the more
the more educated,
the less humble.
the more certain,
the less imaginative.
the more wealthy,
the less appreciative.
the more woke,
the less rational.
the more religious,
the less selfish.
the more giving,
the less alone.
we all know it is true or
tell ourselves and others that it is-
not my point to challenge the obvious
but rather to do the noticing
again myself for
myself
and trust this bit of noticing
placing my eyes on the tiny green buds and the fresh mown lawn
sends out ripples that make you smile
this little bit too
makes his art from pieces of bark
that have fallen from trees,
charring the wood
to highlight the tracks
termites and other insects
have carved pulp side,
the roundabout path
of a cartoon rabbit
or the squiggle a child
might make with crayon
on a placemat
while waiting for her dinner.
He says the curves and curls and loops
are emblematic of our lives,
a mirror to our retraced steps,
our double-backs, our starts and stops.
He sells his art at small street fairs —
on a good day a jagged line of patrons —
twenty bucks a pop.
(from Roma, Danger For Walkers, 1967)
I get bored.
I am getting blue.
I am become boredom.
So ever bored—
in the city of Rome!
More than ever I weary,
I am so weary!
I want to express the chiseled
manner of boredom
in my bones.
Everyone sees it in my face.
Sir, are you?
There’s no denying
it cannot be disguised
you seem transported.
Tell me, where do you go, so soulless?
That you go to basilicas with that boredom?
Perhaps, sir, you go to basilicas brandishing
a burdensome boorishness?
What about museums—say—feeling monotonous?
Who wouldn’t feel in my wooden walk how tasked
to crying in breathless sobs am I?
What breath, boredom!
A mile away you spy his hot mirage, the great white
boredom.
My great boredom.
How low, sleek, and boring am I.
And yet… Oooh!
I have stepped on a poo…
I have just stepped—-holy God!—-on a poo…
They say it is lucky to step on a poo…
That it brings lots of luck to step on a poo…
Luck, gentlemen, luck?
The luck, the luck, the luck?
I’m glued to the ground.
I can’t walk.
Now I will never walk again.
I am getting bored, oh! I am becoming bored!
More than ever I get bored!
Bored to death.
I will never speak again.
I died.
Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi
Disembodied, I float through
Sultry, languorous cool
In the glowing green of
A darkened night’s shadow
A rumbling street cleaner’s
Distantly-wailing, brush-powered
Vacuum trundling away loamy decay
I remember
The face of death
The kiss of life
The rapturous odor of cleanliness
Full of sterility and absence
Versus a rain swept undulation
Of baby walnut and scratchy leaf flake
The traversing bend of
half darkness reeling soppily
Through blazing firmament
There is a raging rebellious impulse in me at times
To not grasp at the willowy water reeds
To not pull back the curtain
Of petals hiding a
Foundling’s pulsing fat hand
To not shoulder any wheel or crank
Or grind a man-made electricity from
rusty gears
But simply to listen
As songs are sung
As each thought vibrates
Like a string on a harp
Carved from a mountain
And laced up with streams
Pounding on some silently sparkling
Rock under the wet grass
Scores of yards below my feet
