words stumble between teeth
this house has pitfalls instead of windows
silence is a stethoscope full of tears
in this girdle, the cage of pain
when the day’s edges play hide and seek
with my drained smile
I wait like a statue of salt
for this faraway yearning
to grow
curseless eyes

and again, the gritty path,
for visiting the houses, ruined.
time fled and life stood still,
strangled in suspension points.

i come, to collect lonesomeness,
feed my senses upon bygones.

window sills to inner spaces.
motherhood.

there, the place of a fire,
the grime inks a flame in black,
silhouetted.

crock pots, iron pots,
cracked, bumped.
soup. boiling.smoking.
cendrillons wrinkling
by the fireplace
in yellowished orange blossom gowns.

a skeleton of a bed.

leaning roof.

a wall in blue.

the view from the back window.
the door to the backyard.

houses grow blind.
i come
to lend them my eyes.
willingly.

eventually they'll have me,
bind me, seed me,
a tree-creeper to sight
the swallows, tell them
we have a vacant eave
in a falling roof.

the end gets harsh. many of you
now fall pray to doubt.
nobody forces anybody, but somebody,
nevertheless, must give the orders.

the acids have grown lazy and fat.
something more cruel than they are must be found.
if you give up now, if you do it now of all times,
neither the tomb nor the sky will cover you sufficiently.

you are the possessors of the alternative and this is
the only one. that's why i've talked to you about her
in so many ways.
the little that is about to disappear lies now
only in you and in your power.

a black shell pulls to the shore.
i didn't say that everybody is climbing aboard.
but the quiet fright with which we work on the stars
will stop them from falling for a while.

Ioan Es. Pop**, from *the livid worlds