Lunghe, lunghe giornate. Il sangue implacato urta il sangue. Il nuotatore è cieco. Scende attraverso piani purpurei nel battito del tuo cuore.
Quando la nuca è tesa Il grido sempre deserto invade una bocca pura.
Cosí invecchia l’estate. Cosí la morte Circonda la felicità della fiamma che trema. E noi dormiamo un poco. La nota si Risuona a lungo nella stoffa rossa.
Parlammo sicuri tra belle acque bagnate da tamerici e accordammo parole, quiete le nostre mani – ricche in oro estorto – e le fronti alte e assolate dalle molte ore trascorse. Dicevamo quello che non volevamo dire e tacevamo le intenzioni amare; immensamente gentili, noi – i mortali, i non amati – vegliavamo su rispettabili leggi umane. Cosí, vedevamo cavalcare Ciro il nobile, l'eletto, prudente sin dall'infanzia. E noi, corruttibili e accecati dalla bellezza del suo aspetto, muti e silenziosi dietro lo scudo di suo fratello Artaserse.
Per quanto brutte ci sembrassero le iguane abbiamo poco da temere da quei rettili erbivori.
Spesso ci sforziamo di scartare l'infausto dal sublime tramite i sensi. C'è sempre stato in noi un fiacco dilettantismo di fronte alla grazia piú che risoluta con cui, ignorando noi, fu creato il mondo.
Antes de despedirme tengo derecho a un último deseo: generoso lector quema este libro no representa lo que quise decir a pesar de que fue escrito con sangre no representa lo que quise decir.
Mi situación no puede ser más triste fui derrotado por mi propia sombra: las palabras se vengarno de mí.
Perdóname lector amistoso lector que no me pueda despedir de ti con un abrazo fiel: me despido de ti con una triste sonrisa forzada.
Puede que yo no sea más que eso pero oye mi última palabra: me retracto de todo lo dicho. Con la mayor amargura del mundo me retracto de todo lo que he dicho.
En el jardín que parece un abismo la mariposa llama la atención: interesa su vuelo recortado sus colores brillantes y los círculos negros que decoran las puntas de las alas.
Intersa la forma del abdomen.
Cuando gira en el aire iluminada por un rayo verde como cuando descansa del efecto que le producen el rocío y el polen adherida al anverso de la flor no la pierdo de vista y si desaparece más allá de la reja del jardín porque el jardín es chico o por exceso de velocidad la sigo mentalmente por algunos segundos hasta que recupero la razón.
Ha llegado la hora de retirarse estoy agradecido de todos tanto de los amigos complacientes como de los enemigos frenéticos ¡inolvidables personajes sagrados! Miserable de mí si no hubiera logrado granjearme la antipatía casi general: ¡salve perros felices que salieron a ladrarme al camino! Me despido de ustedes con la mayor alegría del mundo.
Gracias, de nuevo, grazias reconozco que se me caen las lágrimas volveremos a vernos en el mar, en la tierra donde sea. Pórtense bien, escriban sigan haciendo pan continúen tejiendo telarañas les deseo toda clase de parabienes: entre los cucuruchos de esos árboles que llamanos cipreses los espero con dientes y muelas.
Concerning your letter in which you ask me to call a priest and in which you ask me to wear The Cross that you enclose; your own cross, your dog-bitten cross, no larger than a thumb, small and wooden, no thorns, this rose
I pray to its shadow, that gray place where it lies on your letter... deep, deep. I detest my sins and I try to believe in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face, its solid neck, its brown sleep.
True. There is a beautiful Jesus. He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef. How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in! How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes! But I can't. Need is not quite belief.
All morning long I have worn your cross, hung with package string around my throat. It tapped me lightly as a child's heart might, tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born. Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.
My friend, my friend, I was born doing reference work in sin, and born confessing it. This is what poems are: with mercy for the greedy, they are the tongue's wrangle, the world's pottage, the rat's star.
Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed with love. At first hunger is not wrong. The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded down starch halls with the other unnested throng in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong. But this is an institution bed. You will not know me very long.
The doctors are enamel. They want to know the facts. They guess about the man who left me, some pendulum soul, going the way men go and leave you full of child. But our case history stays blank. All I did was let you grow. Now we are here for all the ward to see. They thought I was strange, although I never spoke a word. I burst empty of you, letting you see how the air is so. The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me and I turn my head away. I do not know.
Yours is the only face I recognize. Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in. Six times a day I prize your need, the animals of your lips, your skin growing warm and plump. I see your eyes lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin, as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies. Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?
Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms fit you like a sleeve, they hold catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms of your nerves, each muscle and fold of your first days. Your old man's face disarms the nurses. But the doctors return to scold me. I speak. It is you my silence harms. I should have known; I should have told them something to write down. My voice alarms my throat. "Name of father--none. " I hold you and name you bastard in my arms.
And now that's that. There is nothing more that I can say or lose. Others have traded life before and could not speak. I tighten to refuse your owling eyes, my fragile visitor. I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise against me. We unlearn. I am a shore rocking off you. You break from me. I choose your only way, my small inheritor and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose. Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.