by Martin Bemberg
Rain and storm and tears for fears
And then at last your laughter.
We merge lightly as we find our proper lane,
Chat differents and sames, and what's more,
Befores and what we're after after,
And then, at last, your laughter.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
A Sandwich Of Feta, Tomato
by Martin Bemberg
Last night from the film depicting the infamous Ilich,
One Carlos Ramirez-Martinez, I learned to smoke while writing,
Paper to pen.
I watched as Angie, my favorite, ein Deutscher mit Gewiss,
With one hand held a cigarette betwixt two fingers,
The middle, the fore, and held down left-page,
Twisting cigarette, which faces not out but faces palm instead
As he wrote with his right, smoke slipping probably through fingers
Until it reached his eyes and told him, I would think,
"It is time to put me to your lips, it's time to stoke me,
Smoke on me again."
And I think of course of ceding smoke and of course drink too
In your presence and how of course
It has been one year, one year since playing games that
Being new to you seemed too to strike me somehow novel.
One year ago today - one year or so ago today -
Our trading tongues in ways that number more than one
And less than three,
You taught me and not to mention brought me yours,
And after I gave lesson on how my South pronounces oil,
I thought this tryst of ours might just be dear upon your shores,
But you are, it turns out, from love-dearth stock and disappointed soil.
Today's raw tomato (it made me sick and sore, debased unto the gut)
Perhaps was rotten, but then of course there is the chance
(There's always the chance)
That it was the thought of you only once forgotten,
The thought of your "make like an adult and wake diurnal,"
Your "Before I for the day go",
Your each-day sandwich of feta, tomato,
That tinged this sickness-sad nostalgia.
Perhaps it was the without-fail or the with-for-certain calling in your chest,
Was the daily-left something I would never otherwise have put to mouth,
But which for that I came to love so much the more and nonetheless.
Last night from the film depicting the infamous Ilich,
One Carlos Ramirez-Martinez, I learned to smoke while writing,
Paper to pen.
I watched as Angie, my favorite, ein Deutscher mit Gewiss,
With one hand held a cigarette betwixt two fingers,
The middle, the fore, and held down left-page,
Twisting cigarette, which faces not out but faces palm instead
As he wrote with his right, smoke slipping probably through fingers
Until it reached his eyes and told him, I would think,
"It is time to put me to your lips, it's time to stoke me,
Smoke on me again."
And I think of course of ceding smoke and of course drink too
In your presence and how of course
It has been one year, one year since playing games that
Being new to you seemed too to strike me somehow novel.
One year ago today - one year or so ago today -
Our trading tongues in ways that number more than one
And less than three,
You taught me and not to mention brought me yours,
And after I gave lesson on how my South pronounces oil,
I thought this tryst of ours might just be dear upon your shores,
But you are, it turns out, from love-dearth stock and disappointed soil.
Today's raw tomato (it made me sick and sore, debased unto the gut)
Perhaps was rotten, but then of course there is the chance
(There's always the chance)
That it was the thought of you only once forgotten,
The thought of your "make like an adult and wake diurnal,"
Your "Before I for the day go",
Your each-day sandwich of feta, tomato,
That tinged this sickness-sad nostalgia.
Perhaps it was the without-fail or the with-for-certain calling in your chest,
Was the daily-left something I would never otherwise have put to mouth,
But which for that I came to love so much the more and nonetheless.
Seagazing
Seagazing
by Martin Bemberg
Even now, indefinitely ashore and even more than every now and then,
That far-off vessel I once christened comes many times to longing mind.
We are many marathons apart, but thanks to one lens less miraculous,
Through which I've just now merely glanced, I see her setting sail
On a second - keep that secret - maiden voyage.
Her coming into view, for such a brief accident, has occupied much mind
And, given her brand new set of canvas sails,
Seems to be at that point of no return
I don't remember being warned about but probably was.
It's such a shame, they tell me,
To covet such a distant shore's belongings,
To mark the ocean and its ending,
But they've gotten it all wrong -
It's the motion of departure that I envy.
by Martin Bemberg
Even now, indefinitely ashore and even more than every now and then,
That far-off vessel I once christened comes many times to longing mind.
We are many marathons apart, but thanks to one lens less miraculous,
Through which I've just now merely glanced, I see her setting sail
On a second - keep that secret - maiden voyage.
Her coming into view, for such a brief accident, has occupied much mind
And, given her brand new set of canvas sails,
Seems to be at that point of no return
I don't remember being warned about but probably was.
It's such a shame, they tell me,
To covet such a distant shore's belongings,
To mark the ocean and its ending,
But they've gotten it all wrong -
It's the motion of departure that I envy.
Came August Left September
by Martin Bemberg
It's the leaving season, and the will-leave, and the left-already.
It's time of year I saw you first, you on stage,
Sing bottom alto in tongue I think I'd probably never.
Learn my love of dying grass and air so thick at night you might could swim it,
Of swims, swams, have swums and the way you hold your mouth
To think of how to say them.
Remember now,
Such that months, having made now 'most a year, have come,
Such as months, having drowned my pages, seem hardly gone,
Much like months address themselves to you:
Much like such is life, c'est la vie, it is the leaving season,
Something old, something new.
It is time of year:
Sing chills from foreign fingers as tools towards leaving vices.
Sing politeness as keeping-long kissers and diplomacies erotic.
Sing enthralling, sing exotic.
Sing calling home
About the boy you met in America.
It's the leaving season, and the will-leave, and the left-already.
It's time of year I saw you first, you on stage,
Sing bottom alto in tongue I think I'd probably never.
Learn my love of dying grass and air so thick at night you might could swim it,
Of swims, swams, have swums and the way you hold your mouth
To think of how to say them.
Remember now,
Such that months, having made now 'most a year, have come,
Such as months, having drowned my pages, seem hardly gone,
Much like months address themselves to you:
Much like such is life, c'est la vie, it is the leaving season,
Something old, something new.
It is time of year:
Sing chills from foreign fingers as tools towards leaving vices.
Sing politeness as keeping-long kissers and diplomacies erotic.
Sing enthralling, sing exotic.
Sing calling home
About the boy you met in America.
Yon Side The Bosporus
by Martin Bemberg
You point to that branch above our café,
That light-wrapped arbor arm,
Some remnants of a Christmas passed,
Which I think you have only read about,
Perhaps seen on TV,
But whose carols you have, in truth, heard
From Thrace-invading missionaries.
And I think, as you map the lineage of your tongue,
Of the black beyond that limb to consider
That cliché your creed calls paradise.
Then having come to mistrust my elations
My soul makes like a skeptic and turns to run.
That this night just might be the oasis, probably I could not deny,
Though not for lack of trying to make its ringings less than true
And I think, now that we have gone this night our separate ways:
"You remind me of everything that is beautiful
And everything that is beautiful reminds me of you,"
Some words I should have told you then
And not in tears as you are leaving to meet your brother,
Who will never know of me, I reckon, back home yon side the Bosporus.
You point to that branch above our café,
That light-wrapped arbor arm,
Some remnants of a Christmas passed,
Which I think you have only read about,
Perhaps seen on TV,
But whose carols you have, in truth, heard
From Thrace-invading missionaries.
And I think, as you map the lineage of your tongue,
Of the black beyond that limb to consider
That cliché your creed calls paradise.
Then having come to mistrust my elations
My soul makes like a skeptic and turns to run.
That this night just might be the oasis, probably I could not deny,
Though not for lack of trying to make its ringings less than true
And I think, now that we have gone this night our separate ways:
"You remind me of everything that is beautiful
And everything that is beautiful reminds me of you,"
Some words I should have told you then
And not in tears as you are leaving to meet your brother,
Who will never know of me, I reckon, back home yon side the Bosporus.
Brushing Teeth
by Martin Bemberg
It is only every day I think of ours.
Yes, right after I googled your name and found the poem,
Which you wrote, it turns out, in elementary school,
I brushed my teeth on the toilet and wished I could say
It was cathartic.
It is only every day that I think of ours,
Which, split by two seas at the very least
Grew by exponents with every looming disadvantage,
Skipped decline, went straight to dying,
And recur in me while waking,
Having not been purged in sleep.
Because of you, and only you,
I knew the mere Bosporus between two continents,
Between my West and your East,
But now and only now do I see the Atlantic, The Europe,
A slight Maghreb and a faint Mediterranean
Between our fixéd feet.
It is only every day I think of ours.
Yes, right after I googled your name and found the poem,
Which you wrote, it turns out, in elementary school,
I brushed my teeth on the toilet and wished I could say
It was cathartic.
It is only every day that I think of ours,
Which, split by two seas at the very least
Grew by exponents with every looming disadvantage,
Skipped decline, went straight to dying,
And recur in me while waking,
Having not been purged in sleep.
Because of you, and only you,
I knew the mere Bosporus between two continents,
Between my West and your East,
But now and only now do I see the Atlantic, The Europe,
A slight Maghreb and a faint Mediterranean
Between our fixéd feet.
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