for Mari, the becoming actress

            “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot” (Charles Chaplin)

we hold hands and walk like Chaplin

when people ask us why are we doing this,

we answer:”this is the elementary circus”,

our barren ground, our right to choose to

unleash small revolutions

on the back street full of dewless leaves

and car oil, anywhere, on the sidewalk,

on the brink of some buildings, around

the signal lights, runing beside bluecoats,

beggars, cyclists, thieves, workers and

other places, we hold hands and walk

like Chaplin

in the watch face the sun seems to be

a blow in the eyes, we take out our watches,

we put them in our pockets and walk like

Chaplin

a limousine draws near the border stone

and runs forward on the same track, a voice

similar to the voice on the phone can be heard

from inside saying: “you see, living like this

is not impossible…”

you are a serious-minded actress, you know the cabaret,

the lipstick, the panty hose, the corset, the shoes, the

entire props, you can play the sand on the ocean floor,

the parasite, the meteorite, the electrical filament,

I’m a tiny black mouse, a bosh hawker, I know how

to reinvent the bankruptcy, to take a drill press

and make a hole in the atmosphere and then to

grab your hand and walk like Chaplin

Un alt recital marcă a poetului american Robert Pinsky.

Philip Larkin was born in 1922 in Coventry, England. He attended St. John’s College, Oxford. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and, though not particularly strong on its own, is notable insofar as certain passages foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work. In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry, learning from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems.

Un recital adorabil. Pentru cei cu anumite probleme de auz sau care nu reuşesc să desluşească cuvintele, iată şi versurile:

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that ?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk , talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Donald Justice born August 12, 1925, Miami, Florida, U.S. died August 6, 2004, Iowa City, Iowa.   American poet and editor best known for finely crafted verse that frequently illuminates the pain of loss and the desolation of an unlived life. Educated at the University of Miami (B.A., 1945), the University of North Carolina (M.A., 1947), and the University of Iowa in Iowa City (Ph.D., 1954), Justice taught English and writing at several American universities and from 1982 through 1992 was a professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville.