James McPherson
1970
FOR ZÉ (ERNESTO DE SOUSA) AND FOR ISABEL
Shaped by the wind, like cliff-sprung trees,
The countries in their tourist photographs
Stand in the invisible violence of air.
***
In this state, which watched you
In the shallow politics of sleep,
In the polite silence of cafés,
In the country work and urban pleasures;
This mustiness; this twilight;
This entropy, this cruel wind;
This Portugal –
Oh, Zé,
Your nose against the glass
And suddenly the glass is gone,
The strong smell of the world
Swirls in
***
We pale into print; we darken into music;
Remembering
Joy is the most serious
in life Alegria
is the most serious thing
da vida
as the illusionists with their false joy
conceal the true.
***
I was watchful to the bone
against all tidings.
The biding seemed forever –
the poor too poor
the rich too fat
the silence of the corpse in the tub
bleeding away into Africa and exile.
***
Emerged they said –
quietly – of course –
like the lifting of a transparency
To see the skeleton, the nervous system,
the channels of the blood,
for the first time.
Emerged
suddenly
quietly
then with One Great Shout
***
For you, Ernesto,
who trace the stone rivers
from the moorish tower to Henry Moore,
loving the living stones,
hating the dead rituals:
Marvels shall be written
when the choice is overturned
when the answer is not
either/or
but
yet another
Make it new
Make it newer
Make it newest.
***
Must the serious business of art
be pain and pain and pain?
Gladness a brief flash in the dark?
To take affirmation seriously
look in this mirror;
reverse this dialectic.
***
Lisboa
sad sweet quiet lady
suddenly sexy –
you have discovered air,
people walking on roofs,
and Maria da Fonte
(eia, avanti!)
sem temer
pela santa Liberdade –
***
Now walls give way to mirrors.
As the world widens the ingaze deepens.
This breeze blows us taller.
The gods live in the stones
Alegria.