Fjordscene Poetry

you await the night –your blood boils slowly bubblingin the sun –,creeping your teeth laughsharp and white –,playing glides your walk –playing safelyyour body hangs against the wallall day in shadow –deep in cold pupilsa child cries despairinglyforgotten –,tired till […]

they herded goatsand I spread out my feet in the sunon capo san andreae –black-eyed, seven-year-old and smilingthe oldest came and begged for cigarettes –when he left,he did three somersaultsand laughed –brown-cheeked, tear-stripedthe little one cameand sighing laid five yellow […]

everybody sang – salvatore bambarasat aloneand looked at his hands –then he lifted his eyessmilinglistening –o they are happyand it is my words, they sing,and nobody knows –mine –,and nobody knows –,o lovely –!

in the midday suna bird singsin a cage the size of a hat – through closed gratingspale song seeps –thin voices singbent over sicilian embroideries –along white and yellow threadsthe words drip –– – –sixteen-year-olds – seventeen-year-olds –gratings between them […]

a white owlsailed inaudiblytowards a cypress –,and four starssimultaneously deserted the skyand laid down on the sea –from the highest mountaintopa donkey crieda raw stinking toneof despairing injustice –

god-child, whom I love –!how many must I beat –? shall I always cometo your smile, which says:poor killing god-man –? you know they can’t sufferonly bleed –only try –only die – how long god-child –?shall my sun-heart always roamalways […]

(for Fannie Hurst) o great happinessgreat happiness have they got,who were born in the lowest country –everywhere you can see themwanderinglovingcrying –everywhere they walk,but in their hands they carry little thingsfrom the lowest country –– – –o greater than all […]

leave my eyes alonefrom your painleave my eyes alonefrom your pain –! I have the sorrowsof a whole worldcursesand wildnesssomewhere –a whole accursed world’s wild sorrowsI have –I danceI dance – leave me alone –!I haveall kinds of lovein a […]

listen –!hear the wounded mansway slowlyslowly and vaguelywith a large palm-treehe swaysthe palm stretches bendingthe palm arisesthe palm swayslonger thinner lightningswaysshrinking thickeningsinkingslowly in a pleasing distant soundover a rattling lake of black heartssmall waves of flat shining heartsquickly rolling ebonite-wavestripping […]

(a fragment) just to fetter meshe took my flower – with the daggerwith the daggerI stabbed her –ha – ha – ha – loneliness is great –do you know,where the new flowers are –,dagger mine –?

through these nightsI hearthe queen’s eye call – but the queen sleepsamong palm-winds –it is onlyher eye, which calls – the queen no longerneeds me –it is I, who needher – – – – | easy to find the southern […]

a sunday morningyou gave bloodto your most beloved dream – your body sang of great happiness –,the dream died –,and you gave birth to me – mother, the dead –,the dream –it was me, you gave birth to –,o you […]

it is to you,I speak –! what aredreaming animalsand great joycompared with the noiseof raging stomachsand pained sexes –? idiocy –! notdo my stomach rage anymore,and always have I loved,and not can I still the noise – but it isto […]

like the feet of newborn  childrenyour eyes are during longing –go –!go –!along the strangely speaking rivers,which give birth to the forestsand fill them with answers –o, the forests,cowering the riverslike listening melancholy snakes –,and drag the sky down over […]

what are you screaming for –you goddamn fool,you limp belly-filler –what in hell are you screaming for –can’t you help yourself,you pale bowlegged loser –,then I will of course jumpout between the sharksand drag you back on shore –you asshole […]

elisabet’s soulhad legs like the darkest notesin a violincelwith dancing feet – but her fatherwith the blonde beard,died,and elisabet always cried – her tears were largeand transparent like globesof champagne –and these tears luredthe men with the three-quarter souls – […]

dying the little one lay –a thin cry –minutes like millions of detestable flies –burning anxiety hammers against small temples –cynically slow you wentthrough the night –you painted fear-crosses –,hour after hour –small eyes – small fingerssurrendered bit by bitto the flies […]

once you were scared –now you sit with the freedom –your heart weighs nothing –,o you are free –– – –always you hold up your smoky smilein front of your eyes,before you look at the others,who don’t know the fearof mute […]

the hundred mendig out stonesfor eleven hours –,and fill great shipsand foreign stock-holders,for whom they don’t give a shit –(eleven hours – ) and the hundred menpour champagneinto souls,which the city of longingought to fear,and couldn’t filltwo years ago – […]

your bitternessis a lie –your altruismlooking after wounds .you were born –! you will not take charity –what do you have to give –?what do you have –,which you weren’t given –?see your holy dutytowards yourself, which you’ve been given […]