Poems

I touch hatred like a covered breast;I without stopping go from garment to garment,sleeping at a distance. I am not, I’m of no use, I do not knowanyone; I have no weapons of ocean or wood,I do not live in this house. My mouth is full of night and water.The abiding moon determineswhat I do … Read more

Everything on the earth bristled, the bramblepricked and the green threadnibbled away, the petal fell, fallinguntil the only flower was the falling itself.Water is another matter,has no direction but its own bright grace,runs through all imaginable colors,takes limpid lessonsfrom stone,and in those functionings plays outthe unrealized ambitions of the foam.

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,I cannot settle on a single one.They are lost to me under the cover of clothingThey have departed for another city. When everything seems to be setto show me off as a man of intelligence,the fool I keep concealed on my persontakes over my talk and … Read more

Spain was a taut, dry drum-head Daily beating a dull thud Flatlands and eagle’s nest Silence lashed by the storm. How much, to the point of weeping, in my soul I love your hard soil, your poor bread, Your poor people, how much in the deep place Of my being there is still the lost … Read more

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never bloomsbut carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;thanks to … Read more

When I cannot look at your face I look at your feet. Your feet of arched bone, your hard little feet. I know that they support you, and that your sweet weight rises upon them. Your waist and your breasts, the doubled purple of your nipples, the sockets of your eyes that have just flown … Read more

When your hands leaptowards mine, love,what do they bring me in flight?Why did they stopat my lips, so suddenly,why do I know them,as if once before,I have touched them,as if, before being,they travelledmy forehead, my waist?Their smoothness camewinging through time,over the sea and the smoke,over the Spring,and when you laidyour hands on my chestI knew … Read more

Take bread away from me, if you wish,take air away, butdo not take from me your laughter. Do not take away the rose,the lance flower that you pluck,the water that suddenlybursts forth in joy,the sudden waveof silver born in you. My struggle is harsh and I come backwith eyes tiredat times from having seenthe unchanging … Read more

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?What primal night does Man touch with his senses?Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:Love is a war of lightning,and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.Kiss … Read more

In the wave-strike over unquiet stonesthe brightness bursts and bears the roseand the ring of water contracts to a clusterto one drop of azure brine that falls.O magnolia radiance breaking in spume,magnetic voyager whose death flowersand returns, eternal, to being and nothingness:shattered brine, dazzling leap of the ocean.Merged, you and I, my love, seal the … Read more