Читать книгу The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest - Barbara Guest - Страница 11

The Blue Stairs

The Blue Stairs

There is no fear

in taking the first step

or the second

or the third

having a position

between several Popes

In fact the top

can be reached

without disaster

precocious

The code

consists in noticing

the particular shade

of the staircase

occasionally giving way

to the emotions

It has been chosen

discriminately

To graduate

the dimensions

ease them into sight

republic of space

Radiant deepness

a thumb

passed over it

disarming

as one who executes robbers

Waving the gnats

and the small giants

aside

balancing

How to surprise

a community

by excellence

somehow it occurred

living a public life

The original design

was completed

no one complained

In a few years

it was forgotten

floating

It was framed

like any other work of art

not too ignobly

kicking the ladder away

Now I shall tell you

why it is beautiful

Design: extraordinary

color: cobalt blue

secret platforms

Heels twist it

into shape

It has a fantastic area

made for a tread

that will ascend

Being humble

i.e. productive

Its purpose

is to take you upward

On an elevator

of human fingerprints

of the most delicate

fixity

Being practical

and knowing its denominator

To push

one foot ahead of the other

Being a composite

which sneers at marble

all orthodox movements

It has discovered

in the creak of a footstep

the humility of sound

Spatially selective

using this counterfeit

of height

To substantiate

a method of progress

Reading stairs

as interpolation

in the problem of gradualness

with a heavy and pure logic

The master builder

acknowledges this

As do the artists

in their dormer rooms

eternal banishment

Who are usually grateful

to anyone who prevents them

from taking a false step

And having reached the summit

would like to stay there

even if the stairs are withdrawn

Turkey Villas

At night I sometimes see

those wooden villas

as if they were shacks

caught in an avalanche

and I crossing the Alps

Or

to make a shorter story

and relate in truth

to my life

as if it were San Francisco

1937

and a waterfront strike

the houses on the hills

were wooden and grey

tilted

Those ordinary houses

in which a few people

preserved the art

of pipe playing … A.D.

It is a vast smooth dream

this uncrippled Bosphorus

I don’t like to consider

what goes on at the bottom

or the galleons and risks

that plunged

as ever so often a canoe

It is a shade

a window shade also

one that can be drawn if the

curtain is working

like a vat of oil

Now to be a proper historian

of my dreams

I must relate

the sidereal action

Of a ship seen from

A Hotel Hilton balcony

Think of that

Balcon Hilton!

Enough of this dizziness

let us apply the oars

Not to freeze

in a mosaic

not to be fooled

by a Mosque

What an idea!

I am spinning with ideas

to the top of the Mosque

I am an ice cream cone

Muzzein

I am drenched

with Blue

Fevered with ideas

I heat them in my pocket

these beads of ideas