The Collected Poems (32 page)

“as a reward,” 552–54

“As if downstairs though there were no stairs,” 226

“As long as our watch has in it one ant, two, or three, everything is in order and nothing menaces our time” (M/S), 260

“A soldier is going off to war,” 144

“As Régis suggests they resemble each other like twins,” 379–80

“As soon as the train got going” (M/S), 72–73

“A swing, a whirlabout, a shooting-gallery—these are the amusements of common people,” 147

“at dawn he examines,” 301

“At first glance it's the placid face of a miller, full and shiny as an apple,” 211

“At home it's always safe, 281–82

“At last golden deer” (M/S), 45–46

“at night the poet reads,” 112

“at present I live,” 384–85

“At table you should sit calmly and not daydream,” 216

Attempt at a Description (M/S), 192

Attempt at the Dissolution of Mythology, 255

At the Gate of the Valley (M/S), 61–63

“At the profoundest moment before dawn, the first voice resounds, both blunt and sharp like a knife stab,” 257

“A view of a park and a wall in the early evening light,” 545 “A violin is naked,” 130

Awakening (M/S), 227

“a well-meaning fellow comes up,” 111–12

“A windy night and on this lonely road the prince of Parma's army,” 436

“A wooden die can be described only from without” (M/S), 207

Babylon, 370

Balconies, 87

“Balconies
eheu
I am not a keeper of sheep,” 87

Ballad of Old Bachelors, 137

Ballad: That We Do Not Perish, 40

Bamboo Gatherer, 94

Baptism, 59–60

“Baruch Spinoza of Amsterdam,” 314–16

Bears, 138

“Bears can be divided into brown and white, paws, head and torso,” 138

“Because they lived by a wolfish law,” 476

“Because you are a king and I'm only a prince,” 489

Bedlam, 564–65

Beethoven, 386

“Before departure,” 564–65

“Befriend a Greek from Ephesus an Alexandrian Jew,” 437

Biology Teacher, 92–93

“Birds leave behind,” 24–25

Black Figurine by Eksekias, 507

Black Rose, 164

Blackthorn, 426–27

“Blood lives the longest,” 10

Book, The, 469

Botanical Garden, 143

Box Called Imagination, The, 155

Breviary, 515, 516, 517, 518

“but later on later on,” 441–42

Button, 130

Buttons, 477

“By day there are fruits and sea, by night stars and sea,” 136

Café, 138

Caligula, 310–11

“Caligula says:” 310–11

Captain's Telescope, The, 151

Careful with the Table, 216 Cat, 132

Cat Sat on the Mat. In Defense of Illiteracy, The, 555

Cernunnos, 251

“Charlotte in a dress blue-gray as a rock—a straw hat,” 474

Chess, 546–47

”—Children in the middle—,” 487–88

Chimney, 209

“chimneys salute this departure with smoke,” 231

Chinese Wallpaper, 261

Chord, 24–25

Church Mouse, 208

Classic, 141

Clock, 211

“Clocks were running as usual so they waited only” (M/S), 191

Clouds over Ferrara, 478–80

“Clytemnaestra opens the window and mirrors herself in the glass, putting on her new hat,” 256

Common Death, 233–34

“Counting from the top: a chimney, antennae, a warped tin roof,” 135

“Count Juliusz leads the soldiers through a shadowy ravine into the mountains,” 245

Country, 131

Crossing Guard, 139

Crypt, 134

Cultivation of Philosophy, The, 34–35

“Cup your hands as if to hold a dream,” 29–30

Curatia Dionisia, 254

Daedalus and Icarus, 51–52

“Daedalus says:” 51–52

Dalida, 519–20

Damastes Nicknamed Procrustes Speaks, 381

Dawn, 257

Dead, The, 134

Descent, 226

Description of the King, A (M/S), 243

“Despite the worst prophecies of the diviners of the weather,” 426–27

“Destroy me star,” 37

Devil, A (M/S), 213

Diana, 523

Dinosaurs' Holiday, 487–88

“Discover the meanness of speech the kingly power of gesture,” 438

Divine Claudius, The, 371–74

Drawer (M/S), 175

Dream Language, 525–26

“dreams,” 301

Drum Song, 118–19

Drunks, 130

“Drunks are people who drink to the dregs in one draft,” 130

“During a pop concert,” 302–3

Dwarfs, 132

“Dwarfs grow in the forest,” 132

Elegy for the Departure of Pen Ink and Lamp, 458–63

Elegy of Fortinbras (M/S), 186–87

Elephant (M/S), 144

Emperor (M/S), 143–44

Emperor's Dream, The (M/S), 150

End, The, 528

End of a Dynasty, The (M/S), 178

Envoy of Mr Cogito, The, 333–34

Episode (M/S), 101

Episode from Saint-Benoît, 242

Episode in a Library (M/S), 132–33

Equilibrium, 148–49

“Even dreams are shrinking,” 298

“Every morning seven angels appear,” 135–36

“extract” (M/S), 195–96

“Eyelids fell like leaves the tenderness of glances crumbled,” 42

Fabric, 571

Farewell, 435

Farewell to September (M/S), 5

Farewell to the City, 231

“Father of the gods and you my patron Hermes,” 432–33

Fathers of a Star, The (M/S), 191

Fences, 247

“Fences with weeds and dogs on chains,” 247

“finally they” (M/S), 81

“First I will describe myself” (M/S), 192

First the Dog (M/S), 190

“First there was a god of night and tempest, a black idol without eyes, before whom they leaped, naked and smeared with blood” (M/S), 180

Fish, 145

“Five fingers straying over strings,” 114

Five Men (M/S), 106–8

Flowers, 529

“Flowers armfuls of flowers brought in from the garden,” 529

Forest, 143

Forest of Arden, 29–30

“Forest of threads thin fingers loom of fidelity,” 571

“For lack of a nail the kingdom fell,” 457

“For some time now,” 534–35

Fortune-Telling (M/S), 50

Fragment (M/S), 167

Fragment of a Greek Vase, 47

From Mythology (M/S), 180

From the End, 140

“From the fact that he managed,” 555

“From the fact we use the same curses,” 189

“From the pulpit a fleshy pastor holds forth,” 481–82

From the Techology of Tears (M/S), 149

From the Top of the Stairs, 338–40

“From the white podium,” 524

“from this fortunes grow,” 305–6

“Frost's claw tapped on a window,” 235–36

“Fundamentally there is nothing to be sorry about,” 486

Funeral of a Young Whale, 146

Furnished Room, 88–89

Gaugin—The End, 162–63

“generals of the most recent wars,” 266

Georg Heym—An Almost Metaphysical Adventure, 317–19

“Golden mantles ripple like tents before the storm,” 440

“Good night Marcus put out the light” (M/S), 19

“Go on my son and remember you are walking not flying,” 51–52

“Gotcha—said the wolf and yawned,” 136–37

“Gothic towers of needles in the valley of a stream,” 296

“Go where the others went before to the dark boundary,” 333–34

Grandfather, 139

Grandmother, 513–14

Halt, A (M/S), 229

Harp, 139

Harpsichord, 131

Head, 570

Heart, 212

“Hear us O Silver-bowed archer through the clutter of leaves and arrows” (M/S), 167

“He came from the West in the early tenth century,” 248

“he chairs a meeting,” 299

“He didn't manage his life very well a certain Eric Blair,” 470

“He fell from her lap like a ball of yarn,” 274

“He had never trusted the luck of ships' ropes,” 250

“He is an utter failure as a devil” (M/S), 213

“He is writing his memoirs,” 309

“He lives in a forest of naked tree trunks,” 150–51

Hell, 135

“he looks in the mirror,” 299

Hen (M/S), 141

“he plays,” 300–301

“Her burning look holds me fast as if in an embrace,” 133

“he reads Isaiah and
Das Kapital
by turns,” 300

“Here is my paltry beauty,” 83

“here's a ballet,” 494–95

“Here the blade was held to the flesh,” 550

Hermes, Dog and Star, 142

“Hermes is going along in the world,” 142

“He should not send his son,” 322

“he smokes hash,” 300

“he spies on the young,” 299

“He stood on the threshold of the room in which lay his dead father wrapped like a silkworm in waxen silence—and shouted” (M/S), 145–46

“He was breathing heavily,” 290–91

“He was kind,” 139

“He was so theatrical,” 148

“He went in a rustle of stone robes,” 14

“He who likened you to a marble edifice,” 44

“he will most easily give up smell,” 365–66

“he writes letters,” 299

“He wrote his first poem on a rose,” 109–13

High Castle, 552–54

Hill Facing the Palace, The, 252

“His face menacing in a cloud over the waters of childhood,” 273

“His name is 176 and he lives in a big brick with one window,” 139

History of the Minotaur, The, 308

Home, 4

Homily, 481–82

Hotel, 135

Houses on the Outskirts, 288

“Houses on the outskirts with rings under your windows,” 288

“How did my grandfather and his father understand Livy,” 423–24

How We Were Initiated, 124–25

Hygiene of the Soul, The (M/S), 215

“I always suspected that the city was a falsification,” 148

“I arrived too late,” 383–85

“I bequeath to the four elements,” 28

“I bought it from a street vendor in Naples,” 151

“I cannot find the title,” 6–8

“I cannot remember,” 92–93

“I can still adjust the devotional picture so your reconciliation with necessity may be known,” 134

“I couldn't choose,” 478–80

“I did not learn this today” (M/S), 107–8

“I don't know who (who the hell),” 532

“I don't understand how you can write poems about the moon,” 151

“If after our death they want to transform us into a tiny withered flame that walks along the paths of winds—we have to rebel” (M/S), 214

“if art for its subject,” 267

“If he had any sense of identity it was with a stone,” 277

“If it is true,” 317–19

“If I went back there,” 278

“If this is to be an offering for my imprisoned,” 428–29

“If you set out on a journey pray that the road is long,” 437–39

I Gave My Word, 521–22

“I have never believed in the spirit of history,” 462–63

“I just close my eyes—,” 85–86

“I knew all this considerably earlier,” 563

“I live in several times like an insect in amber, motionless and so outside of time,” 558

“In a cabin at the edge of the wood there once lived a mother and her little boy,” 130

“Inadvertently I passed the border of her teeth and swallowed her agile tongue” (M/S), 210

“In a forest on a dune three luscious oaks,” 421–22

“Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything” (M/S), 131

“In an old abbey overlooking the Loire,” 242

“In appearance a drop of rain on a beloved face, a beetle immobilized on a leaf when a storm approaches” (M/S), 259

“in common parlance,” 544

Incorrigibility, 83

“I never have the courage to speak of you,” 82

“In fact it is a cupboard made of walnut in a black frame,” 131

“In former times,” 341–42

“In front of the mirror in my parents' bedroom there lay a pink shell,” 131

“In his youth,” 498–502

In Memoriam Nagy László, 355

“In my sleep it rips through” (M/S), 205

Inner Voice (M/S), 203–4

“In our present state of knowledge only false tears are suitable for treatment and regular production” (M/S), 149

“In paradise the work week is fixed at thirty hours” (M/S), 240

Inscription, 12

“instead of cultivating,” 299

“In the borderland city I'll never see again,” 551

“In the caves of night,” 473

In the City, 551

In the Cupboard, 148

“In the end one cannot keep this love concealed” (M/S), 41

“In the end what can I do with you—tenderness,” 569

“In the far corner of this old map there's a country I long for,” 131

“In the foreground you see,” 47

“in the fourth book of the Peloponnesian War,” 266–67

“In the life of Mr Cogito,” 519–20

In the Margin of a Trial, 237

“In the morning mice scamper,” 292

“in the mornings,” 539–40

“In the morning the lumberjack goes into the forest and slams the great oak door behind him,” 219

“in the night,” 548–49

“In the sky's envelope there is a letter for us,” 220

In the Studio, 160–61

“In the warm hands” (M/S), 156–57

“In this room there are three suitcases,” 88–89

“In truth, elephants are extremely sensitive and high-strung” (M/S), 144