Therefore, I don’t even look at you, and prefer the window.
to discover here several broken outlines of growth
Like an elephant’s dry skin, grooved with islands, ancient,
into a concavity of old shadow-sunken curves, return
above a peel’s hump, a baby leans toward a breast --
Beyond this I don’t look, don’t think. How can I
of the sky that’s above it, above the gaze. How can I
are about to die. And as you are about to die, how can I
that haven’t yet been, maybe even on living ones.
and even believe in it. Can I be that strong
I’ll write you a few words, a grave’s inscription or at least a note --
And if this won’t be enough to bury you, I’ll probably elaborate:
I am thirsty. Water me and not with water. Water me,
Water me and not with wine. Water me and no more,
even this life won’t do, and not any life. Water me,
And the eye, dappled black and gray, is distancing now
whose heart is one and not evident to sight.
the olive tree gathers its folds
to stretch in the ridges roughened by the sun’s touches. There
a rusty nail.
think of the leaves turning silver outside in the twilight,
think now of infinity and of the void, as you
not think of you. How, to think perhaps on beloved ones
To think that even in this there’s a thought about you,
only because of what you have done to me now. That you’re dead. Tomorrow
something poetic, for example, “here lies a dancer”.
“water me”, I’ll write on the marble, “water me,
and not with clear logic. Water me, and not with a name.
water me. Beauty won’t do, love won’t do, God won’t do –
I am thirsty”.
Drowning, he breathes living water
xvi
My Narcissus, in the end you got used to it. You sprouted gills
you sprawled among stems and water. And the echo became a wave
toward the skyline of water and again
And the thunder returned to be the silence, the water -- to be a screen,
And the echo became a voice, and the reflection a face,
Come
on the sides of your neck, and sliding down down,
and the reflection a place, and you looked and looked and looked
jumped -- out, to me.
the eye -- to marble. You returned to be me.
and you were relieved.
sit down.
He has memory. The outside is torn from him inward
xvii
No longer clear how to fold back all
that remained in the eye after a glance at the sun; so also is
a man climbs back to his apartment, second floor.
and gropes for the electric switch. Afterwards to the fridge.
You say there are facts and all this did not happen in the poem, but
and he was you, and anyway you returned
the sun that remained in the eye after a glance at the eye
from the knowledge “here is a cat”, “here are words”, here
True, I forgot to talk about the cat, that never
all afternoon, then displayed voraciousness only out of compassion
in this poem there’s no cat which will remain indifferent
despite them being well packed in a plastic doggy-bag
this poem. The poem is a memory, like a sun
the poem, line after line. On the stairs
This man, an expected temptation for another line, opens the door
Opens the bottle, and doesn’t make a parable out of it.
on the stairs and in the apartment on Sunday at nine,
to feed the cat. The poem, you say, is like
that glanced at the sun. I say, the poem is not further
again are worlds of memories that will be remembered from now on.
existed in the poem. OK, so the cat gorged from a garbage can
for the loneliness of such a man. Yet, after all,
to the smell of chicken leftovers, or will not detect them among its lines,
in the neighborhood restaurant, just before closing time.
In its fullness, even a tree is not but a seed
xviii
Now, perhaps, we could already read the poem
it won’t perish even after its end, even if its existence will be left in peace
reveal on the face of Mars.
seen to me here, is only what you see: stains, pictures,
Pictures by pictures, time is spread over the whole land, and nevertheless
filled with dreams of fish. All is drawn on the sand with a confident hand:
was seen in memory. Like a bottle from a ship, like a demon,
it will be seen, this poem, entirely by chance. All at once it will run
with every niche and heap, and will curse without side comments
And without knowing what’s possible, what is not, and what isn’t what,
one by one and two by two of if-not-“I” -- then who.
for the electric switch. Afterwards to the fridge, open the bottle –
Just shut the mirror, looking at the lamp, and warming like a butterfly
only sea of sea, sand of sand, orange on the blue of evening sky,
And when you’ll see and also hear, you’ll be glad to reside in this poem,
or any other being that passed by here, and your gaze will land
cool, full with the weight of moist earth on your walls and base
while the rustling of trees, children’s voices and mothers’ small-talk,
awakens them to remember without words
pass in you like clouds in sky of no-thing, their destination
as with leaves, children’s voices and mothers’ small-talk,
it’s full of your eyes. Stone stair, a hawk falls
so it seems, by a fisherman. And again you carry a bare foot foothold
through the air. Or only the surface of water,
bodiless, enfloding into you another hawk, another tree, and you sway
is cooling in water up to your chest, you pull and pull
between the slits of your eyes observes flexible silvery backs
And then say: this poem does exist. This poem –
cavalry, elephants, parchments, that just now
by the course of your gaze. Here, look at me, see that which sees inside me;
without opening the book. Now, once all this is over,
in an undeciphered script, on a tombstone that once an era carbon dioxide winds
This is not further from this line, and all that’s
faces of here-is; and the further you go, the closer you come.
seagulls of mid noon extend again a neck into a night
This poem was a poem of another century, not different from the one that
among grains of sand that accumulated in the sandglass shore, publicly
naked on two shores, and without shame will fall in love
its funny blessings, and while listening, will listen.
will only render one plus one, one minus one, and will get
And then you’ll return home, open the door, and grope
and you won’t make a parable out of this, not even an example.
in another mirror, without a face, in which is seen
in which is heard: come, sit down.
look with me at the hair strand on a bathtub railing, a pot of cyclamens
like a naked “I” inside this flowerpotness,
and your weight leans on the floor. Or the old woman on the bench in the park –
warmth permeates your shriveling limbs, and half-asleep,
a touch, another bench, another moment of. The thoughts
is unknown and they don’t have a tomorrow. The wind plays with your hair
like background music. And the world is large, back and forth
on a reflection of a banyan tree inside a net that was laid here,
or again gather your wings, let your body fall
capering with branches and greenery, you are a living mirror, a world --
with the river. And finally, while your skin, torrid by the sun,
the net to you, your muscles stretch to the weight, and the gaze
and quivers with them between crisscrossed strings.
its trees, its inhabitants, cafes and flying saucers,
the gaze withdrew from – this poem is solely yours, and its way opened
here, you wrote another line.