Diktat
－after Horace
we want to ask the gods
why us
it’s a simple question
what with all these bodies
beginning to pile up
in the square
and then some old poet
laughing
says
why not you
indeed
why not
as we gather
the wagons
the shovels
the lye
Troy
Russian tank in the street
four stories below the window
Beside him on the floor
bare essentials
Molotov cocktails AK-74
a scatter of full magazines
Watching a replay on his phone
of Foden’s brace against the Hammers
Thinking Surely
Arsenal are cooked now
Thinking
Almost over the line
Half an eye on the tank
its turret slowly rotating
The task is
Don’t write poems about what happened.
Birth and death don’t exist for poetry.
－“In Search of Poetry,” Carlos Drummond de Andrade,
tr. from the Portuguese by R. Zenith
The task is to ignore memory and embrace stillness. One
word after another, one sound after another, shape what troubles
the quiet into things that have never existed. Perhaps begin
with an alphabet where each letter is a shard of
a shattered terra-cotta bowl. And if a poem takes flight,
give it permission to desert you. You will need to
start over and then start over again. Some part of
you will harbor a profound yearning to create meaning, but
that part, so well intentioned, must be restrained and tamed.
With luck and effort: music and desire, in equal measure.
Whose, then?
Was it your fault that it rained?
No, the rain was not your fault.
—Rafael Alberti, tr. M. Strand
Whose, then? The young man with the blond hair sweeping
broken glass up in the juice and beverage aisle of
the supermarket? The neighbor’s black terrier that won’t stop barking?
No, the rain is not their fault. Who is to
blame for the rain, rain that covets whatever the sun
touches, rain making the sound of a child brushing her
hair in the mirror on a Saturday morning, singing a
little song of a dog that barks forever. Rain that
covers our bodies in a simulacrum of melted glass. Rain, o rain, who comes at the bidding of no one.
About the Author
Ralph Culver‘s latest poetry collection is A Passable Man (2021). He has work recently published or soon to appear in Plume, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), On the Seawall, and Poem Alone, and he is a past contributor to Modern Literature. His new book, This to This, is scheduled for publication later in 2024.
