GIACOMETTI: The Soul
stretched on a wire. the god
image of brutality
made intimate. maleable, torn with insensitive
hands
out from the protection of flesh
and still living—the individual
bloody heart
that breathes
he still stands;
the face looks outward. mirror
within a mirror, the eyes
uprooted bones, that walk outward
from the burning bush—heart
of the tree
where all the rotten and soft
decay
has disintegrated, washed
in salt to this point of a hydrate
endurance (were you the man
i met at the Luxemburg gardens) lonely
and wanting to come home.
did you take me to the place where
the poor eat. drinking with the eyes
a salad of grass, entrails of
nourishment. there were no dogs left;
animals
the dehydrated flesh
clings to the bone, cries out
on a dark night
on a dark street
(it is simple to die) complexity
we wait for the healing hot flames
of feeling
to come back to the earth; the men
of straw—are working in the fields
cast in bronze
eternal, the army moves
—
thorny rose, the earth a psychic
fruit—in observation of the brute
we see ourselves
in multiple, intimate
association of the mind, body
that absorbs moisture. a recognition
of similiarity, preposterous
embellishment. in a destroyed world
music is lasting: i paid a street violinist
ten franks
to play the Massanet Elegy
(the eyes of the saint are closed in
prayer) instrument of strings
re-sounding
body sinuos, the dead eyes of the Saint
an eliptic figure
holding his head in his hands
.
For the Phosphorous Heart
the wild wild bird
flew
into tangle of honeysuckle, walked
with folded wing
on ancient vine-runners
eating seed, absorbed
the late season liquor . .
raised
to fly
from inner box, dead creepers
strong as wire
he flew, he flew
against the absorbent light
not closing his wings! how
can one of flight
bend low—step
through narrow passage
thin as a hand? the hand
doubles
in fright and fury; and pinions
that bore him
up—up, above trees and fence
widened
to keep him, keep
his single struggle
vivid as the lark. head high
he flew and flew
made fast as a large leaf dying
Note
These poems were selected and transcribed from brigham’s private archive in Las Cruces, New Mexico, by Robert Snyderman, a poet, educator, and independent scholar. The poems appear as typographically accurate to the originals as possible, and were taken from both uncollected and collected contexts.
