Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
The safest place for you is in a greenhouse now.
The animals have to stay in a zoo.
The birds have their own cage
which is somewhere else, far away;
and the snakes live in a snake house.
I’ve sprayed the mosquitoes;
there’s no point in keeping them.
I’m sorry the butterflies died too.
It was an accident.
Don’t be sad. I’ll visit you every day.
I’ll wear my new tropical outfit, helmet and all.
I’ll bring biscuits and tea, Darjeeling, just for us.
My dear jungle, please understand
my love for you; how I need your jungly jungliness.
Oh, how shall I live without your green,
green rawness all over me?
for Ioana Ieronim
In Romanian
the endless rows of poppies
are a living flame of love –
In English, we say we don’t know
about this love.
Do we dare to say
their intensity is love?
In English, we say the poppies speak to us,
we say their intensity calls out to us –
and we say it’s the urgency
of their call that moves us.
But why?
Why do we turn them into mouths?
About love we’re not certain,
But it could be there, we say.
We can’t exclude love,
and yet, we don’t want to mention it.
That would be too much,
the intensity of the poppies’ love --
No, we say, no.
But the poppies do call us.
26 August 2009, Crear
for John Ashbery
Chocolate nougat ice cream,
raspberries, blueberries, pistachios and almonds—
Billie Holiday down the street—
The past and the future smell of maple syrup.
Here’s a mirror to prove it.
A man bends over a woman, asking, asking—
Who is that man? Who is that woman?
Her hair in perfect curls, her silk blouse
slides off, and in that mirror they’re underwater—
Here’s the boy you wanted to be,
all innocence and honesty, his face flushed with dreams.
Can you hear the aeroplanes? Can you hear those sirens?