Short Poems

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it is evening.

Vous qui pleurez, venez à ce Dieu, car il pleure.
Vous qui souffrez, venez à lui, car il guérit.
Vous qui tremblez, venez à lui, car il sourit.
Vous qui passez, venez à lui, car il demeure.

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

Eaten alive by
lice and fleas -- now the horse
beside my pillow pees

Dour river
Jaded with monotony of lights
Diving off mast heads….
Lights mad with creating in a river… turning its sullen back…
Heave up, river…
Vomit back into the darkness your spawn of light….
The night will gut what you give her.

Earth hard to my heels
bear me up like a child
standing on its mother's belly.
I am a surprised guest to the air

Sour plums at lunch left my teeth feeling all feathery.
Banana trees cast green across gauze window-screens.
A long day. I Wake from a noon nap empty of thought,
all idleness, watch kids catch falling willow blossoms.

Early summer rain--
houses facing the river,
two of them.


Translated by Robert Hass

a scorching sun ~
trickles down the sky
an eagle's cry

Although a sea of whisky filled each lung,
he would have called out from beneath a wave
just to console the living, but his tongue
was heavy as a stone inside the grave.