Simple things like bread,
you can't even think about them.
The lesson of skin touching skin,
...
I shall never reach Danville, Ohio,
Danville distant and lonely.
Black car, small moon,
in the back seat beer.
...
"All these things the creator told me in Alabama."
—Sun Ra
Mariposa, what a clean word is that!
...
Don't kill yourself, Paul.
The world is angry for only a moment
and then it loves you again.
Even its perfect indifference
is love and no love in equal doses.
...
"I take away my hand, which writes and speaks much."
—Jaime Sabines
I take away my mouth,
...
Paul Hoover was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1946. He currently holds a position as a professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Together with Maxine Chernoff, he edited and translated Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. In another collaboration, together with Nguyen Do, Hoover edited and translated the anthology Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry (Milkweed Editions, 2008).)
Corazón
Simple things like bread,
you can't even think about them.
The lesson of skin touching skin,
the lesson of earth as it rolls in darkness,
the lesson of things as they are.
The mind collapses under the weight
of so much thinking. It's almost tragic.
The road has no thought of distance.
The road is just the road.
Words don't think us,
words on a table among the other meats,
words like summers passing.
In blue organdy dresses,
the policemen are euphoric.
Transparent and irreverent,
the wide face of lightning
is pressed to water's surface.
The century is thick with history
and the worst of intentions.
The very worst intentions,
and all I can drink lately
is the filthy holy water.