"Cuisine Burgeoise," by Wallace Stevens

These days of disinheritance, we feast
On human heads. True, birds rebuild
Old nests and there is blue in the woods.
The church bells clap one night in the week.
But that’s all done. It is what it used to be,
As they used to lie in the grass, in the heat,
Men on green beds and women half of the sun.
The words are written though not yet said.

It is like the season when, after summer,
It is summer and it is not, it is autumn
And it is not, it is day and it is not.
As if last night’s lamps continued to burn,
As if yesterday’s people continued to watch
The sky, half porcelain, preferring that
To shaking out heavy bodies in the glares
Of this present, this science, this unrecognized,

This outpost, this douce, this dumb, this dead, in which
We feast on human heads, brought in on leaves,
Crowned with the first, cold buds. On these we live,
No longer on the ancient cake of seed,
The almond and the deep fruit. This bitter meat
Sustains us . . . Who then are they seated here?
Is the table a mirror in which they sit and look?
Are they men eating reflections of themselves?

Poetry, by Marianne Moore.

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however, with perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
It, after all, a place for the genuine.

“Sincerity” is a tricky ideal, since, as Jean-Paul Sartre showed, being
intent on sincerity focuses attention on the role one is playing and
detracts from the attention to the object one is claiming to be sincere
about. Therefore sincerity is a dangerous model for cultural authority
because it honors the appearance of virtue rather than demanding
that virtue prove itself by actually getting down to work that engages
the interests of other people.

Charles Altieri

The Bath-Tub, by E. Pound.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

Recordando un Temblor en el Bosque de los Muertos, de Luis Rosales (borrador de traducción)

Remembering a Tremor in the Forest of the Dead

If the heart lost its foundations,
if the earth and lumber from the forest
of blood quivered, and if all your flesh
could put itself into gentle and absolute

motion, like an avalanche slowly crawling,
erasing a frontier in each step,
and if a fixed light were blindness,
and if between the seeing and staring the wind could stay,

and if your dearest dead formed
a burning forest under the naked sea
-the forest of death where a sun yields,

already in another sky, its silent gold-
and if a swarm flew among the branches
where the tremor raised the first leave.



Si el corazón perdiera su cimiento,/ y vibraran la tierra y la madera/ del bosque de la sangre, y se pusiera/toda tu carne en leve movimiento

total, como un alud que avanza lento/ borrando en cada paso una frontera,/ y fuese una luz fija la ceguera,/ y entre el mirar y el ver quedara el viento,

y formasen los muertos que más amas/ un bosque ardiente bajo el mar desnudo/ -el bosque de la muerte en que deshoja

un sol, ya en otro cielo, su oro mudo-/ y volase un enjambre entre las ramas /donde puso el temblor la primera hoja...

Para Mi Hija (Weldon Kees)

Sondeando los ojos de mi hija descubro
escondida tras la inocencia de carne
fresca, augurios de muerte a los que ella
no presta atención.
El más frío de los vientos ha mecido este pelo, y un amasijo
de algas enredado estas miniaturas de manos;
el lento veneno de la noche, tolerante y dócil,
ha conmovido su sangre. Resecos días que he vislumbrado
como suyos aparecen: repugnantes, persistente muerte
durante una guerra certera, las delgadas piernas verdes.
O, alimentada por el odio, ella entregando el aguijón
de la agonía de los otros; quizás la cruel
esposa de un sifilítico o un iluso.
Estas conjeturas se agrian en el sol.
No tengo hija, ni deseo ninguna.


To My Daughter

Looking into my daughter’s eyes I read
Beneath the innocence of morning flesh
Concealed, hintings of death she does not heed.
Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh
Of seaweed snarled these miniatures of hands;
The night’s slow poison, tolerant and bland,
Has moved her blood. Parched years that I have seen
That may be hers appear: foul, lingering
Death in certain war, the slim legs green.
Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting
Of others’ agony; perhaps the cruel
Bride of a syphilitic or a fool.
These speculations sour in the sun.
I have no daughter. I desire none.

A la Mujer (Lord Byron)

¡Mujer! La experiencia podrá haberme dicho,
que todo el que os contemple habrá de amaros;
Seguro que la experiencia me habrá enseñado
que vuestras firmes promesas no son nada;
pero, dispuesta ante mi con todos vuestros encantos,
todo yo lo olvido, menos adoraros.
¡Oh Memoria! vos elegís la bendición
que va unida a la esperanza, cuando aún poseéis;
¡pero tanto más despreciada por cada amante
cuando la esperanza ha huído, y la pasión acabado!
La mujer, esa bella y cariñosa embaucadora,
¡cómo tienden los mozuelos a creerla!
¡Cómo late nuestro pulso al ver
el ojo que rueda brillante y azul,
o centellea negro, o suave lanza
un destello bajo frentes castañas!
¡Qué pronto damos crédito a cada voto,
y la oímos prestar el voluntarioso juramento!
Ingenuos esperamos que durará para siempre,
cuando, ¡atended! ella en un día cambia .
Este testimonio permanecerá,
"¡Mujer! vuestras promesas se escriben en la arena."



Woman! experience might have told me
That all must love thee, who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought;
But, plac'd in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.
Oh memory! thou choicest blessing,
When join'd with hope, when still possessing;
But how much curst by every lover
When hope is fled, and passion's over.
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse, when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope 'twill last for ay,
When, lo! she changes in a day.
This record will for ever stand,'
"Woman, thy vows are trac'd in sand."