Tim Kahl
Schwärmerei
Dich verwirret, Geliebte, die tausendfaltige Mischung
Dieses Blumengewühls über dem Garten umher
—Goethe, Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen
You are confused, my love, by the mix of a thousand folds
Within these flowers throughout the garden
—Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants
Expect all flowers to eventually become white,
Goethe [may have] said.
Every color of the spectrum as one, all the colors mixed.
The mix is the Ur-phenomenon, seeking its higher purpose.
Night and day settle into cycles and I must commit.
I choose among the day’s faces
that turn toward the litter of ordinary objects
[like the ones that are sent by a friend through the mail]:
candy necklace and cigarettes, a green marble that
looks like an olive, sequins, a color Xerox of
a young girl holding a notebook,
wooden matchstick, quartz, a temporary tattoo
of Elvis, a dried yellow flower, Kleenex,
a white bar napkin with the word
DISTANCE written on it.
We flatter each other with our moods
and try to remember the shape of the other,
the quality of the skin, if the pores were open.
To be left with proof and valid principles.
Goethe [may have] said, facts are
all that can be seen of theories.
I could expect white flowers to
figure out that they are skeletons.
I might speculate on how the dead feel
as they dance on my pillow,
how the treasures in an old friend’s care package
still spark my fondness for innocence ten years later.
A notion of how sentiment works is a parody of itself.
Schwärmerei. Goethe [may have] said,
theories are for the impatient
who would like pictures, concepts, just words
to replace what really happens.
Experience and hypothesis—they are false together.
The summer days grow longer here,
but I can’t always wait for the next thing
to be folded into the mix. I wander
and observe the garden
as Goethe [may have done],
record the infinitesimal changes and my concern.
Why do I linger in the deep recesses of the present?
Everything that's calm
is probably a dream.
Rushing To Consequence
Is a brain really more important than a shell?
Which is bigger? Each distorts the image of the other.
Oh, and there is a man's shadow! It grows longer
in the name of beauty as if it were rushing
to consequence in the late evening when
a turtle decides to re-enter the water. A turtle's
world moves slowly, it lives longer and in
a hundred years no one remembers its decision,
only its beautiful entry.
Muiraquitas
There are no words for hello to echo off
the twisted trees on the lone hill
as the white sand extends itself for
miles along the river, sighing,
which way are you going?
which way are you going?
The need for acknowledgement here
is less, just seeing is enough.
And that which goes unseen is rumored
like the giant sloth that twists
the heads off humans. The trees are full of eyes.
The feeling of being hunted tickles
like the feeling of being freshly shaven.
Here the men launch false attacks
as greetings. They speak of a time when
women ruled over them, those women who
lived near The Lake of the Mirror of the Moon
and dove to the bottom for the green stones,
guided to them by the spirits. Then they carved
the stones in the forms of animals and gave them
to their lovers who came to hunt them
when the moon was the shape of a drawn bow.
And the next year when the men came back,
the male infants were returned to them,
the females were gathered into the fold
where their bodies were brightly colored
by the most beautiful among them.
The women marked a man with the hope
he will be a survivor in the forest, the eyes of
the trees bringing sickness with them.
Men taunt these eyes and wear their
green amulets to protect against
kidney stones, colic and epilepsy.
They got those green amulets from their fathers
who got them from the women without
husbands. Those amulets bring good luck
in hunting, and when a questioning light
strikes them, the stones plainly acknowledge:
This is the son of an Amazon woman.
This is the son of an Amazon woman.
