CHRISTOPHER JANKE

 


POSTHUMOUS LOVE POEM 10

 

my leave
taking remains
a taking from
you who
remains and
from whom
like you felt
the taking
while what took
gained no
thing in the
wake of its
taking and it
I would
have liked to
have called
mine but
when I could
call anything
therefore call
and hold
you I
now they
was not
yet remains

 

 

 

 

TRANSLATION OF POSTHUMOUS LOVE POEM 10

 

for slow years we touched
fingers to fingers fingers to

backs backs to fronts there
was no way to prep

what would we have done
that would have been something

other than a premature
losing pretending to leave

before any leaving needed
to be done or instead did

we do a pretending of
that no leaving ever would

pass we lay side by side
convinced there would be

sides forever to be next to
or roll on top of and push

fronts to fronts like mouths
all over and now when

there is no front of me
to be in front of you the fingers

now digits seem as if they
give the grand fuck you

all the cells tied together
in the body and all the bodies

tied together in the mind and
what remains after all my

leaving is like I have broken
into your heart and stolen

a part and then run away
to bury it but when i open

my hanky it’s my own beating
inside except it’s

no longer beating at all

 

 

 

 

POSTHUMOUS LOVE POEM 11

 

there were these
attempts to keep

to keep myself
on a kind of path

to hold the objects
i had been told

to hold to stay
with those who

brought me here
inadvertently to

stay with those
who seemed

familiar on first
meeting attempts

to be the achievement
of myself as if

in containing my
movement there

was a possession
of a kind of treasure

when now though
not meant to

be an insult
as i scatter

across a surface
all i had thought

important for me
these things

to keep when
i thought myself

able, able
to keep

 

 

 

 

TRANSLATION OF POSTHUMOUS LOVE POEM 11

 

in keeping with keeping
those priorities we measured

lengths to which we went
lengths we measured used tools

remember the rearrangement
of the bathroom, turning

the toilet so it backed
against a different wall

and all the shadows
changed, the sun moving

only when we did
and measured time and

lengths of time scheduled
visits with matthew and

sarah, thomas and rhonda,
tried to get a time when

the ones with children
could get away for dinner,

the lengths to which we
went and strained

to hear the chorus
was it silent or just

confusing the laughter
and the weeping or

perhaps the singing
was for a different

play on a different
stage, nearby, or maybe

on the same stage,
all movement layered

over moment over
movement but that

talk of layering is
just a way to think

just a way to talk
when motion really not

a kind of talking no
priority nothing to measure

nothing that could
in the end be put

in a field penned
by a fence kept

by a pen on
the wrong stage

or maybe just
moving and not

on a stage at all and
no keeping when

time was just
some kind of sound

 

 


TYPO 16