A YEAR OF MERCY
They have taught us to forgive
brothers and other relatives
abuse, a broken plate,
adultery. With an easy
gesture of a white forefinger
we take to mercy, graciously
nod until out jawbone
dislocates. Our ass
laden with abundant indulgences
beckons from city to city,
from street to street,
from parsonage to brothel -
and his ears reach over the pyramids
to tickle between the legs
a merciful divinity.
DON’T ENDURE THE MOMENT - YOU’RE MUCH TOO
beautiful! Just now, only now.
At this instant.
This is too say that the longer
you endure the more expensively
you’ll have to pay for your broad-mindedness.
Your sporadically plaited
life is clearly reminiscent
of a worthless rosary on whose
bare thread glitters
only a few shiny beads.
You, beauty, endure -
with regard for the moment! That
which has engraved on the memory
your ghostly profile. To make the moment
eternal robs it of intensity.
SOMETIMES SUCH A SILENCE COMES INTO BEING
it almost shouts and with its quiet
threatens to crack eardrums.
Also the silence of the forest
can become the roaring of a beast -
able to crush alive
and pull down citadels.
Only a sorrowing soul
is unavoidably silent -
though within it occur
cosmic collisions.
Translated by James Sutherland-Smith
ADDRESSES
Do not give in so easily, my will,
raise hundred-towered roofs
of craning poplars
over the riverbanks.
In midday mist
a glittering rose waters the lilies.
Death is distant.
She addresses the banks
and the waves rolling against the stream.
Although it is not certain
if they will answer kindly
or go rigid in the stooping clouds.
ORCHIDEA NOSTALGIS
To start all over again!
Hunkered-down in the innards,
to thrust oneself on the world with a doughty heave
from the gorge between the haunches,
the slippy banana-hued mass
vocally a-quiver.
And the world, again pure as a virgin,
celluloid-wrapped, cocooned,
again conceived and sealed
with barrier-fenced hymen –
will not cease to offer sweet nectar,
like orchidea nostalgis
softly submitting to the butterfly.
Translated by John Minahane