it's time for a walk once again / along the brink of the beach, where all / of a sudden the woods held back

It was too late / to unbait my hook.

I might as well go to sea: /to let oneself be blown away.

Hardly had I known them. / I also hardly stayed behind.

As simple as a drop of water, / as clear as a splinter of birch,

Irreversible is the riveron whose backdead leaves swirl.Irreversible are words-the dust of roadsmingled with breath, warm breaththat sticks to our trembling lipslike fog to a boat.Irreversible is this…

living on an islandfar from cities with traffic lights and people.Outside we hear the rustlingsof a bed of reedswhere the wind with its toothless mouth blowsluring in tides.A boat is moored on the shorea…

Large, gray, sprawledlike an old elephant.Winter is ending.Low, sloping roofs are overturned boatsslumbering along the shores of drowsiness.Twenty years of an oak tree’s lifeis burned instantly…

He comes to me every day with a cruel bounce in his stepwith eyes darting like little green flames—the town postman in a heavy, damp coatjovially announcing he has nothing for me.I see his blue uniform…

Without failSundays at the cinemawere always rainy daysbig black umbrellasclashing against the ticket booth.The doorman among the torn stubslooked like a watercolorhung crookedly on a kitchen wall.We…

It’s not time for a change.As long as I can rememberit’s never been time for a change.Like cars that screech to a halthouses standpoised in their old breeding groundof rotten acacia leaves.From…

1Here I am you aloneIn this mad, gapingHellHere I am you alone and death altogetherWith its predators and its seers and the informersPerhaps I am arriving atThe limit of my possibilitiesFor you to arrive…

The snow comes late this year. Violet shadowsdoze like shepherds rounda white fire.The swaying shadow of a fence looks like a woman’s clavicle—a woman who dreams of her lover’s snowy journey…

Alif You’re not beginning . . .It’s an eternity, you know . . .I mean, the ever-after, you knowNo matter, then.Raise your cavalryBut don’t set out for the horizon,Or the sea . .…

It is not fated that, in this world,The strong join the strong.Thus, Siegfried parted from Brunhild,A sword stroke instead of a marriage.In the allied brotherly hatred–Like buffalos!–rock…

what is watchingalways comes to an end: and the day! and the world! . . it is the uniquethe unceasing – is it over its featuresthat the soul glides: like dust! – and…

to N. A.in your presence even the toesare as if they remembered! and the mind more stronglypierces our headin your presence! and together perhaps you are thatwhenceseparatingthey drew out: of…

(after the “Grasshoppers” of VelimirKhlebnikov and e.e. cummings) to my son Andreygrasshopper-sign flickersover field under heaven! – (sign to Reason – be on guard!be…

in dust is no vowel. . . death is a sound: a shout – to God?he – in the surface of dust: is what then – a gleam?oh not treasures of sacrifice: nor representation! . .…

to W. Woroczylskibehind my back – it seemed – were islands: of the terror-idea! – as if a certain chillwas spread – for a year of this life: were they places –…

oh clearlywith gathered forceeverywhere it shows itself: skyglow of the yearlike features of the land: drawing:from everywhere: any: fire: for incandescence! – and this is no shout!but…

to V. S. but you are not the surrounding of such a onebut a stair in yourself where poverty is like skyglow: oh ice-holes of illness! as if by someonethey were always directed: with meaning!…

“Well, let’s fly . . .”“Where to and why?”“Just fly to nowhereafter that cloud . . .”Just let’s rush off nowhere, nowhere,let’s listen to the wires…

Fate’s little picturesdrawn by a most slender pen,will hang in the damp airon a little spider’s web.The rains drawwith their own flying handwriting,and the wind shuffleslight strokes like…

whole –with a whisper of ordering of the firmament and as out of the shining facein a time of sorrow –mine –I create it and by fireconcealing images of the raceit is lit 1965The…

All this moves and rustles,plays and waves,dances blindly to someone’s pipeand crowns someone’s thought.It plays and singsand beckons with an apple branchand at times sweetly wounds the soul,at…

Neither with paint, nor with a brush.Light is his kingdom: his hair is gray.The red leaves tell lies.Here light tramples color.Color is trampled by light.The heel of light crushes the chest of color.Isn’t…

The wind revels in the quiet night . . .The Lord has marked the coming dayin a black draft, so as to recreate iton a clean white copy, and the skywill be bright in a momentand will flare in a crimson…

What revelations,What truthsWhat do you rustle of,The floods of green?With sacramentsOf what raving sibyl,What do you rustle of,What do you rave about?What’s in your fluttering?But I know–you…

LVDemocracy’s secret    In free, general elections, with secret ballotsThere, too, is music’s concealment, its inaccessibility, eyeto eye    Where coercive power, over…

“La vie,” Edith Piaf sings,“La vie, la vie,” seize the moment . . .And this voice is eternally rightand there’s no threat of it being buried in oblivion.“La vie,”…

Bring to me all that’s of no use to others:My fire must burn it all!I lure life, and I lure deathAs weightless gifts to my fire.Fire loves light-weighted things:Last year’s brushwood, wreathes,…

Someone’s heading for a fatal victory.Trees gesture like tragedies.Sacrificial dance of Judea!Trees flutter like sacramentals.This–a conspiracy against the era:Against weight, number, fraction,…

We stopped in five stations and did not leave a souvenir.We did not shiver there, or get drunk, or strum a guitar.Five rivers of sand on the guitar.Five crosses made of silence:You are sad;I wipe the…

Hold me, comfort meThe stones are nothing but pain tonightHold me to your breastso that I ramble:The stars are gray as ashand the road to themis ablaze with light.1993

A moment after midnightevery nightjazz begins to soak the Jazz Cornerlike new winelike village wineA moment after midnightevery nighta woman descends a dark staircaseto sing Brazilor balconies in candlelightor…

Winds that do not blow in the evening,and winds that do not blow at dawnhave burdened me with a book of boughs.I see my cry in the silence.Night descends, blue, between staircases and stars. I seeblue…

Soonall the rooms will be closed,and beginning with the basement,we will leave themoneby oneuntil we reach the gunson the roof.We will leave them too . . . like the roomsand go onto search in our bloodor…

We did not name it so that it would become a city.We came to it thirstystarvedlimping on blazing sands,blinded by sun glow.We cut the world from Mecca to the palace of Naaman.We cut the world with a sworduntil…

When I enter the earth’s nestcontentedand glad,my wings resting,I will free my eyelids so not to seethe trees swaying nearer.Do not cry over me.I said do not cry.If you wish, remember that my wingsare…

New Year, move on. There is the path / to lead your footsteps.

Migration is another name for exile made gentler by the alphabet.

Why do we fear words? / If their thorns have once wounded us, / then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks / and shed their sweet scent upon our desires.

The wind gasps with the midday heat,         like a nightmare in the late afternoonAnd on the masts, it continues to fold, to spread for departureThe gulf is crowded with them–laborers…

I remember as-Sayyab screaming into the Gulf in vain:Iraq, Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.And nothing but an echo repliesI remember as-Sayyab, in that Sumerian spaceA woman triumphed over the sterility of mistShe…

Many a one has sunk in the abyss of horrid silence, and you among them, slender ghost whom I evoked with tools that are improbable, a little pile of grammars and of dictionaries, or now, with more urgency…

And so we repeat the round / of night and day

I think my heart has never been / like this / so warm and red.

If this is life—how pure!