Photograph: David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-9
January 30, 2010
January 6, 2010
January 2, 2010
White Fire
for Anne Carson
To describe how rain touches morning in Iceland—
where St. Christopher often leads travelers
in spring—is to cross the impossible
bridge between water to drink
and water that drowns.
If you’re lonely enough, if you listen,
the wind will convince you, in its human-like
sadness—to open the windows
and let something in.
Watch as it lifts above the ice—
the unforgiving element—white
fire.
Remember, you too know something
about snow's passage to water:
how everything trembles when moving
from one form to another—how soon,
it is water that slicks your eye—
each lash burning
to put the fire out.
- Alex Dimitrov
"White Fire" was printed as a broadside, in an edition of 100 by The Center for Book Arts in NYC, in October 2009. To purchase a broadside click here.
(published in Best New Poets 2009, and diode, Fall 2009 )
To describe how rain touches morning in Iceland—
where St. Christopher often leads travelers
in spring—is to cross the impossible
bridge between water to drink
and water that drowns.
If you’re lonely enough, if you listen,
the wind will convince you, in its human-like
sadness—to open the windows
and let something in.
Watch as it lifts above the ice—
the unforgiving element—white
fire.
Remember, you too know something
about snow's passage to water:
how everything trembles when moving
from one form to another—how soon,
it is water that slicks your eye—
each lash burning
to put the fire out.
- Alex Dimitrov
"White Fire" was printed as a broadside, in an edition of 100 by The Center for Book Arts in NYC, in October 2009. To purchase a broadside click here.
(published in Best New Poets 2009, and diode, Fall 2009 )
The Crucifix
It hung from his neck in a kind and devastating way—
hidden under his shirt and apron, wait staff uniform
then blazer, when he finally found a good desk job.
Walking through the living room after work
he’d slowly loosen the knot of his tie, teasing it
with his fingers and unbuttoning that top button
every man must hate so much.
From there it took him only seconds
until the cotton trailed behind his back,
shirt fully undone, allowing me to notice
the tense drops of sweat which ran down from his armpits,
the stains forming delicate rings around his sleeves.
And when he sat down on the couch
to rest his head back, Adam’s apple
sharply gleaming, palms left open on his thighs—
I’d stare at that gold crucifix which sank so low,
our Jesus buried deep inside his chest hair,
closer to my father than I ever got
and claiming the best part.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published, in a previous version, in Harpur Palate, Volume 8.2, Winter 2009)
hidden under his shirt and apron, wait staff uniform
then blazer, when he finally found a good desk job.
Walking through the living room after work
he’d slowly loosen the knot of his tie, teasing it
with his fingers and unbuttoning that top button
every man must hate so much.
From there it took him only seconds
until the cotton trailed behind his back,
shirt fully undone, allowing me to notice
the tense drops of sweat which ran down from his armpits,
the stains forming delicate rings around his sleeves.
And when he sat down on the couch
to rest his head back, Adam’s apple
sharply gleaming, palms left open on his thighs—
I’d stare at that gold crucifix which sank so low,
our Jesus buried deep inside his chest hair,
closer to my father than I ever got
and claiming the best part.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published, in a previous version, in Harpur Palate, Volume 8.2, Winter 2009)
St. Sebastian After the Arrows
I waited for the pit to fill with blood
until it filled no more. Some part
of me had sealed or emptied, the angel
it had come and gone, left my anguish
in these hands I only later felt were
mine when pressing on the warm skin
where the arrows had entered and hung
then parted from the flesh, where
the wounds had healed under the touch
of a widow who found me and looked up,
and kept on looking there for days. I waited
for the morning but when morning fled
the light remained, and so the night—
it wasn’t the same night I’d slept through
all those other times. I waited for something
to happen like the mute woman had waited
for my hands to touch her and my lips
to utter, speak. I waited for my death
and when it never came I understood
that it had gently passed.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Gargoyle, #55, Winter 2009)
until it filled no more. Some part
of me had sealed or emptied, the angel
it had come and gone, left my anguish
in these hands I only later felt were
mine when pressing on the warm skin
where the arrows had entered and hung
then parted from the flesh, where
the wounds had healed under the touch
of a widow who found me and looked up,
and kept on looking there for days. I waited
for the morning but when morning fled
the light remained, and so the night—
it wasn’t the same night I’d slept through
all those other times. I waited for something
to happen like the mute woman had waited
for my hands to touch her and my lips
to utter, speak. I waited for my death
and when it never came I understood
that it had gently passed.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Gargoyle, #55, Winter 2009)
American Youth
That first summer my father spent more time
driving to work than he did sleeping,
and my mother wrote postcards all day
to everyone back home, people she never liked,
even they were needed, she said, to pass the time,
to live through the hours we had to fill with
English lessons––every day a new word, then phrases,
and finally sentences that spoke of nothing
no matter how many times they repeated in our ears.
I’d leave the house sometime after lunch
to sit on the sidewalk and imagine
that one of the cars driving by was my father’s.
And everyday there I watched the neighborhood
kids playing, watched them tirelessly until dark,
trading cards with each other, toy guns.
I watched them live out my American youth.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Crab Orchard Review, Volume 14, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2009)
driving to work than he did sleeping,
and my mother wrote postcards all day
to everyone back home, people she never liked,
even they were needed, she said, to pass the time,
to live through the hours we had to fill with
English lessons––every day a new word, then phrases,
and finally sentences that spoke of nothing
no matter how many times they repeated in our ears.
I’d leave the house sometime after lunch
to sit on the sidewalk and imagine
that one of the cars driving by was my father’s.
And everyday there I watched the neighborhood
kids playing, watched them tirelessly until dark,
trading cards with each other, toy guns.
I watched them live out my American youth.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Crab Orchard Review, Volume 14, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2009)
Leaving for America, May 1991
It didn’t happen during the war, I remember that.
Because like everyone else we sat in front of the television
and waited for the American soldiers to leave the Gulf.
It was close to happening when my mother came home one day
and never went back to work.
She didn’t tell anyone why.
Even closer when things in our apartment kept disappearing:
the vase on the table, old books, our small radio.
I found them in boxes one day.
Then it finally began at the airport
when our bags were too heavy to check
and we had to decide what to leave,
We can’t keep everything, my father said.
And as the plane pulled away we tried sleeping
until mid flight a stranger asked,
What time is it over there?
But none of us knew.
The ocean below warned
don’t swim.
The country we’d left for
still felt at war.
And we didn’t arrive even after the plane ride
after the taxi, and in the new house
where for days we had nothing to say.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Poet Lore, Volume 103, Number 3/4, 2008)
Because like everyone else we sat in front of the television
and waited for the American soldiers to leave the Gulf.
It was close to happening when my mother came home one day
and never went back to work.
She didn’t tell anyone why.
Even closer when things in our apartment kept disappearing:
the vase on the table, old books, our small radio.
I found them in boxes one day.
Then it finally began at the airport
when our bags were too heavy to check
and we had to decide what to leave,
We can’t keep everything, my father said.
And as the plane pulled away we tried sleeping
until mid flight a stranger asked,
What time is it over there?
But none of us knew.
The ocean below warned
don’t swim.
The country we’d left for
still felt at war.
And we didn’t arrive even after the plane ride
after the taxi, and in the new house
where for days we had nothing to say.
- Alex Dimitrov
(published in Poet Lore, Volume 103, Number 3/4, 2008)
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