Randuri pentru nechemata

Astepti pe cineva?
Nu stii pe cine?
Sau nu te-astepti decat pe tine
Sa te-nfruptezi din ce ti se cuvine?
Nu stii ca azi sau maine -
Vrei, nu vrei -
N-astepti decat sosirea Ei?
Si oricine-ai fost
Sau vei mai fi,
Sosirea celei nechemate -
Fie ca-ti bate-n geam in zori de zi,
Fie ca-ti intra-n casa-n miez de noapte -
Exact in clipa cand ti-apare,
Doar te saruta si...
Dispare!...

Departure

The figs on the fig tree in the yard are green;
Green, also, the grapes on the green vine
Shading the brickred porch tiles.
The money's run out.

How nature, sensing this, compounds her bitters.
Ungifted, ungrieved, our leavetaking.
The sun shines on unripe corn.
Cats play in the stalks.

Retrospect shall not often such penury-
Sun's brass, the moon's steely patinas,
The leaden slag of the world-
But always expose

The scraggy rock spit shielding the town's blue bay
Against which the brunt of outer sea
Beats, is brutal endlessly.
Gull-fouled, a stone hut

Bares its low lintel to corroding weathers:
Across the jut of ochreous rock
Goats shamble, morose, rank-haired,
To lick the sea-salt.

Denouement

The telegram says you have gone away
And left our bankrupt circus on its town;
There is nothing more for me to say.

The maestro gives the singing birds their pay
And they buy tickets for the tropic zone;
The telegram says you have gone away.

The clever wolly dogs have had their day
They shoot the dice for one remaining bone;
There is nothing more for me to say.

The lion and the tigers turn to clay
And Jumbo sadly trumpets into stone;
The telegram says you have gone away.

The morbid cobra's wits have run astray;
He rents his poisons out by telegram;
There is nothing more for me to say.

The colored tenst all topple in the bay;
The magic sawdust writes: address unknown.
The telegram says you have gone away;
There is nothing more for me to say.

Death & Co.

Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now ---
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled¸ like Blake's.
Who exhibits

The birthmarks that are his trademark ---
The scald scar of water,
The nude
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that
His hair long and plausive
Bastard
Masturbating a glitter
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody's done for.

Dark Wood, Dark Water

This wood burns a dark
Incense. Pale moss drips
In elbow-scarves, beards

From the archaic
Bones of the great trees.
Blue mists move over

A lake thick with fish.
Snails scroll the border
Of the glazed water

With coils of ram's-horn.
Out in the open
Down there the late year

Hammers her rare and
Various metals.
Old pewter roots twist

Up from the jet-backed
Mirror of water
And while the air's clear

Hourglass sifts a
Drift of goldpieces
Bright waterlights are

Sliding their quoits one
After the other
Down boles of the fir.

Dark House

This is a dark house, very big.
I made it myself,
Cell by cell from a quiet corner,
Chewing at the grey paper,
Oozing the glue drops,
Whistling, wiggling my ears,
Thinking of something else.

It has so many cellars,
Such eelish delvings!
U an round as an owl,
I see by my own light.
Any day I may litter puppies
Or mother a horse. My belly moves.
I must make more maps.

These marrowy tunnels!
Moley-handed, I eat my way.
All-mouth licks up the bushes
And the pots of meat.
He lives in an old well,
A stoney hole. He's to blame.
He's a fat sort.

Pebble smells, turnipy chambers.
Small nostrils are breathing.
Little humble loves!
Footlings, boneless as noses,
It is warm and tolerable
In the bowel of the root.
Here's a cuddly mother.

Ruga profana

Stapana mea, invata-ma sa plang,
Asa cum pana astazi n-am plans inca -
Sa plang, dar nu sa ma mai frang
Ca Prometeu, legat de stanca...

Sa plang si eu ca biblicul Adam
Gonit de Dumnezeu din Paradis,
In clipa cand, cu Eva, ne trudeam
Sa descifram intaiul nostru vis...

Invata-ma sa-mi plang ca Boabdil
Grenada vietii mele din trecut,
Pierduta-n clipa cand - un biet copil -
Mi-o aparam cu-o sulita si-un scut...

Si daca-n viata n-am putut citi
Ce-i incrustat pe fruntea tuturor,
Ca si Hamlet, "A fi sau nu a fi?...",
Stapana mea, invata-ma sa mor!...

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time --
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You --

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two --
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

-October 12, 1962

Crystal Gazer

Gerd sits spindle-shaped in her dark tent,
Lean face gone tawn with seasons ,
Skin worn down to the knucklebones
At her tough trade; without time's taint
The burnished ball hangs fire in her hands, a lens
Fusing time's three horizons.

Two enter to tap her sight, a green pair
Fresh leaved out in vows: 'Come tell
How we shall do together,
Well or ill.' Gerd slants a look at each: most dear,
Each to the other; fit fiber for stern weather.
Slowly she spins the ball:

'I see two stalwart apple trees
Coupled by branches intertwined
And, springing all about,
Staunch saplings; to this house, thriving days
Will bring crop's increase, and harvest fruit
Follow on kind wind.'

'No hardship then?' he asks. 'We'll take
Whatever trial's to come, so say true.'
His bride echoes his word. At that,
Gerd whirls the ball ablaze: 'Rough storm,' she grunts, ' may wreak
Some havoc on tender limb, and yet
Strengthen that orchard thereby.'

Their small price paid, these wedded ones
Walk forth into sun-moneyed air, quickened
To savor their span of flourishing.
Aloof, squatting mummy-wise, Gerd scans
That clairvoyant quartz which once, at her own wishing,
Exacted her first simple sight for this strict second.

Then, a free-gadding hoyden, Gerd had craved
To govern more sight than given to a woman
By wits alone: to foresee her lover's faith
And their future lot, she braved
Church curse to ken that crooked oath
Whereby one hires a demon.

A flash like doomcrack rent night's black:
God's work stood anchored in that glare
Focusing all time's day-suns in one
So beggar Gerd might aim her look
At gorgon-prospects with power to strike to stone
Hearts of those who pierced time's core.

What Gerd saw then engraved her mind ---
Plague-pitted as the moon: each bud
Shriveling to cinders at its source,
Each love blazing blind to its gutted end ---
And, fixed in the crystal center, grinning fierce:
Earth's ever-green death's head.

Conversation Among the Ruins

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break.

Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?