Pierre Joris
Eight poems
¶
tzim tzum
thru the head
air hole
book floats
after
happiness
that something
happens
still & a
live
9/ 11/ 01
to be written
when the
time comes:
this moment,
this second
cuts in be-
tween in two.
It will be the —
where to breathe
the or a o-
pen pore
riots of air
that second
always second
rift in time
marks time
for breath, gash
curled high in air.
Albany, 7:20 a.m.
¶
caretaker dreams
swallow
the acculturated mire
lice veins
tesselate the
known,
stacked
reams defibrillate
what you think
behind time.
The books’ null-events
fib your
will.
A snug song repeats
throatless, skinless
between
the teeth.
¶
miscellany of these years
shared assemblages
that dissemble & amble
what connects in
the terror of any given
life? From or through
sleep, this den of otherness
you wake into boyhood,
the hooded stranger
of adult-heit,
busied with petty chafings
declarations, declamations,
steamed & salted
the cracked lips bite.
Sundays, other days,
head into the blue yonder
the colder depths.
A boy with branches twice
his size, held up
antlers, a gift
for you,
his small carefree
praise song.
The little we know
pushed forward by
nib & ink, pebbles heaped
against the abyss
of the unknown,
our only
ground.
Only the smallest
meanings warm us,
refracting through
the house of mirrors,
pinging off wall
after wall, mounting
the virtual volume
we call and recall
the real.
Three Berber Songs
for Nicole
1. The Large Spider
woven net
spreads
turns &
deturns
the central principle
life is expansion
the word’s horizon
that creates it.
Perpetual becoming
runs from
the fictive center
o spiral
aspire
breathe in
a well-being
on the way.
2. The Small Spider
In the mâwqif of writing
become spider
ray-ing form
sun-net
penciled threads
secreted, lines
of flight:
tissage égale
métissage
spit our & swallow
your words
weave the world
métisse-le
3. The Cockchafer
Four wings
beat down
on the four
corners of the world
beat take-off
a line of flight
double arrow
polar axis
boreal light
neither Occident
nor orient
exile is beneath
is everywhere
under the light
(translated from the French by the author)
HOMOPHONIC TRANSLATION OF BACH’S QUODLIBET CANTATA TEXT
gross ahoe side, grosser fry and hem;
grow sarde gun, gross shy den;
grow so rich to her, gross abuttal;
grow see huns there, gross a knee and tell;
gross a fella, grows a sauna;
gross gauche son, grrr, obscene ;
gross a file, gross echo dove;
grow senate zen, gross sell each her;
grow her reins, gross weapons;
grow six feathers, grosso zapping;
gross geste, grouse corner;
grow sir Haven, grow a stress pen;
grow sephardic, grow a vest pen;
gross wineburg, gross a tripe in;
great vibes, great how beens;
gross ka gel, gross key gel;
gross bow rein, grow effete;
great young fern, great crank case;
great easels, great kwanzas;
grow an ache, great goo patch;
gross the frau in, grow the geek latch;
gross of clappers, grow and trundle;
gross of west pens, grow a hummed “l”;
grow a line wand, grow a lie bleach;
gross a back track, grow the taichi.
Pierre Joris
Poet, translator & essayist Pierre Joris left Luxembourg at
age 19 & has since lived in the U.S., Great Britain, North Africa, and
France. Rain Taxi praised his 2001 collection, Poasis: Selected Poems
1986–1999, for “its physical, philosophical delight in words and
their reverberations.” Since then he has published two chapbooks of
poetry: Permanent Diaspora (Duration Press) and most recently The
Rothenberg Variations (Wild Honey Press, Ireland).
In 2003
Wesleyan U.P. brought out his collection of essays A Nomad Poetics.
Recent translations include 4x1: Work by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke,
Jean-Pierre Duprey & Habib Tengour and Abdelwahab Meddeb’s The
Malady of Islam.With Jerome Rothenberg he edited the award-winning
anthologies Poems for the Millennium and, just out from Exact Change,
Pablo Picasso, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Poems. In
late 2004 Green Integer will reissue three volumes of his translations of Paul
Celan: Breathturn, Threadsuns and Lightduress and University of
California Press will bring out his Paul Celan:
Selections.
Pierre Joris often performs his work in collaboration
with vocalist & visual artist Nicole Peyrafitte, most recently touring their
multimedia show SumericaBachbones throughout Europe & the US. He
teaches poetry and poetics at University in Albany, NY where he lives with
Nicole Peyrafitte & their son Miles. During fall 2003 he was Berlin Prize
Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Visit Pierre Joris’s website at
http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ .
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