The Collected Poems (15 page)

 

what was the death that lay ahead:
the defenseless whitish eggs of ants
lost in the forest in the young forest
under the lungs' oak in the heart's burrow
through which a flood runs thudding
a spring wells up and a mouth drinks

delicate whiteness swims inward
and falls to the bottom of the chest
inner touch withdraws its tentacles
the lantern of consciousness falters
sight turns away and hearing fails

you carry me in illuminated fingers
a candle of love with tears of wax
the flame stiffens when the candle
sinks like a knife beneath the skin
and knocks a blind beak against ribs
to bestow a moment's immortality

if you turn your eye from the shelf
from mirror candle a sleeping head
and guide them toward the aorta
you see the work in the heart's pit
the little weightless whiteness now
bursts open its cocoon and is a bee

I know well the touch of six legs
climbing up to reach the honey
and a sudden sting when it sleeps
dreaming of a flower other than
a sticky flower on a stem of veins
not fate not lightning but an insect
will discover it like a pine needle
and carry away in its chitin tongs
—the heart's empty hive

 

Frost's claw tapped on a window
the eye opens onto the garden
trees motionless to the senses
are whirling inside light glass
and only a reckless claw explains
their flight as loosened hoarfrost

from rhomboids triangles pyramids
despite the quivering line of hair
through which blood is dripping
despite the silks in mindless folds
and a green coffin for a butterfly—

from rhomboids triangles pyramids
the wise garden was reconstructed
a plane spans a net with diamond
it will no longer summon insects
to a banquet of honey and poison

greet the frost when its agile beak
takes out your heart and the birds'
ruins the road's track like a nest
and orders you to cross the river
from a black stump a heavy body
a branch will sprout a white breath
to bring an atom of all our dreams
back into communion with the air

 

The Sanhedrin did not judge at night
the blackness the imagination requires
is in flagrant conflict with custom

it's quite implausible
that Passover should have been violated
all on account of some harmless Galilean
it's fishy how accounts of traditional foes—
the Sadducees and the Pharisees—tally

it fell to Caiaphas to carry out the inquiry
ius gladii
was in the hands of the Romans
why then summon a host of shadows
and the rabble howling give us Barabbas

it seems it was all played out between clerks
between pale Pilate and the tetrarch Herod
a peerless feat of administrative prowess
but who could whip up a drama out of that

hence the scenario of frightened bearded men
and the mob gathering on the mountain named
skull

it may have been colorless
void of passion

 

When he stands before them
in the shadow of a suspicion
he is still all
composed of light

the aeons of his hair
are pinned up in a bun
of innocence

after the first question
his cheeks flush with blood

the blood is helped on
with instruments and interrogations

with an iron ferrule
a slow fire
the limits of his body
are defined

a blow on his back
fixes his spine
between cloud and mudpuddle

after a few nights
the job is finished
the leather throat of the angel
is full of gluey agreement

how beautiful is the moment
when he falls on his knees
incarnate into guilt
saturated with contents
his tongue hesitates
between knocked-out teeth
and confession

they hang him head downwards

from the hair of the angel
drops of wax run down
and shape on the floor
a simple prophecy

 

In paradise the work week is fixed at thirty hours
salaries are higher prices steadily go down
manual labour is not tiring (because of reduced gravity)
chopping wood is no harder than typing
the social system is stable and the rulers are wise
really in paradise one is better off than in whatever country

At first it was to have been different
luminous circles choirs and degrees of abstraction
but they were not able to separate exactly
the soul from the flesh and so it would come here
with a drop of fat a thread of muscle
it was necessary to face the consequences
to mix a grain of the absolute with a grain of clay
one more departure from doctrine the last departure
only John foresaw it: you will be resurrected in the flesh

not many behold God
he is only for those of 100 per cent pneuma
the rest listen to communiqués about miracles and floods
some day God will be seen by all
when it will happen nobody knows

As it is now every Saturday at noon
sirens sweetly bellow
and from the factories go the heavenly proletarians
awkwardly under their arms they carry their wings like violins

 

An immense coldness from the Longobards
They sit tightly in the saddle of a pass as in abrupt chairs
In their left hand they hold auroras
In their right hand a whip and they lash glaciers beasts of burden
The crackling of fire the ash of stars the swing of a stirrup
Under their nails under eyelids
Clots of alien blood are black and hard like flint
The burning of firs the barking of a horse ashes
On the crags they hang a snake beside a shield
Upright they march from the north sleepless
Nearly blind the women by the fires are rocking red children

An immense coldness from the Longobards
Their shadow sears the grass when they flock into the valley
Shouting their protracted nothing nothing nothing

 

In an old abbey overlooking the Loire
(sap of every tree has run in this river)
In front of the entrance to the basilica
(it's not a narthex but a stone allegory)
on one of the capitals
a naked Max Jacob
is being torn apart
by a Satan and a four-winged archangel

the outcome of this skirmish
was never announced
unless you take into account
the capital next to it

Satan is clutching
Jacob's torn arm
allowing the rest
to bleed to death
amid four invisible wings

 

The king's beard on which sauces and ovations
fell until it became heavy as an axe
appears suddenly in a dream to a man condemned to die
and on a candlestick of flesh shines alone in the dusk

One hand for tearing meat is huge as a whole province
through which a ploughman inches forward a corvette lingers
The hand wielding the sceptre has withered from distinction
has grown gray from old age like an ancient coin

In the hour-glass of the heart sand trickles lazily
Feet taken off with boots stand in a corner
on guard when at night stiffening on the throne
the king heirlessly forfeits his third dimension

 

Once there was breath on the windowpanes here, the smell of baking, the same face in the mirror. Now it's a museum. The floor's flora has been exterminated, the suitcases have been emptied, the rooms have been covered in wax. The windows have been left open for days and nights on end. Mice shun this air-locked house.

The bed is neatly made. But no one would spend a single night here.

Between his cupboard, his bed, and his chair—a white outline of absence, sharp as the cast of his hand.

 

Count Juliusz leads the soldiers through a shadowy ravine into the mountains. He is sky blue and amaranthine; his whiskers are golden. Into the mountains he leads them, among beech trees and April birds.

Suddenly it is swarming with Muscovites, a forest in the forest, an anthill. Count Juliusz raises his eyes, seeking the radiance of the sun. It is overcast. He strains upward in the stirrups, stretches out his neck; he wants to rip one light ray from the heavens. All at once his epaulettes darken. He can no longer remember the Latin phrase.

Where the ravine ends there is now a gray stone and the Angelus.

 

The priests lead the peasants out onto an elevated plain. They plant them in even rows like potatoes, amid fermented hills, on a gentle slope. The linden trees dress up and scatter their leaves.

The peasants want to lead the priests out into the field. The priests defend themselves with little white hands. They loathe this heathen sowing. He who has returned to dust shouldn't start blossoming. The lindens dress up and scatter their leaves.

Hence the bickering and the bargaining with the sexton Mercury, so that he doesn't pull the rope, doesn't rock the heavy tongue, doesn't scare the crows.

 

Fences with weeds and dogs on chains
so their barking won't reach the moon
a night shared by people toads and hops
in the black greenery in its moist depths

As meadows are just turning blue-gray
a farm hut chimes with a creaking gate
at dawn farmers are off to the horizon
their enormous shoes leading the way
they go prodding a tiny sun with poles

 

He came from the West in the early tenth century. Initially he was bursting with energy and ideas. The clip-clop of his hooves was heard all over the place. The air smelled diabolical. This virgin land, nearer to hell than to heaven, seemed to him a promised land. The fickle folk soul was virtually begging for a baptism of dark fire.

On hillsides belfries quivered. Monks squeaked like mice. Sacramental water was poured out by the canful.

The castles and cities he leased to masters of alchemy and fraudulent magicians. He himself sank his ten claws into the nation's red meat—the peasantry. He entered deep into the flesh leaving no trace. Matricides threw together votive chapels. Fallen girls raised themselves up. The possessed grinned idiotically.

Angels' muscles turned flabby. People fell into a dull virtue.

Very quickly the smell of sulfur left him. He began to smell innocently of hay. He became something of a boozer. He went to the dogs completely If he visits a barn, he doesn't tie the cows' tails together. He doesn't even tickle the nipples of farmers' wives at night.

But he survives everyone. Stubborn as a cockle, lazy as a burdock.

 

The three-dimensional illustrations from pitiful textbooks. Deathly white, with dry hair, an empty quiver, and a shriveled thyrsus. They stand motionless on arid islands, amid living stones under a leafy firmament. A symmetrical Aphrodite, a Jove bewept by dogs, a Bacchus drunk on plaster. The disgrace of nature. Blemishes on gardens.

Real gods entered the skin of stone only briefly and reluctantly. Their mighty enterprise—thunderbolts and dawn light, hunger and golden rain—demanded an extraordinary mobility. They fled from burning cities; clutching waves they sailed to distant isles. In beggars' rags they crossed the borders of ages and civilizations.

Pursued and pursuing, sweating, yelling, in an uninterrupted hunt for fugitive humanity.

 

He had never trusted the luck of ships' ropes
so he bought a house with a garden like them
at last he could write in harmony with Nature
from a tall tower of grass amid mortal leaves

the industriousness of insects wars of weeds
the love rituals of animals and blind killings
there was no order only a sand-strewn path
offered solace

he soon withdrew in a state so unmistakable
that no one dared ask him

the disgrace of that flight

 

The new gods followed the Roman army at a decent distance, so that the swaying of Venus's hips and Bacchus's uncontrolled fits of laughter wouldn't seem too inappropriate in the face of the cooling ashes and the bodies of barbarian heroes being ceremonially buried by beetles and ants.

The old gods spied on the new ones from behind trees, without sympathy but with admiration. Those pale, hairless bodies seemed feeble but oddly appealing.

Despite language difficulties it came to a meeting on the heights. A few conferences decided how spheres of influence were to be divided. The old gods contented themselves with second-rate jobs in the provinces. Nevertheless, on the occasion of greater celebrations they were portrayed on carved stone (porous sandstone) together with the conquering gods.

It was Cernunnos who cast a real shadow on this collaboration. At his friends' insistence he did take a Latin ending, but his spreading and evergrowing horns could not be covered up with any wreath.

For that reason he has mostly resided in backwood areas. He is often seen in dusky clearings. In one hand he holds a snake with the head of a lamb; the other draws completely incomprehensible signs in the air.

 

The hill facing Minos's palace is like a Greek theater
tragedy leaning its back against the impetuous slope
rows of fragrant shrubs curious olive trees
applaud the ruins

Between nature and human fate
there is no essential connection
the saying that grass mocks catastrophe
is a whim of the inconsolable and fickle

An odd case: two straight parallel lines
will never intersect not even in infinity