A collaboration

haiku by TheGirl

Photo by TheFishmonger

Triad: A Denial

Last night, I was searching through my bookshelves for a copy of DragonSong for TheGirl. I swear I had a copy of that book, but failed to find it. While searching, though, I ran across an old poetry booklet I'd picked up on Milwaukee's East Side in the early 90's. It contains what was one of my favorite poems in the 90s. I still think it's pretty good. Written by Nicholas Cipollone, of Goal Zero Poetry Group, it's entitled Triad: A Denial. I couldn't find any presence of Mr. Cipollone's poetry online, so I'm going to reproduce the poem here:

Triad: A Denial

I
but she is not
but she is not
but she is not
the one I love

II
she is not the one whose eyes
are dappled with tarnished silver clouds
that conceal reveal the moon in their passage

she is not the one whose hands
are white with the powdered bones of her lovers
are white with distance and memory

she is not the one whose voice
calls still calls from caves from groves
from lonely places on chill stricken nights

she is not she is not she is not

III
and she is not my mistress
and she is not my muse
and she is not my lover

coals glow int he tripod brazier
old women gossip in the shadowed courtyard
soldiers patrol the unlit streets
daybirds have begun to sing
informers are everywhere
I must dissemble and be cunning

three times I deny her
I deny everything
dawn will see me blind

Obviously, I don't have any rights to this poem, so if Mr. Cipollone would like me to take it down, he need only let me know, and I'll be happy to comply.

A word of warning:

Don't kiss your honey
when your nose is runny.
You might think it's funny,
but it's snot.

Yeah, that is the poem from a Valentine's card that I gave to TW, years back. We still talk about it. In fact, it's about the only Valentine's card either of us still remember. Aren't we romantic?

This poem was published in some campus literary mag back in the 80's. I think its brilliant... just bloody brilliant. I cut it out of the mag, and I've been retyping it again and again, ever since. I've hyperlinked it as a sort of project for myself. Apologies to Christoph Meckel and Carol Bedwell, if I've typo'ed- or hyperlinked-away their genius. And, of course, I've no rights to any of this, and if the copyright owner wants it down, they just need to let me know.

MY WORK

My work consists in this:
Converting rats and fleas to snow,
Melting great icebergs down
And forging durable houses out of dew.

Day grants me little laughter in this work,
Drying up oceans to obtain their salt.
Night grants me little sleep, but days and nights
Offer me grounds for thought and not complaint.

No angel, but a raven in his place,
Stands at my back to recompense my work;
Buffeting me with chilly sighing wings,
Blinding my expectations with wild caws.

I am my shadow’s own companion here,
Watching the great chameleon in the dark;
There are no servants sleeping by my door,
And no whale surges past my windowpane.

I speak the tongue of gold diggers in swamps
Which changes snow to rust, the rust to snow,
The language of lost silence, devising pain,
Refrain of all my past and future days.

Neither in darkness nor in light I stand.
Twilight remains for my strange business.
Four walls on earth remain, and Heaven has
sparse weekend stars in its obscurity.

Christoph Meckel
(translated by Carol Bedwell)

retyped many times (probably with typos), and hyperlinks added by the Fishmonger