Naughts (A Homeophonic Translation of Franz Kafka’s Nachts)
We sunk in the night. So we may, from the top,
sink into naught to think, so gone we sleep deep in the
Night. In wrongs we see some sleep in men. One clean
short steal away, one unsoldered self-touching, yes, see
in Houses slough sin, in festering Beds sin, under festering Day,
hours stretched over God’s own mattress, in Time,
under Decks, in working light have the sick
zoos amended fun death with damn-all in-all and we spit in
wood-stained legend, in ledgers I’m free, an Anubis bares
omen, in here, in folk, under call he melts
off cold words, hinges work the woman free still, the
stir of the arm goes root, that gets sick again then bones
hymn, rue him at end. Undue wish, beckon the Watcher,
find then in next ten days she wakes the Bremen then
holds us to rising laughter near din. Where were
you? One must watch, heist it. One must be a sign.
Coffeecup With a Bigelow Teabag
Essence of brown cradled by cream stone
makes a rim of cupped air reflecting
where the landing strip of lipstick flesh has stuck
and crossed paths with drowned twine stains
with an anchor of French Vanilla folded twice
round an ear ring waxed with mahogany
“Blueprint for Counter-Education” – An Ekphrastic Poem
A Moment of Something Breathing
From the sensation of agape comes filling.
The singular rise of the belly into crumbs,
a tickle becomes a shiver: gooseflesh
growing from the seeds in the spine like dendrites across
a field of the body, sowing fresh mounds.
The fullness of the room beckons with the taste
of cold air that curls tongues like smoke.
Ebb to flow leaves one cold lick of sweat, cradled
in sensation of cloth. The compositions of sun and tide
are performed by this outpour and swallow.
We dance as dust in absence. Through air, fall awake.
There are good and bad gardeners: This is a song for the evil ones
(A translation of Hans Carl Artmann’s Es gibt gute und böse gärtner: dies ist das lied für einen bösen)
My mind
is turned to dusk
when the moon grows
then I cannot stand it anymore
I crave it almost like blood
then I take my watering can
and shower the flowers
like a rain…
and then
and then
then I take the sickle’s blade
and strike them all
from their heads!
a square meter first
and two square meters
and a whole garden
one small meadow
one large meadow
fieldfieldfield…
I know nothing
I am not sorry for that
here come them all
all turn!
The whole night
I go through them
down me runs the blood
from the top into my shoes
I cutting cutting cutting
that is the only way the blood
over the sickle screams
until it is morning!
Pen and Screen 