07 January 2008

They'll wear you down sometime, kiss the wine, magic Christians chew the rind



Cadillac CTS, Shop Window, and No Trespassing Sign, Pulaski

--four poems by Nicanor Parra

Warnings

No praying allowed, no sneezing.
No spitting, eulogizing, kneeling
Worshipping, howling, expectorating.

No sleeping permitted in this precinct
No inoculating, talking, excommunicating
Harmonizing, escaping, catching.

Running is absolutely forbidden.

No smoking. No fucking.

These Idyllic Lovers

could be two ants
two eyes in the same face
two nostrils in the same nose

these motherfucking lovers
could be the sea the way they go up and down
could be the sun if those were sun spots.

The Situation is Getting Delicate

You only have to look at the sun
through a smoked glass
to know things are bad:
or maybe you think everything is fine.

I say we ought to go back
to cars pulled by horses
to steam-driven planes
to TV sets cut from stone

The old folks were right:
We have to go back and cook with wood again.

No President's Statue Escapes

From those infallible pigeons
Clara Sandoval used to tell us:

Those pigeons know exactly what they’re doing

Pavement's video for "Major Leagues" from Terror Twilight

1 comment:

Josh Harrod said...

I really like the melting reflection on the hood of the Caddy. I wish it had been etched into it so it stayed when the owner drove off.

Also, I was very pleasantly surprised to see the Nicanor Parra (anti)poems! The last two are two of my favorites of his and fit my mood very well this morning.