Returning to the Fields and Gardens

7/30/2019 Returning to the Fields and Gardens

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

Selected poems


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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.


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Wen I-to (1899-1946)


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)


Autumn Comes


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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)


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


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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)


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


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******** 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)


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


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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 Villagenever 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, throughCh-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.


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Untitled (I)















Wang Wei (701-761)


Hsin-yi Village

At the tips of branches,

******** hibiscus

opening red calyxes


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******** deep in the mountains.

A stream, hut:

******** yet no one.

The flowers bloom

******** and fall, bloom and fall



Untitled (I)















TREASURES


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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 inorder 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 beautifulthings 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.


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THE DIAMOND MINE

How difficult it is to part with friends (the endless conversation still running like a firetruck 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 thebranches 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, tocommand 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 richestperson 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.


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THE IKEBANA OF HAPPINESS

On the same day when, seventeen million years ago, a small girl with red cheeks, seventeenyears 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 elegantseventeen-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, scarcelytouching 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 Happinesswould be unimaginable.


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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 whodrun 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 washardly 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 arare appearance), now baptizing his grandson, now choosing a bride for his middleson. 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 shefelt 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, theprincess 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.


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GAMES

The building was made of ferroconcrete, like a typical project, but standing apart from itsabsolutely 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 blueeyes 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 neededworkthey neither opened nor closed, nothing but decorated plastic.

Now when the girl grew up to play every day with blood pressure monitors andstethoscopes, it seemed to her that if those dolls, moving but not blinking or speaking, had onlylet 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 sickof, 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.


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JAZZ

Im in a hurry, Im already late for the jazz concert, and I have no idea what could happenin 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 fascinationthatexecutioner 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, thoughhes 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 pleasurethat I dont quite understand, feeling feverish and glancing at the clock whose hands dont showthe time thats still left, like life after death.

Because what kind of concert could evoke the jazz of life?


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THE GOSSAMERS OF INDIAN SUMMER

When leaves and parchment scrolls begin to rustle and turn yellow, it becomes necessaryto 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 astar 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 andcolors, covered with the clouds of compassion.


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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 tubof 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 pulsatein 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. Politicianseating carrots. Boxerseating carrots. Professorseating carrots. Wallflowerseating carrots. Some or otherspecimen picking carrots

from streetlights and sacks of cement.Good for your sight. Of course.Forgive me, maam, but whywould I want two perfect eyesifregrettably the only thing I can seeis fields of men eating carrots.


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UPON REGISTRATION

I knew that this city wanted to contain me with ceramic tile and blackbird squadswhen I saw the deaf commissionerslining up to convert me;they followed me to the urinalsto 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 tardiesbeneath a hodgepodge of disappointed dust.All of my doings will be registeredprecisely where ungiven kisses burn,where small grudges can be managed.

RUNNING WATER


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As much to tap the water as to see it run the waterthat nourishes what you take from whats perishable; whatwaters your incalculable thirst; the waterthat helps you see everything anew,as if youd never blinked,as if the invention of objects had ceasedhoping not so much to be forever but to have been forever; water to connect your organs, to clean your skull andconvince you that youre not an object, not a sinkto convince you that you have to spend your days as a man; the wateryou 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


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When a storm breaks, skilled in its saltingof two bodies, dont shield your face the current that forms will embraceboth the names and clothes of things;when the moon moves bit by bit

without knowing itself, towards a chaseof prey hunting prey, racesacross the night, reinventing it;when we kiss, life is more dignified,it stops being a sign in orderto be life. It is kept in a hundred beliefsthat 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 sayyou are as realas a pinprick,real as a design to die.Objects and you. Objects existbecause I need themor because I havent yet realized I dont.Real, like the palm of a handdemands a reality.A hand on a nape,whats solid on whats solidId liketo be less evidentthan this map of pores. I want to beimaginable, but only with effort;to be as tinyas your notion of infinity.


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NOCTURNE

Holding the garbage bagslike toxic dolphin skin,culling from the trashthat is our months, from the trashof our plans, all of the garbagemost worthy of being garbage...The neighbors on my street run around like this, leave at a bugles sound, slipbetween the air and the galaxys pajamas.The truck will come. The dinwill pass like amnesia through the street,an exterminating angel in uniform.Im livid; Ive forgottento anoint this solid door with compost.Missing in our house:the shadow of a firstbornsitting on the sofa, our delight,our archangel of orange peels.

PINK MOON

Now that the city has scatteredwe will have to trust pink moons. The crowds have stopped elbowing uswe should file our rosy nails.The signs encourage you to coughas you tiptoe through the puddles;If you ask me to show you a disorderI 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 moonbut each moons only pink powder.


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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 hidthe findings of that awful accident.

I dug where I detected

some buried wrecks of logic, but besidesthe illogicals propellers spinning still, I found

no other explanation.

I want to understand what overturned the ruleand brought about that fatalby exception.

What happened? The road was straight.

The warring anarchic differences

which charged you from their lairbehind the serene Edenic equality

of blooms blooms and the flowers

you cleverly quelled, corralling them

in a spacious gradation:large

small

smallerleast.

And so the major matter: who eats whom

was settled in the court of mass.The hunger of the smaller feedsthe 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 smallthe ephemeral the butterfly

eros ate eros

proliferation the uniquethe soul was eaten by its fretting

over leaving us


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the seven goats devoured by the wolf

except the smallest one who hidbehind a story.

What happened, God, that final moment

on such straight road, were you daydreaming

and the rule reversed and we fell inthat fateful by exception

so now the small worm eatsthe large

humanexcept 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 Ismall sobbing child who peed itself

fear-soaked all the way

up and stillnot dry.

Tell her to come and change it.

If she cant, tell her please

her old warning ripened, that the oldman would eat me if I didnt

eat.


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It ripened. I becamea meal of age. Not in a small dreamy taverna.

In some popular dive now managed

by the mirror.


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LETHES ADOLESCENCE

I wait a bit for the differences

and the indifferent to darken, thenI open the windows.

It is not urgent

but I do it to keep motion from warping.

I borrow my former curiositys headand twist. Not twist exactly.

I nod a servile good evening to allthose fawners of the fears, the stars. Not nodexactly. 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 distancelong trips would shrivel. The universe

our need to flee had pined for

would be delivered to our door by motorbikelike pizza. Like a leech

old age would suck on youth and Id be called

grandmother from birthequally by eros and grandbabies.

What would the stars then be

without distances provident support?

Earthbound silver, some candelabra, ashtraysfor the spent butts of pugnacious wealth,

and fawnings investment bubble.

Without distance

nostalgia would speak to us in thees.

Her now rare timid rendezvouswith our plethoric need

would fatally assimilate

frequencys street-smart speech.

Of course, without distance, our neighbor


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wouldnt seem a far-off star hed be

in prime proximity, two steps would bridgehis outline from a dream.

As also nearby the souls

ultimate escape would stay.

Why so much wanderlust? Whole roomsare empty. Wed go downstairs

to live in our basement bodyand 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 facsimileswith 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 themin their expressive postures,

I see by morning they have moved.

I know it by the scrapes their dragfrom their original positions leave

on stabilitys luster.

Its why I insist


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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 arousingthe inert figures, I provide him

also with some motility.

I insist on remembering

not because ease offers me this choicegratis. 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 menaceignorant of my refuge.

If I insist on rememberingits not to find excuses

for always speaking in the same

worn words what do you think the new onesare? A temporal childish defiance

to the old.

If I insist on rememberingit 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

squawkwhy-have-you-forsaken squawkwithout exaggeration!

NOTHING IS LOST OF A PIECE

Do you remember the small carafe

a crown of blue blossoms painted on


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its wine-bearing lip?

you bought it in Alsace for mewithout enthusiasmwhat 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 reasonother than a deep crack in my touch.

I hold it now from your handsteady 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 seeblindfolded 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 oftenwe rob them leaving in their stead

beautiful forgeries as real.

Now, for this storage post they choosefor reasons of security

bodies who sleep aloneon hard unyielding anatomic beds

since stuffing, inner springs, latex and curves

are busy growing someone elseon the empty side


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their fluffy anomalies roll him to the dent

your worn attention sinks, your sleeping trustkeeps making room for him till danger

grazes what you guard.

Before these measures were enactedyou sometimes woke up in the morning

on the floor, dreameye punched

purple, strange fungi sleeping

on pillow-top and foam,and every store-room open.

Now, before sleeping, latch

windows, bolt the doorsand, as your ribcage is unlocked on either side,

drag tables vanities the wardrobe and the hutchwashing-machine night-table the TV blockade and barricade it.

ECSTASY

My small childgot into mischief once again

climbing the ledge of the universe

his hand jostling the redplate hanging on the skywall spilling

all the light down on himself

God startledto see the sun

dressed in child clothes

scrambling back down the ladder

of my mind

And now I sitand sternly scold my child

as secretly I steal his poured-on

light.


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PROVISIONING SUMMER NEEDS

Below, the sea waits alwaysfor a wrinkling wind.

Athos DimoulasSupreme 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 sitwith 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 needa small transistor radioglued 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 onessummer 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 whennight and day youd invent it.

I'll try on an old sunburn

curious whether my backs

old crazy passion for it peeled.


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New swimsuit my decline has gaineda 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 waterby seagull derrick.

What sea? Mere

illusionist pirate water a distant cosmogonys refugee.

Corruptingly immensebecause of the precipitousand 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 youon an idle bench?

Well, Im psychoanalyzing free of chargethis painter from a foreign dark-skinned land,

how calmly and skillfully he paints


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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 hoursupon the suns proclaiming tongue.

Im analyzing the inventive stalling

of his hunger. He eats a sesame

apart from each small biteextending its face value.

The light annoys me. Difficult customer.

He doesnt like the paint jobkeeps 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 keepsuspect company

especially that of the soul

you will be called someday to Prosecution

for interrogation and identification.

Be cautiousconfess laconically.

They will lead you in darkness

to a sealed informants hall.You will sit


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at a fist-beaten table

before a fat dossierof 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 barrelagainst a suspects temple

be ready you will say

I do not know the man

(thrice)

the barrel will move slowly, it will landon times temple, keepsteady insistent


(thrice)

equally strong if terrifiedyour answer in front of deaths

photograph must stand


(thrice)

and when the Prosecutors finally

irritated and with savage

punches smash your faceupon a faint exquisite sketch

in dreamings charcoal

I never saw it again

once

you will say.


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EXERCISES FOR LOSING EXTRA POUNDSIN A SHORT TIME

Lie down. On something hard.

At first comforts vertebrae might hurtbut gradually and painlessly the spine

of immobility lengthens like a cypress.

Now contract your bad habitsin 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.


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VALUE ADDED

I read a most interesting

scientific finding

that we humans arethe 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 bloomand my bud hardened to a lemonand a fiery wind

thirsty for something juicy

twisted the branchs throatand stole the lemon

cut it in half

with the innocent pocketknife

of a childs small theftsqueezing it hard

to drip the juice

in the roasting mouthof its gaping breath

and by mistake in squeezing

a tart torch of its drop was flunginto your distant eye

a wish can fly

as far as you desire

perhaps just a hypothesis

it would be heardin your tear-ducts court.

YOULL PERCEIVE NOTHING


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Youll perceive nothingyoull just read in the morning

some coded lips scrawledon 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 packas 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 youkeep her tomorrow also.

Of course, how do you love by night

another without asking? Listen:

eros was an imperativebefore it was entreaty.

Besides, youll feel nothing.Shell not lie beside you exactly

the exact is inhospitable.

In an ample adjacent willingness shell sleepglued 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


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the public streetlights dimmed.

Some small birds tripped a bitover 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 limitlessremaining 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 forgothat tepid prequel of the wintry

and so I too detoured

your Nordic climatewith an almost summery attitude.

Are you cold? No

we were discussing heatedly

how very black the absent starspainted the sea

your orange juice sat far

from my coffee

and totally out of contextyou whispered love

dies before it gets to age


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I barely heardyou 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 forbiddenheights had squeezed

derision in my cup.

OF VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

c. Crickets Without Night

Night

I heard the crickets and the stars

praising with incenseyou 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 clambersafely up awes giant trunk.

I also heard a few cowardsbadmouthing 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.


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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 vanitysince they work down in the mines

of chances lost.

They too had otherdreams, you see.

SYNTHESIS

A late-arriving friend brought by

a basket of flowers progressively arrayed,

white proper roses in the centerfortressed 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 hearinghow you had died in Africa too soon


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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 exertedto ensure your voices mane

the silver melodic identity

in capital notes inscribedthe 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 hyacinthsI thought Id bring you heliotropes today

so that my care might have more upright stems

and its bony already meaning seemround-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 vaseI stopped a bit to ascertain

the flowers would rotate

as their name heralds.

Astonished I saw them turn toward

my prayers lunatic fulfillmentgazing not at the sun but you.


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Out of respect.

You werethousands 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 borderbetween 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


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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;

lightof even the most intimate hierarchies,

blue-green like interior sight

when a feeling expandsas 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,


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ugly winks,

utter nonsense from a dirty,

bubbling, silty gutter;

any type ofshadow,

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 airin dusts path,

its wastelike quality,

its granular trace on a mapthat predates facts,

golden limbo, slow gray,

the dustofshadows

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 offoam

also forbidden, along with sand,

oracular beacons along certain coasts,

sedimentor mud,mixtures for astonishment;

silences that are not acts

but miniscule deaths;

non-referential sounds

like age-old ocean,

slowly sown sky,


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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,


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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


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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.


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XI. [Address]

Today hes going to tell us about the monsters that sun makesthat 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 makesthat 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, theperson; the dog between them


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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,

aboutI 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 propheciesin 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 houseof us all.

Sit down, please, sit downhere, 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


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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


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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 firstday 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.


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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 Iandyou 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,


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of every worn beginning

renewing art, artifice, and lifefrom ashes toLoLala Lola all fall up!

Only their box is new.

I send them down again with the old pricesince 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 reparablewheres 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 mistaketo fix like new what yours

is lacking?

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

O millionaireanswers and your unknown

hooded, secret abductors.


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REVERSAL OF THE REASONABLE

My God, try to remember

where you hidthe findings of that awful accident.

I dug where I detected

some buried wrecks of logic, but besidesthe illogicals propellers spinning still, I found

no other explanation.

I want to understand what overturned the rule

and brought about that fatalby exception.

What happened? The road was straight.

The warring anarchic differences

which charged you from their lairbehind the serene Edenic equality

of blooms blooms and the flowers

you cleverly quelled, corralling themin a spacious gradation:

large

smallsmaller

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 thatthe reasonable was not

so fruitful.

And while the large fish ate the smallthe ephemeral the butterfly

eros ate eros

proliferation the unique

the soul was eaten by its frettingover leaving us

the seven goats devoured by the wolfexcept the smallest one who hid

behind a story.

What happened, God, that final momenton such straight road, were you daydreaming

and the rule reversed and we fell in


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that fateful by exception

so now the small worm eatsthe large

human

except the smallest onewho 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 mobilespace? 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 herI saw in my sleep she died and I

small sobbing child who peed itself

fear-soaked all the wayup and still

not dry.

Tell her to come and change it.

If she cant, tell her please

her old warning ripened, that the oldman 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 managedby the mirror.


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LETHES ADOLESCENCE

I wait a bit for the differences

and the indifferent to darken, thenI open the windows.

It is not urgent

but I do it to keep motion from warping.

I borrow my former curiositys headand twist. Not twist exactly.

I nod a servile good evening to allthose fawners of the fears, the stars. Not nodexactly. 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 distancelong trips would shrivel. The universe

our need to flee had pined for

would be delivered to our door by motorbikelike pizza. Like a leech

old age would suck on youth and Id be called

grandmother from birthequally by eros and grandbabies.

What would the stars then be

without distances provident support?

Earthbound silver, some candelabra, ashtraysfor the spent butts of pugnacious wealth,

and fawnings investment bubble.

Without distance

nostalgia would speak to us in thees.

Her now rare timid rendezvouswith our plethoric need

would fatally assimilate

frequencys street-smart speech.

Of course, without distance, our neighbor


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wouldnt seem a far-off star hed be

in prime proximity, two steps would bridgehis outline from a dream.

As also nearby the souls

ultimate escape would stay.

Why so much wanderlust? Whole roomsare empty. Wed go downstairs

to live in our basement bodyand 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 facsimileswith 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 themin their expressive postures,

I see by morning they have moved.

I know it by the scrapes their dragfrom their original positions leave

on stabilitys luster.

Its why I insist


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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 arousingthe inert figures, I provide him

also with some motility.

I insist on remembering

not because ease offers me this choicegratis. 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 menaceignorant of my refuge.

If I insist on rememberingits not to find excuses

for always speaking in the same

worn words what do you think the new onesare? A temporal childish defiance

to the old.

If I insist on rememberingit 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

squawkwhy-have-you-forsaken squawkwithout exaggeration!

NOTHING IS LOST OF A PIECE

Do you remember the small carafe

a crown of blue blossoms painted on


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its wine-bearing lip?

you bought it in Alsace for mewithout enthusiasmwhat 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 reasonother than a deep crack in my touch.

I hold it now from your handsteady 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 seeblindfolded 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 oftenwe rob them leaving in their stead

beautiful forgeries as real.

Now, for this storage post they choosefor reasons of security

bodies who sleep aloneon hard unyielding anatomic beds

since stuffing, inner springs, latex and curves

are busy growing someone elseon the empty side


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their fluffy anomalies roll him to the dent

your worn attention sinks, your sleeping trustkeeps making room for him till danger

grazes what you guard.

Before these measures were enactedyou sometimes woke up in the morning

on the floor, dreameye punched

purple, strange fungi sleeping

on pillow-top and foam,and every store-room open.

Now, before sleeping, latch

windows, bolt the doorsand, as your ribcage is unlocked on either side,

drag tables vanities the wardrobe and the hutchwashing-machine night-table the TV blockade and barricade it.

ECSTASY

My small childgot into mischief once again

climbing the ledge of the universe

his hand jostling the redplate hanging on the skywall spilling

all the light down on himself

God startledto see the sun

dressed in child clothes

scrambling back down the ladder

of my mind

And now I sitand sternly scold my child

as secretly I steal his poured-on

light.


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PROVISIONING SUMMER NEEDS

Below, the sea waits alwaysfor a wrinkling wind.

Athos DimoulasSupreme 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 sitwith 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 needa small transistor radioglued 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 onessummer 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 whennight and day youd invent it.

I'll try on an old sunburn

curious whether my backs

old crazy passion for it peeled.


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New swimsuit my decline has gaineda 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 waterby seagull derrick.

What sea? Mere

illusionist pirate water a distant cosmogonys refugee.

Corruptingly immensebecause of the precipitousand 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 youon an idle bench?

Well, Im psychoanalyzing free of chargethis painter from a foreign dark-skinned land,

how calmly and skillfully he paints


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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 hoursupon the suns proclaiming tongue.

Im analyzing the inventive stalling

of his hunger. He eats a sesame

apart from each small biteextending its face value.

The light annoys me. Difficult customer.

He doesnt like the paint jobkeeps 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 keepsuspect company

especially that of the soul

you will be called someday to Prosecution

for interrogation and identification.

Be cautiousconfess laconically.

They will lead you in darkness

to a sealed informants hall.You will sit


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at a fist-beaten table

before a fat dossierof 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 barrelagainst a suspects temple

be ready you will say


(thrice)

the barrel will move slowly, it will landon times temple, keepsteady insistent


(thrice)

equally strong if terrifiedyour answer in front of deaths

photograph must stand


(thrice)

and when the Prosecutors finally

irritated and with savage

punches smash your faceupon a faint exquisite sketch

in dreamings charcoal

I never saw it again

once

you will say.


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EXERCISES FOR LOSING EXTRA POUNDSIN A SHORT TIME

Lie down. On something hard.

At first comforts vertebrae might hurtbut gradually and painlessly the spine

of immobility lengthens like a cypress.

Now contract your bad habitsin 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.


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VALUE ADDED

I read a most interesting

scientific finding

that we humans arethe 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 bloomand my bud hardened to a lemonand a fiery wind

thirsty for something juicy

twisted the branchs throatand stole the lemon

cut it in half

with the innocent pocketknife

of a childs small theftsqueezing it hard

to drip the juice

in the roasting mouthof its gaping breath

and by mistake in squeezing

a tart torch of its drop was flunginto your distant eye

a wish can fly

as far as you desire

perhaps just a hypothesis

it would be heardin your tear-ducts court.

YOULL PERCEIVE NOTHING


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Youll perceive nothingyoull just read in the morning

some coded lips scrawledon 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 packas 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 youkeep her tomorrow also.

Of course, how do you love by night

another without asking? Listen:

eros was an imperativebefore it was entreaty.

Besides, youll feel nothing.Shell not lie beside you exactly

the exact is inhospitable.

In an ample adjacent willingness shell sleepglued 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


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the public streetlights dimmed.

Some small birds tripped a bitover 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 limitlessremaining 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 forgothat tepid prequel of the wintry

and so I too detoured

your Nordic climatewith an almost summery attitude.

Are you cold? No

we were discussing heatedly

how very black the absent starspainted the sea

your orange juice sat far

from my coffee

and totally out of contextyou whispered love

dies before it gets to age


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I barely heardyou 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 forbiddenheights had squeezed

derision in my cup.

OF VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

c. Crickets Without Night

Night

I heard the crickets and the stars

praising with incenseyou 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 clambersafely up awes giant trunk.

I also heard a few cowardsbadmouthing 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.


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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 vanitysince they work down in the mines

of chances lost.

They too had otherdreams, you see.

SYNTHESIS

A late-arriving friend brought by

a basket of flowers progressively arrayed,

white proper roses in the centerfortressed 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 hearinghow you had died in Africa too soon


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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 exertedto ensure your voices mane

the silver melodic identity

in capital notes inscribedthe 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 hyacinthsI thought Id bring you heliotropes today

so that my care might have more upright stems

and its bony already meaning seemround-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 vaseI stopped a bit to ascertain

the flowers would rotate

as their name heralds.

Astonished I saw them turn toward

my prayers lunatic fulfillmentgazing not at the sun but you.


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Out of respect.

You werethousands 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.


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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.


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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 brennenVor Liebe.

Nun aber schlage ich mit meiner StirnMeine 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.


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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 Lebtumberall

Wie ferner Saum?


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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?


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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?


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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.


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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.

Abe

Returning to the Fields and Gardens

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Transcript of Returning to the Fields and Gardens