State of Siege

at death’s threshold, he said:
I got nothing left to lose.
I’m free next to my freedom
and my tomorrow is in my hand…
soon I’ll enter my life,
I’ll be born free, without father or mother,
and will choose azure letters for my name.

* * *

here, at smoke level, on the staircase of the house,
no time for time.
like those who rise toward God,
we forget pain.

*

pain,
mistress of the house who doesn’t stretch her washing line in the morning
satisfied with the cleanliness of this flag.

* * *

no homeric echo here.
the legends knock on our doors when we need them.
no homeric echo of anything whatsoever…
here, a general is searching for a state that sleeps
under the rubble of a Troy that is yet to come.

* * *

the soldiers measure the distance between being
and nothingness
with the tank’s gun sight…

*

we measure the distance between our bodies
and the shell… with our sixth sense.

* * *

[to a poet]
each time absence abandoned you
you found yourself implicated in the solitude of the gods.
so be the wandering “inside” of your outside
and “the outside” of your inside,
be present in absence.

* * *

[to poetry]
besiege your siege.

*

[to prose]
from the dictionary of the law
pull your proofs toward a real
proofs have destroyed
and explain your dust.

*

[to poetry and prose]
fly away together
like the two wings of a swallow carrying blessed spring.

* * *

our cups of coffee. the birds. the green trees
throwing blue shadows and the sun which junps from one
wall to the other like a gazelle…
the water of the clouds and their infinite shapes
in what little sky there remains for us
and other things remembrance of which has been pushed back to later
show that this morning is strong is splendid
and that we are the guests of eternity.