Lines written à la recherche du temps perdu on the commute Zurich-Lausanne:
pearls of oil poised
on the golden crust of bread
my Swiss neighbor baked
olives shoot from boughs
obedient to the stick carved
from a sister branch
blades of grass caress
the ankle among dahlias
chosen to be cut
I crushed a beetle
it didn’t see me coming
does its death exist?
paper from your tree
shelter of black characters
crisp in my fingers
on a dying leaf
the poet wrote a ballad
of immortality
did the flutist mourn
the reed pierced and stabbed by hands
eager for music?
Pan’s hooves in the heart
of a house of water flows,
dwelling of the reed
to you E B B,
for stripping the instrument
of the artist’s lure
ice of sky on ice
mountains heavy with prophecy
from a dark summer
1816 clouds
the tales of orphan creatures
starved for mother’s love
learning to watch from Dorothy Wordworth:
apple blossom snows
in mid-spring, it idly divests
fleshly bulbs, hubs of promise
in loops, elfish vapour
mounts at the edge of the wood
now — a grey chimney
spring is drenched in green
I mourn that it came so fast
and miss what I see
white lines of the air
whiskers in the gem blue sky
that’s how airplanes shine
airplanes above our heads
in languid pursuit know nought
of the mating flies below
Lit are the houses
their shades stretch above the lawn
grass blades fold in two
Now the scythe hangs High
now hungry-mouthed it drops
on yellow star bloom
hair curled, sweat gathered
like a globe soon to tumble
the long long nape line
a glistening wet trace
ever slimmer, ever lithe
draws its way on skin
Echology
when all is silent
but the breath of the earth
pushes wind and branches
a mountain shadow shivers
below metal wings
i forget to shiver
press my ears against my palms
and ask
elm, can you hear that too
Bamboo trees connect me
to the sky’s immensity,
bamboo clothes my skin.
This skirt comes from trees,
it’s pulp ripped from bamboo trunks,
ripped my bones to wrap.
When the tree became
viscose to shield nakedness,
bamboos came of age.
Where trees come of age,
the forests disappear,
viscose clogs our homes.
Bamboos rose up high,
A tree once sprung from the soil,
now wrapped in a closet.
how many layers has this place,
bugs threading in grass
grass at the foot of the tree
birds darkling on purple boughs
horizons waiting to soak the sun of dawn
dawn with an airplane, machine of the air,
there a white whisker,
here the wish for a shooting star
i was no longer alone,
in my room, my pod, my cocoon
a brown, maroon-shelled body,
shiny armor, a broken rainbow on the move
stroke the edge of the blue wall
swift-paced with no eyes on me, creeping before my eyes.
A cockroach by the wallpaper’s white lily.
White lily of the valley, velvety in my fancy,
immaculate heads at the feet of the Madonna,
— now surprised by a stain.
I heard my voice rise:
You must leave this home
creeping creature of the earth
home is mine to call,
lilies mine to covet,
earth mine to name.
I, creature, know nothing from the word go
nothing to the last tick of the clock
but to you I speak of unbending law
tick-tock, tock-tick, tttick, kk
exhale with all your might
forget the metal sound
release your jaws, unlock your lips
so air can blow past your teeth
and the quiet of the unconscious hover
until the gallop of the tock whips the again