I
'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today.' - Adorno, Cultural Criticism and Society.
Wear a shawl of poky, wretched geometry.
Store avid, witty, sphecoid cries.
To be silent at tonic-bitter rows;
a zemirah robbed of its euphony.
II
'I have no wish to soften the saying that to write lyric poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric; it expresses in negative form the impulse which inspires committed literature.' - Adorno, Commitment
Wretch? Not I.
I'm the zebrine argument,
a vow, fast in the rushes.
If I can assert so much as negate,
it is for the wry, cryptic expert,
ill with iritic hype.
I omitted rats, coyotes, vipers
- a blip.
III
Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. - Adorno, Negative Dialectics.
The amaranthine aguille
of hex, memento, orbs, proven zen.
A suspended hymn of which we are a part.
Slashing gossamer sashes?
Or sin-fugue?
You can't correct atrocity without art.
'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today.' - Adorno, Cultural Criticism and Society.
Wear a shawl of poky, wretched geometry.
Store avid, witty, sphecoid cries.
To be silent at tonic-bitter rows;
a zemirah robbed of its euphony.
II
'I have no wish to soften the saying that to write lyric poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric; it expresses in negative form the impulse which inspires committed literature.' - Adorno, Commitment
Wretch? Not I.
I'm the zebrine argument,
a vow, fast in the rushes.
If I can assert so much as negate,
it is for the wry, cryptic expert,
ill with iritic hype.
I omitted rats, coyotes, vipers
- a blip.
III
Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream; hence it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz you could no longer write poems. - Adorno, Negative Dialectics.
The amaranthine aguille
of hex, memento, orbs, proven zen.
A suspended hymn of which we are a part.
Slashing gossamer sashes?
Or sin-fugue?
You can't correct atrocity without art.