Poem-A-Day: Paper Swallow by Stanley Moss

Guest Editor: Jane Hirshfield, Academy of American Poets Chancellor, January 8, 2014 Paper Swallow by Stanley Moss     Francisco Goya y Lucientes, I dedicate this paper swallow to you and fly it from the balcony of San Antonio de la Florida past the empty chapels of the Four Doctors of the Church. My praying hands are fish fins again, one eye a lump of tar, the other hard blood, my flapping lids sewed down to my cheekbones. Time, the invisible snake, keeps its head and fangs deep in the vagina of space. Reason blinded me, banished me. I fight the liar in me, selective desire, my calling nightmares 'dreamless sleep.' Blind, coño, I made a musical watch, the image of Don Quixote points the hours, Sancho the minute hand. I hear the right time when I listen to my watch play church bells. Mystery this, mystery that. I have another watch--wolves howling and dogs barking. Now the invisible snake swims in the Ebro. I look out of my window to see time as if it were not in my mouth and all my other two-timing orifices. Don Francisco, I swear at the feet of the dead who maim me and the living who heal me that the least sound, a page turning, whips me. I owe my blindness, this paper swallow, to you, because I lived most of my life, a marrano, in your deaf house. I pull open one of my eyes like the jaws of a beast.     Copyright © 2014 by Stanley Moss. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem "I was taken by Spanish poetry and painting in my early teens. I have another poem written before 'Paper Swallow' that may be useful to the reader, 'Capriccio.' Here is the opening stanza:   Better if I had said in song what I wanted   from a lady beneath her window or in a car   or when she passed twirling a parasol.   I saw Goya knew about suffering.   He etched a baby a woman held by its wrists   and ankles, its anus used as a bellows   to flame up the fire. I was Goya's child." --Stanley Moss Most Recent Book by Moss No Tear is Commonplace (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2013)                Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.     Stanley Moss is the author of God Breaketh Not All Men's Hearts Alike (Seven Stories Press, 2011) and No Tear is Commonplace (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2013). He lives in New York.     Related Poems Birdcall by Alicia Suskin Ostriker Slur by Jacek Gutorow Poem with Lines from Pierre Reverdy by Sandra Simonds  __________________________ Love reading Poem-A-Day? Help support it today.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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