My Dear Colleague

We find ourselves during the Trojan War

most respected young lady I am exceedingly audacious

I make declarations of love to you I am not diffident I perform

loops I encounter a thousand and one nights

I take the liberty of being the equal of my neighbourhood friend

laurel leaves one for me one for you it’s only fair

we find ourselves in the Bronze Age tell me my dear colleague

whoever intends to steal my atoms my torch and the like

tomorrow he will be put to the sword and I shall depart on a submarine

for Ithaca so come what may on the way

Eating with the Mice in Winter

Look the snow is thawing and the sterile words

resurface these tatters of our mouths

and the hopes of the grass bounteously swell in the fumes

of farawayness while the rivers carry around the world

the messages of the irradiated fish which whisper

a more apathetic more doleful language and the complex

sentences strenuously recoagulate within our hearts

when summer turns to autumn we cheerfully thresh

the consonants’ chaff and the vowels’ corncockle

and eating with the mice in winter we nibble

the crust of our empty words then we fall asleep

shrouded in our genius attires

Why don’t you understand

Won’t you stop opening the envelopes they’re all empty

there’s something to be found only in the your disciples’ palms maybe

pieces of chalk smidges of truth or even leeches

you’d better take a stroll along the slothful river

watch the nimble snake slithering in the grass

its head bears the magical sign of the future sip

ita venom and stop opening anything simply stroll along

serenely soon the Biblical birds will fall from the sky over there

under the four winds’ cross in the shadow’s stillness

you grow a dead man’s nails why don’t you understand

once and for all why don’t you dance your favourite tango

English version by Gabriela PACHIA