3 Translations from Baudelaire- Peter O' Neill

XXX – De Profundis Clamavi

I implore your pity, You, the unique one whom I love,

From the obscure hole where my heart has collapsed

Into a mournful universe where I have been submerged

And where swim the night of horror and blasphemy;

O sun without heat hovering above for half the year,

And for the other six months when night covers the earth;

It’s a country more naked then the North Pole;

-Without beasts, streams, greenery or woods!

For there is no horror in the world which surpasses

The glacial cruelty of this sun of ice,

And this immense night which echoes the primeval chaos.

Ah! Jealousy is the very vilest kind of animal,

Which can send one careering into the most stupid funk,

There where the scaffolds of time slowly part, and divide.

XXXI.  The Vampire

You who, like a fine stiletto,  

Pierced my plaintive heart;

Strong like a horde of demons,

You who, with wine and madness conjoined,

Made your domain and bed

Of my humiliated spirit –

Infamy, to you I am now wedded

Like a convict to a chain,

Like the last hand of a poker player,

Like the bottle to the drunk,

Or, worms to a corpse,

-         A similar kind of Evil you, to me, are.

I prayed for the rapid glaive

To conquer my freedom,

And I sought council in perfidious poisons

To bolster my cowardice.

Alas! Poison and the glaive

Held me in disdain before saying to me:

“ Eejit! – You are not worthy

To be taken by us from your atrocious slavery,

Far from its empire,

For if our efforts were to deliver you

Your kisses would only resuscitate

The corpse of the vampire which consumes you.”

XXXII.  

One night as I found myself lying beside an atrocious Jewess,

Like lying beside the most exquisite cadaver,

And I started to fantasise over her hired limbs,

Her sad beauty, and which my desire held momentarily, hostage.

Let me attempt to evoke her native majesty,

Her vigorous look and her armed grace,

Beneath her hair worn like a perfumed helmet,

And which the memory of love revives.

I feverishly wished to fuck her noble body,

From the tips of her feet right up to the black tresses on her head,

I imagined the rich treasure of her caresses.

If ever, one night, with a tear provoked without much effort,

You could only, oh Queen of delicious cruelty,

Obscure the splendour from your cold lips...

It took twenty five years for Peter O’ Neill (1967) to see his work in print, five of his poems first appearing in The Galway Review in December, 2012. Since then, he has had over 100 poems published. His debut collection Antiope appeared in February 2013, and to critical acclaim. ‘Certainly a voice to be reckoned with,’ wrote Dr. Brigitte Le JueZ (DCU). As well as having had some of his translations published -  including works by Baudelaire, Agusto  Dos Anjos and Virgil; original poems written by him in Italian and French have also appeared. He has been a regular contributor to A New Ulster, Danse Macabre and The Scum Gentry, and he is currently working on his seventh collection.

  

http://peterseanoneill.blogspot.ie/

http://www.amazon.com/Antiope-Dark-Pool-Peter-ONeill-ebook/dp/B00BEQP888

'All Stepped/ Undone' by Michael Mc Aloran

'All Stepped/ Undone' is now available to purchse here

Gillian Prew

The Sky Will Pour Open

 

Ten more summers of rain, they say.              A defeat –

a downing.                  Dust eyelids dog roses –

the bees will come, their legs pollen-painted.

 

A roaring curtain where the sun should be                 -  the birds,

quiet and stuck,

in its up-ruin.

 

            Fly,

everything. Why not?

 

The sky will pour open some days.

Plath Likes My Poems

 

Around the Nothing, among the Grave –

fixed, like old bone, a yellow stain. A wound, a wire womb.

Winter breasts.

 

Plath likes my poems. Her blood hurts. Her death reeks –

she approves of my ruins.

 

Buy her latest book, Throats Full of Graves from Lapwing Publications

Peter Marra

Possible Scenarios

For A Midnight Mass

Plausible 1

the body came to rest

abruptly at her hips

she was one of the women

i saw skinny-dipping by

the waterfall

in the woods in the new york mountains

mid-july

as dark sheets of breathing flesh

enclosed us

membrane accusing

there were 3

naked female swimmers

& they craved

craved

the sunlight

wrapped it up & delivered it 

water droplets shiny in a nest of pubic hair

what was always denied to us

fuck
the camera tripod collapsed as they approached

fuck

the beauty of obscenities

imagine pussy taste

an electric fizzz

the mildew smell of the plants mixed

with organic lust

raspy voiced they murmured

secrets about rituals

her haunted house thrilled her sexually

synthesized a mask of pure pleasure

bright rings of lust

as she held her pornographic films

up for admiration

Plausible 2

fun in

the parking lot

wash my hands & eyes of them

they washed their hands of me

& flooded my eyes with

blood-tears

plasma touch

grinning out of fear

almost touching one another through the inside

as the dirty mattress burned with their love

she couldn't help but moan

she couldn’t help but laugh

as the body convulsed

she relaxed her grip & it went limp

gray & white

she lay in the back seat

masturbating while smoking a marlboro

w/ venial sin dangling from her pale lips

a mouthful of candy

drunk on the odor of black tobacco cunt-juice & semen

she told me about the ballerina’s corpse in the trunk

start the car I’ll tell you where to drive

idle the motor until I say floor it

unrestrained unregulated by law

gun it when the vice squad appears

“open your mouth wide”

Plausible 3

She shuddered.

nothing but six inch heels

excited her so

strong legs

lick loins & hum

eyes slipped down around

her calves

finishing at a certain temperature

"& she likes it."

leading to anemic metaphorical usage

economic slimy cream next to her &

they met via the human body

a mutual refusal to consume

she shows him her tits

& sticks out her tongue

“I like ‘em pinched

& lightly bitten, such are consumers”

mouth fussing with excitement

she touched his face before

leaving him with

a mouthful of ceremonies

she let him touch her labia

& fondle her mucous

so she could leave her scent 

laughing out the window

just bait for a trap

his body was found stuffed in a wooden barrel

behind the garage.

decayed. unidentifiable.

involved snake handling

female 5’ 10” long black hair

36c - 21 – 36 (like liz taylor in her prime)

approach with extreme caution

(i can always ask for forgiveness)

anonymity of sexual partners

sexual fantasy benefits

the plaintiffs were burned

she commented with a scream

the body came to rest

abruptly at her hips

her deeds were reviewed critically by others,

then in front of her parents,

who were still filming her degradation

David McLean

of long dresses
 
What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current

What is the wind, what is it.
(Gertrude Stein)

the line that distinguishes is critical the line that is written
and there is never any death in us
until we are no longer embodied in all this sexless flesh
as the flesh is left, without its sex, to the scented exigencies of death

it flows us now all this unforgiven living
with all the sad entropy force is determined not to be -
it gives confusion next

 
gram Friday

and it is never gram fucking Friday
nowadays, it is a world lying over earth
like psychosis and a very penetrable barrier;

it is never gramme Friday, maybe,
just everyday passion
just homeless

 
reasonably enough

the Bandidos shot at an unmarked police car tonight,
reasonably enough,

and things in general happen or do not happen:
we do things because we are stupid

or we die because we deserve to,
just like everybody else does.

the other subject and its empty eyes
is all that is truly disgusting,

the superego gets off on farts and vomiting,
it feeds on dead children, we want our fathers

safely dead, all that is totally unacceptable
is progenitors who are living --

and if there really was this alleged fucking god
we would have to do great things

to hunt, locate and kill it

 
it is anxious

it is anxious in the thundering stomach, replete
its fullness like death or ovulation
and nightmares devalued by the tight spiral life
cutting scars in skin or memories from time;
we wear terrible nothing pulled up over us
its insatiably patient painless touch,
like snuggling up in blankets and blood
like dread Armageddon and defection,
like rabbits and love

 
children through windows

children through windows an ancient forgotten cocaine Friday
oblivious the monstrous is and there is time enough
for devils to be invented and not touch;

like all the anxious devouring the nostalgic gut,
like pebbles and empty riverbeds,
dead men to touch

 
cautious corpses walking

and here is no cautious corpse walking invulnerable his loveless,
for sleep is dreamless and diamonds,
a window pane and never yet;

horses are waiting patient for the anxious chivalric and courtly love
has dropped her easy lesions in muddy puddles
with every forgotten lesson;

the ghost of Hegel is sitting his luckless nothing
insulting anxious, somewhere his Marie is furious
and he is never done explaining his meaning -

we have dropped the medium idiot fish glimpse
where corpses used to go dancing
through all the absences -

and he pretended he never said marriage was an ethical state
and love just a fucking feeling, nobody ever said that yet
in remembered Jena who ever met Schiller or Schelling:

but i do not intend to accept him to my lap yet,
happy like a puppy is until he is dead enough
to learn every nothing and love,

till there is no dread memory left for corpses to recollect -
till Hegel and wife come like summer suns,
like memories or blood

David McLean is from Wales but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there with his dog, Oscar, and his computers. In addition to seven chapbooks, McLean is the author of four full-length poetry collections: CADAVER’S DANCE (Whistling Shade Press, 2008), PUSHING LEMMINGS (Erbacce Press, 2009), LAUGHING AT FUNERALS (Epic Rites Press, 2010) and NOBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN BUT EVERYBODY WANTS TO DIE (Oneiros Books, June 2013). His first novel HENRIETTA REMEMBERS is due in 2014 from Unlikely Books. During 2013 a seventh chapbook SHOUTING AT GHOSTS is forthcoming from Grey Book Press. More information about McLean can be found at his blog http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/

Christine Murray

hook--

the feather-hook is a seed spiralling in the breeze,

a false signal

it mocks the mayhem of the caught moth down to

its nub stone

its plane is a shell network of dried skin, veined even

- it has a spine of sorts

it mocks the mayhem of the caught moth down to

its nub stone

ceremony--

the red rope is looped around the neck

and brought down the back to the bra-line

it tightly binds across the top of the chest and

is looped down to the cunt-lips separating them

held-to and pulled in the back arches back

bow-bent as if its wood had seasoned in

an iron girder above hot embers and released

steam onto a still lake the hook retracts when

the dress slides into a bluey ripple onto the boards

there are six hooks embedded into the ceiling

stockings catch up the desert breeze on a small

balcony, a strip of silk portholes the room and

sutras are tacked into the walls the hooks do not

look as if they could carry the weight of an inert body

spider-rolled silk-skeined red-cocooned

the bird panics spider-fruits from under

dry eaves

these net-webs are laden with the small dead

best not to move he is demented with hunger.

 

hunger--

outside the ragged bird panics

dead flies from the window nets

yet it is not clothed right

- it claws the glass

Christine Murray is a City and Guilds Stone­cutter. Her poetry is published in a variety of magazines and ezines. She has reviewed poetry for Post (Mater Dei Institute), Poetry Ireland and Writing.ie. Chris blogs at Poethead, A Poetry Blog. Her chapbook, Three Red Things was published on June 4th 2013 by Smithereens Press, Dublin, Ireland. http://poethead.wordpress.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/murraychristine 

http://www.twitter.com/Celizmurray

Throats Full of Graves- A Review by David McLean

Gillian Prew - Throats full of graves

Gillian Prew
Throats Full of Graves
Lapwing Publications
chapbook review by David McLean

This is a brief review of the latest production by the Scottish poet Gillian Prew, in my opinion the best female poet currently active.

Her liminal love with its dug arms
scoops the red roots of the tight trees
where her best wedding was throttled and laid,
and her lit loss burns in her brain
scorching the slow madhouse of her days.

It might be appropriate that I modestly neglect to refer to a poem in this book that is about me, namely “In the garden with a poet”. I shall, however, refrain from doing the modest thing and mention it.

Days are here – untidy. That is the beauty
of light: it illuminates the mess
for embracing. We are

a long time nothing. There is no place
to exhibit the night like a sword.

This because it exhibits clearly, in these closing lines - which are much better than anything I have done recently - the terrible predicament of those like Ms Prew and myself, who are atheists and might like to be logically precise, when we affect to produce the “poetic”,  When “we are a long time nothing” the word “we” no longer applies to us, time and our world has ceased and probably only Larkin has ever succeeded in saying this properly, in “Aubade”. Of course, I object dreadfully to the term “poet” as a sortal, it identifies no clear class of objects; it is usually little more than a dreadful piece of self-promotion. Were I ever, per impossibile, to make a living by poems, I might allow the description on Derridean grounds - “It's me job, like” - but not as a token of self-ascribed excellence.

More seriously, in another poem, Prew writes

I, like a slow thaw in the garden where
all this started under the sun yesterday
(or years ago) There is

a simmering vitality that permits persistence,
that allows healing and the adoration of wounds

This is close to the essential, the reflexive wallowing in despite and self-contempt that is the essence of anything interesting in literature. The glorious puny assholes who fall down in their sheer stupid debility waiting for some cunt Godot who never even shows, they are so much more beautiful than any alleged poetic perfection:

There is no destiny worth hoping for.

There will be death, and
in the meantime life. What rages
inside is something
if we are lucky
else,
do not fear
or love,
or bother to breathe.

The metaphor of interiority is acceptable here, of course, although I assume the inside to be the consciousness that spreads outside the alleged real. The poems here are of seasonal mortality, or, more precisely, of facticity and thrownness, of being there in this confusing admixture of earth and world that colors memories ideologically and insists - with the simmering vitality that is the sheer denial of entropy that even the simplest organism is - on taking a shot at perdurance, an attempt that is doomed to failure since the ultimate victory of entropy will become the ordered beauty of perfected and, necessarily, unobserved disorder. If we could perdure, this would be spoiled. But there is a pointless meaningless beauty in the striving, one which expresses itself in the laudable futility of poetry, at which Prew kicks serious ass, with poems like this one, of “Memory”:

Bud of the quiet dead, lifting
light from the black-bitten wound. A grief,
a lie a dry, futile church. You are a ruin
of tears and ragged distances. A hidden.
A scarred truth roaming bone. You fail
with a brave despair
like widowed songbirds, their throats full of graves.

The need for miracles, as Prew says, is abject. What actually is, is enough. if one does not multiply entities beyond necessity one can still populate a poem.

I think this may be Prew's best yet, which means that you should buy the thing. It can be purchased here

In Damage Seasons- A Review by David McLean

Michael Mc Aloran

In Damage Seasons  

130 pp
Oneiros Books
 

Here is one of Michael Mc Aloran's best attempts to do what he does so well, kicking round the scattered teeth of sunlight in a darkened room. The book is divided into scenes that articulate a dismemberment of the drab conventional, and that paint red what already was always painted black.

 
the amputated limb with which one child beats the other the arm torn away to break the bones of dissolve in dislocation of tears here a ravage there a ravage the nicotine stained teeth and the breath upon…
 
there is no sun or better yet we have swallowed the dead cum of absence the swelling meat in the mouth clasped down upon till castrative screams echoing violently the bloody dead meat of it spat out into foreign excrement…
 
The poems are the insistent echo of pointless and life behind the grind of hunger, cum-stained memory, the splendid array of absences and almost forgotten we carry within us like a well-tended garden of cancers.
There is, after all, no denying the beauty and appositeness of lines like:
 
torn out the fingernails yet ever on till severed pulse of the snare of it hacking in cold corridors warped from one wall unto the next till crimson…
 
snap snap the fingers snap snapping till ritornellos of the absurd a dressage of crushed bone all afar until yet spun in widow’s teeth of claimed verandas…
 
Mick's poetry, in a sense, is an angry railing against not so much the dying of the light, fuck the light, but against words not working any more
 
baseless till tongue to sever-bite in the none of speech the clamour in the echoing chasm of vibratory steel drawn in excommunicable lights deadened yet bustling never ending…
 
The none of speech might mean that which is unsaid, it might mean the saying of the none, or void, something that is usually done very wrong by way of horrid hypostatization among the burgeoning  insincere nihilists, it might also mean the emptiness and absurdity of Gerede, idle talk, running on and meaning certain things, just not the essential and important.
 
And what is essential and important is the tooth of hunger, it is the obstinate bone, it is the scattered teeth and the insistent emptiness of discourse, and thus the book ends, perfectly logically and correctly, with:
 
collapse unto thy dread for the good of nothing claimed none but the shit clinging to the heels it was ever of the all for silences the rapture emptied silenced silenced it was all for the good of nothing claimed
 
This book is very good, get it here:
http://www.paraphiliamagazine.com/indamageseasons.html