After Thought (a false translation of Rene Char’s Post-Scriptum)
Patient cadaver
promise me you’ll complete your education,
be precise as you stomp around,
your long hair is still counting votes.
A desert approaches waving a tissue,
a name is embroidered above the horizon’s pocket.
Patient cadaver
your passion for dance awaits in the ballroom.
Exhausted and smoking in the alley
you trade faces with the night,
the labor of statues has become more difficult lately.
Delivery (a false translation of Rene Char’s Conduite)
It’s getting late.
A few good wishes make
their way through the crowd.
Above the village, a crack in the dam.
Our hats surface and it’s getting late.
Rocks are tempted
to slink away.
September is polishing
the grieving machine.
The excitement of the chase
switches off the conveyer belt.
Your demand for sweets
gently beats up
the alchemy of my shopping list.
On the anxious couch
determination’s lacework,
the essence of two bodies
tighter than a noose.
Disagreement (a false translation of Rene Char’s Argument...)
My house is a fixer-upper,
it has no appetite for the imagination.
See that calf with the approved set of fins,
the delivery man’s alarmingly large rivets.
My house points to the last forecast,
the silence of its interior has been remodeled.
In a second season of false pain
one understands the prison of the dead,
one automatically exhumes the action.
Arranged according to size
a song with gestures swallows the moon.
New vocal cords lasso the annex of enchantment.
Sad paint to the east
your self-conscious light is advancing
the overthrow of a lemon.
One part is devilishly red, the other angelic.
One dimension extends an olive branch,
the corners are at odds,
the bats are visibly shaken by the disagreement.
Aaaa... (a false translation of Rene Char’s To...)
Tuesday, my love deputized the Andes.
My fear of heights attended a seance.
Nothing appears out of thin air, my friend;
not this waiter who is dying for us to leave
with our suit of armor, not this stranger
who returns with our missing eclipse.
We board the volatile bus
one random atom at a time,
mountains will escape
the chains of our admiration.
If, by chance, we run out of gas,
don’t change the radio station,
one of the great mysteries of this journey
forgets to check the tire pressure.
A shark fin approaches without offering
my sadness a chair and I am capsized.
The sun’s normal route has been detoured
according to the road signs of desire.
If, by chance, you arrive safely
in the valley between two and eleven,
please see to the needs of our furniture,
their demands have grown more bizarre.
What’s Your Handicap?
My first and last name is Mulligan,
but I address the ball as Zippy.
When I’m out of the woods I’m
in a depression filled with sand.
Sometimes I waggle in the rough,
I am a hazard only unto myself.
I wear an albatross for an apron,
cut my chili dip with casual water.
I have dimples the size of divots,
a clubface, dogleg and frog hair.
Birdies cry gimmie and bite my
bridgework, then burn the bridges.
My closest friends call me Bogie.
This is my preferred lie.