I WISH

The gardens in the late June sun,
the light’s blinding bounty.
Shimmering sun’s pools on the grass.
The shine on the magnolia’s leaves.

A shine as a subtle joy sizzling
with the transparency of light.
Sizzling in and beyond me
I wish it could

blaze me away from any mood.

HALF SMILE

You haven’t stopped looking for the chance,
the same of that other age when in the morning
you left home with nothing to do,
a whole day ahead like an empty beach
when you could easily end up drifting along
feeling just lonely and bored.
It was the time when things couldn’t decide
whether to straddle or tiptoe
and steps wanted to be flavoured
while you tried the tune of a half smile
and the appropriate aplomb.
You rang that bell many times in vain
but never gave up hope.
And there was always a day
when you found them all in and they ran down
and left with you towards the beach,
then it was all talks, plans, wind and dunes,
the day stretched with the future,
a busy dog hurrying along sniffing driftwood.
One evening in the twilight
you found a heavy stump of a tree,
large and massive in the wet sand,
with green mould shining on burnt knuckles of bark,
the gorgeous cheekbones of chance.
Dirty, almost useless but you liked it
and everybody helped you bring it home.
That night you looked at it for a long time
savouring accomplishment in the smell of its salt.

And time has passed now. And you smile at that half smile.
While you would like all back in a lightning-bolt.

THE GRASS

Thick and tall after the May rain
it combed acres of glittering silence
overlapping myriads of margins,
our horses’ hooves were shuffling in its rustling
when your mare was scared by a pheasant in the deep,
shifted aside and bucked, you slid down slowly
caressing her flank, fell and disappeared
in the sea of green;
hearing wings still rustling somewhere
my horse galloped back on the path
skidding among the trees, then stopped in less
than a minute and there was only his breathing
and thick stalks swaying in the breeze.
You emerged eventually, unharmed,
and with soft steps the mare appeared
out of a sunlit gallery of branches,
munching a thick bunch, the length of it
on both sides of her mouth,
the dangling bridles covered in saliva and green
she advanced.
I sensed I could be all that:
jaws grinding the infinite
stalks that I want one day to cover me

and I will eat them and will be eaten up extended
in sleep and startled by wings.

HAMLET PONDERING ON THE LACK OF ANSWERS.

Silence.
So wide.
Enemy or friend?
You decide.

VERITY OF A DESERT HOME

It hasn’t changed a bit,
if not for drawers and wardrobe
almost emptied.
But you must look inside
to realize.
The outside can resist
as long as it’s allowed.
A hand waters the two plants.
A gaze tastes the silence.
A cat from the neighborhood
appears on the window-sill,
suddenly, from time to time,
and stares.

At noon
voices in the heart
swarm and loom.

Photographs, dust. The normal
silent mess
of the here-and now, nevertheless.

HOWL BY ALLEN GINSBERG

After many years, by chance, I have come across it this evening. Re-reading the first section and really enjoying its outburst of energy once more I thought how, after it, no rambling might ever be possible without sounding just as its echo.

http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm