EVEN OUR GRIEF IS MORTAL

That human beings

are mortal

is the lesser sorrow;

a bitter shadow over

our days, and grief

weaved through them -

yet that the memory

of our existence

is as mortal

is the greater sorrow,

but time takes even this

and turns it dust.

30.06.2020-26.02.2020

LAST DAY OF JUNE

Cold rain

and already

this unlived

summer feels

over,

brooks flowing

through

the mind with memories

of autumns

holding you.

30.06.2020

NOW WAIT FOR THE END

Our brief time

now spent

lamenting what was lost;

what remains

is crumbling

away, for those past

days hold more

in memories than these

thinner, lesser days flowing

past, fit only for regret

and sorrow.

30.06.2020

THE FRIEND OF PYRRHUS

There are two bad times

to tell ill news

to the preaning powers

of the earth:

When the worst has

yet to come, and

when the ruin has spread

its carrion wings.

Speak of ill times to come,

or tell how the fall

could have been avoided,

and they grab their spears.

26.06.2020

THE END OF THE ROAD

Here, in the

blazing Sun

we still

live the illusion

that life

is just waiting

to truly 

begin;

that this

is the evening

is a travesty

even to

our weary mind.

Is it always

thus? You

beloved

who left -

was it

like this

to you,

when the

Sun caressed

your days

that then

had no end?

Where we

see the end,

did you see

years blooming?

26.06.2020

A SUMMER DAY

It's a hot day out there

in the blazing June,

but, bless me for my sins,

it's hotter in here

in the brown matter

inside my skull,

waiting to become

earth and dust and reborn stars.

It's a hot day out there,

in the green and blue

flowing away in time,

but it's hotter in here

in the brown matter

inside my skull,

fearing to become

earth and dust and dead stars.

16.06.2020

WHILE LISTENING AN ONLINE LECTURE ABOUT THE ENTRADA OF 378 CE IN TIKAL

I'm translating poems by an author

who I hate because

he's a successful elitist

from a successful elite family

whose all family members

were/are successful elitists,

either actors, journalists or authors,

and I would really

like to throw

his frail, aged frame

under some bulldozer

or something.

14.06.2020

BEYOND THESE WALLS

Behind the curtains

the summer flows past

me, a crumbling

rock, in a slow flowing

river near its delta,

hearing the sound

of the tide rising,

falling, unseen.

14.06.2020

THE RIVER REMAINS THE SAME

The river, Heraclitus,

doesn't change.

All the change

is on the riverbanks.

The cries of newborns

turning into laments

for their death

in old age.

The spires raised

wrecked come

to embrace

the soil.

The river

is always the same.

The people

and their monuments

come and

crumble to dust.

This, Heraclitus,

is history:

The landscape,

flowing in geological

is frozen

in historical time.

14.06.2020

UNTIL THE FINAL DAY

Until the final day

comes cold and gray

I shall remember

and regret,

and find no peace.

Until the final day

comes to close my eyes

and I shall think

no more thoughts

I shall remember

and regret.

Until the final day

comes in blistering heat

I shall remember

and regret,

and find no peace.

Until the final day

comes and all this

what remains of life

shall end in the void

I shall remember

and regret,

and find no peace.

Until the final day

I shall remember

and regret,

but after the final day

has come

I shall not remember

and I shall not

regret no more.

Until the final day

comes as diamonds

sparkle in the snow

I shall remember

and regret,

and find no peace.

Until the final day

I shall remember

and regret,

but on the final day

all I remember

and all I regret

will pass from the world.

14.06.2020

ALL THE LOVELY PEOPLE IN OUR MEMORIES

The past is dead, and all

the lovely people in our memories

who still come and talk to us

in our dreams

are but fragments in our mind,

which in sleep and woken thought

we resurrect to ease the pain,

the pain of loss

that shall pass when we too

will be but lingering shards

from long gone days

in the swirling thoughts

of doomed men and women.

14.06.2020