jan zwicky: practising bach (prelude)

over the course of this week i will be posting practising bach, a suite of poems by jan zwicky, meant to be read aloud before the various respective segments of bach's partita no. 3 in E major for solo violin, BMV1006. i will post a link to the appropriate section of the piece, as well as the corresponding poetry. take your time.

Prelude

There is, said Pythagoras, a sound

the planet makes: a kind of music

just outside our hearing, the proportion

and the resonance of things -- not

the clang of theory or the wuthering

of human speech, not even

the bright song of sex or hunger, but

the unrung ringing that

supports them all.

The wife, no warning, dead

when you come home. Ducats

in the fishheads that you salvage

from the rubbage heap. Is the cosmos

laughing at us? No. It's saying

improvise. Everywhere you look

there's beauty, and it's rimed 

with death. If you find injustice

you'll find humans, and this means

that if you listen, you'll find love.

The substance of the world is light,

is water: here, clear

even when it's dying; even when the dying

seems unbearable, it runs.


**********
and now, click on this link to hear the preludio.

Zwicky, Jan. "Practising Bach" The Best Canadian Poetry in English. Markham: Tightrope Books, 2009.

bp nichol: two words: a wedding

(for rob & sharon)


There are things you have words for, things you do not have words for. There are words that encompass all your feelings & words that encompass none. There are feelings you have that are like things to you, picked up & placed in the pocket, worn like the cloth the pocket is attached to, like a skin you live inside of. There is a body of feeling, of language, of friends; the body politic, the body we are carried inside of till birth, the body we carry our self inside of till death, a body of knowledge that tells of an afterlife, a heaven, an unknown everything we have many words for but cannot encompass. There are relationships between words & concepts, between things, between life & death, between friends & family, between each other & some other other. We wed words to things, people to feelings, speak of a true wedding of the mind & heart, intuition & intellect, & out of this form our realities. Our realities are wedded one to another, concepts & people are joined, new people conceived within that mesh of flesh & realities, are carried forward in the body of the mother, the family, the bodily love we have for one another. They are creating their own reality every step of the way, daily, another kind of reality is born, each new word, person, expanding our vocabulary, our concepts, new realities are conceived, our old reality changes, the 'real' grows realer every day. We are marrying the flesh to the flesh, the word to the daily flux of lives we know & don't know, our friends grow older and marry, raise children as you once were children with mothers & fathers of your own, grow older, so many things you still lack words for, struggle to wed the inner & outer worlds, the self to some other self or selves, confess your love & struggle with one another, together, conscious there is this word is you, your name, & that you are yet another thing or things you will never encompass, never exhaust the possibilities of, because you are wedded to the flux of life, because we are words and our meanings change.

Nichol, bp. "Two Words: A Wedding" The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.

john terpstra: a prayer to be in paradise with the children

for a baptism

When I must come to you, o my God, I pray

it be in the early hours of that day,

and just as on these mornings I would rather sleep

I beg the lively company to keep

of kids, in Paradise, where rest and rising meet.

My eyes will open, I will yawn and stretch,

and to the children jumping on the bed

I shall say, "I am Johannes Terpstra,

and this is Paradise, at your pleasure.”

And I shall say to them, "This house has many rooms,

its hallways are for running, take the stairs in twos,

and we'll play inside the mansions of our living God,

for all doors open to the treasures of his kinderlove.”

Let me awaken with these children, Lord, in your home,

this offspring of your fondest word, who roam

the towered heart of day and lift it from the frame

our plans project; and let me be like them, the same.

I shall arise and follow the one who follows his nose,

followed by the sniffling sound of those who have a cold,

by the ones who dawdle and the ones who'd sooner shove,

by those who pile blocks in silence and those who love

to knock all such building down, by the bossy ones

and those who daily bear their brethren, by the talkers,

by the ones who, left alone, begin to eat the garden dirt

because they, o Lord, desire to taste of your creation

which is good.

                       Let it be with these kids that I awake,

perfectly restored, inside the house your design has made

for the halt, the lame, for those whose raw deformity

stands out: the unloved, or over adored.

                                                         And let it be

that angels guide our thousand feet upon the stair

to lead us into hidden access of the secret lair

of your delights: the preparations, boxes, reels,

the paper, crayons, the fountains of water, ferris wheels.

Pamper us there, for whom the faith is one, waking up

on this morning or that. O Lord God, fill the cup

When I must come to you, I pray

it be at any time of any day,

and if my eyes were closed, I shall awake

now, to Paradise, having seen your grace

fall somewhat like rain upon this one child's face.

Terpstra, John. “A Prayer to be in Paradise with the Children”.  

leonard cohen: the asthmatic

Because you will not overthrow your life. You cannot breathe. Because of the panic of homelessness.  You cannot breathe. Because you have begun to worship time. You cannot breathe. Because you will never have the beautiful one. You cannot breathe. Because you will not sail into the small harbour and enter the village.  You cannot breathe. Because your sorrow will not return to its birthplace. You cannot breathe. Because you believe you were not meant to be so far away. You cannot breathe. Because this is the valley of the shadow of death. You cannot breathe. The boat has brought you here. The butterfly has sealed your escape. Because you cannot be here. You cannot breathe. The butterfly smashed into a silver tray and sealed your escape like a stone rolled into a tunnel. You cannot breathe. Because you do not know what is coming. You cannot breathe. Because this world is yours and it is not yours. You cannot breathe. Because  you rest, because you strive, because you do not work. You cannot breathe. Because you let the world come between you and me. You cannot breathe. Because of an idea of the calm breath. You cannot breathe. Here they have orange and lemon trees. Here there are baths of mineral waters. Because you want to choose a way. You cannot breathe. Because you find the language to welcome me. You cannot breathe. The sun is sparkling all over the blue water. The stony shore is laved by the sea. Yellow curtains are sucked against the portholes. The propeller wants everyone to go to sleep. You separate yourself from an unknown woman in a green sweater. Because of your love of conquering. You cannot breathe. Because you will not address me as an equal. Because you have commanded the guards to shut down the doors and take away breathing. Because the world is stamped with order, like a seal in formless wax. Because you have a God of justice. Because the justice is immediate and flawless. You cannot breathe. Because you cannot uphold your separation. Because your strangerhood is defeated. Because you breathe your breath through the mask of purity. Because you consign to the pale of objectivity her green sweater, the flashing islands, your distance from love, and your whole breathless predicament. You cannot breathe.


Cohen, Leonard. "The Asthmatic" Death of a Lady's Man. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1979.

leonard cohen: i should not say you

I should not say you. I should say O. Now I see why they said, the Name. I crumble before the Name. My heart is stubborn before the Name. Give my heart ease in the presence of the Name. My heart is like something that waits. My heart longs to be a chamber for the Name. I am ignorant. I don't know how to make a place for the Name. I lose the Name in my thrust of greed. I lose it in my mind. This heart is dead. This heart hoards its death. It will not make a place for the Name. Fill me with the Name O most high. I swim in your love but I drown in loneliness. End my waiting. Allow me the Name. Protect me in the terror of your absent Name.


Not by oracles. Not by the Bible. Not by ghosts. Not by spirits seen in a magic lens. Not in shadows. Not in braided manes. Not by appearance in the air. Not by the stars at birth. Not by meteors. Not by winds. Not by sacrificial appearances. Not by the entrails of animals sacrificed. Not by the entrails of a human sacrifice. Not by the entrails of fishes. Not by sacrificial fire. Not by red-hot iron. Not by clamp. Not by muzzle. Not by smoke from the altar. Not by the counting of petals. Not by the signal of wings. Not by mice. Not by birds. Not by a cock picking up grains. Not by the layers of the mountain. Not by the strength of the moon. Not by herbs. Not by water. Not by fountains. Not by a wand. Not by dough of cakes. Not by the falling of sticks. Not by meal. Not by salt. Not by dice. Not by ladders. Not by the flight of an arrow. Not by a balanced hatchet. Not by a suspended ring. Not by a stone on a thread. Not by pebbles drawn from a heap. Not by mirrors.  Not by writings in ashes. Not by a change of kings. Not by dreams. Not by the lines of the hands. Not by nails reflecting the sun's rays. Not by numbers. Not by drawing lots. Not by passages in books. Not by the letters forming the name of a person. Not by features. Not by the mode of laughing. Not by the pattern of snakes. Not by walking in a circle. Not by drawing a circle. Not by the rings on the finger. Not by dropping melted wax in water. Not by clouds. Not by currents.


Without the Name the wind is a babble, the flowers are a jargon of longing. Without the Name I am a funeral in the garden. Waiting for the next girl. Waiting for the next prize. Without the Name sealed in my heart I am ashamed. It is not sealed. I am ashamed. Without the Name I bear false witness to the glory. Then I am this false witness. Then let me continue.


Cohen, Leonard. "I Should Not Say You" Death of a Lady's Man. Toronto:  Toronto: Penguin Books, 1979.