August burned bright in the yellow of the sand

while the music gathered the hearts of all eyes.

Trumpeters, trumpeters, the arena entreats you for quiet and for peace;

The bull makes ready to dash out to his death

and kiss the toreador who looks towards you,

now before the fight begins, before the blade of silver flashes,

look at the dusty whirlwinds that blaze in the eyes of the bull,

How utterly beautiful he is, how black and how strong.

His might moves in clouds of black shadows

and ripples over the arena like a serpent’s tail.

Here, left of the gateway,

His hooves dig golden holes in the sand,

His heart shatters into shards of ice

at the sound of the trumpets, token of death.

Should he weep or meet death proudly.

In his soul knows he is closed in and alone,

only the dust beneath his feet moves as it chooses.

A powerful light flashes for an instant in his sad eyes,

he forgets the flaming red and his own blood,

feels blinded and drunk on his childhood,

remembers his mother.

Oh fields, oh fields, how green you were, how fair:

butterflies everywhere, mounds of soft earth all round.

Oh fields of warmth and tenderness that charmed me!

He recalls how he ran for the very first time,

and everyone saw how light and fleet he flew.

His mother wept with joy at her son -

how fiery and fine he was.

Ah, grass and butterflies, mounds of soft earth, bubbles of spring!

This ominous music drives death to run at me.

Look how the toreador lures me with his hidden sword,

look at the shadows of death that gaze into your eyes,

music, you’ve wailed long enough in my soul,

you were born to life as I was.

If only I could have said farewell to my mother,

have taken leave of her yesterday.

I know the fields would have wept at our meeting.

It’s the grape-harvest now and the wine’s being pressed.

Music, do you have a mother, or is death your dam?

If that’s the way it is I too will kiss her.

But wait – something grips at my heart,

My mother has something to tell me before she dies,

She dies tomorrow, I today – without her secret.

Plato is seated on the throne

of the State,

Shakespeare rhymes with Hamlet on the wall,

Goethe christens his devil Mephistopheles,

Sophocles weeps at Antigone’s birth,

Pushkin challenges the Captain’s second daughter

to a duel,

Mozart using a lexicon studies the word note,

Camus encounters the Outsider in himself...

Viewers, listeners and readers,

around all these acquaintances of ours,

immortal mortals and mortal immortals

who live and die by their own and others’ wills

please resurrect the applause

of the public in front of all the microphones

and fraudulent charts...

Viewers, listeners and readers,

literate and illiterate alike,

teachers, professors, deans,

secret agents, spies and generals

you are the living participants

in the greatest sensation,

you can see for yourselves

that everywhere the halls are packed –

in cities, on mountains, on oceans,

and the cosmos has hired out its auditoriums –

the halls of speech, of laughter and of ridicule,

all the halls on the sun are packed,

and all the halls in every constellation too,

every star has sent its representatives,

chroniclers, reporters, correspondents,

every black hole has sent its representatives

only the meteors will be in the role of observers.

We are all waiting, they are all waiting

while the temperature rises,

cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons,

we all want, we all desire

wisdom’s representatives to say

something...

Plato has split into three parts,

Shakespeare has become a brick in Hamlet’s wall,

Mephistopheles devilishly exiles Goethe to hell,

I am the text of an advertisement:

Let’s write a novel together, folks,

the novel of our first encounter,

the novel of our first love,

let’s write together the history

of our souls, our hearts.

Clear spring water will be born of it.

Isn’t it good that everyone writes about everyone,

everyone writes about himself?

From it the Bible will begin

to read the souls of spring’s awakening

and to hear what there is within

the novel that is written in everyone and in all,

in the novel that is written in the joy

of its own letters.

Let’s write a novel together, folks,

the novel of our first encounter,

the novel of our first love.

Everyone should read me,

everyone understand me,

everyone should read everyone

everyone understand everyone.

Pushkin is mortally wounded in order to win

the heart of the captain’s third daughter,

Antigone is transformed into the board of a stage

at Sophocles’ tomb,

Mozart’s dead body has been thrown

like musical dust into an unknown grave,

Camus did not know whether it was worse

to be a Plague or an Outsider...

But the representatives of all the planets,

stars, meteors and comets,

black holes and atoms

were impatiently awaiting the word of wisdom:

they were born, they lived and multiplied

without knowing what death is,

so much did they want wisdom to speak out,

but wisdom lived out its own life

easily, joyfully and thoughtfully,

it was a light

that was travelling timelessly into eternity.

Vaginas, vaginas...

eternal sovereign rulers of all our Suns and Venuses,

gardens of wantonness, queens of passion...

Blind theatres dance in your light!

Vaginas, vaginas...

Caravans of Moons and tender flowers

rivers of life, volcanoes and lava.

Lightning flashes multiply in the lowering thunder,

earthquakes kindle in the pain of passion...

Listen to the drumbeat of the heart that cries out,

everything is blinded by your light,

everything melts in the pearls of your smile.

You have woken spring betimes

with the music of your passion

and drunken monsoons

secretly tremble in a trance...

Vaginas, vaginas, blossoming beauties...

Before you cruise the pale fingers

of the pianist

and the smoke that dies down

in the face of the candle of the night,

his fingers with miraculous secrets

entice your body,

thirsty for love and longing to touch it.

Seaweed blossoms from your love,

the sea blooms and the fish.

But the light here does not flicker,

does not know the fish,

does not touch the flowers and the waters of the sea.

Let the sea remain a secret to itself,

everything seeks to be gentle,

to be close to your grace.

Finally the moment of the speech of our soul arrives.

Tell us, tell, the truth is here:

with what harp do the strings of your passion awake.

We, titans of space, fall

like tiny snowflakes

on your breasts, your bodies

arrange a secret feast for us, no one will know,

see in silver baskets we send you

flowers, carnations, roses, orchids.

Along the mighty waters of the Ganges and Bramaputra,

hasten, the Tower is being built, Babylon invites you

to love eight times on all of its eight levels,

the Tigris calls you,

the Euphrates calls you,

Luxor calls you,

the sphinxes call you.

Tomorrow the pyramids will be decked

with the tombs of all the pharaohs.

Amon Ra will come with the sun inside him

wanting to meet you, wanting to touch you

in the darkness of the pyramids,

in the caves of passion.

The man was standardly mad.

When there were clouds in the standard

The man was standardly mad.

How many madmen in clouds there were!

What the clouds wanted

was standard rain,

but the rain fell ever harder.

8th MARCH

“Today is the Eighth of March,”

was whispered among the flowers.

“Today is the day of passion,

a loving embrace awaits you.”

Will we ever understand it,

our shared love?

We met at a crossroads,

you gave me a flower, I gave you gentleness.

You set out on your road, I on mine.

And we have both travelled

since that shared crossroads of ours.