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Four poems by Allan Graubard: For Steve Dalachinsky, Ira Cohen, and Ronnie Burk

Allan Graubard

recall / credit: em
recall / credit: em

I am reading Lundkvist’s
dreams
      when he was in
              a coma
                  for two months
when Valery
      calls
         to tell me
              that Dalachinksy
                       is in
                         a coma
          brain dead
                but breathing

this has happened before
it will happen
                  again

life invades poetry

the transfusion
       suppurates
    across the page
red beacons    blue beacons

I stop and close my eyes

      there they are
            two poets in comas
one will wake
      and write
                  recreating
                        sublunar life

         suspended
                  in his body

floating prismatic —
      incisive
             encounters

the other
      has dropped
            mercilessly
into opaque neant
never again
      to gain the words
      that
             made him —

               music

the music

This will happen again

    to gain the words
           the sudden brilliant mortal spectrum

       eccentric        ecstatic

when life
      invades
       the poem

—for Steve Dalachinksy (September 29, 1946-September 16, 2019)

 
I have been waiting
He doesn’t come, only his voice
    In a dream, the light touch of an absent finger
The rustle of cotton across the black tar that drips from words

These words
Which carry his words

      Unctuous vowels of light
Nerves of luminous dark
Where sparks of meaning distill ancestral passions

Hatred as revenge
Love as guilt
Possession as freedom

On this planisphere rushing through time
        Suspended between continents, 32,000 feet

I have been waiting for him
An eternal moment
      Without momentum

Systole that spins about its own emptiness
Diastole that embodies and emboldens

There is a rhythm to waiting
An intimate script whose scenes dissolve
The second they appear
And which re-member
His voice

In the only words he has left: “Call me!”

— For Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011)
between London-New York

 
Dear Ronnie,

I picked up your book and read it on the bus this morning floating through Times Square. For a moment I thought I was in San Francisco circa 1892 with its big brawling canine infused timber Gorgons swishing their huge barnacled tails down Market Street. But no I thought that couldn’t be true. I’m in Lisbon a day before the 1755 earthquake wondering why a Stryge wanders drunk through the Alfama muttering spells to herself and wringing her hands. Who knows where you are? The last time I saw you I wondered how you could sleep on that ancient green carpet that Ira never cleaned but then I realized that it wasn’t ancient at all but a photogram taken of a mosque in Granada as a waterspout shot its oily feathers, black and glistening, through the thirsty cracks in the roof. Ronnie I still have your last letters with that postcard of Rimbaud where you scribbled in anagrams the laughter of licorice and that shy hoarse drawl you pinned to a dark thick raincloud that hovered over you since you ripped your head off, scrambled your feet and began to burn with the same vivacious fusion as our sulfuric star.
     Ronnie, save me a seat on the sky boat that leaves tonight. I have a pack of baseball cards with Ty Cobb on the cover and I know you’ll want to compare his cosmic batting average with your delirious coke bottle dragnet…

Love,
a

— For Ronnie Burk (April 1, 1955-March 12, 2003)

 
I dreamed that I lost my notebook
I walked through several cities
With a blindfold woven from crow feathers and the sticky dust
That flakes from sheep hooves
I sleepwalked through the crowds and spun around corners
As if I were a top thrown by an angry child
Whose mother left her skin drying on the clothesline
In time I lost sense of who I was and where the notebook might be
This bound vellum casement from which I leaped toward myself
Inhabited by a shadow and that shadow by a thousand other shadows
Each searching for their notebook in foreign cities
That curve along rivers or meander out onto upswelling plains
Where mountains rise and eagles nest
I dreamed that I awoke on an empty street near a tree of light
That spoke every language ever known
Overwhelming music, beautiful and plenipotent
It rose to a crescendo, my ears throbbing
With the rhythms of time and history
Until it diminished to a low, slow whisper
Which was the sound of your breathing next to me
When I knew that I was no longer dreaming
And the tree of light
And the orchestra of words
And the shadow and their shadows’ shadow shadow
Were images
From a dream

I opened my eyes
And this poem
With one voice
Inhabiting one man
At 11:07
On a Monday morning
Was born

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Allan Graubard

Allan Graubard is a poet, writer, and playwright with works translated in numerous languages. His plays have premiered in the US and EU. He is the editor of and contributing author to Into the Mylar Chamber: Ira Cohen (Fulgur, UK, 2019), American liaison for and contributing author to the International Encyclopedia of Surrealism (Bloomsbury, UK, 2019), and editorial advisor for and contributing author to A Phala: Revisita do Movimento Surrealista (Sao Paolo, Brazil, 2015). Forthcoming is a book of poems and tales, Western Terrace (Exstasis Editions, Victoria, BC), while 2019 saw Language of Birds, a collaboration with artist Rik Lina (Anon Editions, NY/Flagstaff). In 2017, A Crescent by Any Other Name, selected tales, was published (Anon Editions, NY/LA).

Author: Allan Graubard Tags: poetry, Steve Dalachinsky Category: 20th Anniversary, Poetry May 29, 2020

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Comments

  1. NEIL B MARTINSON says

    September 2, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    How can I reach my old friend Allan Graubard?
    I’m at [email protected]

    Reply

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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