Chapter One

-1-

I was profoundly broken

and so the plumb line dangled down

in the alphabet of emptiness

resounding as a conflagration in a skull

as bells being rung by hurricanes

in the sands of an abandoned day

in which nobody resides

-2-

I was broken

and so my craziness streamed out

along slaughtered paths

running without direction

without legs or bags

and all around me pedestrians were planted

with their distorted eyes wandering

-3-

Sweeping away what had accumulated

of perished glories

and remains of sultans,

their clubs once shining in the clay of coagulated blood

in the faces of morning buried alive

in Their Highnesses' courts

-4-

I was broken

and so my craziness streamed out,

a flood of melted agate

in a waiting test tube

along the sidewalks of isolation

and the clamorous waving

of the wheels paralyzed by erosion

and by asphalt scented with the rancidity of whips

and by quagmires that receive their wages

after a downpour of weariness.

***

-1-

O, Homer,

why are you glaring at me like that?

Do you expect me

to glorify those monstrosities

that you call gods!

to decorate the insult of the moment

and the fracturing of the shadow!

-2-

I did not rape Helen

I did not provoke Basus

I only obtained a flame

for a shivering lady,

a lady with a gleaming yearning living on the outskirts of the horizon

-3-

So, why did they hammer the wedge into my chest

inflicting the beast upon me

to maul my liver

And why did they put before me

an emaciated mosquito

to watch the beast's claws

and recite to me the lyrics of the mills

-4-

Why do you stare at me thus?

O, all ye present and absent,

Believe me, I am not guilty

of atrophying the carnation's placenta

or ravishing the blossom

It is not I who invented the funeral

or adorned the wailing

I am not at all guilty

for you being the way you are.

***

-1-

Her child cried for a long time,

that glistening lady

on the boundaries of my absence

his bleating continuing

ever since the igniters of blazes razed Rome

destroyed Babylon

crucified the moons on the outskirts of the hearts

-2-

ever since they made the weeping of the doves

the title of their conquests

ever since they seized what remains

of the embers of the yearning

ever since they pursued the poems

and confiscated the songs and swings of lovers

ever since they constructed the cells to imprison the dreams

-3-

ever since they wrote with their spears the laws of darkness

ever since they drew the curtains on the sun's eyes

ever since they drowned with silt the flowers of the glare

ever since long ago was near

when they engraved the genealogy of the gods

and crossed out the faces of the revolutionaries

from the ingenious gifts of the grass

-4-

ever since they hammered the wedge into my chest,

and inflicted upon me the odious beast

and her child waded into the desolate region

searching for a pumpkin leaf

to cover his exposed intestines

and for a secure port to anchor his lost ship

And so there passed since he was orphaned

a march of thousands of parasangs

of gasps and sobs.

***

-1-

O, sun that streams between my hands

O, riches that dress up strangeness

when lilies migrate

to meadows where there is no forgetfulness

The visible glistening, that free carnelian

is only alluring glitter

of the singing resplendence between my fingertips

-2-

O, abundance, O, ebullition

I have become endlessly crazy,

amassing alleys to sing out of context

I want to run in the space of the lilacs

And this bright strumming

is only the call of the furrows

and the tattooed nebula

on the lips of eternity

-3-

Let me see my body perfumed with this glistening

and my face tanned by your profuse gifts

Let me see your hidden zabarjad

to die migrating in a dream

I want to have this volcanic ivy

fenced in by your Salsabilic presence

and I am afraid to spread my lips and have dew burn

-4-

And that dance on your lips

is the zulal's thorn,

a moonlit night where blades of rainbows grow

So, let it come this verdant twilight of dawn,

inflicting my neck like a blade

which will never be able

to shred the limbs of distractedness

because tomorrow is the Festival of Lilies

and we have prepared pavilions of honey.

***