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- POEMS -
I wish I dwelt on a note
“take me, quick!” sings out its sound.
I stretch out my hands,
muscles taut, ruddy-faced.
I run after bubbles, they disappear.
Astonished eyes and palms still closed, empty.
I dreamed last night
I ran after existence, arms out-stretched, with hands and feet.
I ran, exhausted,
sweat on my skin
and salt on my lips… I was at a hair’s breadth from grabbing hold when…
I was seized by life itself.
I was pursued by the very thing that I was pursuing.
A warder imprisoned.
A fisherman in the net.
I wish I dwelt on a note
but I know that to flee from the flight
we can simply…
STOP.
Don’t think of yourself,
let yourself be carried by my fingers,
like a kite in the hands of the wind.
You can be sure
that I can take you up to your skies.
Help the man who is forced by the storm
to take refuge in the lifeboats of murderous glances,
whose cold words are cries for help.
Take me with you,
when you embrace the wounds of the suicidal.
Drive your sails
towards the barren hearts and beyond, and further again,
without asking anything for your tired body.
Weary, you will sit alone,
Then will I appear, my love,
and nothing
will ever again
separate us.
I’M A SHOOTING STAR
I’m a shooting star from another universe,
that passed by your planet many centuries ago.
I remember
the gaze that tied to my bright trail,
a wish that I still bring along.
Now I ask you:
where are the dreams, the hopes,
the ardent glances
of those who went before?
Are we comets their only trace
in our eternal dance among the stars?
Man is born with the instinctive desire to be loved.
If he knew where to seek such love, how much less he would suffer!
Hence can he find love for others
only when he has found the former.
Until that time,
anything called “love”,
anything hidden behind a repetitious “I love you”
is no more than a mistake.
Tell me why I can’t feel the contact of another’s body on my own.
Tell me what hides behind the fake laceration that I use to get to sleep.
Tell me why I no longer see colours, no longer smell scents, no longer hear voices,
and everything tastes the same.
Tell me why, when I enter my afflicted imagination,
I become no more than a hunter of false securities and vain hopes.
Tell me what these hands in pockets are, and this upright back,
This sombre face and my interest in silence.
Explain to me this desire to feel with my hands and eyes
and this unquenched thirst and these words that fail to describe me
and seem to come from someone else.
Explain to me those moments of unaccountable tenderness that drive me
to hold a stranger’s hand.
Tell me, whose is this face, these hands, these feet, these legs,
and my bones and my breath.
Tell me who or what I am to You, a little clue to help me find my way back Home.
Tell me what You see in this body, and what you breathe from this skin,
so that I, too, can have a better idea
of this constant changing that continues to hide me
among the thousand mirrors of my surmises.
I would like to know where the great poets wrote,
and rediscover myself in that place.
I would like to know the feeling that fills the illuminated
when they are inspired
to discover the twilight.
I would like in the frosty winter to warm myself
with lovers' fire.
I close my eyes and…
discover that I’m looking at Heaven.
Speak or be silent,
what’s the difference when your words say so little
and your silences yell endless tirades?
The power of control that we believe we have under control.
But if only we knew how to be silent!
But if only we knew how to speak!
Then saying or not saying would not be the same.
To die a slave to dark thoughts,
in the perverse and murderous night.
To die alone with the Lord, who lights
gleams of certainty
like candles.
One day we’ll be like slaves
who, shaking off their fetters,
raise their heads
to the Heavens.
Walking alone amidst the crowded streets
of a country town.
Raising my head toward the Heavens like a vulture
to show my smile to God.
There you will find yourselves etched.
"Wanted: Sincere Friendship"
Once I met a poet. Embracing him I said,
“Brother! I’m a poet too! Destiny has brought us here
to sing together the wonders of the universe,
that men may gasp in awe!”
But I noticed a strange light in his eyes, and his body
in my arms was stiff and cold
and distant.
He answered “I have no brothers,
for I was born of the sun and the moon.
I have no friends,
for only silence can caress my soul.
I have no companion but solitude,
no lovers, no confidants.
My art is born of sorrow.
And my art is poetry”.
Still I held him, and could not let him go.
How could I desert the heart of a man
who was seeking some kind of shelter
beneath the modest eaves of a poem?
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