Poems

Leave me a place underground, a labyrinth,where I can go, when I wish to turn,without eyes, without touch,in the void, to dumb stone,or the finger of shadow. I know that you cannot, no one, no thingcan deliver up that place, or that path,but what can I do with my pitiful passions,if they are no use, … Read more

The gay young men and the love-sick girls, and the abandoned widows suffering in sleepless delirium, and the young pregnant wives of thirty hours, and the raucous cats that cruise my garden in the shadows, like a necklace of pulsating oysters of sex surround my lonely residence, like enemies lined up against my soul, like … Read more

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twigand lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,a cracked bell, or a torn heart. Something from far off it seemeddeep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,a shout muffled by huge autumns,by the moist half-open darkness of … Read more

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twigand lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,a cracked bell, or a torn heart. Something from far off it seemeddeep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,a shout muffled by huge autumns,by the moist half-open darkness of … Read more

What’s wrong with you, with us, what’s happening to us? Ah our love is a harsh cord that binds us wounding us and if we want to leave our wound, to separate, it makes a new knot for us and condemns us to drain our blood and burn together. What’s wrong with you? I look … Read more

Love, we’re going home now,Where the vines clamber over the trellis:Even before you, the summer will arrive,On its honeysuckle feet, in your bedroom. Our nomadic kisses wandered over all the world:Armenia, dollop of disinterred honey:Ceylon, green dove: and the YangTse with its oldOld patience, dividing the day from the night. And now, dearest, we return, … Read more

Lovely one,Just as on the cool stoneOf the spring, the waterOpens a wide flash of foam,So is the smile of your face,Lovely one. Lovely one,With delicate hands and slender feetLike a silver pony,Walking, flower of the world,Thus I see you,Lovely one. Lovely one,With a nest of copper entangledOn your head, a nestThe coloUr of dark … Read more

Luminous mind, bright devilof absolute clusterings, of upright noon—:here we are at last, alone, without loneliness,far from the savage city’s delirium. Just as a pure line describes the dove’s curve,as the fire honors and nourishes peace,so you and I made this heavenly outcome.The mind and love live naked in this house. Furious dreams, rivers of … Read more

One time more, my love, the net of light extinguisheswork, wheels, flames, boredoms and farewells,and we surrender the swaying wheat to night,the wheat that noon stole from earth and light.The moon alone in the midst of its clear pagesustains the pillars of Heaven’s Bay,the room acquires the slowness of gold,and your hands go here and … Read more

Neither clown nor child nor blacknor white but verticleand a questioning innocencedressed in night and snow:The mother smiles at the sailor,the fisherman at the astronaunt,but the child child does not smilewhen he looks at the bird child,and from the disorderly oceanthe immaculate passengeremerges in snowy mourning. I was without doubt the child birdthere in the … Read more