Gnostalgia for the Present
The 17th series in the ongoing collaboration between George Quasha’s preverbs and Susan Quasha’s photographic work.
Two of Knives and Sinistrose Poem
here the vicious ribbons hiss, swanning
their hypnotic cursive dances, as if were calligraphic curses.
thither the come-hither flickers and quick slithers back.
Gravel, Cheesebox, Hideout
Darksome, tenebrous, smoked, obscure / the gloam-time, sable-vested, fumid / hour of the witch / the gathering of storms / she wrote poems good as anyone’s / becloud, bedim, mirksome, engloom / when the moon’s dark / caliginous, somber / it’s a blind man’s holiday / eclipsed / embalmed
Three Poems
Farrokhzad speaks as a form hewn to the "line of time," trapped in the earthly realm — her sorrowful longing is one of disillusionment given the unrealizability of divine ecstasy.
Pulling Down the Wheel
By turns intimate and abstract, each poem is a moment of stilled time.
Four Poems from Tentacular Cities
Four poems from Émile Verhaeren’s Tentacular Cities (1895) translated from the French by Jacob Siefring.
The Vollard Suite
“You see this truculent character here, with the curly hair and mustache?” Picasso asked about the Vollard Suite, “That’s Rembrandt. Or maybe it’s Balzac; I’m not sure. It’s a compromise, I suppose. It doesn’t really matter. They’re only two of the people to haunt me. Every human being is a whole colony.”
Genesis
And on the fourth midnight the new bride slumbered on the stretch of grass * And in the same breath, I was in the newly sprouted leaves * or in the fluttering breeze * and perhaps even in the deep waters * And the breath of the wind stirring little blossoms on the thick tree wailed in me * and bright streams of rain wept in me. *
Counter Points of Nature: An Attempt to Contradict Rodolfo Hinostroza’s Contra Natura
What is contra natura is the dysfunctional rapport that human beings seem to have developed with this cosmic ladder, and that may very well be the source of what’s abusive in the power – whether cosmic, natural, or human.
Black Balloons
When I died — a long time ago — I was buried with wolf-fangs and transistor radio. While brain festered in my skull, I pondered negative numbers and the mess I had left: bills, some jottings reminding me to return a phone call from the black side of the sun.
A Remembrance of Aerial Forms
It was all a bullfight in the end—/The smell of death contends/With rain, and more blood than/We can measure or imagine is/Surrounded by spinning black/Umbrellas—