Delivering Newspapers
Who believes in the mask’s weeping?
who believes in the weeping nation?
the nation has lost its memory
memory goes as far as this morning
the newspaper boy sets out in the morning
all over town the sound of a desolate trumpet
is it your bad omen or mine?
vegetables with fragile nerves
peasants plant their hands in the ground
longing for the gold of a good harvest
politicians sprinkle pepper
on their own tongues
and a stand of birches in the midst of a debate:
whether to sacrifice themselves for art or doors
this public morning
created by a paperboy
revolution sweeps past the corner
he’s fast asleep
Post
An elk heading for the pit-trap
power, the fir tree said, struggle
cherishing the same secret
my hair turned white
retiring, going backwards
leaving my post
only one step back
no, ten whole years
my era behind me
suddenly beating on a bass drum
Untitled
The landscape crossed out with a pen
reappears here
what I am pointing to is not rhetoric
October over the rhetoric
flight seen everywhere
the scout in the black uniform
gets up, takes hold of the world
and microfilms it into a scream
wealth turns into floodwaters
a flash of light expands
into frozen experience
and just as I seem to be a false witness
sitting in the middle of a field
the snow troops remove their disguises
and turn into language
Teacher’s Manual
A school still in session
irritable restless but exercising restraint
I sleep beside it
my breath just reaching the next
lesson in the textbook: how to fly
when the arrogance of strangers
sends down March snow
a tree takes root in the sky
a pen to paper breaks the siege
the river declines the bridge invites
the moon takes the bait
turning the familiar corner
of the stairs, pollen and viruses
damage my lungs damage
an alarm clock
to be let out of school is a revolution
kids jump over the railings of light
and turn to the underground
other parents and I
watch the stars rise
Morning Song
Words are the poison in a song
on the track of the song’s night road
police sirens aftertaste
the alcohol of sleepwalkers
waking up, a headache
like the window’s transparent speakers
from silence to a roar
learning to waste a life
I hover in the birdcalls
crying never
when the storms have filled up with gas
light rays snatch the letter
unfold it and tear it up
Deformation
My back to the window of open fields
holding on to the gravity of life
and the doubts of May
like the audience at a violent movie
lit by drink
except for the honey-drop at five o’clock
the morning’s lovers grow old
and become a single body
a compass needle
on a homesick sea
between writing and the table
a diagonal enemy line
Friday in the billowing smoke
someone climbs a ladder
out of sight of the audience
Spending the Night
A river brings a trout to the plate
brother alcohol and father sorghum
ask me to spend the night, the glass
has the wrinkles of a murderer
the hotel clerk stares at me
I hear his arrhythmic heart
that heart now bright now dim
lighting the registration form
on the glossy marble
the piano goes out of tune
the elevator turns a yawn into a scream
as it cuts through lamplit foam
coming out of its sleeve
the wind bares an iron fist
The Hunt
The teacher faded long ago
yet the fragments of her diary
act as a go-between
following the corridors of continual evolution
the whole team chases the rabbit
who will skin it?
the back door leads to summer
the eraser can never erase
the dotted lines turning into sunlight
the rabbit’s soul flies low
looking for its next incarnation
this is a story, many years ago
someone’s ears pricked up
stole a glimpse of the sky
and we the wolves suckling on a red lamp
have already grown up
Mission
The priest gets lost in prayer
an air shaft
leads to another era:
escapees climb over the wall
panting words evoke
the author’s heart trouble
breathe deep, deeper
grab the locust tree roots
that debate the north wind
summer has arrived
the treetop is an informer
murmurs are a reddish sleep
stung by a swarm of bees
no, a storm
readers one by one clamber onto the shore
Swivel Chair
I walk out of a room
like a shadow from a music box
the rump of the sun sways
stopping dead at noon
empty empty swivel chair
in the funnel of writing
someone filters through the white paper:
wrinkled face
sinister words
in regard to enduring freedom
in regard to can I have a light
the heart, as if illuminating
even more of the blind
shuttles between day and night
Dry Season
First it’s the wind from home
the father like a bird flying
over a river of drowsy haze
suddenly changes course
but you’re already sunk in the fog
supposing memory wakes
like the night sky in an observatory
you clip your fingernails
close the door open the door
friends are hard to recognize
until letters from the old days
completely lose their shadows
at sunset you listen closely
to a new city
built by a string quartet
Soap
In the kitchen washing my hands
soapy water runs down the drain
like a French horn’s
anxiety
the bride waves goodbye
to the canal of keeping dates
who is the white-haired witness
going upstream?
a group photo with the sun
half my face covered
the other half daylight
in the windless solitude
in the rivers and lakes fish forget one another
the night creates a momentary god
bats in the eyes of drug addicts
destroy themselves in passion
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