1

Returning to the Fields and Gardens Returning to the Fields and Gardens Returning to the Fields and Gardens Returning to the Fields and Gardens

Selected poems
2

T'ao Ch'ien (365-427)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Returning to the Fields and Gardens (II)

I plant beans below the southern hill:
there grasses flourish and bean sprouts are sparse.
At dawn, I get up, clear out a growth of weeds,
then go back, leading the moon, a hoe over my shoulder.

Now the path is narrow, grasses and bushes are high.
Evening dew moistens my clothes;
but so what if my clothes are wet
I choose not to avoid anything that comes

To the Tune of "Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers"

Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day;
auspicious incense burns in the gold animal.
Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival,
but a midnight chill
touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen.

I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk.
Now a dark fragrance fills
my sleeves and makes me spin.
The bamboo blinds sway in the west wind.
And I am even thinner than a yellow flower.


3

Wen I-to (1899-1946)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Perhaps

Perhaps you have wept and wept, and can weep no more.
Perhaps. Perhaps you ought to sleep a bit;
then don't let the nighthawk cough, the frogs
croak, or the bats fly.

Don't let the sunlight open the curtain onto your eyes.
Don't let a cool breeze brush your eyebrows.
Ah, no one will be able to startle you awake:
I will open an umbrella of dark pines to shelter your sleep.

Perhaps you hear earthworms digging in the mud,
or listen to the root hairs of small grasses sucking up water.
Perhaps this music you are listening to is lovelier
than the swearing and cursing noises of men.

Then close your eyelids, and shut them tight.
I will let you sleep; I will let you sleep.
I will cover you lightly, lightly with yellow earth.
I will slowly, slowly let the ashes of paper money fly.

Li Ho (790-816)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Autumn Comes

4

Wind in the plane tree startles the heart: a grown man's grief.
By dying lamplight, crickets are weeping cold threads.
Who will ever read the green bamboo slips of this book?
Or stop the ornate worms from gnawing powdery holes?
Such thoughts tonight must disentangle in my gut.
In the humming rain, a fragrant spirit consoles this poet.
On an autumn grave, a ghost chants Pao Chao's poem,
and his spiteful blood, buried a thousand years, is now green jade.

Li Po (701-762)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Drinking Alone with the Moon

Among the flowers with a jug of wine,
I pour, alone, lacking companions,
and, raising cup, invite the bright moon
facing my shadow makes three people.
But the moon is unable to drink,
and my shadow just follows my body;
for a time, the moon leads the shadow
be joyous as long as it's spring!
I sing, and the moon wavers.
I dance, and the shadow stumbles.
When sober, we were intimate friends;
now drunk, each of us separates.
May we be bound and travel without anxieties
may we meet in the far Milky Way.


Song of Ch'ang Kan

5

When my hair just began to cover my forehead,
I was plucking flowers, playing in front of the gate.
You came along riding a bamboo stick horse,
circling and throwing green plums.
Together we lived in Ch'ang-kan Village
never suspicious of our love.
At fourteen, I became your wife,
my shy face never opened.
I lowered my head, faced the dark wall,
to your thousand calls, never a response.
At fifteen, I became enlightened,
was willing to be dust with you, ashes with you.
Always preserving you in my heart,
why should I ascend the terrace to look for your return?
At sixteen, you traveled far, through
Ch-t'ang Gorge, by rocks and swirling waters
And in the fifth month, they are impassable,
monkeys wailing to the sky
By our door where you left footprints,
mosses, one by one, grew over;
too deep to be swept away!
Leaves fall early in the autumn wind.
In lunar August, yellow butterflies
hovered in pairs over the west garden grasses.
My heart hurt at this sight, beauty flickering
Sooner or later, if you return through the Three Pa district,
send home first. I will meet you,
ignore the long distance, even to Long Wind Sands.
Li Shang-yin (813-858)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Untitled (I)

The chance to meet is difficult,
******** but parting is even more difficult.
The east wind is powerless
******** as the hundred flowers wither.
A spring silkworm spins silk
6

******** up to the instant of death.
A candle only stops weeping
******** when its wick becomes ash.
In the morning mirror, she grieves
******** that the hair on her temples whitens.
Chanting poems in the evening,
******** she only senses the moonlight's cold.
From here, P'eng Mountain is not too far.
******** O Green Bird, seek, seek her out.

Li Po (701-762)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Drinking Alone with the Moon

Among the flowers with a jug of wine,
I pour, alone, lacking companions,
and, raising cup, invite the bright moon
facing my shadow makes three people.
But the moon is unable to drink,
and my shadow just follows my body;
for a time, the moon leads the shadow
be joyous as long as it's spring!
I sing, and the moon wavers.
I dance, and the shadow stumbles.
When sober, we were intimate friends;
now drunk, each of us separates.
May we be bound and travel without anxieties
may we meet in the far Milky Way.


Song of Ch'ang Kan
7


When my hair just began to cover my forehead,
I was plucking flowers, playing in front of the gate.
You came along riding a bamboo stick horse,
circling and throwing green plums.
Together we lived in Ch'ang-kan Village
never suspicious of our love.
At fourteen, I became your wife,
my shy face never opened.
I lowered my head, faced the dark wall,
to your thousand calls, never a response.
At fifteen, I became enlightened,
was willing to be dust with you, ashes with you.
Always preserving you in my heart,
why should I ascend the terrace to look for your return?
At sixteen, you traveled far, through
Ch-t'ang Gorge, by rocks and swirling waters
And in the fifth month, they are impassable,
monkeys wailing to the sky
By our door where you left footprints,
mosses, one by one, grew over;
too deep to be swept away!
Leaves fall early in the autumn wind.
In lunar August, yellow butterflies
hovered in pairs over the west garden grasses.
My heart hurt at this sight, beauty flickering
Sooner or later, if you return through the Three Pa district,
send home first. I will meet you,
ignore the long distance, even to Long Wind Sands.

8

Li Shang-yin (813-858)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Untitled (I)

The chance to meet is difficult,
******** but parting is even more difficult.
The east wind is powerless
******** as the hundred flowers wither.
A spring silkworm spins silk
******** up to the instant of death.
A candle only stops weeping
******** when its wick becomes ash.
In the morning mirror, she grieves
******** that the hair on her temples whitens.
Chanting poems in the evening,
******** she only senses the moonlight's cold.
From here, P'eng Mountain is not too far.
******** O Green Bird, seek, seek her out.

Wang Wei (701-761)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Hsin-yi Village

At the tips of branches,
******** hibiscus
opening red calyxes
9

******** deep in the mountains.
A stream, hut:
******** yet no one.
The flowers bloom
******** and fall, bloom and fall

Li Shang-yin (813-858)

Translated by Arthur Sze


Untitled (I)

The chance to meet is difficult,
******** but parting is even more difficult.
The east wind is powerless
******** as the hundred flowers wither.
A spring silkworm spins silk
******** up to the instant of death.
A candle only stops weeping
******** when its wick becomes ash.
In the morning mirror, she grieves
******** that the hair on her temples whitens.
Chanting poems in the evening,
******** she only senses the moonlight's cold.
From here, P'eng Mountain is not too far.
******** O Green Bird, seek, seek her out.


TREASURES

10

They want to know if I have swallowed a precious stone. I suffer patiently through the
procedure until it becomes clear that I am as empty as a museum hall after visiting hours, but in
order to pay the X-ray bill they present me with, some of my body parts are going to have to be
golden, at least. And why not? Because I have pearls in my mouth, silk on my head, and
emeralds in my eye sockets, all very difficult to conserve, regulating the temperature and light as
crowds of visitors pass slowly by, and yet it doesnt occur to anyone that the most beautiful
things are concealed in my heada sparkling treasure of thoughts, enough to last me through the
end of my life. How sad that no one else will get to admire the diadems of sentences, the pearl-
strings of the nights meditations, which even I, in my solitude, must stash back in the heads
safe and lock for the night.
So thats why Im making this folded paper boat and putting all of my treasures into it,
letting it go on the river to sail toward a person who will own everything from now on.
11






THE DIAMOND MINE

How difficult it is to part with friends (the endless conversation still running like a fire
truck at full speed, their cigarette butts burning in the ashtray): you linger a moment before
beginning to wash the cups of just-evaporated coffee, hoping to evoke an illusion of their
presence from the cup brims warmed by their lips: words like squirrels, jumping from lips to the
branches of ears
You must see them, enjoy their nimbleness and grace, try in vain to cuddle with them
even the son, already dressed in his school uniform, chases them until the last minute, risking
being late againyes, it is still possible to trick them into sitting down at the table again, to
command their full attention, so that they forget the grandiose projects of the day into which they
will soon be plunging; and, laughing until tears form, suddenly you feel yourself to be the richest
person in the world, strewn with the amethysts of their hearts and the emeralds of their minds,
understanding that friendship is the greatest of all diamond mines.
12






THE IKEBANA OF HAPPINESS

On the same day when, seventeen million years ago, a small girl with red cheeks, seventeen
years old and studying floriculture, I came to my Teacher Snow to learn the art of composing the
Ikebana of Happiness, charming people with the beauty of massed orchids and its subtle
fragrance; on the same day, only seventeen million years later, I was visited by a tall and elegant
seventeen-year-old boy who declared me to be his teacher, so that even though both of my arms
were occupied (the boy Caius and the girl Gerda sweetly whimpering on them), I realized that I
had no right to stop halfway through harsh February, which had frozen the begonias and myrtles,
because I could compose ikebanas anywhere, even by breathing on a window glass, scarcely
touching its cold surface with my lips, since what had been sown in me by my teacher had
already come into leaf in my pupilflowers, without which the elusive Ikebana of Happiness
would be unimaginable.

13






THE GRAVE OF AN UNKNOWN PRINCESS

How lonely she felt in her ancestors gray Gothic castle with the soul of her dead father,
her invalid mother, and her two children whose hair smelled like feathers. On successful hunting
days her husband would invite his whole clan to the castle: his still-strong father and mother,
three brothers like oaks, four children from his previous marriage to an Italian countess whod
run off with the captain of the Hussars, who knows where, and the daughter-in-law whod made
him a present of his first-born grandson. It was like that forest of the future moaning and rustling
on her grave.
The princess was thin and pale, living on the crumbs of her husbands love. He was
hardly ever at home, now teaching the youngest son by his first marriage how to shoot with a
bow, now feasting at the eldest sons wedding (at which the fugitive Italian countess had put in a
rare appearance), now baptizing his grandson, now choosing a bride for his middle
son. Certainly, it was good that he took care of his family, always organizing noisy feasts for
them, at which she felt like a foreign body. But since the church had blessed his union with the
Italian woman, the princess felt that not even religion could dispel the hatred and bitterness she
felt toward her ambivalent life, that nobody inside or outside of the castle walls gave a damn
about her, though she knelt for hours at a time in her ancestors oak-carved chapel, begging
heaven for an intercession.
It seemed that nothing was going to change until she died. That was why, above all, the
princess did not want her husbands clan invited to her funeral: all those strange oak, birch, and
ash trees rustling and swaying for all time in the one place that had always been hers alonethe
grave of the princess.
14






GAMES

The building was made of ferroconcrete, like a typical project, but standing apart from its
absolutely identical relatives, its corridors daubed with grimy oil paint, the doors to its rooms
sealed shut, its ceiling whitened with chalk, women of different ages knocking timidly on its
doors but never dreaming that, at the other end of the corridor, a girl of three or four with blue
eyes wide open would shoot them a friendly look, surprised that they tried to hide their flushed
faces under kerchiefs or hat veils, as if a glance of theirs could kill the girl with the cold blade of
a knife.
They were as smart as dolls, blondes and brunettes, but their industrial eyes needed
workthey neither opened nor closed, nothing but decorated plastic.
Now when the girl grew up to play every day with blood pressure monitors and
stethoscopes, it seemed to her that if those dolls, moving but not blinking or speaking, had only
let her play with them back then, they wouldnt have stayed in that building forever, their
hideously naked cloth bodies filled with sawdust, their wrenched-off heads and twisted-off arms
and legs and poked-out eyes rolling who knows where, under the furnituretoys that one is sick
of, toys that have served their time, banished to some utility room of the building. If only they
had played with her! But the dolls had been keen to play with boys, not knowing that boys dont
like to play with dolls.

15






JAZZ

Im in a hurry, Im already late for the jazz concert, and I have no idea what could happen
in that jam-packed hall, face to face with the executioner who tediously consults his assistant and
reads the sentence from the notes that only he can see, maybe taking pity, or maybe opening an
artery, chopping off a head, compelling everyone to howl with horror and fascinationthat
executioner whose name is Music!
But the jazz goes on breaking like this crown of dandelions my son has asked me to
make, crying through his clarinet, not caring that I dont have time for it. After a few minutes
the dandelions will wither, individual as sounds that some musician has played or sighed, though
hes not likely to remember them, or be remembered for having played them one time only.
But the futility of this job, weaving a crown of dandelions, gives me a certain pleasure
that I dont quite understand, feeling feverish and glancing at the clock whose hands dont show
the time thats still left, like life after death.
Because what kind of concert could evoke the jazz of life?
16






THE GOSSAMERS OF INDIAN SUMMER

When leaves and parchment scrolls begin to rustle and turn yellow, it becomes necessary
to fall in love, gracefully tugging the blameless gossamers of Indian summer which men and
women assume must be binding their personalities to each otherto fall in love the way a storm
wastes its energy rending the roofs of houses as if they were meaningless tin canssuddenly a
star and not a desk lamp lights up, and fields of Mars stretch where there had been wallpaper,
now reddening when the cosmic ship of passion approaches, now getting pale for fear that
nobody will touch the incandescent body, andwhat does it matter, where it might lead?
Heaven and Hell mixing right here on our sinful Earth.
Whipped by hail, flooded by the Sunoh, Lordhow small and uninteresting we would
look to ourselves standing on trial in front of your eyes that are a sky of changing tints and
colors, covered with the clouds of compassion.

17






THE WAGTAIL ON THE CHIMNEY

Quick little bird on the rim of the chimney:
the city is burning in the flames of sin
as glittering nightclubs devour the patrons

thrusting at each other. Tonight a stripper
will run through her act in a foreign bordello
and a student coming from a visit to a friend

will snarl like a mermaid in Nemunas River
weeds after getting raped at knifepoint.
Pennies will fall into the margarine tub
of the beggar kneeling on the public sidewalk,
and a Good Samaritan organization

will run out of clothes for the homeless woman
spending the night above a heating vent.
And they, and all the patients
waiting for spring to arrive, will pulsate
in the citys lungs, and when the sleeping giant

awakens, hell spit lava through the chimney,
though he pities the wagtail perching on its rim.


DESSERT MENU

Frozen carrots. Politicians
eating carrots. Boxers
eating carrots. Professors
eating carrots. Wallflowers
eating carrots. Some or other
specimen picking carrots
from streetlights and sacks of cement.

Good for your sight. Of course.
Forgive me, maam, but why
would I want two perfect eyes
ifregrettably the only thing I can see
is fields of men eating carrots.
18


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_ddu _ddu _ddu _ddu

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g| g| g| g|. .. . . . . . @|OO8 @|OO8 @|OO8 @|OO8 ,
@uLGdMu @uLGdMu @uLGdMu @uLGdMu gOOg8L LMgdu gOOg8L LMgdu gOOg8L LMgdu gOOg8L LMgdu,
udOlgOG Ll[uu@ GOggGd8 u_uG_Lg udOlgOG Ll[uu@ GOggGd8 u_uG_Lg udOlgOG Ll[uu@ GOggGd8 u_uG_Lg udOlgOG Ll[uu@ GOggGd8 u_uG_Lg OL0d_ OL0d_ OL0d_ OL0d_ @ dMLg| @ dMLg| @ dMLg| @ dMLg|
8Og|du 8Og|du 8Og|du 8Og|du ,
udOlgOG Ll[uu@ d@0@uu @ d|@QM 8Ogdu udOlgOG Ll[uu@ d@0@uu @ d|@QM 8Ogdu udOlgOG Ll[uu@ d@0@uu @ d|@QM 8Ogdu udOlgOG Ll[uu@ d@0@uu @ d|@QM 8Ogdu , @ GO0dL8 @ GO0dL8 @ GO0dL8 @ GO0dL8
Odu0 Mug|MLddLLL_ Odu0 Mug|MLddLLL_ Odu0 Mug|MLddLLL_ Odu0 Mug|MLddLLL_,

@uLGdMu dG0@ OLL gO0Ou gu|gLLMg LQL[g @[g[ @uLGdMu dG0@ OLL gO0Ou gu|gLLMg LQL[g @[g[ @uLGdMu dG0@ OLL gO0Ou gu|gLLMg LQL[g @[g[ @uLGdMu dG0@ OLL gO0Ou gu|gLLMg LQL[g @[g[,
22

u_uG_Lg u_uG_Lg u_uG_Lg u_uG_Lg ,
uM@ O [O00| @[u@@88 uM@ O [O00| @[u@@88 uM@ O [O00| @[u@@88 uM@ O [O00| @[u@@88[0 Mg@ddLLL_ [0 Mg@ddLLL_ [0 Mg@ddLLL_ [0 Mg@ddLLL_

@uLGdMu @ udL[gu Ll[OO|0 G0L 8|O[ud|@QM[0 88|L_ 2Ou @uLGdMu @ udL[gu Ll[OO|0 G0L 8|O[ud|@QM[0 88|L_ 2Ou @uLGdMu @ udL[gu Ll[OO|0 G0L 8|O[ud|@QM[0 88|L_ 2Ou @uLGdMu @ udL[gu Ll[OO|0 G0L 8|O[ud|@QM[0 88|L_ 2Ou
ML_LLL_ MOu|Ogg|G u@Lg|LQ ML_LLL_ MOu|Ogg|G u@Lg|LQ ML_LLL_ MOu|Ogg|G u@Lg|LQ ML_LLL_ MOu|Ogg|G u@Lg|LQ . .. .
@ 8d[ LLu|GdQGO @ 8d[ LLu|GdQGO @ 8d[ LLu|GdQGO @ 8d[ LLu|GdQGO - -- - M8GOG M8GOG M8GOG M8GOG


Name of the publisher : S.Venkataramanan (Grandson of Kumbakonam Late
S.Sivaramakrishnaiyer)
Sri Chakra Publications.
9/135 Nammalwar street, East tambaram, Chennai.
Ph: +91 9894661259




UPON REGISTRATION



I knew that this city wanted to contain me
with ceramic tile and blackbird squads
when I saw the deaf commissioners
lining up to convert me;

they followed me to the urinals
to document my gestures and advise me
that the proper forms are hanging from the poplars,
that the wind will shake them till I sign.

One afternoon I stumbled upon my jokes,
archived with all of my tardies
beneath a hodgepodge of disappointed dust.

All of my doings will be registered
precisely where ungiven kisses burn,
where small grudges can be managed.


RUNNING WATER
23




As much to tap the water as to see it run the water
that nourishes what you take from whats perishable; what
waters your incalculable thirst; the water
that helps you see everything anew,
as if youd never blinked,
as if the invention of objects had ceased
hoping not so much to be forever but to have been forever; water
to connect your organs, to clean your skull and
convince you that youre not an object, not a sinkto convince you
that you have to spend your days as a man; the water
you drink to obtain an eternity,
as if being eternal would absolve us of being clumsy,
as if, by being eternal, we could avoid
the crash of a glass and the water on the floor.

DOMESTIC ZEBRAS



I can usually find them in hospitals,
in crosswalks, everywhere,
adrift between plays and throw-aways,
mapping lands, transient plans.

I often notice them in auditoriums,
and, when they raise a banner brusquely,
high upeither for Science or Arts
they can give intimidating speeches.

People: a huge mass of news,
of buried jealousies and common things;

to define them without onomatopoeia
would be impossible: they crunch from caresses...
...the squeak of a cough... bottle babble.

SIGN



24

When a storm breaks, skilled in its salting
of two bodies, dont shield your face
the current that forms will embrace
both the names and clothes of things;

when the moon moves bit by bit
without knowing itself, towards a chase
of prey hunting prey, races
across the night, reinventing it;

when we kiss, life is more dignified,
it stops being a sign in order
to be life. It is kept in a hundred beliefs

that a mouth never pronounces,
the moon is a moon and shines and fills the ages,
the hand is hand and loves what it touches.




DEDICATION



I dont know how to both talk and point at things.
I dont know how to say you are as real
as a pinprick,
real as a design to die.
Objects and you. Objects exist
because I need them
or because I havent yet realized I dont.
Real, like the palm of a hand
demands a reality.

A hand on a nape,
whats solid on whats solid

Id like
to be less evident

than this map of pores. I want to be
imaginable, but only with effort;

to be as tiny
as your notion of infinity.
25

NOCTURNE



Holding the garbage bags
like toxic dolphin skin,
culling from the trash
that is our months, from the trash
of our plans, all of the garbage
most worthy of being garbage...
The neighbors on my street run around like this,
leave at a bugles sound, slip
between the air and the galaxys pajamas.

The truck will come. The din
will pass like amnesia through the street,
an exterminating angel in uniform.
Im livid; Ive forgotten
to anoint this solid door with compost.
Missing in our house:
the shadow of a firstborn
sitting on the sofa, our delight,
our archangel of orange peels.



PINK MOON



Now that the city has scattered
we will have to trust pink moons.
The crowds have stopped elbowing us
we should file our rosy nails.

The signs encourage you to cough
as you tiptoe through the puddles;
If you ask me to show you a disorder
I will take a rose from my bag.

You go on without hope, but the dead envy you,
the dead long dead under these tiles;
everyone loved the white moon
but each moons only pink powder.

26

The girls are always running around, self-absorbed,
squeezing colorless gazelles.
The people of this city are dazed.
No one will get to die with roses.


REVERSAL OF THE REASONABLE



My God, try to remember
where you hid
the findings of that awful accident.
I dug where I detected
some buried wrecks of logic, but besides
the illogicals propellers spinning still, I found
no other explanation.

I want to understand what overturned the rule
and brought about that fatal
by exception.

What happened? The road was straight.
The warring anarchic differences
which charged you from their lair
behind the serene Edenic equality
of blooms blooms and the flowers
you cleverly quelled, corralling them
in a spacious gradation:
large
small
smaller
least.
And so the major matter: who eats whom
was settled in the court of mass.
The hunger of the smaller feeds
the hunger of the larger and so on.
It only surfaced later that
the reasonable was not
so fruitful.

And while the large fish ate the small
the ephemeral the butterfly
eros ate eros
proliferation the unique
the soul was eaten by its fretting
over leaving us
27

the seven goats devoured by the wolf
except the smallest one who hid
behind a story.
What happened, God, that final moment
on such straight road, were you daydreaming
and the rule reversed and we fell in
that fateful by exception
so now the small worm eats
the large

human
except the smallest one
who hides behind
a story.





I LEFT YOU A MESSAGE



Hello, hello, can you hear me? Hello?
Im calling from far away. What?
You cant hear me? Has my distance
discharged? Are you speaking from mobile
space? Press zero again? Again?
Can you hear me now?
Yes, can you please put my mother on?
What number did I call? The Sky
this is what I was given. Shes not there?
Can I scream her a message?
Its very urgent, tell her
I saw in my sleep she died and I
small sobbing child who peed itself
fear-soaked all the way
up and still
not dry.

Tell her to come and change it.

If she cant, tell her please
her old warning ripened, that the old
man would eat me if I didnt
eat.
28


It ripened. I became
a meal of age. Not in a small dreamy taverna.
In some popular dive now managed
by the mirror.


29






LETHES ADOLESCENCE



I wait a bit for the differences
and the indifferent to darken, then
I open the windows.
It is not urgent
but I do it to keep motion from warping.
I borrow my former curiositys head
and twist. Not twist exactly.
I nod a servile good evening to all
those fawners of the fears, the stars. Not nod
exactly. I fix with a gazing thread
the silver buttons of distance, some of which
are undone, tremble, and will fall.
It is not urgent. I do it only to show distance
my gratitude for its offering.

Without distance
long trips would shrivel. The universe
our need to flee had pined for
would be delivered to our door by motorbike
like pizza. Like a leech
old age would suck on youth and Id be called
grandmother from birth
equally by eros and grandbabies.
What would the stars then be
without distances provident support?
Earthbound silver, some candelabra, ashtrays
for the spent butts of pugnacious wealth,
and fawnings investment bubble.

Without distance
nostalgia would speak to us in thees.
Her now rare timid rendezvous
with our plethoric need
would fatally assimilate
frequencys street-smart speech.

Of course, without distance, our neighbor
30

wouldnt seem a far-off star hed be
in prime proximity, two steps would bridge
his outline from a dream.
As also nearby the souls
ultimate escape would stay.
Why so much wanderlust? Whole rooms
are empty. Wed go downstairs
to live in our basement body
and distance with its myth and odds and ends
would incarnate to flesh.

If not for you, distance, Lethe would,
much easier and faster in one night,
traverse her difficult protracted adolescence
which we, for euphony, name recall.

Not recall exactly. I fix facsimiles
with a gazing thread theyve come undone,
are trembling, and will fall.
Not fix exactly. Servile, I orbit
those fawners of time which I, for brevity,
named recall. Not recall exactly. I refuel meteors
with extended annihilation.
It is urgent.






RESURRECTION WEEK



The devotion night will show us
oppresses me. I prefer

to remember. Not that my well
of living images is dry.
But each time I place them
in their expressive postures,
I see by morning they have moved.
I know it by the scrapes their drag
from their original positions leave
on stabilitys luster.

Its why I insist
31

on remembering: to not mar the luster.
Not because it makes me feel more durable
it being the infinity of time already lapsed.

If I insist on remembering
its not to accommodate God arousing
the inert figures, I provide him
also with some motility.

I insist on remembering
not because ease offers me this choice
gratis. By arduous feeling and sacrifice
and turning despair inside out,
I eked out how to squawk-dyi squawk-ing
I speak crow-Latin to keep the menace
ignorant of my refuge.

If I insist on remembering
its not to find excuses
for always speaking in the same
worn words what do you think the new ones
are? A temporal childish defiance
to the old.

If I insist on remembering
it is no battle-flinch
no backwoods retreat. All kinds
of people constantly pass by.
What I remember can be seen
from the most central districts.

For a little hope, a hint of renewal
I remember. Im totally fed up with all
that ineluctable and future Lord
squawk why-have-you-forsaken squawk
without exaggeration!





NOTHING IS LOST OF A PIECE



Do you remember the small carafe
a crown of blue blossoms painted on
32

its wine-bearing lip?
you bought it in Alsace for me
without enthusiasm
what for, you said, we never drink.
You never know, I insisted, one day we might
in some haze need to meet.

Its handle broke for no reason
other than a deep crack in my touch.

I hold it now from your hand
steady with your hand
my hazy alcoholic figment
fills it up with wine.





THE SLEEPING TRUST


At night,
that angelform melting,
kneading the body with sleeps lotions,
creaming its defenses, it is
no physiotherapist.
It is your new employment in storage,
treasuries, safe deposit boxes you cant see
blindfolded by the bosses.
Invisible telecontrols
direct your secret practice.
Your work is this: to not know
what it is you guard or until when.

Dreams? Do they trust us? Most often
we rob them leaving in their stead
beautiful forgeries as real.

Now, for this storage post they choose
for reasons of security
bodies who sleep alone
on hard unyielding anatomic beds
since stuffing, inner springs, latex and curves
are busy growing someone else
on the empty side
33

their fluffy anomalies roll him to the dent
your worn attention sinks, your sleeping trust
keeps making room for him till danger
grazes what you guard.

Before these measures were enacted
you sometimes woke up in the morning
on the floor, dream
eye punched
purple, strange fungi sleeping
on pillow-top and foam,
and every store-room open.

Now, before sleeping, latch
windows, bolt the doors
and, as your ribcage is unlocked on either side,
drag tables vanities the wardrobe and the hutch
washing-machine night-table the TV
blockade and barricade it.





ECSTASY



My small child
got into mischief once again
climbing the ledge of the universe
his hand jostling the red
plate hanging on the skywall spilling
all the light down on himself

God startled
to see the sun
dressed in child clothes
scrambling back down the ladder
of my mind

And now I sit
and sternly scold my child
as secretly I steal his poured-on
light.


34




PROVISIONING SUMMER NEEDS



Below, the sea waits always
for a wrinkling wind.
Athos Dimoulas
Supreme Generality

Some wide-flung windows
hoist Summer up by insect derrick.

I count: a couple of letters
are missing. The bottom rocker of the s
is gone. It had been loose last year.

Now where will all this dimininution sit
with its host of eunuchs?

Still, the diminishing is firm
it withstands tons of pain. Sit freely.

I think Ill add a recliner to the list
to replace the broken s.

I also need
a small transistor radio
glued to the ears of the waves
tuned to the pirate stations of the sands.
An easily sensitized song reels in
characters that almost match the ones
summer is missing and then some. In case
you remember others. Youll have
plenty of seats.

Filtering glasses too, lest I remember more,
though now and then I do wear smoky contacts.

A hat for the sun
although it blazes less than when
night and day youd invent it.
I'll try on an old sunburn
curious whether my backs
old crazy passion for it peeled.
35


New swimsuit my decline has gained
a lot of weight. In fact, Id relish
a new body to sit along its miles and stroke
the airy wrinkles of the sea.
But logic will finally prevail:
the logic of this body at my disposal.

All the seas Ss one by one
are carefully hoisted bubble-wrapped
in blue transparent water
by seagull derrick.

What sea? Mere
illusionist pirate water
a distant cosmogonys refugee.
Corruptingly immense
because of the precipitous
and schistic initial temper of the cosmos.
Harlot escapes optical pimp.

What sea?
Time for the logic of the body
at your disposal to prevail.

Get dressed and swim.

(Tear-Dumping Strictly Prohibited.
Maturity already is
rabidly salty on its own.)





MICROWAVES



What are you doing here
a straight working road like you
on an idle bench?

Well, Im psychoanalyzing free of charge
this painter from a foreign dark-skinned land,
how calmly and skillfully he paints
36

the day out-of-work.

I midwife reliability and honor.
He plants the brush in one hand
and in the others microwaves
he heats a breadstick dried by hours
upon the suns proclaiming tongue.

Im analyzing the inventive stalling
of his hunger. He eats a sesame
apart from each small bite
extending its face value.

The light annoys me. Difficult customer.
He doesnt like the paint job
keeps changing it by stirring in
every new passing hour.

Im furious at obedient expatriation.
With every passing hour
it paints the unemployed day.

Finish already.
Soon the difficult customer
will set.





I DO NOT KNOW [THE MAN]



[Matthew, 73]
Because you keep
suspect company
especially that of the soul
you will be called someday to Prosecution
for interrogation and identification.

Be cautious
confess laconically.

They will lead you in darkness
to a sealed informants hall.
You will sit
37

at a fist-beaten table
before a fat dossier
of suspects pictures.

Theyll leaf through it one by one,
you will not speak, they will go on.
As soon as you see a finger press
insistent as a gun barrel
against a suspects temple

be ready you will say

I do not know the man

(thrice)

the barrel will move slowly, it will land
on times temple, keep
steady insistent

I do not know the man

(thrice)

equally strong if terrified
your answer in front of deaths
photograph must stand

I do not know the man

(thrice)

and when the Prosecutors finally
irritated and with savage
punches smash your face
upon a faint exquisite sketch
in dreamings charcoal

I never saw it again

once

you will say.



38



EXERCISES FOR LOSING EXTRA POUNDS
IN A SHORT TIME



Lie down. On something hard.
At first comforts vertebrae might hurt
but gradually and painlessly the spine
of immobility lengthens like a cypress.

Now contract your bad habits
in a rigid line.
Bring your hands loosely to your chest
like makeshift wings of temporary angels.
Dont shift position.
Deftly the supine rows.

Dont be scared. Fear is fattening,
it contains hunger.
Dont snack on sensations. Too many calories.
Theyre responsible for deprivation bulge.

Eyes closed at all times please.
No misconstruable peeking,
no lollipops of light.
They radiate ultraviolet nostalgia.

Exhale forcefully, lie still,
dont breathe, dont breathe
you risk imprinting only half
the oarsman on the x-ray.

Surrender now to the slide of sleep.

Ill put on a tape, relax, your mamas
lullaby, sleep my sweet
baby, willing or not.

Weigh yourselves. No moving
your body has an integrated scale.





39

VALUE ADDED



I read a most interesting
scientific finding

that we humans are
the only creatures on the earth
who weep.

And I felt pride that just our own
introversion affords us such
expressive philanthropic glands.

Lets say as a hypothesis
I was a little lemon tree in bloom
and my bud hardened to a lemon
and a fiery wind
thirsty for something juicy
twisted the branchs throat
and stole the lemon
cut it in half
with the innocent pocketknife
of a childs small theft
squeezing it hard
to drip the juice
in the roasting mouth
of its gaping breath
and by mistake in squeezing
a tart torch of its drop was flung
into your distant eye

a wish can fly
as far as you desire

perhaps just a hypothesis
it would be heard
in your tear-ducts court.





YOULL PERCEIVE NOTHING


40


Youll perceive nothing
youll just read in the morning
some coded lips scrawled
on your bedside glass
with all-night water.

Im thinking of sending my melancholy
to sleep with you tonight
so I can be alone a little.

In her bag
under her evening meds Ill pack
as if by accident one of her childhood photos
in case you sing her a lullaby
and under the lullaby Ill hide
a second set of clothes
in case things change and you
keep her tomorrow also.

Of course, how do you love by night
another without asking? Listen:
eros was an imperative
before it was entreaty.

Besides, youll feel nothing.
Shell not lie beside you exactly
the exact is inhospitable.

In an ample adjacent willingness shell sleep
glued leaning sideways to
the imperceptible sublime creation:

Love me you tell it and it loves.






MARCH



A pleasant surprise.
Today at 6:30 AM
instead of 7 yesterday
41

the public streetlights dimmed.
Some small birds tripped a bit
over their hazy twitter
but right away one constantly
strengthening hand of light
lofted them on high.

So now days grown.
By half and hour you will say.
Is that so small?
Just remember the chronovores
finally 2 minutes were enough
not even.

Then all the rest of the limitless
remaining storm was yours.





FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES



Despite its polite temperature
the night
hustled October to its finish.

Others too sat outside timid
each ones fear
wont easily forgo
that tepid prequel of the wintry
and so I too detoured
your Nordic climate
with an almost summery attitude.

Are you cold? No
we were discussing heatedly
how very black the absent stars
painted the sea

your orange juice sat far
from my coffee
and totally out of context
you whispered love
dies before it gets to age
42


I barely heard
you pulled your chair
so violently close its iron leg
jammed into my legs thought

and up flared a suspect otherworldly
fragrantly vacant pain

plainly you
God from your secret and forbidden
heights had squeezed
derision in my cup.





OF VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE



c. Crickets Without Night


Night
I heard the crickets and the stars
praising with incense
you who gives them meaning
if you dont come they neither sing nor shine

I heard the invisibles
whisper gratitude
for the absolute silence you spread
allowing their resonance to clamber
safely up awes giant trunk.

I also heard a few cowards
badmouthing you for obscuring us
how can they see to love us
without light.

What off-the-wall argument, as if
stars and crickets without night

love has ever clearly seen.
43

Only by her genetically weak spark
the wind-whipped light enlarged.






NOT ONE EXCEPTED



Dreams are so antisocial.
No friendships or bonds
they sooner see us than vanish
a spark exposed to a squall.

Anthropophobia?
Perhaps injured vanity
since they work down in the mines
of chances lost.

They too had other
dreams, you see.





SYNTHESIS



A late-arriving friend brought by
a basket of flowers progressively arrayed,
white proper roses in the center
fortressed in their buds,
a moat of laurel leaves
around the Achilles virtue of their freshness,
and something else among their vital defended navet . . .

And as our torrent of familiarity brought up
a daze of stories, inner-tubes of events,
tree-trunks of seductions, twigs of fame,
their chance and reckless current flung your name
forcefully against the boulders of my hearing
how you had died in Africa too soon
44

your heart fell from its horse.

So why had I insured your life
in some newly-constituted little poem?
It searched for a customer like mad.

I dont even remember
what huge sensation I exerted
to ensure your voices mane
the silver melodic identity
in capital notes inscribed
the purebred name of your hand
the violent equestrian gaze
and me left below it at the trough.

. . . dark little purple knots, third cousins
twice removed of tears, bury your very early news.






DIVERGENCE



Instead of hyacinths
I thought Id bring you heliotropes today
so that my care might have more upright stems
and its bony already meaning seem
round-faced full of suns seeds.

Heliotropes. Silos of glowing heat.
I prayed youd benefit.

And having arranged aesthetically
by even heights my duty in the vase
I stopped a bit to ascertain
the flowers would rotate
as their name heralds.

Astonished I saw them turn toward
my prayers lunatic fulfillment
gazing not at the sun but you.

45

Out of respect.
You were
thousands of light years
you recede.
Postscript from a Friend in Hell



They never came,
not even the devils of water came.
Judgment never arrived on the dry air
punishment never followed
bloated in the cold
or bound by the long,
irregular border
between questionable deterrence
and certain forgetfulness.
War never came, nor predation,
atonement, sacrifice,
ordeal of an identity excommunicated
beyond the furrow of its name.

Because this was never meant
to be a hell:
tidy house beside the fire,
table set to endure the night,
book opened to the exact page
where each letter splits in half
between fixed link and meaning.
No more than a day,
one more relapse into the week,
one more Tuesday after Monday,
and they never came,
they never came to lay the blame
for having downplayed death
as much through misfortune as luck,
for having twice lived through
46

the same flight of matter:
once with a mutilated
class of feeling;
once with the cannibalism of a dogma:
our lot as human beings is inconstancy,
perpetual change.
And if the formula were to become obsolete,
we would still be left to solve for the extremes
by adding up our daily acts:
the itinerary of a betrayal
and the fear until it ends.


Somewhere Else



The forbidden words
would be light, the derivatives: luminous,
flame, backlight, glint, and radiance;
light of even the most intimate hierarchies,
blue-green like interior sight
when a feeling expands
as if it were mine
and not just this anchor for the hours;
or the sun tracing over the cornice
like the footprint of a month
walking among the branches;
or the gleam with its hypothetical
display half in shadow
brought here, in my hands,
proof of something like a person
who seeks her center in another,
though it be for love;
water, even its simplest form, above all
droplets in the shackles of a waterfall,
rivers, ironic outcomes in a puddle,
47

ugly winks,
utter nonsense from a dirty,
bubbling, silty gutter;
any type of shadow,
ghost of the ear or the winding path,
sideways glances and tiptoes,
chain between edges,
shadows evading emphasis
when only the stone on the ground
remains, about to fade away;
and dust, the air in dusts path,
its wastelike quality,
its granular trace on a map
that predates facts,
golden limbo, slow gray,
the dust of shadows
especially,
with its airy atmosphere
held back by an image;
wings, the representative bird,
sometimes with a proper name,
wood doves and kestrels
bound by maritime traditions
deep in the hills,
so eccentric, their sails
withheld from any course;
walls of foam
also forbidden, along with sand,
oracular beacons along certain coasts,
sediment or mud,
mixtures for astonishment;
silences that are not acts
but miniscule deaths;
non-referential sounds
like age-old ocean,
slowly sown sky,
48

ardent arc in the shoals,
fleeting font
from lime to lunacy,
in short: forbidden
to tell if anyone or anything occurs.


VII. [Perplexed Ballad]



1.1

I saw it from the car on the way to the sea:
the tower he built of the wind in rarity.
I saw it lusting for air between cliffs and salt.
I saw it fall face first: all rubble and lime.
I saw it battered by the shore:
fragile tower of the wind in rarity.

1.2

And I asked my friend, the wise man, for his awe:
I asked him, what would be the appropriate rite: muddling
the eyes of the sun or tracking
in the sand where no generalized
cloud-shadows slither,
in contrast, outshining
imagined snow, half squall, half ire,
foamy tassel, half coast, half wane;
a bit like a seed, but not as real,
shattered nacre, fish-scale and seaweed signet.
But nothing to spoil the delicate chime,
my friend the philologist
warns, and suggests: Mespilus-rhyme.
Do you like it? It sounds like a hiss
between tusk and kiss,
49

a refrain like this:

1.3

I give and take
and a silence make,
a bit of rarity
for a bit of charity.
Let the wind choose,
or the stone dike
or the iron laugh loosed.
Pilgrims staff or tower.
No one knows how
or when, or where,
it foundered here,
its world in the midst,
the seas brief share.






VII. [Cancioncilla perpleja]



1.1

La vi desde el coche camino al mar:
la torre que fabric del viento en la raridad.
La vi rapaz del aire entre risco y sal.
La vi caer de bruces: tanto escombro por cal.
La vi caduca, de orilla:
frgil torre del viento en la raridad.

1.2

50

Y le ped al sabio, mi amigo, su asombro;
le dije, qu rito conviene: marear
los ojos del sol o rastrear
en la arena donde no repta sombra
de nube algo ms general,
por contraste, para opacar
a la nieve imaginaria, entre ceo y saa,
la borla de espuma, entre costa y mengua;
algo como una semilla, pero menos real,
ncar quebrado, sortija de escama y alga.
Aunque nada que dae el sensible taido,
me advierte mi amigo
fillogo, y sugiere: lengua de nspero.
Te gusta? Suena a silbido
entre beso y colmillo,
como un estribillo:

1.3

Dando y dando
me voy callando,
un poco de raridad
por un poco de caridad.
Que escoja el viento,
o el dique de piedra
o la risa de hierro.
El bculo o la torre.
Ya nadie supo ni cmo
ni cundo, ni dnde
vino a encallar,
su mundo en medio,
este trozo de mar.




51


XI. [Address]



Today hes going to tell us about the monsters that sun makes
that love makes
that lasting makes
that sorrow makes
that memory makes
that idleness makes
that river makes
that bridge makes
that arc makes
that shadow makes
that calm makes
that waters figure in anothers eye makes
that evil makes
that fear makes
that intention makes
that brute act makes
that guilt makes
that hindrance of indolent insects on skin makes
that air of flies and spiders makes
that our lady of the poisons makes
that minuscule death makes
that spirit entranced by residual pity makes
that heart makes, singing backwards:
who and why,
a thing like that does not speak its name.

Hes going to tell us about the monsters, first the causes,
not the effects, an afterthought on this stretch, this street;
about concealed hate, for example, in the parks,
under divided foliage, where she whispers good morning,
good afternoon, hello, goodbye, according to direction:
she, the other; he, the person; the dog between them
52

as the center point,
she, distant, unskilled clay;
he, earth, half tin, half mercury.

Hes going to tell us about our likenesses, beings who wander the earth
with their own, intimate consciousness, chimeras, speculations,
about I throw down my luck here, I place yours there: stone cornice
well-tempered like Stevenss apricot, when it gleams
in its appointed corner and signifies nothing.

Hes going to tell usnow he beginsabout visions on the white
wall, threats that thrive on chance,
about prophecies
in the diagrammed futures we invent with every
itinerary, about collective morality, the closet individual,
the people: he wouldnt dare!

Hes going to tell us: percentage comes before purpose.
The monsters, hell conclude, existentialist, comic, recalcitrant,
are ourselves, the others, feeling our way; she, withered and run aground; he in serene
affectation: mi casa es tu casa es su casa is the house of us all.
Sit down, please, sit down
here, let me tell you about
where I went, sit down here
with me, where its quiet
so you can hear,
I want you to hear
What?
I want to tell you about the first day... The harbor
festering in the harbor... the forest of masts...
... Its a parking lot for boats, I said to myself,
theres no room for the sea to fawn on the shore...
You said that already.
And the killing of the fish? Raw guts,
ripped gills, knife jabbed
between heart and viscera... Octopi
53

dying in a plastic tub, as blue
as your eyes, that last
tentacle I almost stepped on as
it curved along the asphalt...
Did I tell you about that, too?
Yes, several times.
And the sea was gray and old, always
subjective... I still dont know how to see things
without glossing them, but you know that already, above all
the sea, I never perceive it except mediated by another
intimate, imaginary sea... I came to it late...
You know that too... My sea is my own... Although
54

from the balcony that first day I observed it
for only a second, a start...
No one should live like that, I said, and again I placed myself
in the landscape, words all in a row:
leaden sea, tin sea, battered sea, my sea... Shall I go on?
Not enough time.
For what? The sea Im telling you about lasts less
than two minutes and stinks like a corpse
when I try to keep it quiet... creeping sea
I blurt aloud... crippled sea... Whats your hurry...
If you could see what I saw...
quick glance at a gull pecking saltpeter
entrails... Is it possible? That first
day words trumped realities...
I have to go.
The things Ive seen when I imagine seeing them,
nothing compares... Stay... Ill be quiet... False
preexistent places, names, lie within...
the chair drops anchor, come this way, touch the air...
if you were I, for love, your face would be
the gentlest diagonal, soft face
of someone without refuge... losing gravity...
someone small against the open air...
Look at the sun today... when I can,
inside the emptiest, hollowest
vault, anywhere you want, Ill build a light
just like it to illuminate
fiber by fiber finger by finger
the fickle brush of a feeling
against your skin... a less suspicious skin...
What did you use to come to know me... there are arms
of sea and elbows of space between
you and me but no right
of possession to restore my balance... if only I could
hold some portion of you tight
in my fist, Id pretend there were two of us.
55



XVI. [General Hospital]



Is everyone here? The shes and hes, the curs and Fates?
The creatures and the castes?
The believers, the grievers, the good and bad?
Are the flies here?
Are the rodents,
the plastic gaiters,
and the slick, rosy puddles?
Do we have the dumb-show silhouettes,
the one-armed mans introspective fingers,
the shoes lost one step at a time?
Do we have the world, humanity, you and I?
Whats missing? Mercy? Shall we share it? Divide it?
I claim half. Put it down here, in the middle,
then rub me out with your rag so useful your rag so gray,
dissipate me with that gesture that says theres so many of us that one wont matter, identitys
easy when it comes to individuals
but en masse the digits themselves
set their traps with scraps
of flesh on the one hand and spirit on the other,
so its one for all and all for none.
Oh, clever. Where have I heard that before? And is this the beauty
of the message: we are humble, unequal, compassionate
in spite of the broken molds:
I am I and you are you
even if the flood should drag us down?
And what about the face I cling to,
peeking in the doorway, the devil
written all over his smile, a withered devil, expressive?
What is he doing here?
Not with the craftiest fires,
my simple and unconditional love, for example,
56

can I remove him later.
I come as a penitent, he tells me,
going out by the door where we all came in.



LO LALA LOLA



A dream on patrol
in abandonments tenements
arrested an old acquaintance suspicion
red-handed, leaning on
a shuttered likelihood,
eavesdropping.

Please understand, I told it,
the folks you nab are no garbage.
Dont mire them in. I break my back
retrieving them. Theyre for repair and return.
Youre not their expiration.
A poor exhausted nap is what you are
under the cool of tears
while the repairs occur so they wont hurt.

A skilled restorer, inspiration,
precisely montaging all their trials
without which the body doesnt trust
any reintegration.

New people never did exist. And even if
we named a couple first-created
it was to win imaginations
majority confidence vote.
They always show up second-hand
from their mysterious origin, a mystery too
how old that is, what slavery it comes from,
horsewhipped in cellular plantations
for dinosauric eons.

We dont know a thing.
Every beginning came to us
a simile with its mystery.

A fabulous restorer, inspiration
57

of every worn beginning
renewing art, artifice, and life
from ashes to Lo
Lala Lola all fall up!

Only their box is new.

I send them down again with the old price
since they have lived before.

So, have we too?
Then whats the quick?
And is the seam a gimmick
to make us love?
If life is reparable
wheres all thats lost?
Still being stitched?
Can such delay be overcome?
This inspiration, is it careful,
correctly marking, numbering each piece,
or does it use my body by mistake
to fix like new what yours
is lacking?

So old each new sorrow.
So dearly paid for its new box.

O millionaire
answers and your unknown
hooded, secret abductors.





58

REVERSAL OF THE REASONABLE



My God, try to remember
where you hid
the findings of that awful accident.
I dug where I detected
some buried wrecks of logic, but besides
the illogicals propellers spinning still, I found
no other explanation.

I want to understand what overturned the rule
and brought about that fatal
by exception.

What happened? The road was straight.
The warring anarchic differences
which charged you from their lair
behind the serene Edenic equality
of blooms blooms and the flowers
you cleverly quelled, corralling them
in a spacious gradation:
large
small
smaller
least.
And so the major matter: who eats whom
was settled in the court of mass.
The hunger of the smaller feeds
the hunger of the larger and so on.
It only surfaced later that
the reasonable was not
so fruitful.

And while the large fish ate the small
the ephemeral the butterfly
eros ate eros
proliferation the unique
the soul was eaten by its fretting
over leaving us
the seven goats devoured by the wolf
except the smallest one who hid
behind a story.
What happened, God, that final moment
on such straight road, were you daydreaming
and the rule reversed and we fell in
59

that fateful by exception
so now the small worm eats
the large

human
except the smallest one
who hides behind
a story.





I LEFT YOU A MESSAGE



Hello, hello, can you hear me? Hello?
Im calling from far away. What?
You cant hear me? Has my distance
discharged? Are you speaking from mobile
space? Press zero again? Again?
Can you hear me now?
Yes, can you please put my mother on?
What number did I call? The Sky
this is what I was given. Shes not there?
Can I scream her a message?
Its very urgent, tell her
I saw in my sleep she died and I
small sobbing child who peed itself
fear-soaked all the way
up and still
not dry.

Tell her to come and change it.

If she cant, tell her please
her old warning ripened, that the old
man would eat me if I didnt
eat.

It ripened. I became
a meal of age. Not in a small dreamy taverna.
In some popular dive now managed
by the mirror.

60


61






LETHES ADOLESCENCE



I wait a bit for the differences
and the indifferent to darken, then
I open the windows.
It is not urgent
but I do it to keep motion from warping.
I borrow my former curiositys head
and twist. Not twist exactly.
I nod a servile good evening to all
those fawners of the fears, the stars. Not nod
exactly. I fix with a gazing thread
the silver buttons of distance, some of which
are undone, tremble, and will fall.
It is not urgent. I do it only to show distance
my gratitude for its offering.

Without distance
long trips would shrivel. The universe
our need to flee had pined for
would be delivered to our door by motorbike
like pizza. Like a leech
old age would suck on youth and Id be called
grandmother from birth
equally by eros and grandbabies.
What would the stars then be
without distances provident support?
Earthbound silver, some candelabra, ashtrays
for the spent butts of pugnacious wealth,
and fawnings investment bubble.

Without distance
nostalgia would speak to us in thees.
Her now rare timid rendezvous
with our plethoric need
would fatally assimilate
frequencys street-smart speech.

Of course, without distance, our neighbor
62

wouldnt seem a far-off star hed be
in prime proximity, two steps would bridge
his outline from a dream.
As also nearby the souls
ultimate escape would stay.
Why so much wanderlust? Whole rooms
are empty. Wed go downstairs
to live in our basement body
and distance with its myth and odds and ends
would incarnate to flesh.

If not for you, distance, Lethe would,
much easier and faster in one night,
traverse her difficult protracted adolescence
which we, for euphony, name recall.

Not recall exactly. I fix facsimiles
with a gazing thread theyve come undone,
are trembling, and will fall.
Not fix exactly. Servile, I orbit
those fawners of time which I, for brevity,
named recall. Not recall exactly. I refuel meteors
with extended annihilation.
It is urgent.






RESURRECTION WEEK



The devotion night will show us
oppresses me. I prefer

to remember. Not that my well
of living images is dry.
But each time I place them
in their expressive postures,
I see by morning they have moved.
I know it by the scrapes their drag
from their original positions leave
on stabilitys luster.

Its why I insist
63

on remembering: to not mar the luster.
Not because it makes me feel more durable
it being the infinity of time already lapsed.

If I insist on remembering
its not to accommodate God arousing
the inert figures, I provide him
also with some motility.

I insist on remembering
not because ease offers me this choice
gratis. By arduous feeling and sacrifice
and turning despair inside out,
I eked out how to squawk-dyi squawk-ing
I speak crow-Latin to keep the menace
ignorant of my refuge.

If I insist on remembering
its not to find excuses
for always speaking in the same
worn words what do you think the new ones
are? A temporal childish defiance
to the old.

If I insist on remembering
it is no battle-flinch
no backwoods retreat. All kinds
of people constantly pass by.
What I remember can be seen
from the most central districts.

For a little hope, a hint of renewal
I remember. Im totally fed up with all
that ineluctable and future Lord
squawk why-have-you-forsaken squawk
without exaggeration!





NOTHING IS LOST OF A PIECE



Do you remember the small carafe
a crown of blue blossoms painted on
64

its wine-bearing lip?
you bought it in Alsace for me
without enthusiasm
what for, you said, we never drink.
You never know, I insisted, one day we might
in some haze need to meet.

Its handle broke for no reason
other than a deep crack in my touch.

I hold it now from your hand
steady with your hand
my hazy alcoholic figment
fills it up with wine.





THE SLEEPING TRUST


At night,
that angelform melting,
kneading the body with sleeps lotions,
creaming its defenses, it is
no physiotherapist.
It is your new employment in storage,
treasuries, safe deposit boxes you cant see
blindfolded by the bosses.
Invisible telecontrols
direct your secret practice.
Your work is this: to not know
what it is you guard or until when.

Dreams? Do they trust us? Most often
we rob them leaving in their stead
beautiful forgeries as real.

Now, for this storage post they choose
for reasons of security
bodies who sleep alone
on hard unyielding anatomic beds
since stuffing, inner springs, latex and curves
are busy growing someone else
on the empty side
65

their fluffy anomalies roll him to the dent
your worn attention sinks, your sleeping trust
keeps making room for him till danger
grazes what you guard.

Before these measures were enacted
you sometimes woke up in the morning
on the floor, dream
eye punched
purple, strange fungi sleeping
on pillow-top and foam,
and every store-room open.

Now, before sleeping, latch
windows, bolt the doors
and, as your ribcage is unlocked on either side,
drag tables vanities the wardrobe and the hutch
washing-machine night-table the TV
blockade and barricade it.





ECSTASY



My small child
got into mischief once again
climbing the ledge of the universe
his hand jostling the red
plate hanging on the skywall spilling
all the light down on himself

God startled
to see the sun
dressed in child clothes
scrambling back down the ladder
of my mind

And now I sit
and sternly scold my child
as secretly I steal his poured-on
light.


66




PROVISIONING SUMMER NEEDS



Below, the sea waits always
for a wrinkling wind.
Athos Dimoulas
Supreme Generality

Some wide-flung windows
hoist Summer up by insect derrick.

I count: a couple of letters
are missing. The bottom rocker of the s
is gone. It had been loose last year.

Now where will all this dimininution sit
with its host of eunuchs?

Still, the diminishing is firm
it withstands tons of pain. Sit freely.

I think Ill add a recliner to the list
to replace the broken s.

I also need
a small transistor radio
glued to the ears of the waves
tuned to the pirate stations of the sands.
An easily sensitized song reels in
characters that almost match the ones
summer is missing and then some. In case
you remember others. Youll have
plenty of seats.

Filtering glasses too, lest I remember more,
though now and then I do wear smoky contacts.

A hat for the sun
although it blazes less than when
night and day youd invent it.
I'll try on an old sunburn
curious whether my backs
old crazy passion for it peeled.
67


New swimsuit my decline has gained
a lot of weight. In fact, Id relish
a new body to sit along its miles and stroke
the airy wrinkles of the sea.
But logic will finally prevail:
the logic of this body at my disposal.

All the seas Ss one by one
are carefully hoisted bubble-wrapped
in blue transparent water
by seagull derrick.

What sea? Mere
illusionist pirate water
a distant cosmogonys refugee.
Corruptingly immense
because of the precipitous
and schistic initial temper of the cosmos.
Harlot escapes optical pimp.

What sea?
Time for the logic of the body
at your disposal to prevail.

Get dressed and swim.

(Tear-Dumping Strictly Prohibited.
Maturity already is
rabidly salty on its own.)





MICROWAVES



What are you doing here
a straight working road like you
on an idle bench?

Well, Im psychoanalyzing free of charge
this painter from a foreign dark-skinned land,
how calmly and skillfully he paints
68

the day out-of-work.

I midwife reliability and honor.
He plants the brush in one hand
and in the others microwaves
he heats a breadstick dried by hours
upon the suns proclaiming tongue.

Im analyzing the inventive stalling
of his hunger. He eats a sesame
apart from each small bite
extending its face value.

The light annoys me. Difficult customer.
He doesnt like the paint job
keeps changing it by stirring in
every new passing hour.

Im furious at obedient expatriation.
With every passing hour
it paints the unemployed day.

Finish already.
Soon the difficult customer
will set.





I DO NOT KNOW [THE MAN]



[Matthew, 73]
Because you keep
suspect company
especially that of the soul
you will be called someday to Prosecution
for interrogation and identification.

Be cautious
confess laconically.

They will lead you in darkness
to a sealed informants hall.
You will sit
69

at a fist-beaten table
before a fat dossier
of suspects pictures.

Theyll leaf through it one by one,
you will not speak, they will go on.
As soon as you see a finger press
insistent as a gun barrel
against a suspects temple

be ready you will say

I do not know the man

(thrice)

the barrel will move slowly, it will land
on times temple, keep
steady insistent

I do not know the man

(thrice)

equally strong if terrified
your answer in front of deaths
photograph must stand

I do not know the man

(thrice)

and when the Prosecutors finally
irritated and with savage
punches smash your face
upon a faint exquisite sketch
in dreamings charcoal

I never saw it again

once

you will say.



70



EXERCISES FOR LOSING EXTRA POUNDS
IN A SHORT TIME



Lie down. On something hard.
At first comforts vertebrae might hurt
but gradually and painlessly the spine
of immobility lengthens like a cypress.

Now contract your bad habits
in a rigid line.
Bring your hands loosely to your chest
like makeshift wings of temporary angels.
Dont shift position.
Deftly the supine rows.

Dont be scared. Fear is fattening,
it contains hunger.
Dont snack on sensations. Too many calories.
Theyre responsible for deprivation bulge.

Eyes closed at all times please.
No misconstruable peeking,
no lollipops of light.
They radiate ultraviolet nostalgia.

Exhale forcefully, lie still,
dont breathe, dont breathe
you risk imprinting only half
the oarsman on the x-ray.

Surrender now to the slide of sleep.

Ill put on a tape, relax, your mamas
lullaby, sleep my sweet
baby, willing or not.

Weigh yourselves. No moving
your body has an integrated scale.





71

VALUE ADDED



I read a most interesting
scientific finding

that we humans are
the only creatures on the earth
who weep.

And I felt pride that just our own
introversion affords us such
expressive philanthropic glands.

Lets say as a hypothesis
I was a little lemon tree in bloom
and my bud hardened to a lemon
and a fiery wind
thirsty for something juicy
twisted the branchs throat
and stole the lemon
cut it in half
with the innocent pocketknife
of a childs small theft
squeezing it hard
to drip the juice
in the roasting mouth
of its gaping breath
and by mistake in squeezing
a tart torch of its drop was flung
into your distant eye

a wish can fly
as far as you desire

perhaps just a hypothesis
it would be heard
in your tear-ducts court.





YOULL PERCEIVE NOTHING


72


Youll perceive nothing
youll just read in the morning
some coded lips scrawled
on your bedside glass
with all-night water.

Im thinking of sending my melancholy
to sleep with you tonight
so I can be alone a little.

In her bag
under her evening meds Ill pack
as if by accident one of her childhood photos
in case you sing her a lullaby
and under the lullaby Ill hide
a second set of clothes
in case things change and you
keep her tomorrow also.

Of course, how do you love by night
another without asking? Listen:
eros was an imperative
before it was entreaty.

Besides, youll feel nothing.
Shell not lie beside you exactly
the exact is inhospitable.

In an ample adjacent willingness shell sleep
glued leaning sideways to
the imperceptible sublime creation:

Love me you tell it and it loves.






MARCH



A pleasant surprise.
Today at 6:30 AM
instead of 7 yesterday
73

the public streetlights dimmed.
Some small birds tripped a bit
over their hazy twitter
but right away one constantly
strengthening hand of light
lofted them on high.

So now days grown.
By half and hour you will say.
Is that so small?
Just remember the chronovores
finally 2 minutes were enough
not even.

Then all the rest of the limitless
remaining storm was yours.





FORBIDDEN SUBSTANCES



Despite its polite temperature
the night
hustled October to its finish.

Others too sat outside timid
each ones fear
wont easily forgo
that tepid prequel of the wintry
and so I too detoured
your Nordic climate
with an almost summery attitude.

Are you cold? No
we were discussing heatedly
how very black the absent stars
painted the sea

your orange juice sat far
from my coffee
and totally out of context
you whispered love
dies before it gets to age
74


I barely heard
you pulled your chair
so violently close its iron leg
jammed into my legs thought

and up flared a suspect otherworldly
fragrantly vacant pain

plainly you
God from your secret and forbidden
heights had squeezed
derision in my cup.





OF VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE



c. Crickets Without Night


Night
I heard the crickets and the stars
praising with incense
you who gives them meaning
if you dont come they neither sing nor shine

I heard the invisibles
whisper gratitude
for the absolute silence you spread
allowing their resonance to clamber
safely up awes giant trunk.

I also heard a few cowards
badmouthing you for obscuring us
how can they see to love us
without light.

What off-the-wall argument, as if
stars and crickets without night

love has ever clearly seen.
75

Only by her genetically weak spark
the wind-whipped light enlarged.






NOT ONE EXCEPTED



Dreams are so antisocial.
No friendships or bonds
they sooner see us than vanish
a spark exposed to a squall.

Anthropophobia?
Perhaps injured vanity
since they work down in the mines
of chances lost.

They too had other
dreams, you see.





SYNTHESIS



A late-arriving friend brought by
a basket of flowers progressively arrayed,
white proper roses in the center
fortressed in their buds,
a moat of laurel leaves
around the Achilles virtue of their freshness,
and something else among their vital defended navet . . .

And as our torrent of familiarity brought up
a daze of stories, inner-tubes of events,
tree-trunks of seductions, twigs of fame,
their chance and reckless current flung your name
forcefully against the boulders of my hearing
how you had died in Africa too soon
76

your heart fell from its horse.

So why had I insured your life
in some newly-constituted little poem?
It searched for a customer like mad.

I dont even remember
what huge sensation I exerted
to ensure your voices mane
the silver melodic identity
in capital notes inscribed
the purebred name of your hand
the violent equestrian gaze
and me left below it at the trough.

. . . dark little purple knots, third cousins
twice removed of tears, bury your very early news.






DIVERGENCE



Instead of hyacinths
I thought Id bring you heliotropes today
so that my care might have more upright stems
and its bony already meaning seem
round-faced full of suns seeds.

Heliotropes. Silos of glowing heat.
I prayed youd benefit.

And having arranged aesthetically
by even heights my duty in the vase
I stopped a bit to ascertain
the flowers would rotate
as their name heralds.

Astonished I saw them turn toward
my prayers lunatic fulfillment
gazing not at the sun but you.

77

Out of respect.
You were
thousands of light years
you recede.
To the Prince of the Grail



When we look at each other
Our eyes blossom.

And we are astounded
By the miracles we create.
And everything is pure sweetness.

We are framed by stars
And take flight from the world.

I believe we are angels.





An den Gralprinzen



Wenn wir uns ansehen,
Blhn unsere Augen.

Und wie wir staunen
Vor unseren Wundern nicht?
Und alles wird so s.

Von Sternen sind wir eingerahmt
Und flchten aus der Welt.

Ich glaube wir sind Engel.





78

I Hide Myself behind Trees



Until the rain from my eyes has ceased,

And hold them deeply closed,
So that no-one can see your image.

My arms enveloped you
Like delicate tendrils.

I grew to be one with you.
Why are you tearing me away?

I gave you the flower
Of my body,

All my butterflies
I shooed into your garden.

I kept walking through grenades,
Saw the world burn

All over with love
Through your blood.

But now I strike the temple walls
Dull with my forehead.

Oh you false juggler,
The rope you strung up was loose.

Words addressed to me feel cold,
My heart lies bare,

This red vessel of mine
Is pulsing horribly.

Im always at sea,
Never to set foot on land again.





79

Hinter Bumen berg ich mich



Bis meine Augen ausgeregnet haben,

Und halte sie tief verschlossen,
Da niemand dein Bild schaut.

Ich schlang meine Arme um dich
Wie Gerank.

Bin doch mit dir verwachsen,
Warum reit du mich von dir?

Ich schenkte dir die Blte
Meines Leibes,

Alle meine Schmetterlinge
Scheuchte ich in deinen Garten.

Immer ging ich durch Granaten,
Sah durch dein Blut

Die Welt berall brennen
Vor Liebe.

Nun aber schlage ich mit meiner Stirn
Meine Tempelwnde dster.

O du falscher Gaukler,
Du spanntest ein loses Seil.

Wie kalt mir alle Gre sind,
Mein Herz liegt blo,

Mein rot Fahrzeug
Pocht grausig.

Bin immer auf See
Und lande nicht mehr.





80

Listen



At night I used to steal
The rose of your mouth,
So that no other woman could drink there.

The one who now embraces you
Is taking away the shivers
I drew around your limbs.

I am your wayside.
The one to touch you
Is bound to fall.

Can you feel my essence
All over,
As if it were a distant hem?





Hre



Ich raube in den Nchten
Die Rosen deines Mundes,
Da keine Weibin Trinken findet.

Die dich umarmt,
Stiehlt mir von meinen Schauern,
Die ich um deine Glieder malte.

Ich bin dein Wegrand.
Die dich streift,
Strzt ab.

Fhlst du mein Lebtum
berall
Wie ferner Saum?


81




To the Barbarian



The rough drops of your blood
Bring sweetness to my skin.

Do not call my eyes traitresses
Because theyre floating around your skies;

Im resting on your night, smiling
And teaching your stars how to play.

And Im walking through the rusty gate
Of your bliss with a song.

I love you and am coming nearer, in white
And transfigured on pilgrimage toes,

Im taking your haughty heart,
Pure chalice, with me to the angels.

I love you as if Id died
And my soul were spread across you

My soul took in all the pain,
Its bitter images will shatter you.

But there are so many roses in bloom
Id like to give you;

Id like to bring you all the gardens
Woven into a wreath.

I keep thinking of you
Until the clouds drop down;

Wed like to kiss,
Wouldnt we?




82


83

Dem Barbaren



Deine rauhen Blutstropfen
Sen auf meiner Haut.

Nenne meine Augen nicht Verrterinnen,
Da sie deine Himmel umschweben;

Ich lehne lchelnd an deiner Nacht
Und lehre deine Sterne spielen.

Und trete singend durch das rostige Tor
Deiner Seligkeit.

Ich liebe dich und nahe wei
Und verklrt auf Wallfahrtzehen.

Trage dein hochmtiges Herz,
Den reinen Kelch den Engeln entgegen.

Ich liebe dich wie nach dem Tode
Und meine Seele liegt ber dich gebreitet

Meine Seele fing alle Leiden auf,
Dich erschttern ihre schmerzlichen Bilder.

Aber so viele Rosen blhen,
Die ich dir schenken will;

O, ich mchte dir alle Grten bringen
In einem Kranz.

Immer denke ich an dich,
Bis die Wolken sinken;

Wir wollen uns kssen
Nicht?





84

To the Barbarian



I cover your face
With my body and soul at night.

I plant cedars and almond trees
On the steppe of your body.

Tirelessly I search your chest
For Pharaohs golden treasures.

But your lips are heavy,
My miracles cannot redeem them.

Why wont you lift your snowy skies
From my soul

Your diamond dreams
Are cutting my veins.

I am Joseph wearing a sweet belt
Around my gaudy skin.

You are delighted by my sea shells
Frightened sound.

But your heart no longer
Lets the sea come in.





85

Dem Barbaren



Ich liege in den Nchten
Auf deinem Angesicht.

Auf deines Leibes Steppe
Pflanze ich Zedern und Mandelbume.

Ich whle in deiner Brust unermdlich
Nach den goldenen Freuden Pharaos.

Aber deine Lippen sind schwer,
Meine Wunder erlsen sie nicht.

Hebe doch deine Schneehimmel
Von meiner Seele

Deine diamantnen Trume
Schneiden meine Adern auf.

Ich bin Joseph und trage einen sen Grtel
Um meine bunte Haut.

Dich beglckt das erschrockene Rauschen
Meiner Muscheln.

Aber dein Herz lt keine Meere mehr ein.
O du!





86

But Your Brows Are Storms...



At night I float restlessly under the sky
And sleep wont come to darken me.

Dreams are whirring about my heart,
Begging for sweetness.

My edges are all jagged,
Only you can drink gold and stay unhurt.

I am a star
In the blue cloud of your face.

When my radiance shines in your eye,
We are one world.

Und would fall asleep ecstatic
But your brows are storms.






Aber deine Brauen sind Unwetter...



In der Nacht schweb ich ruhlos am Himmel
Und werde nicht dunkel vom Schlaf.

Um mein Herz schwirren Trume
Und wollen Sigkeit.

Ich habe lauter Zacken an den Randen,
Nur du trinkst Gold unversehrt.

Ich bin ein Stern
In der blauen Wolke deines Angesichts.

Wenn mein Glanz in deinem Auge spielt,
Sind wir eine Welt.

87

Und wrden entschlummern verzckt
Aber deine Brauen sind Unwetter.





88

Good-Bye



Id wanted to speak
So many words of love to you.

Now you search restlessly
For miracles lost.

But when my musical clocks play
Its wedding time.

Oh your sweet eyes
Are my favorite flowers.

And your heart is my kingdom of heaven...
Let me glimpse inside.

You are entirely of glittering mint,
And so softly lost in thought.

Id wanted to speak
So many words of love to you.

Why didnt I?
Fires
burn in my heart.
No smoke rises.
No one knows.
Kenneth Rexroth


I moan for love
Before my birds
They are also caged
Geisha Song


. . .is the shipwreck then a harvest,
does tempest carry the grain for thee?
Gerard Manley Hopkins






89






out of what severance does the offering come?

monotonous
petals of water

flapping wings
sundering

splinters

and that billowing swell beneath my skin

bolt of syllables

before June
before the rain

saudades



it rains


an initiation


as if she had drunk hemlock

she lets her do it
watches her do it


water bursts into
the passageways of her scream

close to the sobbing

the quick drop

flowing
in disarray

and the body opens
offers itself

90

in the vulnerable darkness of abandonment

your quick fingers full of mercy

bending legs

the obliging body

severed branch

scent of freesia

a headlong fall


from the deepest of places

I am shattering

chalice

no one

pure flight

the dry flow

flowers a dam

the body beyond all measure

and she said

dark are my clothes
and you who surmounts me
darkest
but it is I who pass all limits


like a lengthening stain
like a raised fist


burning to the orphan's core
howling


like a split ceiba

the grievous passion

91


I'm barely trembling now
or did my trembling become a plea?


in this silence
opens me like a furrow

she-wolf
flesh of dreams


could fear be

the pinnacle?


and it drops

between me
and myself

in that January lull
on its slope

a plea a gash
a dislocation

in this yellow landscape

there in that well
in that mirror of the flesh

on the edges where I lie
in my aloneness

and drops
to where it hurts

arching
swaying

and the exuberant
plunge

opens this flesh

and the eager
body

dares not refuse
92



swallows drop like stones
from the towering abyss

these words
beneath your weight

the hand sinks under the gaze

and the body surrenders