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at three and one time only
you've such a slender wrist dawn
i can brace it enclose it encircle it my
thumb opposes its fingers and meets them
see, middle ring index even the little one.
you've such a mauvemelt voice dawn
i can stir it recall it imagine it or
furrow it into a sunlakegleam
with a quip or a pun.
you've such a shiny gown of black dawn
i can lift it let go of it twist it or tuck it
behind your bonsai ear
sweep across its curtain, my hand a key
of geese against your rising sun.
not quite the northbound key, maybe
for your eastborn secrets dawn
but i do talk dusklakeloud and i do
handsomely show
against you.
you've such an erotic arch dawn
like the one in st. louis i went to see
at three and one time only.
to enter you to cross the sacred line of you
to make that special find of you
or hang around you
watch you race in soft reflections
suffuse me, run your course through me
in turn
to warm you smoothen you cherish you
obey all physical laws with you
while stirring you
with that special gift of unjaded fingers
to so accompany the stars whose sound-off
we await some 19 years on average
stars who measure our time
heedlessly
boiling off their hot coronas
like there's no tomorrow.
the stars are astride abright
even in the lightstained skies
singing mightily if off-key (doppler shift)
heard only faintly
in st. louis at three, somewhat crisper
in santa fe at two.
nonetheless these sunken drunken stars
potluck their choicest stories
for our dim sung dinners
b.y.o.ing light as always
glistening, glowing, gliding blackbodies
cascading like pointilistic water,
smoothening the bone within you
smoothening the bone within st. louis
our ornery mothers, these stars, steady and explosive
corrosive stars crosseyed under our checkered flags
like the surly bulls at the floodlit mesquite rodeos
the checker waves them in
with stationary tiles
in standing waves of liquid artificial life
they file in under no protest
like cattle unwavering
in their staunch mute opposition.
embarrassed by our stars' stubborn drinking
we look the other way, referring to their fiery belching
as twinkling.
given such brouhaha, how am i to petition these stars
for a discrete dispensation from gentle protocol
and a special spicy permission
to befriend your stationary pores
all of them
without limitations and exclusions
a heartrending heartpounding admission.
what sweet ache it would be
to cross underneath your arch, maybe
-- stars permitting
to enter you, yes
-- stars twinkling
to cross your sacred line, perhaps
-- stars flying
with my own.
arrest that thought.
perish its consequences.
there is a wonderful reason for the protocol
to hold. it's a green day where i write from
i breathe in
the smell of morning roses and afternoon lumber
though she's not here to remind me
i stand so reminded
on my wobbly own.
you're such a star, marek...
oh dawn
i did inhale you exhale you eclipse you
in a christening hug
i did not write these inflammatory words
to mock. this is not
enough of a communion for us two
i know.
one of these days one
of these...
like canadian geese
only slightly off course
we shall go, take the hajj
to st. louis
at three and one time only
to court and spark
the bone within st. louis
with our shared birthday
thirteen years slender
no match for any cosmic wristhold
and
for a moment of peace and infinity of
commitment glimpsed forever thataway
though here unknown in this space
beneath the bone we shall glimpse
for a moment of good
for unbordered yet bounded love
(says stephen hawking)
for euphoric ether in volume sold
to educational institutions at a discount
for once that instant
for ever and ever and ever
(okay, okay -- for 19 raised to the 31st power)
and there we will be told
by the steering committee
and we will believe them
welcome home
and we will properly welcome
our home.
10 - 14 May 1990
Evanston, IL / Cincinnati, OH / Lake Monroe, IN
natalie
natalie, natalie
your darkhaired spell
hangs in the vicinity
of your name
and grows on me
as you stand, at less than 5 feet,
for all the natalies i got to see
or wanted to
longer, closer.
na-ta-lie. na-ta-lie.
raced-a-cross-the-boat-dock.
to-meet-in-com-ing-ka-yak.
(after consulting with daddy, lance.)
"hi, nice out? i'm natalie."
accosted me -- me, already in trance
awaiting
natalie's imminent arrival
like cosmonauts do
await the bread and salt
welcoming crew
in kazakhstan
too oppressed by the gravity of it all
to move.
it's not every day (well, maybe every other)
that marek meets
raven flying women
of impeccable beauty
and articulate seriousness
and perception
...into fractions, "drawing" and jewels...
and what leg, what bangs!
...who've not noticed themselves yet...
"well, what do you expect! third grade!
although, actually, i'm in fourth now..."
third grade? come on! you're already
taking fractions
i'm forgetting mine...
what's 9 into 31? what's left over?
talking of majoring in college
in "dancing" -- i can see --
but isn't life all a dance, at 9,
for most women?
hope you still think so at 18.
and "jewelry", describing rubies and diamonds,
listening to some newly met hairy
("he seems really nice, dad")
speak in strangely flavored tongues
of amber, elektron, and the baltic sea.
"how far is your poland from sweden?"
about 200 miles
"oh, i could ride there on my bicycle"
no one has tried...
third grade, my, me, mine.
you are exacting
and beautiful,
my little raven
oh, talk
please talk
talk some more to me
about clouds and airplanes
and "flickering" stars ("why do they?")
good luck, natalie, and good time
at the "gnaw bone summer camp"
your first, and for a whole two weeks.
"thank you!"
great. now i get to miss you...
14 June 1990
Lake Monroe, Indiana
a postcard from the road to clayton, new mexico,
going east at sunset
there is aching in the telling
and there's grass...greening
but really, goldening, in the naked blossed and ripened zuni sun.
you look out over the mesa country, so sparse with trees, ouch.
none here. none here forever.
golden foothills raced up to the rockies... clayton, new mexico.
i want to move into a cabin here, far from the trees, far from the
moist breeze that seas give, that humans do, too.
i want to live in the dry ocean of golden late shadows and sharp skies
turning dark not yet. with venus in or not in the blaze, near the
lion-roared silent corona... i wander in thoughtscape, i wonder if
there's been born a girl...
no, i've not yet found a cabin... but, clayton, santa fe,
los alamos, taos, farmington, yea, but new mexico, i've found.
here, it spreads like a playful woman, smiling at all to see from
all directions at once, but mostly downstream from the sun, now
behind me, smiling all the way, all the way from santa fe,
smiling all the way to bloomington.... my hoosier home cheated-on.
oh, but look again, look at the map, once again, on the map at the
very least. breathe the open spaces, the open seas of grass... greening,
but i saw it goldening, remember... at the vastly blue margins...
not a cloud, not a tree, not a breeze or a howling breeze.
i brought a fine postcard from there, though sadly not of the same
cloudless sunset i saw...still pretty to the touch... the mind's
touch. let your mind sorrow, i mean, soar, taking in the treeless
prairie as it breaks up in stilled waves, as foothills, as dry as
honest handshakes. once you too pass through there, new mexico, you
are too hooked for life, or scared for life, by or of the desolate..
and me? I'd wish to see a well-oiled ancient singed-glass lamp,
barely of wick, and a fourpost bed without a canopy, and i'd like to
see her, in spirits mysterious and good, and a bracing homestead that
a fine book makes... when there's two to read to.
13 February 1990
Lake Monroe, Indiana
night kayak to the dark side
in transit
water trickles off my oar blade
midnight... is a time... long time ago...
i stir the lake so
rivulet-squirrel-away-the-sound-tickle-trickle-slurp.
rivulet-rivulet-water-water-drip-drop-slurp.
rivulet-rivulet-water-trickle-bathtub-splash.
it's not a bathtub.
it's 14 thousand acres
and it's dark dark dark.
the world is ash.
the world is silver and less silver.
the world is rivulet-slurp.
above my kayak my sky is hot and my burning hot
in pinpricks
in sight
constellations and federal express to indy
emory to dayton
d.h.l. to louisville
something else to cincy.
the tricolor next-day air moths are bugging me
in the canopy, in the crystal spheres, caught-like
between the panes... like wasps on a summer day...
this is
the last great wilderness for midwestern eye to see
from this shining sea (of sodium)
to that shining sea (of mercury)
it's three. o'clock.
the moths about to sit still.
somewhere oily somewhere stinky faraway.
the world is fair and
out of sight
but looming forestside.
rivulet-slurp-bathtub-splash.
rivulet-slurp-trickle.
rivulet-splash-dark-ash.
arrived
this is peace.
hello. hello. have we met before.
je t'adore, but i am afraid the answer is
no.
i am parked beneath a dead tree.
it sticks out of me. out of the water.
it sticks out of the sound, the fjord, and it sticks out
against the scheherezade sky.
it just
sticks out. i can't say it any more plain.
to my left, invisible, more trees.
can't see the land for the trees.
i can hear clumsy animals tripping
over leaves.
i can hear a hidden glasslike waterfall.
i am on the water.
i am hearing water.
i have no clue where
all this water is rejoicing. to the left, i think.
my tree is a velvet picture of elvis
minus the elvis
minus the velvet
you get the idea.
stars, stars and more stars
and the tree
what would it take to take thee
with me? a 1600 speed film pushed
in time exposure
from a floating kayak?
good luck. good bye, tree.
i could bring back
the clumsy animals tripping and
the hidden waterfall rushing
and i might...
splash!!!
i howl, h-woe!
I can still hear myself
fear and determination cooling to amber
then to giddy then to dark
echoing, echoing, embarrassing.
why do multi-pound catfish do that
to me
don't they know i have a weak sense of
serenity...
no longer a visitor
i've been forced to utter my cry
i've left my signature, my spot, my mark
i've said my hi
i now know:
my animal, clumsy animal sound
is h-woe.
longing, leaving
time to go
and leave this sacred site behind.
i think it will be a while
before i paddle back.
2 hours by paddle
and then one
in the sound
in the forest fiord
in the invisible trickling waterfall land
in the land in the water of dead trees
and skies of elvis-less majesty.
i will come back
but not with that f.b.i. of a sun
some things are better left
uninvestigated and ashen fun.
i may not come back at all.
darkness, silver, pinpricks, flow.
i have ran into peace
and she don't recall
me. h-woe!
18 April 1990
Lake Monroe, Indiana
lost kayak
1.
midnight o five
you're not there
i sweep the lake vapor
with narrow too soft light
no sight
no kayak
where are you?
who took you?
did the wind blow you
off again
except we had no winds
'm thinking.
where are you?
at the boatdock
no trace
darkest thoughts
it must have been those fishermen
"i'd like to have one of those"
"no, i'd like the paddle"
maybe the weekend kids
it's dark
what can i do where can i look
oh, what a feeling
... sick feeling.
like a blow to the windshield and no radio
in the big cruel city
or a fragile cruel sixteen-year-old not
home when she said she'd be...
back home, the fire's still going
and i have a better flashlight in the (unlocked) car
on the side of the road, hundred yards uphill.
2.
well, yes... there is a shape it could be
a log
it could be
a kayak
at the opposite side of the cove
i can't resolve it with this fog and this light
fog and light fog and light
and faint horizontal lines low.
back home, grab oar, shed jeans
(not logical, what about the thorns
fuck 'em, this is better for wading)
a quick hike through the steep green
no shawnee me
i am so noisy, jeez
something with hooves gets out of my way
i pause to listen, delicate gravel clicketty clacketty noise.
it's out on the road.
deer are getting smugger every day.
must not be the season.
across the creek, through the thicket
are you here?
beam and fog, beam and fog
no.
further on, maybe.
break through the kindling wood, circumvent the
giant spider web (lot's of work, fellow!)
squat low by the thorny bush
ouch, got me.
here? no.
here? see anything here?
just fallow trunks sweaty water.
there!
up the shore! blue on gray, first positive sighting.
load off my mind.
i get there, you're half deflated one one side,
but we can make it across, we've had worse.
i check the rigging
one more eyelet missing, no holes
ms. indestructible...
i tumble in
and slowly paddle kneeling
looking for the missing
orange life preserver
no go
wait with that until tomorrow.
my flashlight cuts across the water
and picks out standing fish below the surface,
waving their tails
"come on, boy, whatcha doin' here. wanna buy a blow?"
echoes of chicago
how weird
you could scoop them or spear them
they're pretty big, i'd keep those
except that i don't fish. especially fish with
drugs on them
concentrated p.c.b.s
overhead, the everest oh so clear milky way,
my reason for wanting on the water
in the first place tonight
now for the first time
i notice i'm sweating
i'm not made to be a parent
i'd need loots of training
and i'd die of worry.
no thanks, no e.r. trips for me
to check up on emily
how badly they did her or she did herself
or file a missing persons...
tomorrow is for telling
if i met any poison ivy
along the merry way
good night good day from the bay
of rabid reunions.
25 April 1990, 1:58
a.m.
Lake Monroe, Indiana
local sex in june
the new boatdock
is naked wood
it's good
all the better to run my hands
over it.
such lumber
thrown casually across the lake
and bolted
inviting telescopes and shiny bodies.
they say
jesus walked across the water
had they said
jesus walked across the boatdock
the faithful would have also flocked.
when i walk across the boatdock
i walk straight across the lake!
well a little way across
and the spring in my falling steps
feels supernaturally buoyant.
it crushes my humility
to leap and bound with simplicity
so freely
over so difficult a medium -- water.
sitting down on the far edge
of the boatdock
on its lakefront edge
i brace myself against the view
so intimate
my legs dangle
my soles nearly kiss
the water's sole
this is the essence of flirting.
water steps lightly
today treading upside down
as usual
today stillness is
walking in the quiet water.
to the right a sunset but
the sky is cloudy today
so no red no orange no yellow.
looking directly south
across two miles of water
the darkside arises
so no houses no horses no highways
that way.
the saddle creek's mouthway
beckons
that way
i like to kayak
after dark that way
speckled in starlight palpable.
now the mist is rising across that way
scenting the water scenting the hills
with a sadness peculiar to scotland
to utah.
those forlorn hills greenish in their blue
dinosaur backs or leavened dough
furry with trees feathered with leaves.
the fog is white to medium gray
the sky -- patchy gray to uniform
the lake stands still with an occasional hint
of a ripple
the birds -- incessant impolite
the fish -- irksome.
what about the frogs?
ah the frogs. by day silent working hands
by night a chorus of stud virtuosos
readying for the show arriving singly tuning sporadically
in a mounting cacophony
yes. the frogs are slated to go
on
once
the doves
coo in
the darkness.
darkness always falls
in the end
for the doves.
ah darkness. she always arrives
but the doves really work on her.
whoever said love is easy must have had strong doves
or boasted.
the rising moon is making faces -- fool making out to be
a yolk
ribbing the sunken sun which never got to yellow
we can only see the hint of the sun's reaction
in the thundercloud nearly overhead.
the silent spark means the sun is angered
better head home before they have a fallout.
later through the vapor of darkness
from up above from the slope from the shore
only the nearest dinosaur lumbers in dimly
through the fog
the world is oblivious preoccupied with darkness
despite the fireflies' urgent code:
fuck me -- fuck me -- fuck me --
mostly ignored. just like the frogs's.
8 June 1990
Lake Monroe, Indiana
[19 February 1997 rev.]
de lunes a viernes de lunes a viernes...
everyday. she come here and say
como estas. and slyly shyly pass
on her way to the black garbage can
collecting from the blue
on su way back and out
de lunes a viernes de lunes a viernes
la chica preciosa no habla ingles
se llama marta -- que en atlanta --
pero va a trabajo en el chi-ka-go el
muy bien. y tu? i say
and she pauses to reply
as if at glass-crushing time:
muy bien. tambien.
then we both laugh
out loud
or grin
within
or without
and she leaves me
con me trabajo
con me sol solo -- azul y negro y rojo
lasal, la sparcstation viente modelo siete-uno
con 128 mega con 21 giga con la trinitron mas sharp
y muy colosa -- que colores... -- linda electronica
tambien, preciosa...
the other day she si'd to my strawberry banana
orange juice request
un poquito solamente. which is fine by me.
estoy contento at that, y ella esta contenta with it.
y tu? estas contento? como estas?
te quieres some juice, tambien?
well... esta poema es para te
in lieu of orange ju.
10 November 1996
Chi-ka-go
under the sappho south of the city
imagine -- although they are only garlic
breaths --
words which she commands are immortal.
i tell you this from mengin's sallow skin tones
and robust browns -- hanging in manchester
where the smiths louder than bombs for 15 minutes
with her oh they wouldn't say no.
mendocino mendocino -- you hid to the left at the
first light in a 100 miles -- having stepped up
to the cymbals-surf as we pass you 6-hours slap-happy
as we lose you unawares as we glimpse you momentarily:
cakes of angel cakes of white
resting calmly in sallow-glaze
of an evening ocean sun -- briefly
seen from the shimmering silver
blues and drought gold hairpins
twisting northbound.
but instead we grin smack into fort bragg
rolling over the precipice of its craggy surfy
harbor. got any soldiers here, ma'am?
no, you're thinking north carolina. oh.
so who is the real sappho? and which is the real
fort bragg? what is the essence of the city?
the dolores mission of saint francis? where halfway
down the nave -- hiding to the right -- by the 4-foot
thick adobe wall flickers a third of a battery of
votives arrayed under the black madonna? she is
the one decked in garlicky sallows-browns-and-golds?
the patron of poland? how far she has come. how far
i have come to see sappho.
so who are these playful setting sun-sallowed men
just a block to the west outside -- sporting short-shorts
and sappho-grade legs selling copies of old playboys
and john kennedy books? they are sitting or walking
talking and laughing on the sweet and shady side of
the 16th. one says hi and so do i. but the joseph
schmidt chocolate city bitch-dyke condescends through
her anti-tourist barbed-lashed make-up:
everything here is sw. eeeeat! everything here has shoe.
grrrr!
makes me wanna leave not buy. we leave. on sanchez
a step away armed with water bought from smiling
gracious ancient asian sapphos we step-stop sit down
and talk in the long low wedges of city shadows in the
neighborhood-sallowing sun -- taking in the castro
having fun. we are admiring the exhibitionist happy men.
we are ogling the california anglo scrumptious jailbait. we
are enjoying the delicious slender sluts. we are thrilled
with the sapphony of silk-haired asian women.
what would sappho say of these garlic breaths: she.
the sappho. the essential. the persisting. the everpresent.
the fragmented one.
24 October 1994
Menlo Park, California
Thank
you Karen K. for edits, driving and the Sappho
by Charles-August Mengin, Manchester City Art Galleries, UK - Marek
In addition to programming at Northwestern University,
Marek Lugowski is a poet, editor and translator. Having arrived in the United
States in 1973 a "monolingual Pole", Marek goofed off in his Chicago public high school, only to work
hard for his B.S. from Northern Kentucky University in Physics, Mathematics and Computing Science, and later, reasonably
hard, for his M.S. from Indiana University, Bloomington, in Computer Science. Marek has worked on his doctorate
at IU, too, but did not finish, and concurrently, contributed in the fields of artificial life and neural networks.
With Kim Hodges he publishes A
Small Garlic Press, founded in 1995, and
edits Agnieszka's Dowry as well as edits and designs the press's chapbooks. He contributes editing and his own
work to the UPenn-based CrossConnect. His poetry collections include Selamat Jalan, Mate and Utah Poems from A
Small Garlic Press. His older collections, The Taos Volume and Cincy Poems, are forthcoming from Spectrum Press
as an electronic book. In addition to his ongoing translation of Halina Poswiatowska shown only on Usenet, Marek
is a designated co-translator of Wislawa Szymborska (with Joanna Trzeciak) and has translated pieces by Stanislaw
Lem. Marek's work can be found often on Usenet's rec.arts.poems, at Beloit College, in CrossConnect
and Poetry Reload. Marek would send out more stuff to be rejected but he has an articulated gag reflex -- and the
self-adhesive stamps are still too ugly to bear poetry.
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