Retreat to places that smell of soap
Go to wet balconies
Wrap your hands in cool, damp gauze 
Scrub your flesh stark white
Purify your tongue and all you’ve seen
Gather your illuminated words onto snow white paper

Retreat from the war zone, you can’t manage,
The deaths in this zone are contagious
Full of crumpling and scuffling maggots,
I say flesh has gone wormy—
What difference does it make
If it’s yours or someone else’s!

 

                                   *

 

In midafternoon, wander around rooms, plunge into the sun’s dust
Look at people passing by a cat
Listen to voices
Lend an ear to the universe and beyond
The voice is in the spine’s hissing, humming flute, blow!
Collect it, collect it within yourself
Let the crowds be distracted
By the war zone’s daily news

Record their voices,
This way, one day, someone
Will understand that they, just like you, are existed,
That if one is to stop at the edge of hell
This is the only way to stop

 

                                   *

 

They’ll understand
That one mustn’t come too close to any hell
Whether it be inside, or outside with the crowds 

For, what wholly burns will never burn again
It won’t flame up, no light will leave it
A person must always burn as if he’ll burn again

The place to stop is neither inside nor outside hell,
But in the place where Inside and Outside resound simultaneously:
At the edge between Inside and Outside.
No voice resounds Inside
The voice that resounds Outside is inaudible

 

                                   *

 

None of the voices in this zone
Will outlast time.
All things fall into the time in which they materialize
And, just as a sand dune swallows a skeleton,
Voices will be swallowed by their own time

            All that will remain of you, of your going, of your 
            coming, of your retreat upon failing, of your indecision,
            of your diving into daydreams, of your being cursed
            and torn apart, of your returning to reconsolidate, is a 
            withered story and a wisp of hair.  

Think about it,
Your hair will outlive your voice.
When the ink on these pages has decayed,
This crowWill fly once again from that sea’s withered bed

 

                                   *

 

Now, fling your hand into the air—
In the invisible cleft that opens
When the ripples from your hand dwindle and disappear
What will remain of you—maybe—is a plump bug.

 

                                   *

 

            If your abridged story is told, a breath will leave 
            a mouth. That story’s breath, too, dwindling, 
            disappearing, will reach the next planet. Even if this
            planet doesn’t, the next will inhale what’s left of your breath.  

            One mid-afternoon, one child having cookies and tea 
            will misread—who knows, maybe—one of your 
            sentences. Your name will be remembered for that 
            wrong sentence. Who knows, maybe that sentence will
            be more beautiful than yours. A redheaded boy you 
            can’t picture now will understand you.

 

                                   *

 

Meanwhile, that crow
Will leave this sea’s withered bed
And, with this present hair of yours attached to her foot,
Fly toward another planet
Without expecting to reach it, but striving nonetheless

Don’t forget, what wholly burns will never burn again!
A person must always burn as if they’ll blaze again
Now stop, that’s enough
Stop at this edge
Who knows, maybe one day you’ll embark once more
On a journey you can’t yet know