the albatross

An albatross used to be known as an omen of good luck until The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. Since then the connection in popular culture and literature alike has taken akin to the idea the bird is psychological burden, following some as a type of curse. It seems to be a perpetuating reference in the recent past showing up in Weeds, Deadwood, and even as a malapropism (albacore) in The Sopranos. Anyways, my main reason for this post is to conjure some response to this great poem by French poet Charles Baudelaire which has the title, you guessed it....


L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

— Charles Baudelaire

The Albatross

Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew
Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast
Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,
Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.

No sooner have they disentangled him from their nets
Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,
Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets
His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.

How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak —
He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!
They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;
Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

the united them vs. we

We’ve superseded failures.

Their grandiose repertoire of consternation.

Such ruthless aspirations, run amok.

Now rundown; divided, red and blue.

The peons bearing flags, bearing arms.

Feigning that they haven’t given in.

When they’ve wholly given up-

That passion to save what little we have left.


Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011

noctuids amidst the noria

we, in vile morbidity, are the moth’s wing,

as it hovers over the post-party debacle

surrendering to the cordobesan feria.

its departure from light like a tree shedding leaves

amidst the veracity of a summer storm.

we, the tornado’s rapture, in a midwestern gully,

before it takes house and hut, family, friends.

yet our embryo so subtle, so clandestine,

its appalling lucidity devoured,

taken by the rusted pipes and flaking walls

of these aging antiquities, in vain.

this is us, seeking such secretion,

feigning to be heard,

where the clamoring racket of crickets whelm,

chirping wildly in the grain.

we do our best to let splendor suffuse,

as the lavenders induced, adorned,

coax pollen and bees

to rove and fuck just for fucking’s sake.

yet the sweet sweat drips, it drops,

as we sneeze and bustle in a deadened street,

on our fashion strips,

in our simple, stupid dreams.

stoned by booze and tiny pills,

by ferris wheels and cheap food,

by the woo of french dames and salsa steps,

of the moth’s decaying larvae.

but we loll as hastened hiccups,

not really sure what we are,

we are rushed to finish something,

the great capitalist renaissance.

gloomy and bleak, the choir

of monotonous replication,

it’s the nihilist’s cry of naught,

while we’re awoken yet again.

we are that moth’s adulteration,

scavenging the sky,

we are the onlooker’s protrusion

while our heroine languishes in her disguise. 


Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011

void nor valid, fallacious nor fictitious

a cock crows

as the sun rises.

a cliché only true

in extremities.

its cries of depravity

invoked harshly from

the corner-stoned roofs

of our contently middle-class canaries.

i forget what it was,

because i’d be quite content;

to do just this,

to just settle down,

or up,

wherever it may be,

in the mountains,

alone with the strata, the sun.

to revel in a chorus

of adolescent amphibians,

as we pass through the brush

and i hold your hand.

mind your step: delicate, careful step,

while our youth pervades

imposed with an austere maturity.

we’re old enough to know now

that we can break precedents,

but we choose to stay here,

so comfortably,

only teasing those hazy, dotted lines;

when "sin", when "boredom",

toys with our menial, ruminative thoughts.

lo que se pasa acá, se queda acá,

they continue to preach to me.

yet what happens is so normal, so sane,

it's why we keep chasing your savior supreme.

that humanized conjecture,

with two hands and a click,

so central, so trivial,

with just two audible consonants.

void of substance,

your so-called, profound, ethical calculations,

based off that antiqued, eschatological hyperbole. 

just the same back and forth,

before the calm at sea.

as we sway, we sever,

as the waves tear at our anchor.

we’d rather watch the phoenix fly

while drowning solely amidst the tides.

yet holding on to something,

something that has meaning, 

void or valid, fallacious, 

even moreover fictitious. 

it’s a reminder of home,

of those who’ve past,

of those in our stories,

while they tear at the mast.

again we follow script,

the same tragic story,

for a headline, for a postcard,

for the same bitter tears,

in the same rendered state,

of such grave tragedy,

such a heartfelt fit of saddened tragedy. 


Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011

Allure on the Northern Nowhere

Shadow, somber, ember passing through,

From the canopy of the Cordobesan barrio;

Tiny pebbles kicked, among tampered foliage,

Amidst the maundering words of a passerby;

I long, I do, I reminisce of your touch,

So delicate, yet prevailing that it makes me muse;

And as the remembrance of your thick tone stirs,

It brings me back to that reposeful countryside.

The one where we spent, engulfed in a choir,

Of frogs, of cacti, of the Canarian coast;

Where the rampant waves splashed, against the bare reef,

Distracting me for a breath, before I arose once more;

To your freckles, your whispers, like songs, like wind

To devour all that was and will ever be

Where your fair skin, still burnt from the day before,

Hints at, it pleads for such osculation;

Derived of the most passionate, so subtle,

The most endearing and persuasive kind,

Submerged me helplessly, so menial yet so alive.

Just please, my dear, listen,

Through feigned verses of empathy,

While I ring assured, from depths of heart,

With the wind on your shoulders in the sea-stained air,

That I will deliver such purity to yours.

Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011

arthur rimbaud and my best weekend ever.

Vowels

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,

I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:

A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies

which buzz around cruel smells,

Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,

lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley;

I, purples, spat blood, smile of beautiful lips

in anger or in the raptures of penitence;

U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,

the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows

which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;

O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,

silences crossed by [Worlds and by Angels]:

–O the Omega! the violet ray of [His] Eyes!

Voyelles

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles, Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes: A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles, Golfes d'ombre; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes, Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles; I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes; U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides, Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux; O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges, Silences traversés des [Mondes et des Anges]: —O l'Oméga, rayon violet de [Ses] Yeux! dear self, imagine yourself on an island, off the coast of africa, with three pretty girls, for three incredible days, in absolutely beautiful weather, overlooking the coast of some small spanish town, frogs singing in the background, the sun setting, enamored by fauna and blooming flowers, while a cute little french girl with freckles whispering this to you, accent and all. that was your weekend. life complete.  brandon.13-16.5.2011

J. L. Borges

Los Espejos
Yo que sentí el horror de los espejos
no sólo ante el cristal impenetrable
donde acaba y empieza, inhabitable,
un imposible espacio de reflejos

sino ante el agua especular que imita
el otro azul en su profundo cielo
que a veces raya el ilusorio vuelo
del ave inversa o que un temblor agita

Y ante la superficie silenciosa
del ébano sutil cuya tersura
repite como un sueño la blancura
de un vago mármol o una vaga rosa,

Hoy, al cabo de tantos y perplejos
años de errar bajo la varia luna,
me pregunto qué azar de la fortuna
hizo que yo temiera los espejos.

Espejos de metal, enmascarado
espejo de caoba que en la bruma
de su rojo crepúsculo disfuma
ese rostro que mira y es mirado,

Infinitos los veo, elementales
ejecutores de un antiguo pacto,
multiplicar el mundo como el acto
generativo, insomnes y fatales.

Prolonga este vano mundo incierto
en su vertiginosa telaraña;
a veces en la tarde los empaña
el Hálito de un hombre que no ha muerto.

Nos acecha el cristal. Si entre las cuatro
paredes de la alcoba hay un espejo,
ya no estoy solo. Hay otro. Hay el reflejo
que arma en el alba un sigiloso teatro.

Todo acontece y nada se recuerda
en esos gabinetes cristalinos
donde, como fantásticos rabinos,
leemos los libros de derecha a izquierda.

Claudio, rey de una tarde, rey soñado,
no sintió que era un sueño hasta aquel día
en que un actor mimó su felonía
con arte silencioso, en un tablado.

Que haya sueños es raro, que haya espejos,
que el usual y gastado repertorio
de cada día incluya el ilusorio
orbe profundo que urden los reflejos.

Dios (he dado en pensar) pone un empeño
en toda esa inasible arquitectura
que edifica la luz con la tersura
del cristal y la sombra con el sueño.

Dios ha creado las noches que se arman
de sueños y las formas del espejo
para que el hombre sienta que es reflejo
y vanidad. Por eso no alarman.

Mirrors
I, who felt the horrors of mirrors
Not only in front of the impenetrable crystal
Where there ends and begins, uninhabitable,
An impossible space of reflections,

But of gazing even on water that mimics
The other blue in its depth of sky,
That at times gleams back the illusory flight
Of the inverted bird, or that ripples,

And in front of the silent surface
Of subtle ebony whose polish shows
Like a repeating dream the white
Of something marble or something rose,

Today at the tip of so many and perplexing
Wandering years under the varying moon,
I ask myself what whim of fate
Made me so fearful of a glancing mirror.

Mirrors in metal, and the masked
Mirror of mahogany that in its mist
Of a red twilight hazes
The face that is gazed on as it gazes,

I see them as infinite, elemental
Executors of an ancient pact,
To multiply the world like the act
Of begetting. Sleepless. Bringing doom.

They prolong this hollow, unstable world
In their dizzying spider’s-web;
Sometimes in the afternoon they are blurred
By the breath of a man who is not dead.

The crystal spies on us. If within the four
Walls of a bedroom a mirror stares,
I’m no longer alone. There is someone there.
In the dawn reflections mutely stage a show.

Everything happens and nothing is recorded
In these rooms of the looking glass,
Where, magicked into rabbis, we
Now read the books from right to left.

Claudius, king of an afternoon, a dreaming king,
Did not feel it a dream until that day
When an actor showed the world his crime
In a tableau, silently in mime.

It is a strange dream, and to have mirrors
Where the commonplace, worn-out repertory
Of every day may include the illusory
Profound globe that reflections scheme.

God (I keep thinking) has taken pains
To design that ungraspable architecture
Reared by every dawn from the gleam
Of a mirror, by darkness from a dream.

God has created nighttime, which he arms
With dreams, and mirrors, to make clear
To man he is a reflection and a mere
Vanity. Therefore they aren't alarmed.

Translation by Harold Morland