the moonsheep (morgenstern)

the moonsheep stands in the open plain,
waiting, waiting, for the shears' refrain.
        the moonsheep.

the moonsheep pulls a single blade
and then goes home to his alpine glade.
        the moonsheep.

the moonsheep, dreaming, does with himself converse:
"i am the dark space of the universe."
        the moonsheep.

the moonsheep in the morn lies dead.
his body's white, the sun is red.
        the moonsheep.




the mask of evil (brecht)

on my wall hangs a japanese carving,
the mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.
sympathetically i observe
the swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
what a strain it is to be evil.




changing the wheel (brecht)

i sit on the roadside bank.
the driver changes a wheel.
i do not like the place i have come from.
i do not like the place i am going to.
why do i watch him changing the wheel
with impatience?



life (miltos sahtouris)

night
in a pharmacy
a kneeling
horse
eats
the floor boards
a girl
with a strange
green
burn
is receiving first aid
while
the ghost
in despair
weeps
in the corner




the discourse on peace (prevert)

near the end of an extremely important discourse
the great man of state stumbling
on a beautiful hollow phrase
falls over it
and undone with gaping mouth
shows his teeth
and the dental decay of his peaceful reasoning
exposes the nerve of war
the delicate question of money




metamorphosis in the urn of the saint (quasimodo)

the dead mature;
with them, my heart.
self-pity
is earth's final humor.

stirring in the glass of the urn,
a light of lacustrine trees;
dark mutation devastates me,
unknown saint: in the scattered seed moan
green maggots:
my visage is their springtime.

a memory of darkness
is born at the bottom of walled-in wells,
an echo of buried drums.
i am your suffered
relic.




rhyme (gerardo diego)

your eyes peroxide the curls of the rain
and when the sun sets on your cheeks
your hair is not damp nor the afternoon yet blonde

        love    put out the moon

do not drink your words
nor pour in my cup your eyes' bitter hollows
the morning with seeing you is turned brunette

light up the sun        love
and kill the dance


Basho:

The roadside thistle, eager
To see the travelers pass,
Was eaten by the passing ass.


Issa:

The turnip farmer
Pointed my direction
With fresh-pulled turnip.


Jorge Carrera Andrade

Cocoa Tree

Cocoa tree
Archangel tutor of the green parrot,
Cool doctrine in a tropic land,
Adding colors, subtracting sounds
In a total of shade,
With a heavenly vocation you dictate
Fragrant lessons.

On your knees, hands joined,
Hearing the hum of secret hives of bees
You laet your happiness grow.

Rich in almond-shaped thoughts
You write, upon the pages of the air,
The virgin jungle's novel
Even to the sweet smell of grandmothers' cups
In dining rooms, with silent doors,
Where the wall-clock drips
Like a half-orange.


Jaques Prevert

Quicksands

Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
The sea already backward rides
and you
Like sea-weed in the wind's soft loving
In the sand of the sheet are dreaming and moving
Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
The sea already backward rides
But, in your half-opened eyes,
Two small waves remain to keep
Demons and wonders
Winds and tides
Two small waves to drown me deep.


Gunter Grass

Folding Chairs

How sad these changes are.
People unsrew the name plates from the doors,
take the saucepan of cabbage
and heat it up again, in a different place.

What sort of furniture is this
that advertises departure?
People take up their folding chairs
and emigrate.

Ships laden with homesickness, and the urge to vomit
carry patented seating contraptions
and unpatented owners
to and fro.

Now on both sides of the great ocean
there are folding chairs;
how sad these changes are.


Rimbaud:

                 Vowels

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue - I'll tell
One day, you vowels how you came to be and whence.
A, black the glittering of flies that from a dense,
Velvety corset round some foul and crule smell,
Gulf of dark shadow; E, the glacier's insolence,
Streams, tents, white kings, the quiver of a flowery bell;
I, crimsons, blood expectorated, laughs that well
From lovely lips in wrath or drunken penitence;

U, cycles, the divine vibrations of the seas,
Peace of herb-dotted pastures or the wrinkled ease
That alchemy imprints upon the scholar's brow;
O, the last trumpet, loud with strangely strident brass
The silence through which the words and angels pass:
O stands for Omega, His Eyes' deep violet glow!

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