Your sheltering hands, Mother, which made the old man disappear.
The Lord who saw over them
Saw into our hearts while we unlaced his boots.
I’m turning off the lights so His eyes won’t find you, you said.
O dreams like evening shadows on a windy meadow,
And your hands, Mother, like white mice.
The Dead in Photographs
All they could do is act innocent
Standing still for the camera,
Only a few of them thinking to move
And leave a blur for posterity.
Others held their smiles forever.
The groom with a suit too big for him,
And his bride with a small straw hat
And a topping of strawberries.
In Los Angeles, one Sunday morning,
The photographer took a picture
Of a closed barbershop
And a black cat crossing an empty avenue,
A blind man outside a bus station
Playing the guitar and singing,
A little boy walking up to the camera
Smiling and sticking his tongue out.
Madame Thebes
That awful deceit of appearances.
Some days
Everything looks unfamiliar
On my street.
It’s somebody else’s life I’m living.
An immaculate silent order
Of white buildings and dark clouds,
And then the open door
In a house with lowered voices.
Someone left in a hurry,
And they’re waiting for me to come in
With a lit match.
There’s a rustle of a long skirt,
But when I enter
It’s only the evening papers
Sliding off the table
Birdlike
In a large and drafty
And now altogether empty room.
Evening Visitor
You remind me of those dwarfs in Velázquez.
Former dogcatcher
Promoted to professor at a correspondence school
With a matchbook address.
That couple screwing and watching
Themselves in the mirror,
Do you approve of them
As they gasp and roll their eyes in ecstasy?
And how about the solitary wine drinker?
He’s drinking because he can’t decide
Whether to kill only one of them or both—
And here it’s already morning!
Some damn bird chirping in the trees.
Is that it? I beseech you. Answer me!
The Massacre of the Innocents
The poets of the Late Tang Dynasty
Could do nothing about it except to write:
“On the western hills the sun sets . . .
Horses blown by the whirlwind tread the clouds.”
I could not help myself either. I felt joy
Even at the sight of a crow circling over me
As I stretched out on the grass
Alone now with the silence of the sky.
Only the wind making a slight rustle
As it turned the pages of the book by my side,
Back and forth, searching for something
For that bloody crow to read.
Pascal’s Idea
My insignificance is a sign of my greatness.
Marvel, draw back
As I scurry in my roachlike way
Through these greasy kitchens
With their raised knives
And their fat-assed cooks
Bent over steaming pots.
My life is a triumph over the world’s connivances
And blind chance.
I found the poison you left for me
Extremely nourishing.
Once I sipped milk out of a saucer left for the cat.
Once I ran across a birthday cake
With its candles already lit.
It was terrifying
And I suppose a bit like
What your heaven and hell combined must be.
The Clocks of the Dead
One night I went to keep the clock company.
It had a loud tick after midnight
As if it were uncommonly afraid.
It’s like whistling past a graveyard,
I explained.
In any case, I told him I understood.
Once there were clocks like that
In every kitchen in America.
The old men on night shift are in Charon’s boat.
The day you stop, I said to the clock,
The little wheels they keep in reserve
Will have rolled away
Into many hard-to-find places.
Just thinking about it, I forgot to wind the clock.
We woke up in the dark.
How quiet the city is, I said.
Like the clocks of the dead, my wife replied.
Grandmother on the wall,
I heard the snows of your childhood
Begin to fall.
Wanted Poster
From the closed, block-long post office
I heard him whisper
Out of his flyspecked mouth
As I hurried by on the street.
Hunted beast, he said,
His eyes dark and mean under the rusty thumbtacks.
Who furloughed you today
To go around grinning at every woman you meet?
Explaining a Few Things
Every worm is a martyr,
Every sparrow subject to injustice,
I said to my cat,
Since there was no one else around.
It’s raining. In spite of their huge armies
What can the ants do?
And the roach on the wall
Like a waiter in an empty restaurant?
I’m going in the cellar
To stroke the rat caught in a trap.
You watch the sky.
If it clears, scratch on the door.
The Supreme Moment
As an ant is powerless
Against a raised boot,
And only has an instant
To have a bright idea or two.
The black boot so polished,
He can see himself
Reflected in it, distorted,
Perhaps made larger
Into a huge monster ant
Shaking his arms and legs
Threateningly?
The boot may be hesitating,
Demurring, having misgivings,
Gathering cobwebs,
Dew?
Yes, and apparently no.
Crazy About Her Shrimp
We don’t even take time
To come up for air.
We keep our mouths full and busy
Eating bread and cheese
And smooching in between.
No sooner have we made love
Than we are back in the kitchen.
While I chop the hot peppers,
She wiggles her ass
And stirs the shrimp on the stove.
How good the wine tastes
That has run red
Out of a laughing mouth!
Down her chin
And onto her naked tits.
“I’m getting fat,” she says,
Turning this way and that way
Before the mirror.
“I’m crazy about her shrimp!”
I shout to the gods above.
Transport
In the frying pan
On the stove
I found my love
And me naked.
Chopped onions
Fell on our heads
And made us cry.
It’s like a parade,
I told her, confetti
When some guy
Reaches the moon.
“Means of transport,”
She replied obscurely
While we fried.
“Means of transport!”
Love Flea
He took a flea
From her armpit
To keep
And cherish
In a matchbox,
Even pricking his finger
From time to time
To feed it
Drops of blood.
What I Overheard
In summer’s idle time,
When trees grow heavy with leaves
And spread shade everywhere
That is a delight to lie in
Alone
Or in the company of a dear friend,
Dreaming or having a quiet talk
Without looking at each other,
Until she feels drowsy
As if after too much wine,
And you draw close for a kiss
On her cheek, and instead
Stay with lips pursed, listening
To a bee make its rounds lazily,
And a far-off rooster crow
On the edge of sleep with the leaves hushed
Or rustling, ever so softly,
About something or other on their mind.
Leaves
Lovers who take pleasure
In the company of trees,
Who seek diversion after many kisses
In each other’s arms,
Watching the leaves,
The way they quiver
At the slightest breath of wind,
The way they thrill,
And shudder almost individually,
One of them beginning to shake
While the others are still quiet,
Unaccountably, unreasonably—
What am I saying?
One leaf in a million more fearful,
More happy,
Than all the others?
On this oak tree casting
Such deep shade,
And my lids closing sleepily
With that one leaf twittering
Now darkly, now luminously.
Paper Dolls Cut Out of a Newspaper
Four of them holding hands like a family.
There’s news of war this morning
And an ad for a coffee they call heavenly
Next to the picture of the president.
Hold them up for us to see, little Rosie.
Hold them up a bit longer.
Watch them dance, watch them trip
And make your grandparents laugh
With their knives and forks in the air,
While printer’s ink comes off your fingers
And blackens your face
As you hurry to cover your eyes.
Reading History
for Hans Magnus
At times, reading here
In the library,
I’m given a glimpse
Of those condemned to death
Centuries ago,
And of their executioners.
I see each pale face before me
The way a judge
Pronouncing a sentence would,
Marveling at the thought
That I do not exist yet.
With eyes closed I can hear
The evening birds.
Soon they will be quiet
And the final night on earth
Will commence
In the fullness of its sorrow.
How vast, dark, and impenetrable
Are the early-morning skies
Of those led to their death
In a world from which I’m entirely absent,
Where I can still watch
Someone’s slumped back,
Someone who is walking away from me
With his hands tied,
His graying head still on his shoulders,
Someone who
In what little remains of his life
Knows in some vague way about me,
And thinks of me as God,
As devil.
Psalm
You’ve been making up your mind a long time,
O Lord, about these madmen
Running the world. Their reach is long,
And their sharp claws may have frightened you.
One of them just cast a shadow over me.
The day turned chill. I dangled
Between terror and speechless fury
In the corner of my son’s bedroom.
I sought with my eyes you, in whom I do not believe.
You’ve been busy making the flowers pretty,
The lambs run after their mother,
Or perhaps you haven’t been doing even that?
It was spring. The killers were full of determination
And high spirits, and your clergymen
Were right at their side, making sure
Our last words didn’t include a curse on you.
Empires
My grandmother prophesied the end
Of your empires, O fools!
She was ironing. The radio was on.
The earth trembled beneath our feet.
One of your heroes was giving a speech.
“Monster,” she called him.
There were cheers and gun salutes for the monster.
“I could kill him with my bare hands,”
She announced to me.
There was no need to. They were all
Going to the devil any day now.
“Don’t go blabbering about this to anyone,”
She warned me.
And pulled my ear to make sure I understood.
Romantic Landscape
To grieve, always to suffer
At the thought of time passing.
The outside world shadowy
As your deepest self.
Melancholy meadows, trees so still,
They seem afraid of themselves.
The sunset sky for one brief moment
Radiant with some supreme insight,
And then it’s over. Tragic theater:
Blood and mourning at which
Even the birds fall silent.
Spirit, you who are everywhere and nowhere,
Watch over the lost lamb
Now that the mouth of the Infinite
Opens over us
And its dumb tongue begins to move darkly.
Mystics
Help me to find what I’ve lost,
If it was ever, however briefly, mine,
You who may have found it.
Old man praying in the privy,
Lonely child drawing a secret room
And in it a stopped clock.
Seek to convey its truth to me
By hints and omens.
The room in shadow, perhaps the wrong room?
The cockroach on the wall,
The naked lovers kissing
On the TV with the sound off.
I could hear the red faucet drip.
Or else restore to plain view
What is eternally invisible
And speaks by being silent.
Blue distances to the north,
The fires of the evening to the west,
Christ himself in pain, panhandling
On the altar of the storefront church
With a long bloody nail in each palm.
In this moment of amazement . . .
Since I do ask for it humbly,
Without greed, out of true need.
My teeth chattered so loudly,
My old dog got up to see what’s the matter.
Oh divine lassitude, long drawn-out sigh
As the vision came and went.
Imported Novelties
They didn’t answer to repeated knocks,
Or perhaps they were in no hurry.
On the eighteenth floor
Even the sunlight moved lazily
Past the floating dust.
A year could pass here, I thought,
As in a desert solitude.
“Unknown parties, rarely seen,”
The elevator operator warned me.
He wore a New Year’s party hat in August;
I was looking for work.
Inside, I imagined rows of file cabinets,
Old desks, dead telephones.
I could have been sitting at one of them myself,
Like someone doused with gasoline
In the moment before the match is lit,
But then the elevator took me down.
Via del Tritone
In Rome, on the street of that name,
I was walking alone in the sun
In the noonday heat, when I saw a house
With shutters closed, the sight of which
Pained me so much, I could have
Been born there and left inconsolably.
The ochre walls, the battered old door
I was tempted to push open and didn’t,