Poems New and Collected

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.

Four billion people on this earth but my imagination is still the same. It's bad with large numbers. It's still taken by particularity. It flits in the dark like a flashlight, illuminating only random faces while all the rest go by, never coming to mind and never really missed.

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.

But any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last. Alone. With others. On the right. The left. Because it was raining. Because of the shade. Because the day was sunny.

Classifieds" WHOEVER’S found out what location compassion (heart’s imagination) can be contacted at these days, is herewith urged to name the place; and sing about it in full voice, and dance like crazy and rejoice beneath the frail birch that appears to be upon the verge of tears. I TEACH silence in all languages through intensive examination of: the starry sky, the Sinanthropus’ jaws, a grasshopper’s hop, an infant’s fingernails, plankton, a snowflake. I RESTORE lost love. Act now! Special offer! You lie on last year’s grass bathed in sunlight to the chin while winds of summers past caress your hair and seem to lead you in a dance. For further details, write: “Dream.” WANTED: someone to mourn the elderly who die alone in old folks’ homes. Applicants, don’t send forms or birth certificates. All papers will be torn, no receipts will be issued at this or later dates. FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds– dogs barking, guitars in the street– into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.   Even

Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that occupation out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them.

Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones. Four A.M. The hour between night and day. The hour between toss and turn. The hour of thirty-year-olds. The hour swept clean for roosters’ crowing. The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace. The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars. The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace. Empty hour. Hollow. Vain. Rock bottom of all the other hours. No one feels fine at four a.m. If ants feel fine at four a.m., we’re happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come if we’ve got to go on living.

Eve from the rib, Venus from foam, Minerva from Jupiter’s head – All three were more real than me. When he isn’t looking at me, I try to catch my reflection on the wall. And I see the nail where a picture used to be.

How many, after a shorter or longer life (if they still see a difference), good, because it’s beginning, bad, because it’s over (if they don’t prefer the reverse),

When they said he didn’t exist, he couldn’t die of grief, so he had to be born. He’s already out there living somewhere; he blinks his little eyes and grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.   The

A thousand and one is still only a thousand. That one seems never to have existed: a

They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.   We’ll

So poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvres.” I

The track’s all yours. We won’t get in your way: by then we will have set off chasing ourselves rather than you.

Even a simple "Hi there," when traded with a fish, makes both the fish and you feel quite extraordinary.

Alack and woe, oh song: you're mocking me; try as I may, I'll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it. I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me. Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

I RESTORE lost love. Act now! Special offer! You lie on last year's grass bathed in sunlight to the chin while winds of summers past caress your hair and seem to lead you in a dance. For further details, write: "Dream.

The hour between night and day. The hour between toss and turn. The hour of thirty-year-olds. The hour swept clean for roosters’ crowing. The hour when the earth takes back its warm embrace. The hour of cool drafts from extinguished stars. The hour of do-we-vanish-too-without-a-trace. Empty hour. Hollow. Vain. Rock bottom of all the other hours. No one feels fine at four a.m. If ants feel fine at four a.m., we’re happy for the ants. And let five a.m. come if we’ve got to go on living. Still Life with a Balloon

Funny little thing. How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.   I’d

In these lands you’re a name to avoid, you’re bound for defeat, you’re a sign pointing out those who must be destroyed.   At

Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. Hoću da uđem u tvoju unutrašnjost, da pogledam uokolo, da te upijem kao dah. -Odlazi! - kaže kamen - Čvrsto sam zatvoren. Čak razbijeni na komade bićemo čvrsto zatvoreni. Čak smrvljeni u prah nećemo nikoga pustiti. Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. Dolazim iz čiste radoznalosti. Za nju je život jedina prilika. Želim da prođem tvojim dvorcem zatim da posjetim list i kaplju vode. Malo vremena imam za to. Moja smrtnost mora te uzbuditi. -Ja sam od kamena - kaže kamen - i svakako moram sačuvati ozbiljnost. Odlazi odavde, nemam mišiće smijeha. Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. Čula sam da su u tebi velike prazne sale, neviđene, neopisivo lijepe, gluhe, bez eha bilo čijih koraka. Priznaj da i sam malo o tome znaš. -Velike i prazne sale - kaže kamen - ali u njima nema mjesta. Lijepe su, možda, ali izvan ukusa tvojih jadnih čula. Možeš me upoznati, poznavati me nećeš nikad, čitavom površinom okrećem se prema tebi, a čitavom unutrašnjošću na drugu stranu. Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. Ne tražim u tebi utočište za vječnost. Nisam nesrećna. Nisam beskućnik. Moj svijet je vrijedan povratka. Ući ću i izaći praznih ruku. A kao dokaz da sam stvarno bila neću dati ništa osim riječi kojima niko ne vjeruje. -Nećeš ući - kaže kamen - Nemaš čulo učešća. Nijedno čulo ne može ti zamijeniti čulo učešća. Čak i pogled izoštren do svevidenja ne vrijedi ti ništa bez čula učešća. Nećeš ući, imaš jedva zrno toga čula. Jedva njegov začetak, uobrazilju. Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. Ne mogu čekati dvije hiljade vijekova da udem pod tvoj krov. -Ako mi ne vjeruješ - kaže kamen - obrati se listu, reći će ti što i ja. Kapi vode, reći će ti što i list. Konačno, pitaj vlas sa sopstvene glave. Smijeh me obuzima, smijeh, neobuzdani smijeh, kojim se smijati ne smijem. Kucam na vrata kamena. -To sam ja, pusti me. -Nemam vrata - kaže kamen.