Upon a Tilted Scale & Droplets of Poison in Translation
UPON A TILTED SCALE
Of things that have cut
their own spare keys
to my body,
grief is one & joy is another.
& I barely have control over either. Because
some things
know the secret names
of our life’s doors—
they come & go as they wish.
DROPLETS OF POISON IN TRANSLATION
It should not be too hard
to invent a modern blame game where
one thing is not exchanged for another. Only
it will be impossible to say it's a game
if in the end there cannot be anyone who wins.
So, what is honor if it can succumb
to power when love calls? & neither fame
nor beauty can tell, without high percentage error,
how much crime is committed
in its name. In ancient Macedonia, a legend says:
some gods, revolting against the sun,
could not resist the maidens of the land;
they douse their noses with things that smell
better than roses. But after the deities
in their loins were sated crossing out memories
they don't like on bodies of men,
they cast their steel drums of lust in bronze
& make a fake sun to burn (like fire) in songs
to which no god must dance.
Windows of the wind slam shut quickly
against their wings. For never
in the history of doors has the world seen
the one which closes against itself
the way water closes its mouth
against its tongue in winter when it turns to ice.
How long until this planet that thrives
on strangling time & beauty survives
the tail of the hour swirling around its neck?
