What else? I’ve forgotten my Klingon.
I open my mouth. Light pours through the dark
jigsaw of organs: the wrists of small birds totter upright.
Their gentle tots sway. The gables wear a beard
of icicles, which Rachmaninov as they fall. Each punctum
dams a finger up its gushing self. ¡Olé!

Pink noise over narrow bandwidths,
and the last glimmer of daylight is like Lazarus,
that punk, waking up
as he misrecognizes heaven.

Source language
With words on the other side of the word:
Muted, bruised and damned,
Itinerary words.

What did I keep
In my suitcase arriving?
The coloured batiks of my mother,
The dor for seedy places,
A fleeting proverb
The fever of tested illnesses,
Mud pies, dusted with clay,
My first toys of wood and wool,
The sparse rains, the winds and frosts of the pusta,
The woodcocks and storks brooding rebel roofs.
The drums and fires in the streets at Christmas

Target language
With its mirror words:
Avoir ou être, naître ou mourir,
Être ou avoir, mourir ou naître,
No time to win,
No time to lose.

The tongue is no more
The heart organ in this case
Instead the organ of knowledge
And of power.

Where are you birthplace
When you become un-quietude
A place in a postcard
With no future, never mailed
Trace stored deep in the eyes,
Trace banished in the space of writing

Homelandless, stunted, hidden, isolated,
Alone with the world, beat on and bet on,
Unreal traces of your own reality,
Tainted traces in your own ownership,
In a state of inferiority or superiority,
Of opacity or heroic transparency

Source language
With words from the other side of the word:
Muted, wounded, damned,
Itinerary words, earth words.

Where am I among all these countries
Always at the window, at the border,
Always on the margin, on the march,
Always solemn,
Too tall or too short,
Pretentious or pretending,
Like a cognitive fly

Target language
With its mirror words:
Avoir ou être, naître ou mourir,
Être ou avoir, mourir ou naître,
No time to win,
No time to lose.

Where are you birthplace?
When you become only clairvoyance
Drawing, a line to please and move
Hollow place in the frightened hand,
Passing landscape, scraps of image
Empty or full of comical mud
On top of which the painter pasted
His frescoes of a young artist:

Drawings, lines to please and move
One die, one horsy, one nanny and
Missed appointments.

Source language
With words from the other side of the word:
Muted, wounded, damned,
Earth words, itinerary words.

Where are you exposed place?
With your reveller atheist god
Rootless and ill humoured,
Who danced the circle dance of oblivion
Its wings too human, too off-beat,
Outlining indulgences from cloud to cloud

Avoir ou être, naître ou mourir,
Être ou avoir, mourir ou naître,

Where are you my games of forgetting and shifts in meaning
With your three-coloured, bug-eyed Bolsheviks?
Your silences and your guilty tears
Your red melancholy, running out of syllables,
That they were afraid of from memory to memory.

Your kindness as apostles of the neam,*
Your life-long, acid insomnia

Where are you all those who
I heard knocking on the doors of my childhood?
Like an ode, like an anthem,
Like a drinking song:
Avoir ou être, naître ou mourir,
Être ou avoir, mourir ou naître,
……………………………………

Note: Romanian words: dor – nostalgia; neam – people; pusta – plain

I write the wee red worms
that perch on wee read words
wide as a writer’s loom
among the wee red worms.

I am the worm in my woman’s head.
the worm in man’s writing.
the wormword or woman-man.
I have the way with words of the bisexual worm.

I put feelings in my head.
I pull feelings from my head.
A worm doesn’t have feelings,
a word needs itself
and its fresh food.

I write like fresh food,
I write in my full frosty body,
I need me,
I write like “needing me.”

fill myself,
swell myself,
crush myself,
till there’s no more
of me.

And there is nothing more.
No shading
because of what
I could be.
Nothing but
my name
looking like a word
that
tickles
and
chews
everything it loves that I love like worms.
So it cries what I write against all possible writing.

WHAT AM I?
WHO AM I?

A name at the speed of words,
a writing in flesh for
the little earth worms
under rain and under the feet
of people happy or sad.

WHO AM I?
WHAT AM I?

My head floats above me
and I can’t find myself.
My head wants all my flesh.

38.5°C. 38.6°C. 38.7°C. 38.8°C. 38.9°C. 39°C. Fever. Late fall, winter cold, fog, mud, gray dogs, panhandlers, homosexual kids, junkies, -7°C. In a photo you can live or exist even if you’re not… alive. I grew up that way (4 seasons, very hot, very cold, everything that is the not, especially not [...], I have known peoplefish, animalplants, birdstones, the air and fire of photolands. I made love with the first photo the second the third the next ones, with the camera), with the black glass eye, with its sharp objects, with warm lines and circles, love with [...] etc., so that now, I don’t know anymore if my parents are not in some way the grown-up expression of my age at its different ages, taken in photos or left in the margins, or beyond the (…) Or me in love position with my life. No, I wasn’t crazy, I am not crazy, I’m too sad-wise, too beautiful-nasty, too ugly-docile, am another thing, an other EYE.

39.1°C. I can light up at any moment, the lack of action, the absence, the waiting, its tests too simple, too slow.

The inside and the outside of a photograph are inseparable. In life, any life, there are areas and movements that are explainable, areas and movements that are inexplicable.

Dark, light, shadow, limpid void, touched void.

Naked, unplaited, wet, elastic, curly.

“The beautiful red worm” with little dancer’s breasts. Photo. 1.67 m.

I live.
I am.
Empty and emptied.

I strike with my head the crust of heaven, I give feet to the crust of the earth. If I hold out my hands, horizontally, I perforate the boundary with the world. There remain accidents, mellow wounds, through which I receive sound letters, letters from the outside of eternity. Ding – dong, ding – dong, ding – dong… Like church bells. The big bells ring. Ding – dong, ding – dong, ding – dong (…)

In my head, the bees are made of little wax bells.
My head and its honey float over me.

I cry out
and honey runs out between my teeth.
Woman with the combbells
with a
hive in my head.
I am a very good woman,
a honey worm,
a word in honey,
a writing worm with the honey of a woman,
a word
writing in depth and in length,
very gently between and among,
in accordance with,
with the precision of bisexual writing,
to the orgasm of the metaphor of being
alone and alone,
alone as long as necessary.
Isn’t it what isn’t (…)?
Isn’t it the void that loves me madly, dammit,
I don’t, my void!
A worm needs no feelings,
it makes holes, combplaces in a hive,
places for bells and flights of bees.

I am a wormword in time, a wormword – while –
in time – words – of – feelings.

I am called Poemy. And I float
my head turned towards what
I no longer have. Towards the other side. And the other side floats too.
In the wild green shape of a green water lens.
Lens – heads. Little aquatic photos. Green.

I write small. And I eat everything that is beautiful.
I write in me, to open out the bee hole,
the honey of my thoughts,
in which head and body float in
the same direction,
bog flowing
on the edge of my memory.

A verse is like that. It doesn’t
cuss.
It writes in
the wound,
as if the
pain wrote to it on
cuts,
heavy pains, stirring up
cuss words.
That can
understand the words of a worm,
of a worm that takes itself for a woman,
and especially of a woman who takes herself for a wormword?!
Only severely “damned” poets!

I am your damned poet, pardon,
worm–poet, your favorite.
I am the one
who
writes cuss words of love
on your neck.

A worm speaks so well, but
once in its life.
I wish you never hear it.
Vaihingen, December 17, 2004:
inching. inching.

I run from one end to another.
I turn in
the photo, like the key in the lock.
I open myself by writing. I
feel
nothing. I open up wide.
It is likely I write what
I tell sitting in this nest
of flesh that moves to its
own music, but that
is not capable of feelings.
I see my hands bigger and
bigger.
Like Jack’s beanstalks,
they grow and grow
towards
heaven.

I put my fingers in
my mouth and I write there,
climbing on my saliva, I go
into the writing:
up,
down,
and so forth,
then
further
and nearer.
I put my head into the written.
I blow it up.
I go the speed of
love at first sight.

I write till there is nothing.
And it is so
beautiful and clear nothing!
I can speak freely.
And I can speak so
well,
I can speak freely,
I ca
n spe
ak
free
ly!
Above houses there
are
crows.
Above crows, a
red sky.
If I wasn’t writing, I would say “black and white sunset.”
And the belfry of the church of good cheer.
And the light fine rain, frozen in
the shape of needles.
And the fir tree in the
window.
And the pine cones and my
photos in pieces,
hanging from the fir
branches.
And,
especially,
the crows
that
fly squabbling,
talons dug into each other,
like pieces
of a puzzle.
And the little
red worm non-existent,
little non-existent, red non-existent,
Word – Worming – the Way to non-existent.

39.1°C.
39.2°C.

You told me many times:
“You can’t have a good relationship with your worm,
with that word thing!”
“We’re all afraid,
afraid of listening to you!” – under your breath,
before
going to sleep, you all turned your backs on me.
And you will never know anything about the
wee red worm.

I think I have 39.9°C. Cabbala plot? No,
as a poet, lucky numbers:
39, the number of
my father’s house,
9, in school, my
favorite mark,
I think that,
I
no longer climb
further
higher

In time,
Like a drill in the navel of heaven.
There are no steps, nor stops
my writing is not inclined.
The wee red worm,
the guinea pig of my writing, the
little red letter that gnaws on steps:
I come, I return, I implant shrill letters
in the stalks of
your body, I climb down, here I am
I put my
head in your head,
my body in your
body, your head in my body
your body in my head,

Go about poetry
like a soldier
fully erect

march up the street
remind them of relatives
who went somewhere

swing your arms in rhythm
know where you’re going
even if it means into the trees
or the woods
let them take a second

look long and lean
in dark crisp uniform
a lone figure
at twilight

the whole pink sky behind you,
a maple leaf on your shoulder.

Sacred Street 2

Write poetry fast as a fire engine.
Jump into your pants
slide down the pole
go through stop signs
race round round-abouts;
sometimes you have to plow down
a No U Turn sign
to get where you want to go.

Be your red self.
When people point, wave.
Toot the bell.
Floor it.

Park anywhere.
Block your tires.
Don’t run away.
Get your ladders in place.
Unravel your hoses
not any old way;

go into the smoke.
Even if it is a false alarm
walk straight into the burning flames
because the bell rang
and someone may be lying
fast
asleep
in
there.

Sacred Street 3

Instead of a tower above the town
be a Smoke Bush.
Be the tree that absorbs all.

Know you are called to a higher purpose
beyond your purple smoky leaves.
Grow wild, wrap around rocks.
Change the invisible air around you simply
by being.

Provide a place for birds to hide.
Trust the mountain,
let your roots grow deep.

Cotinus coggygria,
use mysterious photosynthesis to transform carbon
by breathing.
Take in the fumes of all around you
and exhale as oxygen.

Grow.

Bend.

Reach.

(Repeat).

Petals in rings of #light -
your garrulous whispers
divide the darkness into
ramparts of words.
Night – the restlessness of a rose.

II

A street of lost footfalls
- the street that I walk up
every day.
Each step #measured by a second
in someone’s life.
A darkening.

III

Time – an #echo zipped tight
by dreams.

IV

A colored #coffee cup
simmers, hot, its fumes
a sea star in the making.

Waves.

V

A watchmaker’s
shell holds up the second
whose spiral winds up.

Spring. A scattering.
A voice that #keeps praying
behind black mirrors.

the awkward and irrational logic behind
missing someone would be hard to
explain to a small child except maybe if
the small child knows that feeling sad
is okay and you tell the small child that
missing someone is an illness of the brain.

my bed is a mess, it misses you. it’s been
having nightmares about being suffocated to
death with a red pillow. to calm the bed down
I have read the bed a bedtime story of printed-out
e-zine articles on ways to overcome a heartbreak.

intimacy is addictive. staring at the back of your
head at night is a small personal interaction that I miss
but didn’t expect to. sometimes in my sleep I want
to bump into you or else maybe roll over you but can’t.
I should have rolled over you very hard in my sleep,
to crush you into the bed and prevent you from leaving.

to invest a lot of energy into thinking about you
constantly is to considerably hate myself.

I miss you and I miss you naked. those are two
completely separate ways of missing you.

the bed is being a jerk to me. in the morning I wake up
with bed hair ten percent worse than usual. the bed is
accusing me I think of not missing you genuinely and just
being a weak person unable to cope with the large,
unfathomable feeling of suddenly having no one to care about.

as usual my feelings will adopt the physical shape of an
upside-down heart in the open office document, or at least
this is what the shape looks like to me. does it look different to
you; yes the physical shape of my feelings is a rorschach test.

what is right with me; very little.
I need a moment please.

PART TWO

lately I have been missing you in the form of
angel-shaped drool stains on my pillow.

a printed-out e-zine article informed me that occupying the mind
is the best way to get over missing someone, so yesterday
I worked almost all day on school stuff and lit stuff and emails.
most days I put more effort into emails than into school stuff.

at the end of the day I was tired and wanted to not think
anymore and to not stare at anything anymore, just
maybe close my eyes and make out with someone but
there was no one to make out with, is this tragic or what;

a refreshing way to overcome my pride would be
to send you an email whose subject line reads,
‘I miss you’ and whose body reads, ‘see subject line.’

the bed looks depressed. its red sheets remind it
of your red winter coat and also of the red cover of
that book you gave me. the bed misses our bed talk.
at night, I can hear it make dolphin sounds in an
attempt to reach out and communicate. the noises
bounce off the walls and return to the bed, which
makes the bed feel shunned and very discouraged.

my serotonin level is often at its highest when no one is around.
to sabotage myself is to prevent others from doing so. what is
the meaning of missing you; a subject matter to tackle in a future
poem maybe, one whose best lines aren’t even the funniest.

in my sleep, I rolled over from the bed and fell on the floor. I felt calm
because I have no particular associative memories of you and the floor.

one way to power through this self-imposed passive-affective mood
would be to do push-ups by the bed until I am bulked up and muscular,
an entirely different person capable of rolling over in the bed multiple
times, creating heat and making the bed as warm as when you were in it.

why does the empty bed keep happening to me;
I probably deserve it. I need a moment please.

PART THREE

I have been more of a facebook profile than
a person lately. yesterday the status updates
were cascading down the page like a zen waterfall
so I sat still and listened. what does the waterfall
says; the subtext is unknown, and possibly nothing.

the bed is in a coma now. I said your name to the bed
and it shivered so I put an additional blanket on the bed.

missing you is one problem, how to conclude this poem
is another. I don’t think ahead, I think through. to write this
poem was mostly a ploy to kill time until our situation evolved.

but nothing happened. I feel the same now as I felt on the very
first line of this poem, except maybe for the disconnect between
what I do and what I want, which has somehow accentuated itself.

do you remember when the bed was so happy to see
you that it jumped on itself; that never happened, I lied.
I just wanted to leave you with a pleasant image of the bed.

throughout this very long process of mildly deranged
soul-searching I have determined that lovesickness is
a discouraging crisis for which tangible solutions include
a large black tea and stepping away from the keyboard.

but missing you is also a hiddenness of the
mind, the devoted, uncertain sensation that
perhaps there will never be certitudes, just more
feasible or less feasible longings and desires.

which reminds me,
let me state how hot you are: very.

can I start the poem over; I am not sure
you can do that. I need a moment please.

O my heart, do not stand as a witness against me in the tribunal.
Spell 30, The Egyptian Book of the Dead

When I am called to stand
and give account of things,
heart, do not tell the whole story.

Do not stutter, pause, divulge, or
admit that if I could I would remain.

That, in truth, I was not expecting to be called.

That I had thought—having
gone so long now, and so alone—
I could escape this too.

That we could
remain; could
live alone and unexamined
within these walls—this

false body—
and not be called
in order to

betray each other in the end.

Heart, do not stand as witness against me in the tribunal.
Let some of all of this be lost.

Let it be sealed. Let it be cauterized in chasms,
in each of your four chambers. But
do not preserve it there. Let it
rot. Let it

stink and burst in the
retracted annals of the body. Let it
dissolve itself in

liquid and in gas; let it not ask questions that it
cannot answer, but neither let it be

borne aloft by incantation, invocation, or appeal.

O heart, resist. And if you
cannot, let us

make a pact. Let’s seal it. Let us not
answer for this,
or for our
selves. Let us
not stand trial. Let us
slip away now, heart; let’s
go.

Not long ago, I read a poem that Bruno wrote,
about tomatoes, and other fruit.

One after the other the foods were named.

Halfway through I was hungry and didn’t
notice when, in the last few lines the mood
shifted, and he mentioned love.

What is it, I wonder, that he is thinking now?

As he stirs together the oil and the vinegar,
which will soon

spill over the vegetables, and the

wet seeds of the tomatoes,
which now lie exposed on his plate?

Is he thinking about love? Or, is he
imagining, as I imagine,

the tomatoes, when he
first bites into them:

how they will draw the spit
from underneath his tongue,
and the corners of his mouth?

Highway 10
and east is muddled
by the first March rain,
the fog like merino wool,
and our premature dreams of summer.
The sky, gray as an old man’s jacket,
plunges to the peaks of hills,
hangs itself from the hooks of our habits
of never saying what we really mean.
This skewed altitude
is a measure of hazards,
of hasty leaps
and bad timing.

*
Three hours outside the city
and only then do I notice the conifers,
despite being green all year.
I teeter on your words
as you tell the café owners
that we’re getting married next summer
that we’ve been eyeing the farms on the way here
that you’ve professed your love outside an Esso.
The mirror in the washroom is warped
and we drink wine and pretense out of mugs.
Distance and appreciation are proportional.
Tomorrow I will miss the trees.
I will miss your fluted fictions.

*
Men have befriended you through stories
of women gone wrong: you lead them in chorus,
they come to your shows
having memorized your words as their own.
A man brings in his three-year-old
whose toy crocodile devours everything
(inherited from her mother, he claims)
and he sings with you and doesn’t pause
even when his ex comes in, irritated,
takes the child away, half-asleep in her arms.
He swigs his beer,
tells us to drive carefully,
to watch for what lies in our peripheries:
the ice, the wandering drunks, the deer.

*
And all day it rained.
All day the stairs skinned over with ice,
all day dirty water cleared
as it trickled down hillocks.
More than you
I will remember how water
slicked the country,
how it clung, cataracts to the rocks,
the sound of pinging pellets
against the windshield –
all to lacquer the day
fix us sheeted in ice, scleral,
while we drove across Quebec,
like a dilated pupil,
checking our blind spots.