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Literature, PoetryOctober 19, 2015

Pay Colonus

Dead Avian Gorgon by Larkin. Image Courtesy the Artist.

Dead Avian Gorgon by Larkin. Image Courtesy the Artist.

No money to pay Colonus for extraditing Oedipus, the swollen prettyfoot
caught dancing red.

What is left of misery-island
Yes, it is most refining to hear
the chatter tongues for cold peace,
deacons of liberation, oblivion
liber is also the name for a night-moth that lands
on belly of a naked woman,
mates on a Surinam negresse nude,
painted by Nola Hatterman
who was utterly sane, and had to leave Europe
before the 1930s, back to Surinam, enemy mainland.

I sought myself refuge from myself and from dreams
of the longed-for habibti woman,
the deer in any climate, tropic, meridian
is a martial animal.

I paid a fisherman to cradle me, ferry me to Venezuela
Mountains, cradle, crib is
the hammock and gentle awakening is the hurricane
(hamaka, hurakán both inventions of this region
by some palm-wino recluse
who, like me, was at least partly of Siberian ancestors,
and who therefore talked often to the robins
long before the invention
or arrival of the first Viking cruise ship,
long before Robinson Crusoe,
even longer before the shipwreck called Christ floated by,
or the first Muslim discoverers
spotted and revered by some,
for starting their restaurants and businesses, selling to Indians,
mocked by others, who put thumbs
to their noses making a wriggly trumpet motion,
saltine salute of the swordfish-ghost-clown, the indigenous Fuck you).

Slow in learning how to make bombs, front restaurants or forge dollars,
I studied Liberation Theology
in cloud monasteries, near the wells and goatherd-routes.

We thought of adoration
with every breath of our anchorage.

I became a believer, upon learning that religious Socialism
is watered by god and Silence

Utopias were no longer fairy lands
made of air—

Clouds slate
better than dutch leeuwenhoeck lenses
on adobe red brick
the kind Indians build with, craft their nests with, and cook on
bricks of intellect,
a monk’s breakfast

~ Arturo Desimone

 

Arturo Desimone‘s poetry and fiction have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, New Orleans Review, Jewrotica, Small Axe Salon, and the Acentos Review. He was born and raised on the island Aruba. At the age of 23 he emigrated to the Netherlands, and after seven years began to lead a nomadic life-style that brought him to live in such places as post-revolutionary Tunisia. He is currently based between Buenos Aires and the Netherlands.

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Billy Luck

To the Depths

Dearly Departed

Trackbacks

  1. Pay Colonus — poem in The Missing Slate magazine | arturoblogito says:
    October 25, 2015 at 3:23 AM

    […] http://journal.themissingslate.com/2015/10/19/pay-colonus/ […]

  2. Poem Confession to the Bossa Nova Police, published in Hinchas de Poesia issue 17 | arturoblogito says:
    October 30, 2015 at 2:54 PM

    […] Pay Colonus, one of my poems about history, appeared in The Missing Slate as one of the weekend poems earlier in October http://journal.themissingslate.com/2015/10/19/pay-colonus/ […]

  3. READ MY THIRD WORLD – Dyah Merta says:
    November 5, 2017 at 10:11 PM

    […] Arturo Desimone‘s poetry and fiction have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, New Orleans Review, Jewrotica, Small Axe Salon, The Missing Slate and the Acentos Review. He was born and raised on the island Aruba. At the age of 23 he emigrated to the Netherlands, and after seven years began to lead a nomadic lifestyle that brought him to live in such places as post-revolutionary Tunisia. He is currently based between Buenos Aires and the Netherlands. […]

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at [email protected].

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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