First Poems

Here are two poems by Michael Palmer; they appear consecutively in the section of his book Sun entitled “Baudelaire Series.”

A man undergoes pain sitting at a piano
knowing thousands will die while he is playing
He has two thoughts about this
If he should stop they would be free of pain
If he could get the notes right he would be free of pain

In the second case the first thought would be erased

causing pain

It is this instance of playing

he would say to himself
my eyes have grown hollow like yours
my head is enlarged
though empty of thought

Such thoughts destroy music
and this at least is good


*


The opening is read by the tongue
momently for the dead now

as they multiply
far from here—are

(as words this high)—are
amid sand the few fragments


bowl bread violet
curve swollen outward


of flies gathered
at lips and eyes



Here is a poem by W.S. Merwin:


THE ASIANS DYING

When the forests have been destroyed their darkness remains
The ash the great walker follows the possessors
Forever
Nothing they will come to is real
Not for long
Over the watercourses
Like ducks in the time of ducks
The ghosts of the villages trail in the sky
Making a new twilight


Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
Again again with its pointless sound
When the moon finds them they are the color of everything


The nights disappear like bruises but nothing is healed
The dead go away like bruises
The blood vanishes into the poisoned farmlands
Pain the horizon
Remains
Overhead the seasons rockT
They are paper bells
Calling to nothing living


The possessors move everywhere under
Death their star
Like columns of smoke they advance into the shadows
Like thin flames with no light
They with no past
And fire their only future