WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:04.080 align:middle line:84% The poem I'm going to read, "Nocturnal Collection," 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:06.810 align:middle line:90% is a poem about sleep. 00:00:06.810 --> 00:00:09.180 align:middle line:90% It's a nightmare narrative. 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:12.480 align:middle line:84% It's surreal, and it has about as rich 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:14.790 align:middle line:84% and sustained a collection of images 00:00:14.790 --> 00:00:18.450 align:middle line:84% as any poem I think I've ever read. 00:00:18.450 --> 00:00:22.410 align:middle line:84% The translation is by Ben Belitt. 00:00:22.410 --> 00:00:26.130 align:middle line:90% "Nocturnal Collection." 00:00:26.130 --> 00:00:32.549 align:middle line:84% I had vanquished that angel of sleep, allegorical mourner. 00:00:32.549 --> 00:00:36.570 align:middle line:84% But his travail went on, and its ponderous football 00:00:36.570 --> 00:00:42.720 align:middle line:84% came closer sheathed with snails and cicadas, seaborne 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:45.130 align:middle line:84% and brackish, smelling of fruits. 00:00:45.130 --> 00:00:47.700 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:50.460 align:middle line:90% Wind rattles the months. 00:00:50.460 --> 00:00:52.560 align:middle line:90% A train whistles. 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:58.020 align:middle line:84% Fever paces the bedpost, a hard intonation of darkness, 00:00:58.020 --> 00:01:01.710 align:middle line:84% like a bottomless downfall of patches. 00:01:01.710 --> 00:01:06.930 align:middle line:84% Distance repeated, wine in a nondescript color, 00:01:06.930 --> 00:01:11.460 align:middle line:84% the dusty approach and the balling of cows. 00:01:11.460 --> 00:01:16.290 align:middle line:84% Sometimes the black of his basket falls hard on my chest. 00:01:16.290 --> 00:01:20.460 align:middle line:84% His conqueror's pack cuts my shoulder, all 00:01:20.460 --> 00:01:22.500 align:middle line:90% his legions of brine. 00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:27.300 align:middle line:84% The armies deploying by halves, overturning the heavens, 00:01:27.300 --> 00:01:30.750 align:middle line:84% overtaking the things of the sky. 00:01:30.750 --> 00:01:33.360 align:middle line:90% His breathing goes at a gallop. 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:36.270 align:middle line:90% His step is a kiss. 00:01:36.270 --> 00:01:39.750 align:middle line:84% His infallible salts bind the eye 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:43.330 align:middle line:84% with the might of their essences his somber intent. 00:01:43.330 --> 00:01:45.840 align:middle line:90% 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:50.670 align:middle line:84% He enters his providence there like a master, sombusly robed 00:01:50.670 --> 00:01:54.630 align:middle line:84% in his substances, suddenly whole. 00:01:54.630 --> 00:02:00.600 align:middle line:84% He engenders prophetic foods without quarter. 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.330 align:middle line:84% His campaigners have often been known to me 00:02:03.330 --> 00:02:07.650 align:middle line:84% with their weapons corroding in air, their immensity. 00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:12.120 align:middle line:84% So savage their passing for space 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:16.110 align:middle line:84% he has harried my heart's depths in search of it. 00:02:16.110 --> 00:02:20.430 align:middle line:84% He rules the uncharted plateaus, has danced 00:02:20.430 --> 00:02:23.400 align:middle line:90% with the doomed and the usual. 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:27.870 align:middle line:84% His aerial acids break into my flesh in the night. 00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:32.880 align:middle line:84% And I hear in my entrails his instrument stir. 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:40.350 align:middle line:84% I listen for a dream of old play fellows, women beloved, 00:02:40.350 --> 00:02:44.130 align:middle line:84% and then rent by the shock of my dreaming. 00:02:44.130 --> 00:02:47.880 align:middle line:84% Speechless, I tread on the pile of the carpets 00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:52.680 align:middle line:84% or bite on the blaze of his poppy transported. 00:02:52.680 --> 00:02:55.950 align:middle line:84% Oh, you slumbering dead who so often have 00:02:55.950 --> 00:02:59.640 align:middle line:84% danced with me, caught to the weight of my heart 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:04.660 align:middle line:84% toward what lust of the cities we journey. 00:03:04.660 --> 00:03:08.070 align:middle line:84% So with the damp of this birth pain, 00:03:08.070 --> 00:03:13.620 align:middle line:84% with the shadowy symmetry like a wine cellar padlocked, the air, 00:03:13.620 --> 00:03:16.560 align:middle line:90% too, is criminal. 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:21.650 align:middle line:84% Sad crocodile colors the wall and the sinister weft 00:03:21.650 --> 00:03:27.360 align:middle line:84% of the spider. We tread over pulp like a carrion monster. 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:33.150 align:middle line:84% Black grapes hang adornments of bloating of juices clogging 00:03:33.150 --> 00:03:37.110 align:middle line:90% the ruins like wine skins. 00:03:37.110 --> 00:03:41.760 align:middle line:84% Captain, whatever our reckoning, slip the mute 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:45.180 align:middle line:90% latches and wait for me there. 00:03:45.180 --> 00:03:48.900 align:middle line:84% We must feast in our funeral clothing. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:53.520 align:middle line:84% A malarial patient stands watch by the doors. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:59.610 align:middle line:84% Love that grows late and the shorelines are lost. 00:03:59.610 --> 00:04:04.140 align:middle line:84% A day, like a tatter of tablecloth drying, 00:04:04.140 --> 00:04:09.000 align:middle line:84% flaps in a circle of lives and extension. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:16.079 align:middle line:84% All things that live give some part of themselves to the air. 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:20.910 align:middle line:84% Intent upon atmosphere, keeping close watch 00:04:20.910 --> 00:04:26.550 align:middle line:84% come the beggars, the lawyers, the gangsters, the postman, 00:04:26.550 --> 00:04:31.290 align:middle line:84% the seamstresses, a little of every vocation 00:04:31.290 --> 00:04:34.920 align:middle line:84% a humbled remainder that works towards some destined 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:37.360 align:middle line:90% completion within us. 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:40.800 align:middle line:84% I have looked for it long, vanquished no doubt 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:45.480 align:middle line:84% by the evenings and go on with no arrogance. 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:48.515 align:middle line:90% 00:04:48.515 --> 00:04:52.180 align:middle line:84% That's an approximation of what that form is. 00:04:52.180 --> 00:04:53.000 align:middle line:90%