red roofs that can be counted in the valley,
the restless numbers on soccer players’ shirts,
and the naked stranger standing in a half-shut door.
He’d like to skip—although it can’t be done—
all the saints on that cathedral ceiling,
the parting wave from a train,
the microscope lens, the ring casting a glow,
the movie screens, the mirrors, the photo albums.
But great is the courtesy of the blind,
great is their forbearance, their largesse.
They listen, smile, and applaud.
One of them even comes up
with a book turned wrong side out
asking for an unseen autograph.
Monologue of a Dog Ensnared in History
There are dogs and dogs. I was among the chosen.
I had good papers and wolf’s blood in my veins.
I lived upon the heights inhaling the odors of views:
meadows in sunlight, spruces after rain,
and clumps of earth beneath the snow.
I had a decent home and people on call,
I was fed, washed, groomed,
and taken for lovely strolls.
Respectfully, though, and comme il faut.
They all knew full well whose dog I was.
Any lousy mutt can have a master.
Take care, though—beware comparisons.
My master was a breed apart.
He had a splendid herd that trailed his every step
and fixed its eyes on him in fearful awe.
For me they always had smiles,
with envy poorly hidden.
Since only I had the right
to greet him with nimble leaps,
only I could say goodbye by worrying his trousers with my teeth.
Only I was permitted
to receive scratching and stroking
with my head laid in his lap.
Only I could feign sleep
while he bent over me to whisper something.
He raged at others often, loudly.
He snarled, barked,
raced from wall to wall.
I suspect he liked only me
and nobody else, ever.
I also had responsibilities: waiting, trusting.
Since he would turn up briefly and then vanish.
What kept him down there in the lowlands, I don’t know.
I guessed, though, it must be pressing business,
at least as pressing
as my battle with the cats
and everything that moves for no good reason.
There’s fate and fate. Mine changed abruptly.
One spring came
and he wasn’t there.
All hell broke loose at home.
Suitcases, chests, trunks crammed into cars.
The wheels squealed tearing downhill
and fell silent round the bend.
On the terrace scraps and tatters flamed,
yellow shirts, armbands with black emblems,
and lots and lots of battered cartons
with little banners tumbling out.
I tossed and turned in this whirlwind,
more amazed than peeved.
I felt unfriendly glances on my fur.
As if I were a dog without a master,
some pushy stray
chased downstairs with a broom.
Someone tore my silver-trimmed collar off,
someone kicked my bowl, empty for days.
Then someone else, driving away,
leaned out from the car
and shot me twice.
He couldn’t even shoot straight,
since I died for a long time, in pain,
to the buzz of impertinent flies.
I, the dog of my master.
An Interview with Atropos
Madame Atropos?
That’s correct.
Of Necessity’s three daughters,
you fare the worst in world opinion.
A gross exaggeration, my dear poet.
Clotho spins the thread of life,
but the thread is delicate
and easily cut.
Lachesis determines its length with her rod.
They are no angels.
Still, you, madame, hold the scissors.
And since I do, I put them to good use.
I see that even as we speak . . .
I’m a Type A, that’s my nature.
You don’t get bored or tired,
maybe drowsy working nights? Really, not in the slightest?
With no holidays, vacations, weekends,
no quick breaks for cigarettes?
We’d fall behind, I don’t like that.
Such breathtaking industry.
But you’re not given commendations,
orders, trophies, cups, awards?
Maybe just a framed diploma?
Like at the hairdresser’s? No, thank you.
Who, if anyone, assists you?
A tidy little paradox—you mortals.
Assorted dictators, untold fanatics.
Not that they need me to nudge them.
They’re eager to get down to work.
Wars must surely make you happy,
what with all the extra help you get.
Happy? I don’t know the feeling.
I’m not the one who declares them,
I’m not the one who steers their course.
I will admit, though, that I’m grateful,
they do serve to keep me au courant.
You’re not sorry for the threads cut short?
A little shorter, a lot shorter—
Only you perceive the difference.
And if someone stronger wanted to relieve you,
tried to make you take retirement?
I don’t follow. Express yourself more clearly.
I’ll try once more: do you have a Higher-Up?
. . . Next question please.
That’s all I’ve got.
Well, goodbye then.
Or to put it more precisely . . .
I know, I know. Au revoir.
The Poet’s Nightmare
Just imagine what I dreamed.
Everything as if the way it is.
Ground beneath your feet, water, fire, air,
vertical, horizontal, triangle, circle,
left and right.
Reasonable weather, decent scenery,
a fair number of creatures endowed with speech.
But their speech is different than here on Earth.
Sentences are governed by the unconditional.
Names stick strictly to things.
Nothing to add, subtract, change, rearrange.
Time always by the clock.
Past and future know their place.
For remembrance a single vanished second,
for predictions a moment
that has already begun.
Words as needed. Not one more,
which means no poetry,
no philosophy, no religion.
Such follies don’t come into play.
Nothing that can just be thought
Search only for what’s right at hand.
Ask only if there are answers.
They’d be amazed,
if they could be amazed,
that somewhere there are reasons for amazement.
The entry for “uneasy,” considered lewd,
wouldn’t dare to appear in their dictionaries.
The world seems clear
even in deepest darkness.
Each is charged a suitable price.
No one asks for change at the cashier’s.
Among feelings—satisfaction. And no parentheses.
Life with a full stop at its heel. And the hum of galaxies.
Admit that nothing worse
could happen to a poet
.
And afterward nothing better
than waking up.
Labyrinth
—and now a few steps
from wall to wall,
up those stairs
or down the others,
then slightly to the left,
if not the right,
from a wall within a wall
up to the seventh threshold,
from wherever to wherever
to the very intersection
where your hopes, errors, failures,
efforts, plans, and new hopes
cross paths
so as to part.
Road after road
without retreat.
Access only to those
you have before you,
and there, as if in consolation,
twist after twist,
gasp after gasp,
view after view.
You may choose
where to be or not to be,
to overpass or to pull over,
only not to overlook.
So this way or that,
if not the other,
by intuition, by premonition,
by common sense, by chance,
by hook or crook,
by crooked shortcuts.
Through whichever rows upon rows
of corridors and gates,
quick, since in the meantime
your time is running short,
from place to place,
to those many still left open,
where there’s perplexity and darkness
but also gaps and rapture,
where there’s happiness, though mishap
is just a step behind,
whereas elsewhere, hither thither,
here and there, wherever,
fortune in misfortune
like brackets in parentheses,
and yes to all of this,
then abruptly an abyss,
an abyss, but a little bridge,
a little bridge, but shaky,
shaky, but the only,
there’s no other.
There must be an exit somewhere,
that’s more than certain.
But you don’t look for it,
it’s been stalking you
from the start,
and this labyrinth
is none other than
than your, for the duration,
your, until not your,
flight, flight—
Distraction
I misbehaved in the cosmos yesterday.
I lived around the clock without questions,
without surprise.
I performed daily tasks
as if only that were required.
Inhale, exhale, right foot, left, obligations,
not a thought beyond
getting there and getting back.
The world might have been taken for bedlam,
but I took it just for daily use.
No—whats—no what-fors—
and why on earth it is—
and how come it needs so many moving parts.
I was like a nail stuck only halfway in the wall
or
(comparison I couldn’t find).
One change happened after another
even in a twinkling’s narrow span.
Yesterday’s bread was sliced otherwise
by a hand a day younger at a younger table.
Clouds like never before and rain like never,
since it fell after all in different drops.
The world rotated on its axis,
but in a space abandoned forever.
This took a good 24 hours.
1,440 minutes of opportunity.
86,400 seconds for inspection.
The cosmic savoir-vivre
may keep silent on our subject,
still it makes a few demands:
occasional attention, one or two of Pascal’s thoughts,
and amazed participation in a game
with rules unknown.
Greek Statue
With the help of people and the other elements
time hasn’t done a bad job on it.
It first removed the nose, then the genitalia,
next, one by one, the toes and fingers,
over the years the arms, one after the other,
the left thigh, the right,
the shoulders, hips, head, and buttocks,
and whatever dropped off has since fallen to pieces,
to rubble, to gravel, to sand.
When someone living dies that way
blood flows at every blow.
But marble statues die white
and not always completely.
From the one under discussion only the torso lingers
and it’s like a breath held with great effort,
since now it must
draw
to itself
all the grace and gravity
of what was lost.
And it does,
for now it does,
it does and it dazzles,
it dazzles and endures—
Time likewise merits some applause here,
since it stopped work early,
and left some for later.
In Fact Every Poem
In fact every poem
might be called “Moment.”