THE POETIC PERSONA

I want to construct him, at long last:

someone who can substitute for me,

so that I can hide behind his back

when he says something

that I would rather not express.

He will have my head,

and never fail to think as I do.

Whatever he says will be as I indicate,

yet he won't be a ventriloquist's dummy.

INSPIRATION

Suddenly the thought came;

before I expected it

I knew how it would be.

But I couldn't understand

what was murmured,

what could not be explained

because it was not there.

The ink fades from this poem

before it is written down.

It is too old, it does not generate life;

it does not sing, it mumbles.

WAITING

What am I waiting for?

The end of memories,

of all the little gray things

which only I still know,

that people will soon forget for good.

RHYME

Rhyme is my crutch:

without the rhymes’ echo

I can't step forward.

Look: it's limping already.

NEW YEAR's EVE

It seems that time goes on in an orderly fashion

adding up to a single meaning, year after years.

It's just not true:

all that passes becomes silent.

THE OLD RIVER

The water is muttering to the quays;

maybe it's a last complaint

about being so slow, and incapable.

The current's discharges its load here.

The Rhine is exhausted, only a lazy canal remains,

a ditch with no depths that you could cross on foot,

a waterway for barges, lightly loaded,

and useless yachts with no cargos.

URBS ANTIQUA RUIT

Still protected by Saint Peter and Saint Pancras,

the ancient town, once famed for Pallas.

She lost that luster long ago,

and was overgrown by nameless suburbs.

The fire pit at the tower was once the hub

within the circling moat, but burns no more.

WALK

Grey day

I step outside

a gray pigeon flies up

flapping

grey day.

Now there's gold on the streets

autumn.

IN KONYA WITH RŪMĪ

Wrapped up against the chill of this hour

he's resting among the poor,

the numbed, who come to warm themselves

from the sparks of his smoldering fire.

We others, rich and mindless, only see

some oddities, the knickknacks of piety;

glazed eyes, open and shameless,

not looking through the surfaces of things.