A Note of Thanks to Anna Akhmatova

Last week while looking at the server log for the Lampoetry blog I noticed for the first time that our web site recorded more visitors from Russia than the United States.  Perhaps to explain this sudden surge in popularity to the East I found  this  link to a web site where the Lampoetry blog is being translated into Russian.

So a warm welcome to all our readers in Russia!  And an equally warm welcome to our readers in the Ukraine, as I also noticed we've received numerous visits from there too recently!

In a sense this brings me full circle.  My interest in poetry was initially sparked when my wife gave me (for my 45th birthday) a book of poems by Anna Akhmatova.  It was a Penguin edition with translations by D. M. Thomas.  Quite simply I have never been so profoundly moved by a book.  Reading the first dozen poems I felt myself in a writer's immediate presence more so than I had ever felt before.  It was as if I could hear Akhmatova's voice speaking to me directly.  It wasn't so much the translations by Thomas - which I recall as being perfectly serviceable - but it was the poet herself who addressed me.  For the first time I understood what it means to write a poem.

In fact, even though I know no more than a few words of Russian, I soon found myself correcting Thomas' translations, somehow intuiting where  he had missed some nuance or inflection in the original work.  Possessed of this insight, it wasn't too long before I decided to venture a translation of my own, or more precisely a re-translation of Thomas' prior work.

So here is the very first translation I ever ventured.  It is appropriately enough Akhmatova's great poem in tribute to Boris Pasternak.  Every time I read this poem I think to myself - that Pasternak must have been one hell of a fine poet to have inspired such admiration, but goddammit there is no one greater than Anna Akhmatova.  So I offer up my own small tribute to the great Akhmatova with this translation.

*  *  *  *  *

The Poet (for Boris Pasternak)

Who sees himself sidelong

Through eyes of the horse

By such divergent means

He recognizes instantly

How the puddles shine

Like melted diamonds

And the ice fractures

Intricate as lace

Or in lilac repose

By the station platform

Noticing the logs leaves

And clouds piled high

And the steam engine’s hiss

And the crunch of watermelon rind

How the lady holds scented glove

So delicately in hand

Or at thundering pace

Launching out

To beat against the surf

Then suddenly slowing

To let heartbeat subside

On entering the forest pavilion

Advancing cautiously so as

Not to disturb things sleeping

In such a sacred place

Mentally taking note

Of each stalk of grain

To the graveyard 

He quietly returns

With hoof downward sloping 

And gracefully paws the earth 

And how once more 

Amidst Moscow's throngs

It ill behooves him

This burning

At the back of his throat

Yet he tries to find 

A livable space

Hearing far off the peal

Of the deathly bell

Tolling for one

Who lost the way

Knee deep in snow

But only steps away

From the front door

And because he had

Presaged the rising  

Plumes of smoke

That would emerge one day

From the belly of

The Wooden Horse

And likewise because

He celebrated

Cemetery thistles

And braved the void

With the sound

Of his thoroughly

Original verse

A very mirror to the

Multiverse

He found reward

In childhood eternal

With generosity aplenty

A shining heart displayed

As a constellation and nightly

Presented to the earth

As an inheritance

To be shared

Indiscriminately 

Poem Written as a Caption for a Picture Of Five Cousins Walking Together

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Sure you can

Chalk it up to love

But please also
Keep in mind

It’s the very meaning

Of the Oedipal myth

That we're dealing with 

In this picture
How blood kinship is

An inextricable link

A contract of adhesion

Of an altogether different sort than

Is typically fretted about in

Liberal academic circles

Though it’s never a matter

Of free choice per se

Yet still we remain

Jealous to the utmost

Of our prerogatives

In such things

Like the bond of effable chemistry

Between five cousins 

Walking together

Along the Sarasota beach

Held in good balance

Over the long haul

Notwithstanding selective

Inbreeding 

Here we are depicted 

So perfectly at ease

On an overcast day

After throwing ourselves

Into the tepid Gulf surf

It’s a bond irrevocable

Inasmuch as

Even if rejected

Blood relations

Or not will continue

To hold sway in a

Subcutaneous way

Not otherwise apparent

Across the genotype

But when thus

Openly acknowledged

By the heart

We flaunt our belonging

To one another nowhere better

Than as captured 

In the here and now

Song for a Brighter Tomorrow

Is the present tense

Anything more than

A demon process running

Inside each and every one

Of us

A recurring ping

A friendly wake-up call

Administered however

Intermittently

In meditation

Almost persistently

Brrriiiing it on forward

Now sisters and brothers

Howsoever you are able

Keep the present tense running

How Reality May be Comparable to A Downloadable App

Today
As the cable box whirred
Lowering me down
The elevator shaft
It occurred to me
That reality itself
Has been reduced
To little more than
A downloadable app

Subject to constant
Revision and rebranding
And to some higher form
Of corporate control perhaps
My life sometimes feels
Like nothing more or less
Than a downloadable app

Yet no matter 
How fine the resolution 
On the handset may get
The avatar and the Atman
Both remain a little fuzzy
Around the edges
If you know what I mean

And it's not just my age
Which makes no difference
In point of fact
Because pretty soon
Everything starts getting blurry
Around the edges and otherwise
That's just the way it is
When life has become
Nothing more than
A downloadable app

Ode to the Mode of This and That

Let me start by explaining that whatever it is that I've learned about Buddhism over the last few years comes from reading and translating classical Chinese poetry rather than from attaching myself to any contemporary school or lineage.  I developed a daily practice that involved reading and translation, at first more than meditation I suppose.

Still I've learned a lot in my own peculiar fashion. Lately I'm surprised to find myself meditating more and translating less or at least thinking these are more or less interchangeable activities. And meditation I increasingly favor, perhaps because I also find it has broader health benefits.

In any case,  I wanted to share with you a poem written this afternoon, which is best described as a meditation, inasmuch as it was composed in the course of spending 15 minutes settling in on the mat.


Ode to the Mode of This and That


There’s so many me's

It’s hard to keep track

There’s the mode of this

And the mode of that

An avatar on Linkedin

At home a married man

Held (I sure hope) in warm regard

By a small circle of friends

Every day it seems

Me becomes ever

More prolific

Then there’s

The meditative me

Sometimes the not me

Sitting quiet and alone

On a blue exercise mat

Without pen and notebook

Ready at hand

Outwardly silenced

And more alert

(though ever elusive

and easily spooked)

Inwardly laughing

Often so hard my sides

Just might burst

The gnomon of nothing
That resides in my frame
The shadow of a wraith
Or an indistinct flame
When breathing falls stilled
The inspiration still remains

A Poem for Jeremy England

First a word of explanation.  This morning while reading my daily blogs I came across a news story with a portentous headline -- A New Physics Theory of Life.   I clicked and to my delight came across something truly worth reading.  Jeremy England is a young man at MIT who has come up with a very plausible explanation for why life came into being in the first place.  That's right - not just the how but the why of it!  And it actually is quite intelligible even for someone like me with very little scientific training.  It's really worth reading the article if you're not already familiar with England's basic idea.

And once you read the article (and maybe even before) perhaps you'll enjoy this poem I wrote today as my own take on this noteworthy theoretical breakthrough.

Poem for Jeremy England

We are all
Energy dissipates

Or so it's proposed 
By England's new theorem

As every single living thing

Resonates to a

Common frequency

Being so dissipate myself
Of energy or otherwise
I've long sensed

This was true 

If not in accordance

With Newtonian formula

Then certainly as foretold

By William Blake
Conscious or not
It's the same wavelength
To which we are attuned

A swan I saw tonight

A swan I saw tonight
Sleeping by the mouth
Of Weesuck Creek
Head tucked under
Its wing all but indistinct
A pile to the right and
Looking ass backwards
Much as I am
And outward
Towards the sea