Translated:
The Lost Narrative Sonnet Cycle of Rodrigo Elise Enfant.
Revisited
Note to the reader:
The following translations have been undertaken from segments of recently discovered English, Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish documents. No further material has been located. Despite their best efforts in dealing with the primary materials, the translators can offer no explanation as to how documents of the modern era were discovered with the older material, written in first hand, irrespective of the century, or parchment or paper type, or language.
My name divided
Gravity of penultimate night
resting gentle palm over heart
push slowly
out of this quilt of sighs
feathering masquerade of snow
coral sugar beach crunching under outstretched hands
weightless free of kerb and verge
starry shake whizzes through the furious lie
you were always more than generous
after all
By future denied
Rodrigo Enfant before,
during and again later.
In the chafe of being
between the fall
of shadow and dazzle of awakening.
She would rise in writing
to reach the quill,
drag the typeset
in that peculiar motion of his,
hammer the keyboard
like an inky fist of print
bleeding to come out into being.
Satan’s Price
In the shammy counting house of parole
Lucifer smiles wringing out the honeycomb,
Drains the souls in dripping nonchalance
Of promises forsaken in the greed of want.
The horde of sins scurries as ants hungry
From his drenching scrutiny of shelves,
Litmus fingers cloy the stuffing pushing
Back any drifting excess of discontent;
Marked down in the pallets murmurs
Are second thoughts without redemption.
To the surreal balcony
Singing the aniseed swamp smell
out of the room,
where the other children struck
at fleeing wastrel crimes,
all dressed to chase down
fleeting tunnels
of adventurous mischance,
the voice quelled the air.
Until the change to bellow grew
into a solo backdrop hymn
where the suspended silent aftermath
spoke of itself.
Picasso kisses Dali
The first unbound moment of it
In the candour of angels.
Untouched by knowledge
Nothing to be right or wrong.
A feather, dances over unhindered plain
Eases out a long-exhilarated sigh
Recedes a whole pier to bend a pose.
In captured silent joy of breathing
A Silhouetted fluttering dove
Stirs from the outlined chest,
Pomegranate world has all the seeds
Gathered to the tie knot.
In sail with Painters, new worlds
In the glistening aperture of making,
the rustle of silk petticoat
or shake of a box of matches,
stirred the pots of colour,
splashing a drag of existence
to portrait on the canvas,
turning to graffiti the sea wall;
where the tide stayed out
long enough for the image to set
on the curl of sand drying below.
Leaf Fall
Philander of delta in grudging green
Turn of season shedding evaporative drought.
To spite of kingdom so small the mites
Carry the empire’s longing opened veins,
Weather the levee surge in underground cities;
Majesty’s feint the reform to harvest,
The last vestige of paternalistic rage
Surrenders in descent of flutter whirl change,
Renewing the place of zephyr trailing
Upward buds small scythes of jaunt
Slice at the airy hope of fall.
At Elizabeth’s behest
Sleepy candle flutter eyes,
falling hand bears the lamp,
flaming to poke the switch to light.
Tousle of hair nets a dream,
angry priest shaves away,
bleeding in heretic convocation;
guillotine swish or axe fall,
the horse stands dreaming
as the carriage door slams
catching the ends of prying fingers.
How much do I love Thee
How much do I love thee?
Of all the worlds matter make nought:
Scrape up the limitless sands of Arabee
Cry nil and cancel ancient debates fought,
Loose the arrow that brings doom to the phoenix –
Find the perfect seventeenth syllable
Confound and master the alchemist’s tricks,
Write down the unsaid of the embalmer’s table.
Love stills the breath of the living
In a landscape paused between the tick and tock,
Of the measure of time most unforgiving,
And though my tortured head be down
before the axeman on the block:
Have no doubt in my most fervent answer dear
I confess it all to you alone and have no slightest fear.
Between Princes and continents
By the glimpse of stockings,
a silk ladder leans
in against the longing climb,
the kitchen garden flirts paved edges
lost in the perfumed seethe
of aromatic tumble,
dragon fly darts the lunge
of sticky spidery remembrance,
hides in the cleft of damp brick;
two figures emerge
embraced in haphazard alchemy.
The bell ringer carves the day,
not caring where the moment falls
to shake the vibrato pickup sticks of shades,
out of deadpan grasp and let go,
in his hunch no careless wonder
bothers with the past.
Whirly gig spirals rebound the walls,
their echoes in tendril soft as udder
string milk as coigns
in the viewing harp touch.
Mission with Wang Wei
Entering the city before cock crow
By the silver birch canal
Awestruck by the sculpted buildings
Furtively we look for watchtowers
Listening to the strange northern dialect
Cheery voices mingle with cooking smells
Without speaking we share a glance
Our Lord loves the hunt so much
He writes and paints of rapturous kills
We hope he is not too fond
Of where he has sent us.
In clandestine service, Lenin and Zapata
Adjusting hat in a private slant,
disclosure wants no passer-by;
friend or enemy recant all secrets
told or lost to the hungry fountain,
the fonts of others pretend the truth of caste,
but there in view the sideways glance is tarry enough;
witnessed shimmer binds the spot
of spark not recognition bright.
Revolution
Across the defile they come
smudged by travail,
trudging the slope, eyes look past us
to the place we all know –
new bodies to load the long rifle
discarded shells of infants
we sleep with the dead here
knowing what is buried.
Passing Camelot, tomorrow and Orlando
Moon sunk failed scone,
doughy fingers stick in the plait of lives;
each hand pull down on the other,
twist a rout to cleanse a Pilate.
Drown a clown to feign a stunt,
surety grows in the nurtured nose bleed
to blush cheeks washing through the laughing chorus,
fixing a smile cures the breathing.
Avalon
A feminine shroud of caress
Surrounds in daisy link the fallen.
The lap-tap-tap-lap of embarkation
Ripples at the edge line of journey,
A hand of day pulls aside
The secret curtain breeze;
Reveal of tattoo sky in point of return
Warms the block stone landing,
Lanyards shunt to ease the bow and stern
Shadow entourage lifts in cherished sift
The ransom cargo of idea.
This sequence has appeared in The Leviathan’s Apprentice, and Walking Through Fences, now with some changes due to the nuances of the language and calligraphy.
James Walton Poetry 