| Notes for a Confession with Rutabagas
Eduardo Chirinos
Translated to English by G. J. Racz
The first of the undecoded messages read:
“Popeye sits in thunder, unthought of ”
-JOHN ASHBERRY
[1]
i write better when there isn’t any light when it’s very late
and there’s no noise the words show up free and clean then
dangling from branches opening doors walking on the rooftop
last night i saw one called rutabagas i don’t know what it means
i read it in the marketplace in a poem somewhere i like the word
it smacks of trails off the beaten path of clocks lost in orion
i’ve never wandered off the beaten path never lost clocks in orion
i see so that’s the way it is you liar just keep fooling yourself
[2]
i don’t like spinach it’s so green so cloyingly sweet
it tastes like hospital food like fi lthy mystic flowers
you have a fever you’re raving no i don’t i’m not
raving memory is like fear it erects enormous cathedrals
only to knock them down i’m tired i hear voices
it’s the fever licking my body olive whispering in my ear
i’m your fantasy your lovely ineff ectual weakness
[3]
it’s best not to continue the coded message read popeye
sits in thunder unthought of he’s listening no one
sits in thunder unthought of no one remembers that
episode with the coin that sank the ship and the forty
thieves chasing after olive her propensity for luxury
will not be lost in the desert will not devour the darkness
will not sink to the bottom of the sea
[4]
batman watches me write his strength comes from the fall of
day from his own unhappiness never uttering a word he just
shakes his head yes or no inexorable though his batmobile sure
does roar denting garbage cans and frightening alley cats
he stops on solitary street corners drinking water from the
puddles masturbating in unlighted buildings but never
uttering a word like the angel he never utters a word
[5]
i’m a little confused popeye said batman lifts one foot and
buries the other into gotham city shooting a stream of black light
into this empty room that’s not true it’s not empty there are
books here paper dictionaries a national geographic poster
a cup of steaming coff ee from high in the air he watches me
write a sestina would you like to hear it not now popeye said
i’m a little confused why are you talking about batman?
[6]
it’s a good-luck charm she gave me for my birthday
you’ll always have it when i go away she said and away
she went leaving me with this fog and bat-like image
[7]
hey there he asked are you a sailor ja think i’m a cowboy?
that’s how it all began we set sail that very afternoon there was
no crew so i swabbed the deck with a rag weighed anchor cleaned
the hatches that was nineteen twenty-nine you weren’t born yet olive
i was a hindrance we had to beg him to let me stay she asks me
drawing is diff erent from writing right no it’s not she lives in another
world speaks a demotic language the words burn on her tongue she leaves
behind crumbs in the rain holes in books that’s olive she comes by
at night and leaves at dawn do any of you know where she is?
[8]
look it up in the dictionary you can eat it its name is
rutabagas napus naprobrassica good for the digestion
i like the word digestion olive said showing off
a diminutive breast batman she said in a state of rapture
she repeats this but it means the same another coded
message the opalescent sky the cold starless night
everything invites contemplation everything except olive
[9]
the dictionary whispers its light it’s insistent and filled with gaps
off ering me the word equinox the word allegory though i don’t listen
in the southern hemisphere it’s springtime while in northern climes
autumn is just beginning i know the leaves fall and turn yellow
while the birds devour mice and worms mothers bundle up
their children and undress themselves unseen then olive starts
pleading with me i’m tired i tell her i don’t like autumn don’t
want to finish my spinach don’t want to write this poem
[10]
if you throw away your good-luck charm and open the windows
if you could just wake up for once and choose your words
with care if you would only answer me
when i speak to you then maybe i’ll come back but don’t forget
i’m your fantasy your lovely ineff ectual weakness
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