On Monday night I caught a reading by Anna Moschovakis & Robert Kelly at the DIA Art Foundation. Exciting work from & excellent reading by both poets (The evening’s audio\/visual record should eventually be up at Pennsound). I was able to record a bit of Kelly’s reading & below is one poem I more specifically liked at first “hear.” RK had introduced that section by saying they were a Tarot card series, the major arcana, but with post-Pongean everyday objects, the first he read was “A Glass,” the second one this “Cellar Door.”<\/p>\n
THE CELLAR DOOR<\/p>\n
The cellar door
\nstands open.
\nIt leads down
\nto a little Galilee
\nbetween the earth and
\nhow much of heaven
\nfits in a house,<\/p>\n
a between place
\nlike between your eyes.
\nSuch words
\nwe rest on things,
\nhoping they don\u2019t
\nslip off by night.<\/p>\n
It is day now,
\nyou can see this
\ninnocent aperture
\nleads gently down\u2014
\nwould you go down there
\nwith me
\nif I call you
\nby the name of another?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
Why should we lie.
\nThere are so many ways
\ninto a single house.
\nI offer the low path,
\nhumid, cool down there,
\nwhitewashed stone walls
\ngentle menace of furnace,
\nsump pump, dust.
\nCool dust,
\nnot so different
\nfrom remembering.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
3.<\/p>\n
The picture
\nis out of breath.
\nIt just wants you
\nto go in.<\/p>\n
Humble yourself
\nto the low
\nceiling of the actual.
\nTalk to whoever
\nyou meet down there.
\nLater you can
\nhelp him up the stairs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n