Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

The track is
Sk-
I-
Pin-
Ski-
Ski-
Ski-
Skipping
Like the thoughts in my brain
And the flat line sounds like my heart

Base words are uttered only by the base
And can for such at once be understood,
But noble platitudes:--ah, there's a case
Where the most careful scrutiny is needed
To tell a voice that's genuinely good
From one that's base but merely has succeeded.

The chrysolites and rubies Bacchus brings
To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein'd  brow,
Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings,
They who have coveted may covet now.

Bring me, in cool alcove, the grape uncrush'd,
The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature,
Where every voice (but bird's or child's) is hush'd,
  And every thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure.

reminds me of my grandpa
I never decided if it was bitter or sweet but all the same
I sneak sips from the bottle in the fridge

his house in the mountains
his long driveway and boulders to climb on
every day an adventure
when you're 7

chasing deer and running in sprinklers

pistachio shells under the couches
a grand piano

still life fruit paintings
so simple, the world then.

I watched him die
of cancer
when I was old enough to understand

that that was only
his body.

My favorite photograph of you
was ruined today
by a quick current
of cranberry juice.
Its blooming, rosy streams
bled right through
your face
and then you were
indistinguishable.

I merely sighed
not because I wasn’t sad
but because I have convinced myself
to expect such accidents
and accept them
as a part of us.

Bloodlust is all I see.
These droplets, like cranberry constellations,
dotting my bibliography.

I am nobody's fool,
yet you've bamboozled me.
A walking contradiction.

Demented or balanced,
I no longer know.
Your bloodlust concerns me.