If every day of the calendar
was sing-sing-sing my love
among the fallen leaves
with a black man and woman
swinging away at the hips
until dawn
(with or without the moon)
and if on the roof of the world
a bird, a zopilote
struck its claws out
at the daughter of a prostitute
(all yard and a half of them)
and shake-shake-shake it out
push push push
until …
Then we’d have sufficient reason
to think about things
like the high arching wings of bats
hanging from the cold, clear ceiling of the universe
hung for days
including even the first of May
when there are:
parades
letters
mailmen
paraders
slogans
yet, inside the pride
of so many workers
the disregarded, underloved, poorly dressed,
of whom there are so many,
though not all have bread
nor are payed in full for their sweat
nor ever given fair promotion
though they march and protest
against those that hold all the money
singing May, oh May, most faithful month,
protesting the stomping feet of policemen,
dancing without want:
the carefree sing-sing-sing my love
and so I will dance
content
in the middle of the May Pole wheel
with my rain dance
and my solitude
a dance for the first rains of spring
and in the end
it is through the new green
that the voice of the people is heard
yelling from high atop the May Pole:
May, oh May, most faithful month.
Translated from the Spanish by Charles Tarzian.
Carlos Rigby, Nicaraguan poet from the Atlantic Coast.
Staging historical justice in Hernán Ronsino’s Glaxo
“A writer worried about reception is cooking a dead book. A writer’s job is to produce the best possible book in absolute freedom, so the category ‘acceptable’ does not play in the process at all.”
From the train I could look out onto the infinite blue of the sea. I was still exhausted, wakeful from the overnight transatlantic flight to Rome, but looking out at the sea, that Mediterranean sea that was so infinite and so blue, made me forget it all, even myself. I don’t know why.
Originally published in
Cindy Sherman, Dario Fo, Bruce Weber, Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, and Raymond Voinquel.
Work that is just about the technical or conceptual, personal or political, is fine; it meets the world with what’s in fashion. But there’s something else bordering on magic, that brings an artwork home, makes it land and resonate. You can’t really teach that so much as conjure it.
Kara Walker
