La dernière fois

glass diaphanous
blood burned circa
7th century phial she
yearns for the red
for the music the cobbled street’s
final sunlit
hour every hesitation
a flaming sword at the gates and now there is
the Seine to cross

green glass church looming

one last white column Baudelaire Maupassant Zola
the Temple which is France the caryatides every woman carrying all
the other side of the reflecting the contortionist painted

the monumented minueted Champs
Elysée the ceremony of swords and fire at the end men bending trees
ready the forest forever turning
but she was not she for whom my soul awaits

glinting her hair the glare the glamor of the Louvre
I continue
beneath gargoyles, beneath Gorgons searching for Eurydice’s
raven hair traced with violets

In Violet the first draft cartooned onto a paper table cloth
wine spills night cast
as a bicycle’s shadow bending up the curb stone

4 AM wishing to not disturb the wraiths and deities
the church a tomb

I should have crept from the room down the five flights
and crossed the river that is what
I would have done twenty years before five hundred and twenty
years before that is what I did and now I am here again
and she is not and night lay
facing me



La dernière fois [#19]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

Aislinn

Upon the throne of my knees
in the first glorious year of your hair,
each tooth shone as a myth polished by
the Gaelic of your people
gathered in a cold, uncertain
kitchen.


Now, the clan is less
enchanted. You smell of small
defeats, Gaulois and abstractions. Two
Naples yellow streaks elevate your sleeve, and
your wrist, far too delicate for yet another engagement, is
wan as the milk in your
coffee, curdling aspirations in the heart
of a nineteen year old.


You made each leaf promise. You made
my sleeve promise.

We crossed the Quigley’s rye and passed through
the valley of the shadow of white and ribbed
windows, God-dappled, still
appling.

Distinct as an earlier chapter, I remembered crossing
myself, prepared to bleed as the sun upon the velvet inclination
of your knee, so greenly gathering.

It is the way of long traditions, this building upon
previous episodes, so that an informed reader, a God, for example,
would recognize the little girl and the reason she blessed the oriflamme
disguised as poet disguised as revenant.



Aislinn [#18]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

* * * * *

Pregnant

I am pregnant and I am not embarrassed, and I refuse
to defend myself before the disappointed.
My babies have not been fathered by the patriarchy,
but they are not bastards.
I am not busy in commerce--I am not a landlord
or collector, but they will never be abandoned.

I am going to live in a forest where moss bathes my toes
and makes slippers for trees and pillows of stones;
I am going to deny concrete and its fumes;
I am going to swim every swell of my heart; for it is good
for my babies.
I am going to learn not to worry.
I am going to learn to listen to my fingers
and dismember every gate which does not allow the seeds
of wind and rain and light.

I am so pregnant I cannot see my feet, but my path
leads me.
When a poem comes through me, I embrace its vortex
and adore its apparitions and whisper
every word of its appendages
into song.

And when voices no longer echo
from the bones of my back, sleep makes me a baby
in a belly again.




Pregnant [#17]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

* * * * *

“Pregnant” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

Enceinte

Je suis enceinte et je n'ai pas honte, et je
refuse de me défendre devant les désapointés.
Mes bébés n'ont pas été engendrés
par le patriarchat, mais ils ne sont pas des bâtards.
Je ne pratique pas le commerce--
Je ne suis pas propriétaire ou collectionneur,
mais mes enfants ne seront jamais abondonnés.

Je vais vivre dans une forêt où la mousse baigne mes orteils
et fait des chaussons aux arbres et des oreillers aux pierres;
Je refuserai le concret et ses fumées;
Je nagerai sur chaque vague de mon cœur; car c'est bon
pour mes bébés.
Je vais apprendre à ne plus me tourmenter.
Je vais apprendre à écouter mes doigts
et à démembrer chaque porte fermée sur les graines
de vent, de pluie et de lumière.

Je suis si grosse que je ne vois plus mes pieds, mais mon chemin
me guide.
Quand un poème me traverse, j'étreins son tourbillon
et j'adore ses apparitions et murmure
chaque mot de ses appanages
en chanson.

Et quand les voix ne résonneront plus
dans ma moelle, le sommeil me fera
encore un enfant dans le ventre.




Pregnant [#17]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

* * * * *

“Pregnant” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

L’obscurité verte

Rue de la Harpe, 5e

Flaubert and blood
oranges, the feet of a forest
at the stream, weak-kneed as
a century of Sundays;
a loping changes the angle of a field burnt
crimson, appled and appling since le moyen age. Leaves, insouciant as seeds
spat, as they were in the beginning,
as a story chosen
to be written, as I am
now. To begin
at the end of
chagrin:


I am the loping. You are
the blood-fed field, holding
back
my hand tooth by
tooth from your obscuritites

your soft socks huddled, formless
in Paris, an Aget



of you upon linen, deranged
angel in a wilderness
of

a
rose
its sheath
iris and iris twice


reveal you
A history of the world lays wide open beside you

a cathedral



in the colors of fables within
the blue
bowl of the sky only the illiterate
can read



L’obscurité verte [#16]
© 2009 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org

* * * * *

Photograph by Susan Aurinko

* * * * *

The Green Christs

I follow my great-grandfather.
He can barely walk and he can barely talk.
He is two years old.

His brother Eugène is already six. Eugène will stay here
in Belgium, and my great-grandfather will marry
a woman in Chicago whose mother wears a mantilla
before the fire in the parlor as horses clop
past toward Halsted Street.

My great-grandfather carries a soiled green bear
whose name is Lala.
The little bear’s red jacket is very red and brocaded.

Eugene and his wife are buried next to the tomb
of his parents. Their names and dates are faint,
and the Christs have turned green.
Where the sun was an egg yolk and now peach, nine
sheep, one donkey and a rooster rehearse for Christmas
eve beneath an apple tree.
My great-grandfather, who last stood in this churchyard
in 1883, is buried alone
with his wife Flora near O’Hare Airport.
Only I know the graves now.

My great-grandfather and Lala stumble toward his mother.
She offers me half a plum from their garden and eats
the other half, then opens another.

She offers half to me and half to her son.
--Shake the tree, Richard, and the fruit which fall is ripe.
And always open a plum before tasting it.
Her fingers are stained and strong and fine. She could
play piano. A neighbor,
the soprano, begins to sing. My great-great-grandmother’s
eyes, sotto voce, focus separately upon the bluing
and swaying.
She has Ruth’s eyes, and she wears no jewelry.

Her last roses are old and big as breakfast bowls.
She plucks a petal between a tall burgundy door
and a tall burgundy window.
--You should have come earlier, then you would have seen them.
They were beautiful--and everywhere.




The Green Christs [#15]
© 2000 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

“The Green Christs” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *

Les Christs verts

Je marche derrière le père de mon grand-père.
Il peut à peine marcher et il peut à peine parler.
Il a deux ans.

Son frère Eugène a déjà six ans. Eugène restera ici
en Belgique, et mon arrière grand-père épousera
à Chicago une femme dont la mère porte une mantille
devant la cheminée du salon alors que trottent des chevaux
un peu plus loin vers Halsted Street.

Mon arrière grand-père tient un petit ours vert, u
n peu souillé, qui s'appelle Lala.
La veste rouge du petit ours est très rouge et brodée.

Eugène et sa femme sont enterrés à côté de la tombe
de ses parents. Les noms et les dates sont à peine lisibles,
et les Christs sont devenus verts.
Là où le soleil était jaune d'oeuf et maintenant pêche, neuf
moutons, une âne et un coq répètent la nuit de noël
sous un pommier.
Mon arrière grand-père qui se tenait dans ce cimetière
pour la dernière fois en 1883, est enterré seul
avec sa femme du côté de O'Hare Airport.
Je suis le seul maintenant à connaître ces tombes.

Mon arrière grand-père et Lala s'avancent en trébuchant
vers sa mère.
Elle m'offre une demi-prune de leur jardin et mange
l'autre moitié, puis en ouvre une autre.
Elle m'en donne une moitié et l'autre à son fils.
- Secoue le prunier, Richard, et le fruit qui tombe est mûr,
mais ouvre toujours une prune avant de la goûter.

Ses doigts sont tâchés et puissants et élégants. Elle pourrait
jouer du piano. Une voisine,
la soprano, commence à chanter.
Les yeux de la mère de mon arrière grand-père,
sotto voce, s'arrêtent à la fois sur le bleuiment
et le tremblement. Elle a les yeux de Ruth,
et ne porte pas de bijoux.

Ses dernières roses sont hardies et grosses comme les bols
du petit déjeuner.
Elle cueille un pétale , entre une grande porte
et une grande fenêtre bordeau.
- Tu aurais dû venir plus tôt et tu les aurais vues.
Elles étaient belles--et il y en avait partout.




Les Christs verts [#15]
© 2000 Fammerée


* * * * *

Richard Fammerée
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


* * * * *

“The Green Christs” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst,
a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

* * * * *