This woman speaks in tongues
Foreign languages roll from her mouth
Like summer fog ladled over the rim
Of Candlestick Park
In the not-so-distant
Far far away of long long ago

This woman speaks in rotund sentences
Effulgent with vocabulary
That shimmers with the electrified joy
Of lights over Ghirardelli Square
In the not-so-darkness
Of the clammy and cabalistic night

This woman speaks with her hands
Impresciable, implacable, and inconsolable
As she tries to mold untranslatable words
From air that is as thin
As the promises she’d preferred
And purchased with the shards of her heart

This woman speaks in lyrics
Arpeggios of adjectives and alliteration
That tumble acrobatically with the intricacy
And grace
Of a hummingbird in spring
On the kiss of a blossom
Rich and fragrant and giving as
This woman speaking in tongues

When great aunt Maggie passed away years ago, the one thing I really missed was her angelic voice.
The swaggering, sing-song lilt of the mid-Derry accent was as sweet as the confections she used to pass out to us as kids:
The inflection, the intonation, and the slight lisp she brought to it was so gloriously unique but was never heard again.
I often wish I could go back with a tape recorder to capture it in all its glory and relive how wonderful she was.
Now all I have is a untranslatable memory that can't be brought back to even vaguely approximate what it meant to me.

And now here I am again with the same obstacle.
The same tones, the same inflections albeit through a different light have just been extinguished before me.
This time there was no digital device rushing in to capture our time before it ran out.
No instinct for preservation was forthcoming - we were too busy having fun & 'being here now'.
No, once again I am bereft:
All I I have is here (in my heart) and and here (in my head)
The loved sounds I miss will always resound there albeit without backup
Voices lost but not forgotten.

Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.

For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the skies of the tropics.
We flee a downpour, in an instant the bright sun again,
And I grow dumb, dazzled by the emerald essence of the leaves.

We submerge in foam at the line of the surf,
We swim far, to where the horizon is a tangle of banana bush,
With little windmills of palms.
And I am under accusation: That I am not up to my oeuvre,
That I do not demand enough from myself,
As I could have learned from Karl Jaspers,
That my scorn for the opinions of this age grows slack.

I roll on a wave and look at white clouds.

You are right, Jeanne, I don't know how to care about the salvation of my soul.
Some are called, others manage as well as they can.
I accept it, what has befallen me is just.
I don't pretend to the dignity of a wise old age.
Untranslatable into words, I chose my home in what is now,
In things of this world, which exist and, for that reason, delight us:
Nakedness of women on the beach, coppery cones of their *******,
Hibiscus, alamanda, a red lily, devouring
With my eyes, lips, tongue, the guava juice, the juice of la prune de Cythère,
*** with ice and syrup, lianas-orchids
In a rain forest, where trees stand on the stilts of their roots.

Death, you say, mine and yours, closer and closer,
We suffered and this poor earth was not enough.
The purple-black earth of vegetable gardens
Will be here, either looked at or not.
The sea, as today, will breathe from its depths.
Growing small, I disappear in the immense, more and more free.

To the T, like a letter I must of looked, accented only
by an estranged alphabet who longed for the The
surrounded by what in a room with no roof made of why.
Night hung overhead with billions of demarcations for the end of a thought
So with them I just stopped and learned that one may never be still.  
Even now we are some cosmic cursive spelling out a
fluid motion so concerned with dotting an i and thus it is forgotten what follows the pronunciation of the self.
A shadow come late of a lightness that we ought to translate but
cannot be contained with these inadequate vessels,
these symbols so riddled with leaks that when they finally reach terminus
become such tired tenants of exposure.
Like these letters I must have looked,
on a page made of mirrors who’s reflection all but apologized
for the failure to realize an ethereal hand tugging at my pen,
an incomplete cursive within without place, without name, simply without.
Not even.                                                            ­                                        
Like those letters I must have looked.

I woke up this morning to the strangest feeling-
I could feel you next to me.
Not your physical presence of course-
That remains unknown to me
Being, as it may well be,
On the other side of an ocean,
Atop a distant mountain,
Or in a different realm entirely,
Filled with mythical creatures,
In a place where poetry is born.

What I mean is I felt your soul,
Reaching out to me
After last night's late night drinking
In the privacy of my own room,
Come to tell me I was not alone,
Whilst at the same time saying;
"This is not you.
Well...Not the you I'm used to, anyway-
What went wrong?"

I hesitated for a moment,
Considering if this was
My own conscience speaking to me,
In which case it would be acceptable to cry,
But I knew such tenderness could not be my own,
And had no wish for such a beautiful being
To watch tears fall from my eyes.

"I don't know" I said,
And hated myself instantly for the lie.
This awe-inspiring soul, who had travelled so far
To share such a wondrous presence with me,
What right had I to feed it such ugly untruths?
I felt ashamed and hung my head...
"I hate myself." I said.

For a moment I thought you had left,
Sickened by this display of self-pity,
And my ghastly morning breath.
Then I realised you had enveloped the entire room.
In an attempt to bring me comfort.
You had filled the cracks in the door,
And surrounded each wall
From ceiling to floor,
And waited for me to speak.

I cried fully for five minutes at least,
And there was no beauty in it.
No gentle tears or quiet sniffling.
Just heaving sobs and ugly ****** contortions,
Interspersed with heavy breathing,
And snotty tissues.

When it was all over
I felt you on my shoulder
(Not my heart- you accepted, you afterwards said,
That I keep some parts hidden,
Even from myself), and then
We talked, and talked, and talked,
About everything, until I felt
We were only words- nothing more.
Not voices, or sounds, or written letters,
But just words who understood each other perfectly.

Finally, you explained to me
How to reach you, but, being a soul,
Your directions were untranslatable,
And I could not follow them
Despite my burning desire to,
So you went on instead
To reveal the purpose of your visit.

"Your soul is trapped." you told me,
"Within the confines of your body,
And I must travel so very far to see it.
It is the only part left of you
That still loves itself, and if it leaves
It is afraid that you will die."

I had never given a thought, before,
To my own soul, and how
I must have been keeping it,
Trapped under lock and key
Behind my own self-loathing,
While it yearned to be free.

So as you left I promised you this;
That I would learn to love myself,
So that my soul may find eternal bliss,
And find you in good health.

I assure you, beautiful one,
That I am trying...

Happiness is invasive
Search for an eraser
I am a mistake maker
I’m a fixer upper
You should paint my shutters
I shutter myself
And have a stutter
I’m aloof
Like you used to be
Before you stopped seeing me
Completely
Now I’m sleepy
And I lie my head on my pillow
Lots of things to consider
Possibilities hot like cinders

Sometimes your mother will look at you
like a dead language, some untranslatable
character. Speak anyway.

Sometimes your burning heart’s smoke signals
will make her weep and splutter,
or pass over her like incense, slightly
too sweet, and thick with silence.

Hand her an apple.
Know she might choke before she sees
the core.
Feed her anyway.

Sing your hymns with windows open
when the house is ablaze, do not
suffocate. Gasp through carbon,
remember who gave you your
stardust: you are
heavenly. Burning bibles
purges nothing, and screaming
into pillows
is not a prayer, precious girl.

There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one's work or enjoy one's life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. — Viktor Frankl

[T]here is no coming to consciousness without pain. — Carl Jung

Should the conflagration climb
Run till all the sages know — William Butler Yeats

Heart-injured in North London, he became
The Latin scholar of his generation. — W. H. Auden

It's urgent,
Imminent,
Fiercely non-communicable.
(Carry a firestorm in your veins.)

Secrets, secrets are no fun
Secrets, secrets hurt someone

The secret, untranslatable, hurts the secret-holder:
Frustration disguises isolation.
Distilled isolation is pain.
Purified pain is meaning.
(Carry a firestorm in your veins.)

Secrets, secrets are no fun?
Secrets, secrets hurt someone?

O, only momently!
Heart-injury transfigured is salvation.
(Carry a firestorm in your veins.)

my winter eyes are epic
emptied of the seduction
of never dying days
for now
but
still looking for an incantation:
this field this wave this sway
this maze this daze
the soul's substance
untranslatable
allusive
perfumed

some find it in the dark recesses
some insist it doesnt't exist
I contemplate blankness inside
my skin
my mind just a dream catcher
for illusions
a suspended note
an erasable tape
a network for the delicate architecture of moss
or was it mold?
some words have no heart at all
and we need canyons of tenderness, paths of joy
is it time that is dripping its imagination
in this turmoil?

the irrationality of mornings of violins of drums
strikes a chord inside
what is the basis of harmony?
so many shapes of wonder
on bridges, shores, sidewalks and hills
and valleys of the unknown
full of space atoms

a spirit of a shaman sits beside me
she calls me soul surfer
perhaps
god is
part violence
part beauty
part wonder
and I fall for it
when I find it
in the flesh
of the heart
only

some waves just pass through me
I let them touch other surfaces
they got carried away by the breeze
or the lament of seaguls
my architecture or the scripture
no wonder the receptivity
but only if you feel the field
to understand the predator
merge with one
to understand a bird
feel the weightless air
to understand a flower
dream its sensitivity
to understand the ******* of dawn
let yourself be devoured
there is empty space
in the great chain of being
oh, how mimetic everything is
lust doesn't last, it isn't so obvious
nor the craving for shining surfaces
as an empty screaming in raw beats
it tastes like sand in the eyes to me

I can see more and more
the spinning of burned eyes
I won't let myself be
devoured by a false premise
no, no need no worries
beauty is the mother of
the night when
every wall shouts
our name
leave the door open
leave the seduction
to me

let your skin
surrender
to the labyrinth
untranslatable
let me be in love
with the sunstone
you'll find the right
melody
to leave beauty
unharmed

You know, my love, that the worlds we have each created for ourselves
are galaxies apart.
Our language games are mutually untranslatable.

We never had a chance, my love. Even I know that.

We would never have been able to achieve an understanding of each other
deep enough
to overcome our fear of the unknown, (and utterly unknowable),
that we symbolize for each other.

The logical, brutally rational part of me knows that we could never have made each other happy.

So why must I, though you have been gone now for quite some time,
keep my mind on you all the time?

Why do I still feel this way, thinking about you every day?
And I don’t even know you.

I write this not to try to change anything.

I have lived long enough not to hold out for what cannot be.

Despite my unwanted, embarrassingly unrealistic romantic dreams from Hell,
well, not exactly Hell,
say, from the dark cave out of which fly the blind bats of activated archetypes,
inevitably,
we still would have had to face eternity, or the lack thereof, alone.

You are still looking forward to an eternal life with God and, I realize now that, ridiculously,
I still can’t stop dreaming of an earthly paradise with you.

Nasty business, my love, that we are each in love with an illusion.

What if we lived in a world in which our longed for illusions
were not just desperate self-delusion but pointed at some kind of Truth?

Do you think that would make us happy?

Isn’t it pretty to think so, my love? Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Untranslatable

are all these things you can feel!


so go outside now!