

the maze of, slip into the funnel,

May Swenson

The Woods At Night

The binocular owl,

fastened to a limb

like a lantern

all night long,

sees where all

the other birds sleep:

towhee under leaves,

titmouse deep

May Swenson

The Tall Figures of Giacometti

We move by means of our mud bumps.

We bubble as do the dead but more slowly.

The products of excruciating purges

we are squeezed out thin hard and dry.

If we exude a stench it is petrified sainthood.

Our feet are large crude fused together

solid like anvils. Ugly as truth is ugly

we are meant to stand upright a long time

May Swenson

Question

Body my house

my horse my hound

what will I do

when you are fallen

Where will I sleep

How will I ride

What will I hunt

Where can I go

May Swenson

Water Picture

In the pond in the park

all things are doubled;

Long buildings hang and

wriggle gently. Chimneys

are bent legs bouncing

on clouds below. A flag

wags like a fishhook

down there in the sky.

May Swenson

Staying At Ed's Place

I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything.

As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree,

or change the play of sun and shadow on the ground.

The yellow kitchen stool belongs right there

against white plaster. I haven't used your purple towel

because I like the accidental cleft of shade you left in it.

At your small six-sided table, covered with mysterious

dents in the wood like a dartboard, I drink my coffee

May Swenson

Landing on the Moon

When in the mask of night there shone that cut,

we were riddled. A probe reached down

and stroked some nerve in us,

as if the glint from a wizard's eye, of silver,

slanted out of the mask of the unknown-

pit of riddles, the scratch-marked sky.

When, albino bowl on cloth of jet,

it spilled its virile rays,

May Swenson

The Shape of Death

What does love look like? We know

the shape of death. Death is a cloud

immense and awesome. At first a lid

is lifted from the eye of light:

there is a clap of sound, a white blossom

belches from the jaw of fright,

a pillared cloud churns from white to gray

like a monstrous brain that bursts and burns,

May Swenson