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.The chain is too short perhaps evenif it is not steel but platinum?Look how their three chins shakelike cows munching their own vealabove their sugared necksthe devils swing on a gas lampsmelling of business slumpsand another powdermade by Berthold Schwartzgeniusintercessor for people:– You and I must have a talk– Let’s be brave, shall we?5I catch a movement of hislips, but he won’tspeak – You don’t love me?– Yes, but in tormentdrained and driven to death(He looks round like an eagle)– You call this home? That’sin the heart.– What literature!Love is flesh, it is aflower flooded with blood.Did you think it was just alittle chat across a tablea snatched hour and back home againthe way gentlemen and ladiesplay at it? Either love is…– A shrine?– or else a scar.A scar every servant and guestcan see (and I think silently:love is a bow-string pulledback to the point of breaking).Love is a bond.That has snapped forus our mouths and lives part(I begged you not to put aspell on me that holy hourclose on mountain heights ofpassion memory is mist).Yes, love is a matter of giftsthrown in the fire, for nothingThe shellfish crack of his mouthis pale, no chance of a smile:– Love is a large bed.– Or else an empty gulf.Now his fingers begin tobeat, no mountainsmove.Love is –– Mine: yes.I understand.And so?The drum beat of his fingersgrows (scaffold and square)– Let’s go, he says.For me, let’sdie, would be easier.Enough cheap stuff rhymeslike railway hotel rooms, so:– love means life althoughthe ancients had a differentname.– Well?– A scrapof handkerchief in a fistlike a fish.– Shall we go? – How,bullet rail poisondeath anyway, choose! I make noplans.A Roman, yousurvey the men still alivelike an eagle:Let’s say goodbye.6I didn’t want this, notthis (but listen, quietly,to want is what bodies doand now we are ghosts only).And yet I didn’t say itthough the time of the train is setand the sorrowful honour of leavingis a cup given to womenor perhaps in madness Imisheard you polite liar:is this the bouquet that you give yourlove, this blood-stained honour?Is it? Sound followssound clearly: was it goodbyeyou said? (as sweetly casualas a handkerchief dropped withoutthought) in this battleyou are Caesar (What aninsolent thrust, to put theweapon of defeat, into my handlike a trophy).It continues.Tosound in my ears.As I bow.– Do you always pretendto be forestalled in breaking?Don’t deny this, itis a vengeance of Lovelace,a gesture that does you creditwhile it lifts the fleshfrom my bones.Laughter the laugh ofdeath.Moving.Without desire.That is for others nowwe are shadows to one another.Hammer the last nail inscrew up the lead coffin.– And now a last request.– Of course.– Then say nothingabout us to those who willcome after me.(The sickon their stretchers talk of spring.)– May I ask the same thing?– Perhaps I should give you a ring?– No.Your look is no longer open.The stamp left on your heartwould be the ring on your handSo now without any scenesI must swallow, silently, furtively.– A book then? – No, you give thoseto everyone, don’t even write thembooks…So now must be noso now must be nomust be no cryingIn wandering tribes offishermen brothersdrink without cryingdance without cryingtheir blood is hot, theypay without cryingpearls in a glassmelt, as they run theirworld without cryingNow I am going and thisHarlequin gives hisPierrette a bone likea piece of contemptHe throws her the honourof ending the curtain, the lastword when one inch of lead inthe breast would be hotter and betterCleaner.My teethpress my lips.I canstop myself cryingpressing the sharpnessinto the softestso without cryingso tribes of nomadsdie without cryingburn without crying.So tribes of fishermenin ash and song canhide their dead man.7And the embankment.The last one.Finished.Separate, and hands apartlike neighbours avoiding one another.Wewalk away from the river, from mycries.Falling salts of mercuryI lick off without attention.No great moon of Solomonhas been set for my tears in the skies.A post.Why not beat my forehead toblood on it? To smithereens! We arelike fellow criminals, fearing oneanother.(The murdered thing is love.)Don’t say these are lovers? Going intothe night? Separately? To sleep with others?– You understand the future is up there?he says.And I throw back my head.To sleep! Like newly-weds over their mat!To sleep! We can’t fall intostep.And I plead miserably: take myarm, we aren’t convicts to walk like this.Shock! It’s as though his soul has touchedme as his arm leans on mine.The electriccurrent beats along feverish wiring,and rips.He’s leaned on my soul with his arm.He holds me.Rainbows everywhere.What is more like arainbow than tears? Rain, a curtain, denserthan beads.I don’t know if such embankments canend.But here is a bridge and– Well then?Here? (The hearse is ready.)Peaceful his eyes moveupward.– Couldn’t you see me homefor the very last time?8Last bridge I won’tgive up or take out my handthis is the last bridgethe last bridging betweenwater and firm land:and I am saving thesecoins for deathfor Charon, the price of Lethethis shadow moneyfrom my dark hand I presssoundlessly intothe shadowy darkness of hisshadow money it isno gleam and tinkle in itcoins for shadows:the dead have enough poppiesThis bridgeLovers for the mostpart are without hope: passionalso is justa bridge, a means of connectionIt’s warm: to nestleclose at your ribs, to move ina visionary pausetowards nothing, beside nothingno arms no legsnow, only the bone of myside is alive whereit presses directly against youlife in that sideonly, ear and echo is it: thereI stick like white toegg yolk, or an eskimo to his furadhesive, pressingjoined to you: Siamesetwins are no nearer.The woman you call motherwhen she forgotall things in motionless triumphonly to carry you:she did not hold you closer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]