I don’t remember exactly when Budberg died, it was either two years
ago or three.
The same with Chen. Whether last year or the one before.
Soon after our arrival, Budberg, gently pensive,
Said that in the beginning it is hard to get accustomed,
For here there is no spring or summer, no winter or fall.


“I kept dreaming of snow and birch forests.
Where so little changes you hardly notice how time goes by.
This is, you will see, a magic mountain.”


Budberg: a familiar name in my childhood.
They were prominent in our region,
This Russian family, descendants of German Balts.
I read none of his works, too specialized.
And Chen, I have heard, was an exquisite poet,
Which I must take on faith, for he wrote in Chinese.


Sultry Octobers, cool Julys, trees blossom in February.
Here the nuptial flight of hummingbirds does not forecast spring.
Only the faithful maple sheds its leaves every year.
For no reason, its ancestors simply learned it that way.


I sensed Budberg was right and I rebelled.
So I won’t have power, won’t save the world?
Fame will pass me by, no tiara, no crown?
Did I then train myself, myself the Unique,
To compose stanzas for gulls and sea haze,
To listen to the foghorns blaring down below?


Until it passed. What passed? Life.
Now I am not ashamed of my defeat.
One murky island with its barking seals
Or a parched desert is enough
To make us say: yes, oui, si.
'Even asleep we partake in the becoming of the world.”
Endurance comes only from enduring.
With a flick of the wrist I fashioned an invisible rope,
And climbed it and it held me.


What a procession! Quelles délices!
What caps and hooded gowns!
Most respected Professor Budberg,
Most distinguished Professor Chen,
Wrong Honorable Professor Milosz
Who wrote poems in some unheard-of tongue.
Who will count them anyway. And here sunlight.
So that the flames of their tall candles fade.
And how many generations of hummingbirds keep them company
As they walk on. Across the magic mountain.
And the fog from the ocean is cool, for once again it is July.

"There where that ray touches the plain
And the shadows escape as if they really ran,
Warsaw stands, open from all sides,
A city not very old but quite famous.

"Farther, where strings of rain hang from a little cloud,
Under the hills with an acacia grove
Is Prague. Above it, a marvelous castle
Shored against a ***** in accordance with old rules.

"What divides this land with white foam
Is the Alps. The black means fir forests.
Beyond them, bathing in the yellow sun
Italy lies, like a deep-blue dish.

"Among the many fine cities that are there
You will recogni2e Rome, Christendom's capital,
By those round roofs on the church
Called the Basilica of Saint Peter.

"And there, to the north, beyond a bay,
Where a level bluish mist moves in waves,
Paris tries to keep pace with its tower
And reins in its herd of bridges.

"Also other cities accompany Paris,
They are adorned with glass, arrayed in iron,
But for today that would be too much,
I'll tell the rest another time

Bees build around red liver,
Ants build around black bone.
It has begun: the tearing, the trampling on silks,
It has begun: the breaking of glass, wood, copper, nickel, silver, foam
Of gypsum, iron sheets, violin strings, trumpets, leaves, *****, crystals.
****! Phosphorescent fire from yellow walls
Engulfs animal and human hair.


Bees build around the honeycomb of lungs,
Ants build around white bone.
Torn is paper, rubber, linen, leather, flax,
Fiber, fabrics, cellulose, snakeskin, wire.
The roof and the wall collapse in flame and heat seizes the foundations.
Now there is only the earth, sandy, trodden down,
With one leafless tree.


Slowly, boring a tunnel, a guardian mole makes his way,
With a small red lamp fastened to his forehead.
He touches buried bodies, counts them, pushes on,
He distinguishes human ashes by their luminous vapor,
The ashes of each man by a different part of the spectrum.
Bees build around a red trace.
Ants build around the place left by my body.


I am afraid, so afraid of the guardian mole.
He has swollen eyelids, like a Patriarch
Who has sat much in the light of candles
Reading the great book of the species.


What will I tell him, I, a Jew of the New Testament,
Waiting two thousand years for the second coming of Jesus?
My broken body will deliver me to his sight
And he will count me among the helpers of death:
The uncircumcised.

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Crying in the stall
Door shut, no one talks
Been in here long enough
Too long almost
Come out quietly
Like nothing's wrong
Fix my make up
Put on a brave face
Tell everyone that I'm ok
A bold faced lie
No one knows
I've hit rock bottom
Crying in a washroom stall

My tummy box is broken
Said the man to the spoon
******* rhymings
To satisfy good tidings
Fake smiles to satisfy
Good people

Satisfied with what I make
Dissatisfied with what I take
Broken satisfaction
A one-man factioned

We all suffer from
Insecurities
So take what’s best of me.
I seem to be the worst at what I do.

Can I visit weekly? Is that cool by You?
I can make a fool of myself at least once a week.
Can you turn so I can smack Your other cheek?
4th wall broken, here’s a token of my gratitude.
I play the fool for a feeling that’s earthly
Wait with baited breath, I’m almost done.

FBI shopping, lets find a bomb to blow.
Legalize this to make me okay with it.
Let’s party it up to make me feel better.
A good grind to get my mind off things.

Opposing the opposable
Folding to the foldable
All I am seems worthless
All I am seems ridiculous.

Dim sunlight coming through the curtains of my window this morning,
the ambiance feels just a little parky…
I stretch my arm to the opposite side of the bed,
nothing…

I believe I went back to sleep…

Woke up again moved by the sense of my obligations, half awake revolving…
My body longing for a touch of her calid smooth skin at daybreak,
coldness...

As of to reach her my eyes search for her,  
my hearts looks for her, but she is not with me.

Did she get out of bed before me?
maybe she's in the family room (like she calls it),
drinking a coffee and reading her book.
I feel a smile drawing in my face accompanied by a warm feeling of content.

I want to go join her, my nymph.
Perhaps she's just laying there unclothed on the ****,
or perambulating through the apartment doing her thing,
my muse,
that beautiful body of hers, seductive and alluring yet innocent and tender,
physique of a greek goddess.

My cellphone rings, it is her…
confused I hasten to get out the covers and sit in my bed,
then I glance at the picture of that hypnotizing graceful smile on my desk,
her farewell gift.

She's gone, I drove her to the airport yesterday…