I will free what is within me of rage

and horror.  I run away from others,

in alarm and flee their presence.  I roam

over my life in a boat and suffer

with nausea and seasickness:  a hateful

anxiety eats away at my gut:

Who is able to simply come and go

and leave their life behind!  No this painful

solitary song is written in pain:

I will never again write in such pain!

To be sure this world is like a giant

to a pretentious ant who puts a yoke

on an exiled poet:  I write now

after having spoken with an old friend,

like the wine aged in noble wood barrels

good conversation fortifies the soul:

I feel the agony inside my bones.

Oh, my ache is a cadaver surging

edging, no good is the sweet sea to me!

Not even one pore of me is without

its wound, a nail was driven under

my fingernails, it reaches my feet

my heart has been coldly eaten by them:

and in the great game of life I’m fated

to give my blood as feed for an owl.

Empty and dead, I will float on the wind

entwined inside of my own intestines

raising my fist and cursing all malice!

 

It’s not that a woman’s been disloyal

or that fortune denies me its favors.

Over what doesn’t she swoon, my dear life?

Who would want my life?  I have known people,

and knowing them well I’ve seen they are bad.

If a child passes when I’m weeping

I touch them on the head and say bye

like a captain who waves a festive flag

at the sea from on board a white ship.

 

And if you say that I am blasphemous,

I will tell you that you are blasphemous.

What have I ever been given to live

where tigers feed but wings and no sharp claws?

Is there a law that says the silk-winged tiger

will need be fed? And its wings made of light

may well be as radiant as the sun,

a wonder!  Oh tiger, drive your sharp teeth

harder. Nurture yourself from me.  Eat me.

Dig your tap deeper into my shoulders,

peel off my skull and take a painful bite

of me watch as my wings go to pieces,

flames falling to earth!  Happy is he who

would die for the good of humanity!

Kiss the dogs of murderers on the hand!

 

As a father feels for his daughters when

a corrupt gentleman passes nearby

my ideas concerning what will happen

to mankind –to those for whom I’m dying,

I guard them as carefully as I would

my own sins, in a frozen chest!  I know

people and have found them to be evil.

The best are to be found in the pyre

nurturing the flame of eternity!

The fewer the better for the many.

Crucifixions are for those crucified!

Jesus was nailed to a wooden one.

Today people are nailed together.

The wisepersons of Chichen, the pure earth

of aromas and where the fruits are grown,

with high rituals and beautiful songs,

in depths of heavily scented cisterns

would seek out the most beautiful of them

and discharge of their loveliest virgins.

From the dreaded wall she rose to perfume

florid Yucatan as a soft petal

against blackness ascends into perfume:

It’s what the creator does to the good:

to perfume, to balance: Come winged tiger

Drive down into my shoulders: the vicious

go to feed while the good come to nurture

others through themselves. For the mystery

of the cross, no parchment theologian

would lower himself but the virtuous

do. A candle is effaced as it burns.

Smile like a virgin who is dying

a flower torn from its stem!  A good soul

suffers greatly in the world. In daytime

appearing courageous and at nightime

crying into their own arms and later

sees the horrendous sun rise in the sky,

and livid not to exhibit itself

so as to not scare people with the sight

of seeing the blood that’s shed from its wounds

and conceals its miserable body

in the shape of a skeleton taken

to walk for its decency in pink leaves.

 

December 14