I
It’s
magic, it’s sorcery
the
hour when ancestral figures come to lull you to sleep with their age-old
tales,
but
you, you still have to keep a large reserve of deafness
for
the winter locked deep in a scream of ice.
No,
swarms of flies haven’t yet appeared—
it’s
only famished planes searching the fields for hares.
It’s
only trains laden with tar, whistling past the windows,
but
the neighborhood girls turn two deaf ears to the world and dream
on,
and
while happiness clings to your body like a sweaty shirt,
the
scissors of night trims close the heads of the living and the
dead.
No,
nobody’s busy raking smooth the gravel in the alleys—
it’s
the warm tv,
buzzing.
But
you, you still have to acquire a large reserve of myopia, of silky
fluff,
for
winter is coming, and a glimpse of the bottle of kerosene
might
lead you a grandiose verse.
The
streets are flesh, are blood, are nerves,
walls
howl at a simple touch—
the
tram is an ancient emotion ascended to the sky, but you,
you
must keep a large reserve of patience and hope—
so
stretch out in the gossiping easy-chairs,
concentrate
on the sky,
wait
for dawn—and convince yourself that today, likewise, was no
dream.
II
Yes,
there’s the news, too,
scandals
the wind reads in the parks,
lives
recounted as if we’d lived them ourselves—
gloves
at the touch of which you feel a cold, wet muzzle.
The
poem that makes the world better
is
asleep under tin-foil clouds from which sweet rain falls.
And
then you believe again in omens,
in
the gelatin of speakers jiggled by some voice.
You
regard the tendons of the river, the rosy foam of a single day’s
grass,
you
let yourself be carried by the currents along with Ginsberg’s
voice
lost
in a drugstore, in Frisco
across
the ocean of a quarter of a century’s fear and isolation.
Night
after night—solitary sailors,
the
price of copper, eruptions of the cell, distractions
behind
which, little by little, you discover
the
endless faces of a new way of dying.
That
the morning light hides a poisonous thorn to make you
ugly.
Or that the number of the beast is actually your lover’s phone
number—
or
that the shadow a single stand of hair casts at noon
is
a meridian of recollection,
that
in the wax museum of memories you’re no more than
a
wick burning for a lifetime, cheap, convenient,
profitable.
III
Even
in your lover’s bed
your
desire serves as an amplifier for the rustle
of the
sheets.
For
you, at night, even the city is cat’s fur
electrified
by the ebony nightsticks of the police.
But
enough of all that—renounce the castles in Spain.
Breathe
deep the vapor of the soup, bury your hands
in
the green pearls of the peas, adapt your metabolism
to
summer’s time change—
ignore
the row of apples, half-sour at the core, asleep in the window like a
cat,
defy
the mail box, the unopened letters—
smash
the alarm clock with your fist, the telephone, the faucet,
the
tube of toothpaste,
crush
the canned food’s shell with your feet,
let
your mouth water at the thought of the pearl hidden
inside,
froth
at the mouth and spout gibberish,
fall
asleep watching a vapor trail
like
a cataract in the blue eye of the sky,
placidly
turn the other cheek...
Because
today you have no bill to pay.
IV
For
some of us, deserted beaches stirred up by the waves
bring
back immemorial regrets.
For
some, the imported cafés and well-tanned legs have begun to
putrefy.
Some
dream of selfless devotion—of taking care of
a
Robinson on a desert island
(right
under your very eyes, the shipwreck becomes an institution
for
the compassionate,
for
those with a heart enlarged in the vise of a heart attack
and
for all those who don’t have a dog, or any other close relative
to whom to
leave a whole thick green wad
of jack stashed away in Swiss
banks...)
For
some, the crying of poets arouses tribal instincts,
it
treads hard upon their nerves’ corns—
it
makes them pop paper bags, whistle, kickbox,
it
makes them outlaw guitar strings.
In
general, it’s better to stay put there on your island—
inspecting
carefully the tip of your nose every day,
receiving
and sending telegrams, supplying details,
expounding
to the goats the theory of grass hordes.
From
rice straw weaving belts and horas;
once
a year allowing members of various charitable societies to visit
you
and,
because it’s better to be pitied than envied,
don’t
forget to complain of itching between your fingers,
of
hair loss, of the oysters that you find already pried
opened
by
someone else, of the delay in the arrival of the waves
in
the mail, on your shore.
V
Soon
I will become one of the sleepers.
Soon
your teeth will leave in the air merely the white bite of the
snow.
Beneath
me, ten stories of sleep and watchfulness sink lower,
chrome
door handles are opened, chrome faucets are turned on,
the
blue button summons the red button.
Here,
death is an optical disillusion.
The
tribal chief, made rich through trade in mirrors,
happily
squeals in the aspic of his nightshirt.
His
associate across the sea is ever vigilant for a moral
crisis.
Wine
turns back to water, miracle dresses down in blue-denim
overalls,
the boy at the counter
is
metamorphosed into quite the young sport, always ready to sell you the latest
tip.
Chimeras
are not what’s sought after here. Nobody has dreams,
and
so I prefer the waiting room
where
the rum bottle gets passed around freely like a dizzy
iceberg
that
sinks peripatetic human wrecks,
where
cigarettes switch on and switch off the lights of a huge
clandestine
airport, waiting for a cargo of holy grass to descend from the
sky.
Here,
the fiscal agent throws dice with the orchestra conductor.
Newspapers
grow old unread, statistics are outdated still in the printing
press,
the
old cheeks paint their faces with copper make-up—
the
diplomat gradually loses his diplomatic immunity,
the
telephone-company car of the boys who sit idly leafing
through
the
daily paper lurks in the fog.
Everything’s
in order. It’s twelve midnight, yes, everything’s
in
order,
while
destiny mingles everybody together
like
a pocketful of humiliating change.
Traducere din
lb. Englezã de Adam J. Sorkin ºi Liana Vrãjitoru