Do not give us the gift of consciousness,
do not save us with morality.

Offer us, instead, freedom —
pure and authentic.
A virtuous night to love,
to make of another body the island that cuts through the ocean,
the new dwelling place of our soul.

Do not offer us treatises,
nor more phrases for convention.

I will cast a kiss that will make the world fertile,
and like a rope, I will pull you —
you who are beside me,
and you who are far from me.

For I must love my neighbor with intensity,
and love even more the one beyond,
even if they are a stranger to me.

it is still too early to laugh
and to cast upon the ground the wing of the absurd forest.
it is still too early to be anything at all.
very ancient dogs cough in the distance
and the stairs creaks funereally,
i enter the library
the books withdraw their roots from the shadows
and prepare their expectant voices
for whatever may come

Spit on the ground.
Begin the most terrible of wars
with someone who hears you
dragging your armor through the hush of dawn.

Strike the final flame.
Let it light the streets
where wild bodies ripple like fire.
Howls, heavy with iron,
as we sip from the herb of night
the tender intimacy of a goodbye.

Extreme. Absolute.
A green star, fallen
on careless earth,
between mud and water—
human reflections.

Let no one bring love.
The cruel illusion
of still being a child
is unbearable.

A whole morning, fasting.
I want to drink my wine
standing.

I read two verses by Al Berto and went to set the sea on fire.
Led by the drunkenness of nocturnal herbs,
I buried my heart in some dune,
crushed by the immense tenderness
that the other creatures poured upon the moon.
Ah, I also longed for your body...
to untangle the lava of sorrows,
signs of love.

Stereophonic love, pulsing.
You, a nameless sweetness —
your flattened warmth lies south
of my body’s sacred meridian.
I adore the grace of your breast.

I believe in your lacework love,
so tender, so absurd.

Give me a kiss,
a glass of water,
an act of faith.

Dress my aching chest in beauty,
feed the fire of my coughing fits,
unfasten my trousers
and let me walk barefoot
through the blaze of your tundra.

Unbutton your blouse —
you are my Diana, my Ophelia.
I want to fall asleep inside your oracle.

Let me steal the tangled pendant
dangling at your throat —
my hunger sobs
just to hold it.

I am alive
knowing, at the same time,
that I am dead.

we spend the afternoons
walking down the avenue,
hand in hand —
each step, a soft erosion toward silence,
toward profound solitude.

I ask you without using words:
what is it like
to walk hand in hand with a stranger?
and you look at me
as if you believe
that everything is the opposite
of what it seems.

and in that
there is a devastating peace —
knowing you believe in love,
in your own quiet way,
is the sign
that you were saved.

when I return, I write:
I am dead
knowing, at the same time,
that I am alive.

(I owe you
this unexpected metamorphosis)

suddenly we all died without hearing a word of it
we entered our deepest darkness and never came out again