Saturday, April 14, 2007

Declarations


Je est un autre. (Arthur Rimbaud)
I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)




1

I am a sweater. I carry my sleeping. I double. I do
the desires. I am swift with desire. I am heart as not
hurry. I am heart above, was not, is not. I start on
other light. I enclose streams, I enwrap when your
eyes are not. I inhale you, whether no other. I inhale
like some land. I have no sighs.



2

I am a thread. I am stresses. I still my language. I
rush and beneath. I feel the not in neither. I am still
the nightning, the let. I am next to the depths on
your river. I cannot coral. I am heave never. I have
having too much. I, having, have corns high my
boat. I have no moon. I have not turned. I have not
turned fly. I had even you, with words on. I, having,
had ever searching there.



3

I know beneath desert, and narrow, and gentle. I
have fingers, to kiss the first by. I call there, through
there, through capture if I care. I dare what I call
drinks. I do no other. I am heart, am wandering
head-on enough. I am a like-me heart with cocked
pulse. I am water on gently. I know, I am thrashing.




[An exploration of the lyric "I," the vocabulary for which is drawn from other texts (listed in the comments), nearly all of which give voice to desire. Further debt — not only to the authors whose lines serve as epigraphs, but also to Lisa Jarnot's Sea Lyrics — must also be acknowledged.]

1 comment:

Nathan Austin said...

Sources:

Akhmatova, Anna. "Requiem."

Barthes, Roland. A Lover's Discourse: Fragments.

Blaser, Robin. "Ah."

Catullus, Gaius Valerius. "Carmen 48."

Cavalcanti, Guido. "Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste 'l core."

Cercamon. "Quant l'aura doussa s'amarzis."

Cesaire, Aime. "Son of Thunder."

Creeley, Robert. "The Whip."

Daniel, Arnaut. "Lo ferm voler q'el cor m'intra."

Dante. "Canto 5." Inferno

Dickinson, Emily. "To the faithful."

Duncan, Robert. "Sonnet 1" Roots and Branches.

Garcia Lorca, Federico. "Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint."

Guest, Barbara. "Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher."

Guillaume IX. "Ferai un vers de dreyt nien."

Loy, Mina. "Love Songs."

Mandelstam, Osip. "O how much I would like."

Mayakovsky, Vladimir. "Past One O'Clock."

Niedecker, Lorine. "Subliminal."

Oppen, George. "Discrete Series."

Owens, Rochelle. "W. C. Fields in French Light."

Rudel, Jaufre. "Quan lo rius de la fontana."

Sabina, Maria. "The Midnight Velada"

Sanguineti, Edoardo. "The Last Stroll: Homage to Pascoli."

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet CXXX [My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun]."

Spicer, Jack. "Love Poems."

Tzara, Tristan. "The Approximate Man."

Ventadorn, Bernart de. "Tant ai mo cor ple de joya."