Love

Love

In the time when at last the pathways clear
And the bright springs run through the grass
Clearly it will come to me, my dear
How long this love may lastWhen peace like sunshine warms my heart
And freedom runs with me like wind
Not even death could keep us apart
Nor still the joy which is in my heartAfter the years have worn my soul
I will take comfort in your strength, my love
And sometimes when my mind is my enemy
I know your faith will reassure me.

Amanuensis

Amanuensis

through the raindrops flashes of other worlds
Suvorov’s Russia, the streets of Corlione’s New York
the shadow people, the intelligence raptors
who cries for the silent game, for the skewed and chalky murals

Where a sigle human, beating on the doors of change
is like a mah jong tile, lost in some dusty ruins
of the Cultural Revolution, buried under a heap of slogans
rattling their sepulchural chains

And the kingmakers and choirboys sing together
the final movements of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
glowworms lighting the raindrops, over a strange cantata
threads of human destiny glint beneath the stars of the Weaver

Requiem For Love

Requiem for Love

The sunlight is cold
In this world that I made
And the words that are bricks
In the walls that I laid.

We’re turning in circles
And we can’t escape
Torn by this feeling
I’m starting to hate

And I feel this cold need
Wash over me.
I’m drowning in a pool
Of darkness and tears
Oh I’m tired and I
Can’t feel my heart
Torn by this bitterness
And anger.

Sometimes in my dreams
I’ve screamed til my throat bled
Woke in the silence
In this cold bed.

Was there really a time
When we talked about love
Fades in the memory
Like a distant mirage.

And it eats me like acid
And it’s turning to hate
And sometimes when you touch me
I feel myself shake
And the wind is bitter
And it burns my face
And the words are the hell
That we’ve made of this place

And the moonlight is cold
And it shines through the bars of my heart
And the shadows are deep
And there’s beasts in the dark

And I hear you cursing
And I know we have come
To this place to commence
The destruction of love

And I feel this cold need
Wash over me
I’m drowning in a pool
Of darkness and tears
Oh I’m tired and I
Can’t feel my heart
Torn by this bitterness
And anger.

Eagle

Eagle

Can you speak for me my friend
You have far more latitude
Lonely cry across the sea
Fierce anger in your stoop

Tell them this is how things are
That never will be changed
The strong blood in you heart
Must weep for bitter days

Fly the oceans searching through the infinite unfriendly skies
Soar beneath the strong sun crying tears in the endless seas
You are our penant, our emblem, symbol of our might
The decadent, the kestrels invoke in their tired pleas

Tell them these simple truths
You cannot silence wrongs
These ghosts will come to haunt them
Long after they thought were gone

In this game there is no quarter
From the grave there is no return
Do they think to assuage us
Candle forever burn

Cold wind that lifts your pinion tips high above the sea
Long shadows cast by eventide and we do not forget
Eagle against the sun can you see the clouds from here
For now the horizon’s burning, I can see the flames reflect

Voces del Viento

Subir los montanas
en los filos del viento, mi hija
Que oscurido viene
pero el fin del dia?

Que rosas quietas
bajo del brillando sol!
Que esparandolos para
con tan caros blancos?

Hay plazas del miedo
que nadie poder entender;
hay plazas sin miedo
que nadie poder encontrar.

El viento encantido golpe
de un lugar lejo en el sur
de los adivinanzas que nadie podre adivinare
astros forman el clave del calor del sol

Aye, almas simpaticos
que escuchan a mi aullando!
Si tu ves mis pensamientos
ambulando en el desierto

Los dices que soy perde
y sin remedio, en los jardins
y montanes esculpe de nieva
buscando por un contestar no los tienan

Era escribe en el cielo
quiza en un lengua demasiado extrano
o, sencillamente, en espejos.
Mira por lo dentro del ti, llororo.

Los suenos perde a ninez
Son como bien, chica.
Mira atras solo para respirar, jugadora de ajedrez;
mirando bajo de lost nubes, tu ves sus pasas.

To Akhmatova

I will mourn for you, my people
Under the last sad trees
I will scream for you, will tremble
Witness your crazed reprieve

It would seem that it were saner
Behind the closed, locked doors
And desert vistas marked solely by the skirl
Of a scream from the high gray bars

For those whom Fate condemns
It is said she first drives mad;
And we are mad, indeed, my friends
Dancing on the karsts of Petersgrad.

I will be your prophetess, Cassandra
You will be my unbending reeds
I will lament with your voices by the Neva
Calling down your blood on their heads.

Though your weary bones line the locks
Of that trophy, the White Sea Canal
And abandoned roads through the steppes and rocks
Of the Urals, like so much powdered coral

They thought to drink from the Lethe
Dismiss the past with a gesture
But I will repeat the truth like a mischievous elf
Until the walls of the Kremlin fracture.

“To return to Tsarskoye Selo”, I said,
“Under the lindens, is forever denied.”
Do not judge me too harshly, you dead
At times I, too, was petrified.

How easy it is to forget
Now that things are a little easier!
Must I be the ghosts on the roof, declaiming yet
The crimes of Russia’s betrayers?

Vultures will peck out the eyes of Lenin
Darkness will descend on the cheloveks
In Russia my voice will ring out again
And she will
take up her redemption by the Kresty.

sayonara amiga

we are lost on an island of doubt
at sea amid our fears and hopes
tell us no more of the mountains distant
and the peaks amid the clouds
we have seen your victories
we want no more of your dreams

you sell us hope and fastfood chains
you send our sons to war
among the swoop of raptors
we send our colors to fly
below the cry of hyenas
across the beloved land
we whisper if we cannot escape
we will at least subdue their advances
cut off our own retreat

goodbye my friend
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme
chose
and every sunset brings anew
a night, not always starry
dreams not always quietly
whispers in the trees

Tell us again your stories, old man
recite to us the old hopes again
the dictates of the centuries
do they still unchanging remain?

Yet to these tired ears
their platitudes ring false
after far too many years
and far too many broken trusts
these people are no longer comforted
by the wisdoms of the earth

goodbye, old city
you are far too broken now
They have taken all your gleaming spires
they have broken all your windows
you cannot see, it is better somehow
what has become of your ravaged country

goodbye my friend
we are lost on a cold planet
that no longer spins the same way
this too they have subverted
there is nothing more to say
sayonara amiga

Grillflame

If I can’t go back in time, if I am lost in here and now
A thousand dimensions I cannot touch will never set me free
If I can’t fall into a dark black hole with no way out
If I can’t fly too high and just burn out or vanish utterly
If I cannot catch a beam of light
Tell me is that right

Should I have to sit here spinning on this cold forsaken globe
Watching the long years pass and the galaxies implode
Let the
whole world pass me by, I would rather stay behind
In some corner of the cosmos no-one else can find
Leave me to my fate on a distant lunar face
You know now all too well but it is far too late

If I can’t shelter in the lee of the icy mountain peaks
If the oceans and the deep offer no respite
I feel cheated of the promised nuclear armageddon
Lost in this contemporary heaven

Should I have to sit here spinning on this cold forsaken globe
Watching the long years pass and galaxies implode
Let the whole world pass me by, I would rather stay behind
In some corner of the cosmos no-one else can find
Leave me to my fate on some distant lunar face
You know now all too well but it is far too late

If I could wander lost and searching on some astral plane
Tell me who is sane

Should I have to spend forever in this dark and bitter place
Where poisoned souls make mockery of the icy sunlit waves
Should I have to wander sightless through the miles of sunbaked sand
Singing spurious eulogies in the graveyards of the damned

Should I have to sit here spinning on this cold forsaken globe
Watching the long years pass and the galaxies implode
Let the whole world pass me by, I would rather stay behind
In some corner of the cosmos no-one
else could find
Leave me to my fate on some distant lunar face
You know now all too well but it is far too late

Interlude

The morning dove cooed in the cool night air
And the smoke from my cigarette blew in my hair
And I knew what I was doing when you looked in my eyes
And I though of my regrets and I pushed them aside

And you took my hand, and you showed me the way
You were so beautiful, you knew just what to say
And only you eyes seemed to hold me so tight
Only your smile made it feel so right

And I forgot my reservations
And I felt every moment
And there was no question
I would never forget you

But in the cold light of day I was torn all the same
By the doubts and the fears that returned once again
I recited the creed but I did not believe it
I saw the sunlight but I could not feel it

And now I’m not sorry for having the memory
I close my eyes and I can still see
Your face and your smile, and I feel again
The passion, the wonder, the feeling of freedom

You gave and you took, I knew you were a player
But I was hurt and I was tired and I did not care
And I knew in the morning I wouldn’t see you again
But I’ll always remember you, my first lover

A Casa

I am dying, Egypt, dying
And the amber clouds are crying
And the wind is cold, cold
And far from the valley.

Stars, there are no stars
And the sky is dark
And poison mist trembles
Over the endless cars

The city is neither happy nor hopeful
And the valley, which is beautiful
It tries to strangle.
De mortuum, nil nisi bonum

The memory does not surrender
Its secrets of darkness and fear
It offers only the bright, shining lie
Of an Erised mirror

If I fell from a bitter star
If the coldness froze my heart
There are things in the past which linger
That I can barely recall.

But the still promise lingers in the air
And this is a place I know well
Where the siren is on the rocks
And the whirlpool draws near

And I am standing in the wind
And the amber clouds are bleeding
And I am cold, cold
And far from the valley.