Vyhľadávanie
EARTHQUAKE IN MEXICO
I read: in the Hotel Romana
500 people died.
Only three were saved:
two lovers and one thief.
No, there's no more news,
love, in vain I look for details
of how that thief survived.
ANSWERING MACHINE
I call you, you're not there,
just your answering machine's there, ping,
after the signal sounds
I may leave a message, pong.
You call me, I'm not here,
just my answering machine's here, pong,
after the signal sounds
you may leave a message, ping.
Ping-pong! Pong-ping!
My answering machine calls you,
you're not there, it leaves a message
on your answering machine,
your answering machine calls me,
I'm not here, it leaves a message
on my answering machine,
my answering machine calls your answering machine,
your answering machine's not there,
you lift the receiver, you say, ach,
this is me, if you're calling my answering machine
you can leave a message, och,
your answering machine is calling my answering machine,
my answering machine's not here,
I lift the receiver, I say, och,
this is me, if you're calling my answering machine,
you can leave a message, ach,
see how we're on call always,
each to each answerable.
FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
In my cup the sugar drowned,
in yours the honey quenched. The tea turned wistful.
You're hushed. I speak.
Hold up and don't worry me.
Your startled knees
huddle together in dusk.
Foreign people reach for us
from the screen. Drizzling
into the room is Cohen, my brother,
my killer. I speak.
Hold me and don't worry.
I'm afraid with you.
HEIGHT ABOVE SEA LEVEL
Up there everything's
lighter. You know that
from physics. Until
the descent: only desperate hope
prevents you
calling it fall.
THEY WON'T RESCUE…
They won't rescue me from the sinking ship.
I won't crawl from under the earthquake's rubble.
But I could live with that.
What kills me is, I’ll never be
the one to tell the tale ...
I CLOSE...
I close the book, put it away
on the shelf, no longer knowing
what it was all about, yet sensing
what I put into it
reading ...
GAS READING
Like a leper I lie,
down with the flu, coughing
rasps me, suddenly someone
rings. Awash with sweat,
I drag myself from bed,
shuffle to the door,
open. On the threshold
is a man: He says:
Good evening, I'm here
to read the gas.
Choked
with coughing, I retreat
from the door, say:
Come inside.
The man asks for a chair,
stands on it, enquiringly
looks at the unit count,
marks the digits.
I gasp for breath,
the blast of coughing bows me, I flee
to the shower, I hack and whoop, I try
to clear the bronchia
of all that phlegm.
In the hall the man
gets down from the chair,
closes his well-thumbed book.
You'll have a surcharge,
he says, going.
I always have a surcharge, I say
between coughs, the gasman disappears
beyond the door and I inhale
deeply and before the searing pain
grips my chest tight,
I say the rest: No matter,
we're alive, that’s the main thing.
77,297
In the Pinkas Synagogue
all the walls are full
of names. Each one
is mine.
I WILL NOT STEP...
I will not step twice into that same river,
which doesn't mean that she
won't flow twice into me.
What have I learnt from that first deluge?
Something though. Today I know
the lifeboat's called
Titanic.
DENTAL HAIKU
Where there'd been a tooth
the nerve remained, as if glad
still to be hurting.
SPRING HAIKU
The possessive rain
with arms around your shoulders,
you went off with him.
TIMELESS HAIKU
What's the time of day?
I'll reply and I won't tell
the truth (many now).
THIRD AUTUMN HAIKU
Take that wind away
and turn down the rain. Or else
switch the damn thing off!
(Retina, 1999)
Translated by John Minahane
