Silence
by Gennady Aigi
translated by Anna Halberstadt
1.
in the invisible fire
from pulverized anguish
I recognize my superfluous existence
in the same way
as the poor know their last rags
and old utensils
and I know that this very
superfluousness
is what this country needs
from me
reliable like a secret pact:
silence as a way of life
for the rest of my life
2.
Yet keeping quiet — is a tribute, as for silence — it’s there for me.
3.
To get used to silence, such as the heart,
that quietly does its work
such as life
as some kind of place for it
and I exist in it, in the same way
as Poetry does
and I know, that my work is hard
and it exists by and for itself
like the night guard’s insomnia
at the city cemetery.
Next Friday July 5!
Join us Friday, July 5 for a free poetry reading in the garden behind the Longfellow House on Congress Street in Portland, Maine. Steve Luttrell will be reading with Bruce Holsapple. Steve is the author of over ten books of poetry and founded The Café Review over thirty years ago. He continues today as our publishing editor. Bruce works as a Speech-Language Pathologist in central New Mexico. He received a Ph.D. from SUNY Buffalo in 1991, working with Bob Creeley, and has taught at New Mexico Tech and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. His published chapbooks include Air-Rose, Total Eclipse, Tourist, Observations and Much Adieux. He edited Contraband for ten years in Portland, Maine in the 1970’s and is now editor of Vox Audio. His poems have appeared in House Organ, Blue Mesa , First Intensity, and Sin Fronteras.
Our sponsors for this event include the Maine Historical Society (and if you haven’t checked out their beautiful garden before, this is a great opportunity to see their fabulous oasis set right in the middle of the city) and the Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland. The Harbor Square Gallery represents Michael Waterman, whose painting, Book of Dreams, graces the top of our posters for the event.
Where: Garden of the Longfellow House, Portland, Maine
When: 6:00-7:30, Friday, July 5
Free to the Public. Light freshments will be served.
Café Review on 207 at 7pm tonight
Tonight at 7pm on Maine Local News Channel 6’s show 207, Steve will be talking about the Café Review and our 30 years of publication. Check it out if you can and hopefully we can post something here after the showing tonight to share with all of you who aren’t in Maine.
The Fall of Icarus
by Bruce Whiteman
Off in a corner in a smoky room, with a
glass half–full in his dexter hand,
Wystan Auden innocently scratches his
cheek with his left, quiet, reflecting
on the loneliness that awaits him post–
scene. You have to hand it to the poets.
Most alone in an unfretting crowd of
party–goers goofy with booze and
gossip, by themselves they’ll
celebrate the old stories as though
they wrote them, shout huzzas into
the rafters, pick a kid out of the early
night sky, watch him fall graceless into
darkness and think it meet. He stayed
up too long and the sun went down.
No one but the poet noticed. The rest,
solipsistic and inebriate, were looking
down like horses, like guys with fruit
to sell from wagons, or vegan snacks,
immersed in their cells and deaf.
The drowned boy was lonely in the
final moments. He saw it coming,
death and howsoever the earth goes on
after the crash. The poet remains
lonely too, whisky in his sinister paw now,
cigarette conducting ineffable
music up and down like a pert bird.
There’s no consolation for anything,
really, for all the enduring crap of life.
It merely seems to happen, and we die.