Black cypress

Today I only know

That I have failed to write my name

on the bark of the black cypress,

in the graveyard with the fallen leaves,

Nor did I eat the fruit

Of sweetest life endeavours.

Many a time a spark of genius

Has crossed the sky and died away

In a walk between my fingers.

All I had to do was lift my hands

And plunge my face into the vault of heaven.

Is this what I was told the day

When I ate my piece of knowledge?

Has anybody, ever, listened

To the song of the fallen goldfinch?

I know some day his singing will stop

But he’ll live in the moss and the bossoms,

Like me in the black cypress

Fed of a million tears of joy.

To read or not to read

[Exeunt Sibyl and her courtiers]

[Enter Ridao]

To read, or not to read,—that is the question:—
Whether 'tis nobler in the butt to suffer
The kicks and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a flock of bastards,
And by opposing end them?—To laugh,—to spit,—
No more; and by a spit to say we wet
The forehead of the Sibyl, and the thousand books she reads,
or says that she reads,—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To piss her off,—to read;—
To read! perchance to write —ay, there's the point;
For in that damned reading the poems may come,
When we have pissed her off and kick her balls,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so big bollocks;
For who would bear the whips and blows of her,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's scorns,
The pangs of her sultry voice, the edition’s delay,
The stupidity of others, and the spurns
That patient merit of the idiot takes,
When he himself might his books make
With a bare blogger? Who would this sucking up,
To creep and sweat under a weary life,
But that the hope of fame after death,—
The undiscover'd honour, from whose bourn
No pretentious writer returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather silly, those ills we have
Than fly to others that we fuck not off?
Thus vanity does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of boldness
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of publication;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents lose their weight,
And lose the name of writing.—Soft you now!
The fair Sibyl!—Jerk, in thy orisons
Kiss my ass and go to hell.

Poor little swallow

To the memory of Carmen Salas-White

I don't know which is better,
End or triumph,
Death or lie,
Harvest or hunger,
Teardrops moistening my bedroom carpet,
Fear every morning,
Slaughter in the night,
Or joy after the never-ending cry
Of a poor, little swallow

come on, lovley bird
give us your blessing
and don't let us fade

Le petit chat

Aujourd'hui j'ai vu un petit chat parmi les roses

de la couleur de la lune.

Il a crié mon nom,

mais j'ais pensé que c'était le nom d'un autre chat, qu'il a cherché.

Aucun chat n'est venu,

et je suis resté muet, la tête basse.

J'avais oublié mon propre nom,

et ce petit chat-là m'a fait pleurer

avec des larmes rayonnantes.

Scent of a child

Unopened envelopes lurk over my shoulder

to remind me that I can't get to sleep

and forget the unforgettable.

The screen, bluer than the seven skys,

keep asking usernames and passwords,

and I can only think

on his innocent, pure face,

his nose scenting the wreck,

unconscious of my loving care.

L'étoile gris

Et toi, cher ami, qu'est-ce que tu penses
de mes dernières boutades?
Pourquoi tu ne me craches pas
ta rage aux yeux,
avec un mépris infini?

Je suis tout seul, touché et fier,
remplis de haine, comme d'ennui,
misérable, brave, perdu,
une étoile gris dans un ciel douloureux.

O Captain my Captain paraphrase

O Captain my Captain!
Victorious and daring
You’re back from your odyssey.
A thousand bleeding drops
Run down your face
Lifeless.

O Captain my Captain!
Hear the bells ring,
Hear the multitude roar.
Please rise up from the deck
Where you lie
Lifeless.

Why don’t you answer, o Captain?
Is it that you can’t hear me?
The trip is done.
The bells are tolling now
While my captain lies
Lifeless.

Auden's Funeral Blues paraphrase

Stop all the clocks, cut off the throats,
Prevent the dolls from crying with a perky voice,
Silence the children and with muffled drum
Bring out the golden calf, let the worshippers come.

Let bloggers surf moaning in the Internet
Scribbling on their webs the message God is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public whores,
Let the NBA players wear black calf gloves.

He was my home, my mouth, my skin and breast,
My rotten week and my Sunday rest,
My doom, my insight, my lock, my song;
I thought boredom would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For no one now can say You were any good.

So it must be

Srength of fire, of wind and lightning, a furious power in the heart of the planet. Damage, misery and destruction, more insane than a thousand wars. Humans can't bare with fatality; destiny doesn't belong to us, nor to any invented God. Slave of Nature, chained to Earth, we wonder around the night, and at daybrake we take our poor souls to shelter upon a bunch of artificial flowers which prove to be blacker than the blackest hole.

This is the history of mankind. So it has been; so it is; so it must be; so it will be to the end of our race.

End of crisis

.

The days
Of wine and roses
Are now vinegar
And rotten lilies.

Too late to forget
Your humble wooden toy;
Too late to win
The bravest game;
Too late to regret
A sea of never-cried drops.

Go ahead until the end.
Do not expect a miracle,
And die in peace.

Closed (for the moment...)

Flowerless

You are killing my mind with your being.
It aches the same, or even harder.
The only real thing that I possess
Is now bleeding down my throat,
Sour but sweet.



summer is coming
no flowers left in the trees
nor in my heart

The cave

Nowhere is my home,
In the middle of a hollow,
Sad and helpless naught.
A nutshell full of nothing;
An empty world for my empty heart;
Ghosts and goblins dying beyond the cave.
Me and myself, and horror,
Living together
To the end of a neverending death.

In God's name

In God's name we die;
In God's name we kill;
In God's name we cry;
In God's name we pay our bill.

In God's name we love;
In God's name we hate;
In God's name we blacken the white dove;
In God's name we accept our fate.

In God's name we make peace;
In God's name we marry each other;
In God's name we kill at ease;
In God's name we slain our brother.

Good and evil, hand in hand
Are in your name.
Life and death, blood in the land,
The human race's shame.

Sadness

Sadness in the core of darkness;
Sadness as a knife cutting my throat;
Sadness in the living;
Sadness in the dead;
Sadness heavier than a hundred concrete russian buildings;
Sadness at dawn;
Sadness at sunset;
Sadness and tears burning to the end;
Sadness, sadness, sadness,
Blended with my blood for ever.
¡O sadness, be my friend!

Shitness

Very smart indeed,
Said the bullshit owner,
The champion of dirty poetry,
Moving through a million bigger,
Stinkier shits.

Mine is better
(They don't know but it is).
I'll keep it for myself,
And maybe for some friends
Free from the shitness of this world.

Temporarily closed

Brand new

I have run out of poems
So my notebook is back,
With its crimson borders
(I don't have to tell the truth),
And beautiful satine paper.

All verses are wellcome
In my brand new corner,
Open to everyone
But me.

Red eye

In the middle of a huge, red eye
Lives the secret of my life.
I have never seen it;
But I know, they have told me;
The old fashioned family of bears
That visit me every night
To remind me
The shape and the colour of my eye.

Useless efforts

The efforts are not useful at all.
Thousands of calories spent
in the pursuit of a ghost
which we thought a treasure
of manhood, of mastery.

You can never tell, but at least
you need to have seen
horrors and the smile of fortune.
That old elusive lady
daring my skills.