The Collected Poems (6 page)

but there is no voice
only the senile garrulity of water
salty nothing
a white bird's wing
stuck dry to a stone

I walk to the forest
where persists the continuous
hum of an immense hour-glass
sifting leaves into humus
humus into leaves
powerful jaws of insects
consume the silence of the earth

I walk into the fields
green and yellow sheets
fastened with pins of insect beings
sing at every touch of the wind

where is that voice
it should speak up
when for a moment there is a pause
in the unrelenting monologue of the earth

nothing but whispers
clappings explosions

I come home
and my experience takes on
the shape of an alternative
either the world is dumb
or I am deaf

but perhaps
we are both
doomed to our afflictions

therefore we must
arm in arm
go blindly on
toward new horizons
toward contracted throats
from which rises
an unintelligible gurgle

 

Akhenaton's soul, in the shape of a bird, alighted on the forehead's verge, to rest before its long journey. But instead of looking off to the horizon, it peered into the dead man's face. That face was as a mirror for the gods.

Why must I make my way
—the soul thought—
through tangled questions
toward barking divinities

why go down dark corridors
across rough-skinned palms
toward scales snakes beetles

I will stay here
I will learn the secret of ears
folded back against the head
flat as dogs

I will hold the boats
of the sweet eyelids
lest they float away
to sunken temples

I'll enter the nostrils
right up to the spot
where a last smell
of the earth dried
I'll remove the trace

I'll weave two nests
at the corners of lips
which are speechless
and swell with tears

I will work
to reconcile
Akhenaton and his shadow
so the soul said

but we
who hold Akhenaton's
stone head on our knees
we feel
how it scents
how it cracks
how it shrieks

 

What has become of the soul
after so many loves

ah it is no longer a great bird
beating its white wings
every night until dawn

a butterfly
flew from the mouth
of the dead Nefertiti
a butterfly
like an iridescent
exhalation

how far is the journey
from an ultimate sigh
to the nearest eternity

a butterfly flies over
dead Nefertiti's head
spinning it a cocoon
of silk

Nefertiti
O larva
how long the wait
for your departure
for the wing-beat
which lifts you
into—one day
into—one night

over all the gates and abysses
over all of heaven's precipices

 

As soon as the train got going
the tall dark type begins
and he speaks like this to the boy
—with a book on his knees

—you like to read boy

—I like it—replies the latter
it makes the time go by
always plenty of work at home
here it doesn't bother people

—Well there you're certainly right
what is it you're reading

—The Peasants—replies the latter
very true to life
only a little too long
it's the right length for winter

I've also read The Folk Wedding
that's actually a play
very hard to follow
too many people

The Deluge is something else again
you read and it's like you'd seen it
really—he says—great
almost as good as a movie

Hamlet—by a foreign writer
also very interesting
only this Danish prince
is a bit too much of a sissy

tunnel
dark in the train
the conversation suddenly breaks off
the authoritative commentary ceases

in the white margins
the prints of fingers and the soil
have marked with rough thumb-nail
rapture and condemnation

 

Saint Ignatius
pale and fiery
passing by a rose
flung himself on the bush
mutilating his flesh

with the bell of his black frock
he wished to stifle
the beauty of the world
which gushed from earth as from a wound

and lying at the bottom
of the cradle of thorns
he saw
that the blood flowing from his brow
was clotting on his lashes
in the shape of a rose

and the blind hand
seeking out thorns
was pierced through
by petals' soft touch

the defrauded saint wept
amid flowers' mockeries

thorns and roses
roses and thorns
we seek happiness

 

Jan came by this morning
—I dreamed of my father
he says

he rode in an oak coffin
I was near the procession
and father says to me:

how fine you've got me up
and this funeral is splendid
flowers at this time of year
it must have cost a fortune

don't worry about it dad
I say—let the people see
that we truly loved you
we're doing you proud

father ponders a moment
and says—the desk key
is in the silver inkwell
in the second drawer on the left
there's still a little money

we'll use the money—I say—
to buy you a gravestone dad
big and made of black marble

no need son—says father—
rather give it to the poor

again as if pondering
—watch the flowers in the garden
cover them properly in the winter
I wouldn't want them to go to ruin

you are the eldest—he says—
take the genuine pearl cuff links
in the pouch behind the picture
may they bring you good luck
I was given them by my mother
when I graduated from school
he didn't say anything else
but fell into a deeper sleep

so this is how our dead
look after us
admonishing us in dreams
returning our lost money
trying to finagle us jobs
mumbling lottery numbers
or when they can't do that
tapping fingers on the pane

and we in infinite gratitude
invent them an immortality
snug as a mouse's burrow

 

The poet imitates the voices of birds
he cranes his long neck
his protruding Adam's apple
is like a clumsy finger on a wing of melody

when singing he deeply believes
that he advances the sunrise
the warmth of his song depends on this
as does the purity of his high notes

the poet imitates the sleep of stones
his head withdrawn into his shoulders
he is like a piece of sculpture
breathing rarely and painfully

when asleep he believes that he alone
will penetrate the mystery of existence
and take without the help of theologians
eternity into his avid mouth

what would the world be
were it not filled with
the incessant bustling of the poet
among the birds and stones

 

There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities

it's easy for them to write
they close their eyes
immediately schools of images
stream down from their foreheads

my imagination
is a piece of board
my sole instrument
is a wooden stick

I strike the board
it answers me
yes—yes
no—no

for others the green bell of a tree
the blue bell of water
I have a knocker
from unprotected gardens

I thump on the board
and it prompts me
with the moralist's dry poem
yes—yes
no—no

 

That's a poet
not an angel

he has no wings
just a plumed
right hand

the hand beats the air
he flies up three feet
and falls back down

when he's all the way down
he pushes off with his feet
and floats up for a moment
fluttering his plumed hand

Ah if he could fight free of clay's attraction
he could take up residence in a nest of stars
he could gallop from light ray to light ray
he could—

but the stars
at the very thought
they would be his earth
fall in fright

the poet covers his eyes
with his feathered hand
he no longer dreams of flight
but of a fall
marking like a lightning flash
the silhouette of infinity

 

Those who paint small mirrors of lakes
clouds and swans scenes by a stream
those who like no one else manage to convey the sweetness of sleep
a naked arm under one's head an open leaf and the sky
and if they ever dare to recount the sea
easily they contain that word in rose-coasted lips

they bear us in little baskets made of osiers
and deposit us on the breast from which we drank long ago
let us not blame them because their world without storms
will wither like a flower plucked at sunset
their small round warm reality
is like the cheek of a shepherd when he plays a flute
they thought that we would find happiness
in the tranquil heart of a landscape with a rainbow

those who paint interiors of old barber-shops
slovenly old women donkeys and vegetables
drunken scenes brutal mercenaries
everything in heavy and dull brown ochre
and a ray of light which pushes through
between the rafters of a sooty hovel
sinks to the table on which are scattered
juicy yellows and foggy blues
the ray is there so that on it can be stropped
the severe brush of the hunched master

so they penetrate the interiors of tenement houses
and peer into the heart as into a bag of silver
and see only a blind man who is counting pearls
a dishonoured girl beaten deceived people
dark weeping below and clothes-lines in the attic
the clear water of fresh floods
is requested by the brush

finally they
the authors of canvases divided into the right side and the left side
who know only two colors
color yes and color no
the inventors of simple symbols
open palms and clenched fists
singing and weeping
birds and projectiles
smiles and grinning teeth

who say
later when we get installed in the fruits of our labor
we will use the subtle color “perhaps”
and “on one condition” with pearly lustre
but right now we are drilling two choruses
and on to the empty stage
under a blinding light
we throw you
with a shout: choose while there's time
choose what you're waiting for
choose

And to help you we imperceptibly give a nudge to the balance

 

I never have the courage to speak of you
vast sky of my neighborhood
nor you roofs holding off cascades of air
lovely downy roofs the hair of our homes
Nor you chimneys laboratories of sorrow
spurned by the moon stretching out necks
Nor of you windows opened and closed
which burst when we are dying overseas

I cannot even describe the house
which knows all my escapes and my returns
though so small it stays under my shut eyelid
nothing can render the smell the green curtain
the creak of stairs I ascend carrying a lit lamp
nor the greenery over the gate

In fact I want to write of the house's gate latch
of its rough handshake and its friendly creaks
but although I know so much about it
I use only a cruelly common litany of words
So many feelings fit between two heartbeats
so many objects can be held in our two hands

Don't be surprised we can't describe the world
and just address things tenderly by name

 

Here is my paltry beauty
fragile as hair and glass

I lay out my singing gear
on the shores of capitals on terror's eve

 

It's good what happened
it's good what's going to happen
even what's happening right now
it's OK

In the night a nice old man arrives
and coaxes us with an enticing gesture
—who are you?—we ask in alarm

—Seneca—say those who finished grammar school
and those who don't know Latin
just call me: the deceased

 

I just close my eyes—

my steps move away from me
air eats them like a muted bell
and a far-off voice my own voice calling
congeals into a knot of steam
hands fall
cupped around a calling mouth

that blind animal touch
retreats into the interior
to dark and moist caves
the body's odor remains
and candle wax burning

then it grows in me
neither fear nor love
but the white stone

so this is how it fulfills itself
fate that draws us on the mirror of a stone carving
I see a sunken face protruding chest dull shells of knees
chipped feet and a wreath of dry fingers