Vyhľadávanie
BEING AND FIRE
To live life the way the birds do,
fumble the cornfields with fire.
(Rose, with roots in the under water
sound the bell.)
To whisper oneself to surfeit
on starchy scraps of breeze.
(Flame unfound in the roses,
shyly blow.)
To betray what light is
by the uncovered crumb of bread.
(Love, with two-shouldered pure body
leap and flare.)
ONE LOVE
I've had great loves in lavish plenty
and numerous filthy flings of youth.
One love I've still, which can content me:
that's telling you the honest truth.
WORD
Time in fire and the word. And flame, free
in space, that pure one. It is therefore spirit
in the celibacy of raucous fire.
Thus naked as the birds of heaven and in garments
of lily perfumes –
it is as it was in the beginning, thus the word
grew heavy in us.
Tracks too heavy for such young snow.
Look there, dust through chalice-forms
and before it the flower, harried
before the grave and pale and resonant even unto salt. But mutely
strides man, himself of the harried breed, returns
with hands in front
and gropes. There is no peace, though, in his tracks, no end
to the trailing and dodging of fires,
there are actually no more ways out.
And his own received him not.
It hobbled blind and thoroughly
alive from the breederies of fiery young and suddenly
retreating... There is no form
and no face that would be alien to the spirit.
And man saw that the word was
good.
So dust returns,
yes, through bell-forms taken
from the heavy sea salts, to the lap
of earth. But spirit
through lime retreating and blood
to the shell of the egg that roamed
from eternity as far as us.
Late incubation sets in and withdrawal of wings
from the pious water, wished
to the form of snow – into the egg
song, full of birds of prayer, locks itself
with the bride of the word, O soul! But you, man,
and mute one, till above the stars
the wind that moves is yours, oh, thither you proudly crane, tower
of the bleached bones of Adam! And from the blowing breeze
on the rope
to the dust hangs the smoky bell. And so night
full of the heart and in the belltower
a spasm.
Oh, the harried one, with fires in his tracks, before the gates
of the ground
seeks refuge in the motionless urn.
Man was; over the ash he is,
spirit, he is therefore word, which was at the beginning
and lasts.
NIGHT WHEN I WATCH WITH MARY
A prayer of black velvet, maiden.
I want you to listen to the bridal rustling
of the bed linen
at the moment
when the swallow falls asleep on the moon.
This morning I saw a living woman.
She was coming from the cemetery
with rain aslant her face
with foaming hair
and deliberate touch of the whole palm.
But to you I am coming on the scaffolding, my love,
so that we may speak of earthly bliss,
so that you may unlock my poem,
because the lamp shines only for you, Marion.
At night, when the sleeping fishes divide the waters
in two halves,
stars will tremble and the clocks strike midnight
and the frightened birds will circle above their nests,
then,
precisely then
we will go out on the balcony together and with hand
just so
flung in the dark
we will greet the moon.
And because your breasts will be startled until dawn,
I will allow you dip
your hands to the elbows
in well-water.
Be strong as laundry blue
and for parting flail-armed as a windmill.
And afterwards in the hands
that scent of our adventure,
you unimpaired among women,
I shall carry a sombrero
and till dawn
I will catch falling stars
like butterflies.
APPEAL
Return to me from the star-strewn wind
(with shimmering light your home in air),
inflame me, plunge the dawn's spread hand
in my conscience, seize from over there
everything, only the funeral-pyre
of suffering lasts (I love you so
under the roots, I sip the pure
deep dark, and what earth is, I know.)
TRACKS
I wake alone today to the bright morning
where the blue frost has made its bed of snow.
I'm waiting for you – and the proof is, darling,
see how the traces of the bird-feet go.
FIRST SPRING STORM
The frightened puppies howl all night,
the birds to treetops are withdrawn.
From darkness endless bolts of light.
Everything finishes at dawn.
Translated by John Minahane
