She should have been able to appreciate that quality of the intellect and the heart that impelled me (often against my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort) to live in other lives, and to endeavor—by generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions, by taking note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions whom God assigned me—to learn the secret which was hidden even from themselves.[2] Yépez finds Olson’s personality and his work to be symbolic of North American imperialism.
Olson confluía con el otro. Fundía el saber del otro en le suyo. De Dahlberg, Pound y Cagli pasaría, poco después, a Frances Boldereff y Robert Creeley. Si la obra de Olson se refiere, centralmente, a la expansión hacia lo otro, hacia la fusión y apropiación de ello, esta incorporación también opera en los limites de su propia existencia personal. Olson devora al otro, lo traga por su propia vida y, al mismo tiempo, es devorado por su presa. Ballena que devora Jobs. Olson es, fundamentalmente, un antropófago. Y es también lo canibalizado. (73) [Olson mixes himself with the other. He bases his knowledge of the other in his own self-knowledge. From Dahlberg, Pound and Cagli, he went on, shortly after to, Frances Boldereff and Robert Creeley. If the work of Olson refers centrally to expansion in the direction of the other, toward the fusion and appropriation of it, this incorporation also works at the limits of his own personal existence. Olson devours the other, he consumes it to support his own life and, at the same time, he is devoured by his catch. The whale who devours Job. Olson is fundamentally, a cannibal. And he is also the cannibalized.]
Olson, como puede verse, no es critica de esta “Americanización del mundo.” Fanático del New Deal, triunfalista Democrática, Olson se volvió un vocero, muchas veces implícito; otras, demasiado abierto, del imperialismo. A la vez, Olson es consciente de que tal “señorío,” el del Capitán Ahab, el de América, conduce al naufragio, como Melville lo supo también. “El colapso de un héroe a través del solipsismo que echa un mundo abajo” (CP 66). El solipsismo—todo solipsismo es pantópico—es lo que derriba al mundo, al imperio y, a asimismo, es su primer motor. Olson, sin embargo, es conquistado por la belleza del solipsismo. Le parece sublime el intento. Le parece trágicamente bello, bellamente trágico, la muerte por hipertrofia, la fragmentación sobreviviente. Sus restos en el fondo del mar.” (83)[Olson as can be seen is no critic of this “Americanization of the world.” A New Deal fanatic, Democratic Party braggart, Olson became a spokesperson for imperialism, often implicit; other times, excessively open. At the same time, Olson is conscious that such sovereign arrogance as that of Ahab, that of America, lead to shipwreck, as Melville also recognized. “A collapse of a hero through solipsism which brings down a world” (CP 66). Solipsism—all solipsism is pantopico—is that which brings down the world, the imperium and, at the same time, it is its prime mover. Olson, without doubt, is conquered by the beauty of solipsism. To him its purpose is sublime. It is tragically beautiful to him, beautifully tragic, death by hypertrophy, the surviving fragmentation. Its remains on the bottom of the sea.]
Time’s
unbearable complexity – as though our souls
could never be the equal of our bodies, its
devouring
occurring, at such a rate only knowing
Ko Hung [4] says white and preserving
black (that the mystery-unity is seen only in the sun
– as against Truth unity and
will make us unsuccessful
in the desire for death
1
LA PIEDRA DE LOS DÍAS
El sol es tiempo;
el tiempo, sol de piedra;
la piedra, sangre.
2
MEDIODÍA
La luz no parpadea,
el tiempo se vacía de minutos,
se ha detenido un pájaro en el aire.
3
MÁS TARDE
Se despeña la luz,
despiertan las columnas
y, sin moverse, bailan.
4
PLENO SOL
La hora es transparente:
vemos, si es invisible el pájaro,
el color de su canto.
5
RELIEVES
La lluvia, pie danzante y largo pelo,
el tobillo mordido por el rayo,
desciende acompañada de tambores:
abre los ojos el maíz, y crece.
6
SERPIENTE LABRADA SOBRE UN MURO
El muro al sol respira, vibra, ondula,
trozo de cielo vivo y tatuado:
el hombre bebe sol, es agua, es tierra.
Y sobre tanta vida la serpiente
que lleva una cabeza entre las fauces:
os dioses beben sangre, comen
hombres.
Octavio Paz
IN UXMAL
1
THE STONE OF THE DAYS
Sun is time;
time, sun of rock;
stone, blood.
2
MID-DAY
Light unblinking,
time emptied of minutes,
a bird has been stopped in the air.
3 LATER
Light emissions,
the columns awaken
and, without moving, dance.
4
FULL SUN
Time is transparent:
if the bird is invisible,
we see the color of its song.
5
RELIEFS
The rain, dancing foot and long hair,
the ankle bitten by the sunbeam,
descends with drums:
the corn opens its eyes and grows.
6
SERPENT CARVED ON A WALL T
he wall breathes with sun, hums,
undulates,
a bit of sky, alive and tattooed:
the man drinks the sun, is water, is earth.
And on all this the serpent lives
who carries a head in its jaws:
the gods drink blood, they eat men.
Tr. Donald Wellman
Two times to Uxmal, its dovecote and macaw’s roost,
impossibly recursive. On the first return, unexpected confidence
in my abilities to navigate: jarring topes in the road.
Identity papers, passport and the required
foleta de migración turística,
mislaid, not where I expected to find them
on my return to my room,
compromised self, panic at the old year’s end.
No magical purpose at work here or in the recovery.
Near noon, I had been splayed on a high platform
for a sun god’s inspection,
exposed post-operative on offer.
On the lawn of the palace, jewel box
of ancient authority, children played at jaguar
and diviner. From my perch I examined
the bedrooms where girls were feted before sacrifice.
Fields and shrub forests in the distance,
remarkably green toward the north coast.
Do they burn the earth to destroy the thorn bushes,
potentilla fruticosa, morning glory, red darts from a fennel
where I had wandered into uncharted ruins?
Descending the ninety-nine stairs,
a small incautious boy tottered
on the brink of a well. I called out, “¡Cuidado!”
Happily, he did not fall. I acquired a guidebook to Mayan ruins
with reprints of drawings by Catherwood
and daguerreotypes by Charnay. Also a puppet,
with an arm long sleeve, wearing
typical yucateca costume. And an jipi.
No great awakening in these details,
only that my tourism seemed almost joyous,
setting aside, for reasons of conscience, my status:
consumer without identity in an impoverished land.
At night, on the second return, error led me into Muná,
known for workshops that specialize in reproductions.
Museum security had recovered my papers
from the floor of a stall where I had urinated,
dislodging the passport from a waistband
when extracting bills. With my papers restored,
I was able to view the sound and light show,
son et lumière, turning to my left (so often I take
the long way around), assuming that on this night,
I might be one of only a few there,
gingerly stepping over grates
that house flood lights, then turning, about face,
to find myself on the opposite side of the quadrangle
from the crowded stands on the north wall, “Chac, Chac”
stereo prayers to end the drought.
Quetzalcoatl, his form wound among the Puuc friezes,
illuminated blue, then green. How can I explain
that the serpent god has female aspects? Venus, Lucero?
On this night, I had intended to meet my scorpion woman,
my Shangó, Santa Barbara. Endless New Year’s Eve
dawning on a desolate balcony overlooking
an empty plaza, supping on cream of cilantro soup,
desiccated poc-chuk, the white carriages below having waited to transport
lovers to balls in mansions on Avenida Montejo.
[2] Oaxaca: Almadía, 2007. Available as The Empire of Neomemory, Chain 2013. Eds. Jen Hofer Christian Nagler & Brian Whitener.
[3] “My Life Tangent to the Charles Olson Circle.” Minutes of the Charles Olson Society, Aug. 2007. Revised version in The Cranberry Island Series (Loveland: Dos Madres, 2012).
[4] Ko Hung A.D, 280-240, Taoist philosopher whose Alchemy, Medicine, Religion in the China of A.D. 320 was edited by James Ware of the MIT press in 1963. Gerrit Lansing. shared this text with Olson on Monday, July 22.
[5] “The Transnational Counterculture.” Reconstructing the Beats. Ed. Jennie Skerl (NY: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2004): 27-40.
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