I was passing through my childhood
on a bike
to the delight of flying with the balloons

من از کودکی هایم می گذشتم
بر چرخی که می راندم
...تا شوق به پرواز درآمدن با بادبادک ها

Autumn was an old Viennese street held up in sacrifice to the sky,
With burnt-song offerings that still see through the clouds, as they see through you.
His was cobbler craft of reed-winded flame for the foot in tune,
Amid the outsnuffed shopkeepers’ lights and the candlesmoke of midnight hours,  
Pulsing above the inner heart of the Ringstrasse
Of brass signs and paving stones, misted and mute.
His was the candelabra of wick-notes
Wanded through the windowed rooms of forested night.
His were those woods filled with doorways, bookcases, and stairs
And everything dim and warm with people, no longer there.

***

The winter sunlight played across the keyboard of crypted windows,
And in the muted under-roofs of ice and snow,
On one window, like a hand in whole rest,
The caramelized glass swallowed the flame-image of the stray redbird
And the black carriage wheels that passed.

In the long hallway of the Viennese flat,
One candle remained lit in the mouth of song.

the leaves gather ghosts
in the shade,
boy of the dark,

where the breezes wait
for the overgrown rose to
flower, immersed in
love and sky,

and the summer night
breathes in petals of gauze,

you sweep me away on a
blue-glazed tide, draw me
into your arms,

drown me in an impossible
sea.

the roses bud and flower,
then darken like the dusk,

you fill me with the
sweetest love,
resonating like a bell,

i die crazy in your arms,
cry out for you,

unweave the stars.

summer buries her
golds and yellows,
opens her soulful eyes;

the running clouds
whisper to the day,
write love notes on the
parchment sky,

you remember our love,
brush my lips with
a kiss of rose.

i’m drifting like
the sea,

your voice the colours
of the sun,
unwrapping my core,

the ink dries on the
paper,

our love glows in the
gentle rain.