(untitled), and: Point by Point

Abstract

(untitled), and: Point by Point Mikhail Aizenberg (bio) and J. Kates (bio) (untitled) Memory unmoored far in the past,freed, we have forgotten everything—phone numbers, passwords, addresses,and poems we once knew by heart. We remember only what we have readin a language we only partly know,in the ship's log of a sunken vesseland in a diary burned up long ago. [End Page 25] Point by Point 1 One who has stepped on a live wireor been caught up in a senseless warcan hear the sky's inaudible murmurand the hawk's claw digging into silence. 2 If only all words did not teach themselvesnot to understand where they led,and to speak in threatening voices,to a distant shot arcing down to earth. 3 Believe someone, complain to someone—to the black crow on the telephone helpline?Its own feathers are still growing out in the skyfor the sake of everything put into play. 4 Fold your arms,hold your breath.If you didn't know, this is all against the rules.Only the soaring falcon has already extendedthe curved knife blades of its wings. [End Page 26] Mikhail Aizenberg mikhail aizenberg has been writing poems since the mid 1960s. In 2003-4 he was awarded a Joseph Brodsky fellowship. A selection of his poems, Say Thank You (translated by J. Kates) was published by Zephyr Press in 2007, and another, Level with Us, by Cold Hub Press in 2011. J. Kates j. kates is a minor poet and a literary translator who lives in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. Copyright © 2023 Mikhail Aizenberg and J. Kates