ABSENCE

He held the shadow of his hands in his hands.

It was a calm night, others couldn’t see that he was holding

            his shadow.

He empowered the night. He was careful. He paid more

            attention to others than to himself.

The sea still searched for his eyes. He was absent.

A little girl was buttoning her coat slowly;

he was looking elsewhere as he enjoyed the great

           distance.

Perhaps a skylight was opened up high in the starlight which

was flooding the olive tree grove and the burnt up houses.

He was listening to the butterfly that returned into the glass

           of the All Souls Saturday

and to the fisherman’s daughter who was grinding the quietness

           of the coffee.

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Second Canto

As the new language of despair

formulates new gothic phrases

I start filling my canvas with dark

red carts carrying cadavers

lonely crosses to the mountain peak

remainders of her flattened breast

finches firmly discolored amid the

shadow of magnolia leaves

orphan sound of a lyre’s suffering

scolds dawn when quietness

amplifies the petty and stingy Where

in hell is a grand goal to be followed?

Where in hell is a maimed soldier

to be consoled? Who the devil will keep a

black-veiled widow company

through dark hours of her

soul’s nightmare? Nothing reveals

a snip of shredded light other than

indifference of the neighbor who

trims junipers with a deep

satisfaction of sedentary life stitched

on his t-shirt’s nonsense logo and

what’s left for old Death to do

but toy with the ladybug

on His hand and enjoy

a disjointed farce of the eminent

teen who thinks He knows

everything? Are they not all alike?

The last hurrah comes from hedging

trees and withering hibiscus asserting:

we can do better

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