NOW
Now,
not tomorrow.
Not another time,
not in another season.
Now.
What I have to do now,
now is the time for it,
and what I should do tomorrow
or at another time,
in another season,
I will do it then,
immediately,
on the spot.
Tell me now what you have to say,
and destroy
what you have to destroy,
lift up,
what you have to lift up,
live what you have to live.
Every upcoming day

your whole life long…

Live what you have to live.
As nothing is left
for us.
Just the death…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7KT7ZFV

Twenty-Second Hour
In the hands of zealots He places
matches and they march to the burning site
where they conflagrate holy books
and the enemy’s hovels
ostracized reason rebels
against simple thought
invisible bow strikes notes
and the birds of prey swallow
bitter beads sweating multitudes
gather and an archaic ziggurat decays
in their arrogant minds when
like silence of untold myths the
pandemonium of arcane words
impede all progress and vanity
of dramatic scenes neglects
sanctity of pious peasants
and artful efforts of
thought police the moralists
insisting on the absurdity
as Jehovah breaks
a sinister smile at the chaos His
gift of the polyglot concept erupting
more futile in vain whitewashed bodies
and I ask her to slightly open her lips
to define my finger guiding
her smile against the mirror’s wish
as outside our open window
pieced-out souls go by
with seamed partitions
one for the spring another
for Death one for summer
at last one for the red egg and
smiling Death peeks from behind
the tree freeing a laughing
ladybug onto jasmine
and dons the polka dot tie with
confidence of the omniscient He
brings in the ever-sharp
translator asking ‘why?’
and the slum lord’s greed answers: who cares?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763092

The Body
The body between the hands — history and music, word
and deed — oh, stone limbs and the wall, he said, the
wall; horse riders passed outside; the spurs shone in
the night gleam, the smell of the horses remained and
the air of their leave stirred the corner of the tablecloth
a little, and the only flower. We had to find the continuance
in things indifferent to us when the colourful lights of the
display windows were turned off and if there was something
beyond death, it was exactly that slow and pale colour
that rose from within death.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785

SKETCHES FOR A SUMMER
A Word For Summer
We’ve returned to autumn again, the summer
like an exercise book that we are tired of writing in remains
filled with deletions, abstract designs
and question marks in the margin, we’ve returned
to the season of eyes staring
into the mirror under the electric light
tightened lips and the people strangers
in the rooms the streets under the pepper trees
while headlights of cars massacre
thousands of pale masks.
We’ve returned; we always start out to return
to loneliness, a fistful of soil, to the empty hands.
And yet once I fell in love with Syngrou Avenue
the double up and down of the great road
leading us as though miraculously to the sea
the eternal sea to cleanse us of our sins
once I fell in love with some unknown people
that I suddenly met at the end of the day
talking to themselves like captains of a sunken armada
evidence that the world is immense.
And yet I loved these roads here, these columns
even though I was born on the other shore near
reeds and rushes, islands
that had water springing out of the sand to quench
the thirst of the rower, even though I was born near
the sea that I fold and unfold with my fingers
when I’m tired—I no longer know where I was born.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096TTS37J

In an Old Book
In an old book, about a hundred years old,
forgotten amid its pages,
I found an unsigned watercolour.
It must have been the work of a good artist.
It had the title, “Presentation of Love.”
But a more fitting title would be “Love of the extremely sensual.”
Because it was obvious when you looked at the piece
(the artist’s idea was easily felt)
that the young man in the picture
was not meant for those who love
in somewhat healthy ways,
and within accepted boundaries,
with his deep brown eyes,
and the extraordinary beauty of his face,
the beauty of his deviate attractions,
with his ideal lips that grace
a beloved body with sensual delight
with his ideal lips made for beds
common morality calls shameless.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562856

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763823

Helena
On the first day of spring, I call you
‘Come, let us spread colours
to the edge of the plain
to the far end of the cosmos
a cyclamen deep in the rock fissure
of empathy, ‘Come, let us unfold
the whitewash of hyacinths
unto the hoarfrost of last night
perhaps the impulse of blood
will turn its icy mirror into
the freshest cicada song
a new illumination
that becomes a fireball like
the virgin sun ray that
opens a smile on the gardenia
white petals
exploring the laughter
of your emotions and the crystal
star blushes in the embrace
of the serene firmament

https://draft2digital.com/book/3747032#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1771715987

Hindu
Things of the world I have seen
yet my eyes remain clean
your silence fills my ears
the sun shines and you tell me go to sleep

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763408

excerpt

Memory Sandwich
The Monroes migrated from nobody-knows-where just as the
swallows were turning up famished at our backyard feeder. A
van with lilting shocks and unfamiliar licence plates deposited their
belongings on the lawn of a neglected two-bedroom. By the time the
leaves on the poplars in Falaise Park had begun to coil, just as the
wings of the leatherjackets started to sag, the family up and moved
away, a memory.
Afterwards a succession of temporary tenants occupied the bungalow.
There were couples with children and couples without.
There were lessees, owners, renters and loners, none of whom were
able to do anything about the air of despondency permeating that
sullen cedar structure.
Fresh paint, a garden — nothing worked. For years it sat empty,
victim to vandals, rodents and mould, roof shingles scattered, windows
lost to target practice. The day it was bulldozed that house
looked much as it did the day the Monroes moved in: unloved.
Besides the adults, Nelson and Connie, there were three kids:
Gus, the eldest at 16, had a purple birthmark splashed across one
eye; Lana, a year younger, was a quiet girl whose attempts to conceal
sprouting mammary glands were unsuccessful.
Shortly after their arrival the youngest crossed the street to where
I was fanning my collection of baseball cards. I had been aware of
Freddy observing me from a bedroom window. He introduced himself
with the assurance of someone accustomed to the role of
stranger. There seemed a precocious savvy in those squinting eyes.
– Wanna be friends? he asked.
To facilitate camaraderie Freddy faked an interest in baseball. He
misused terms like line drives and pop fouls, cannily eschewing…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971