Ars Poetica

I watched an armory combing its bronze bricks

and in the sky there were glistening rails of milk.

Where had the swan gone, the one with the lame back?

Now mounting the steps

I enter my new home full

of grey radiators and glass

ashtrays full of wool.

Against the winter I must get a samovar

embroidered with basil leaves and Ukrainian mottos

to the distant sound of wings, painfully anti-wind,

a little bit of the blue

summer air will come back

as the steam chuckles in

the monsters steamy attack

and I’ll be happy here and happy there, full

of tea and tears. I dont suppose I’ll ever get

to Italy, but I have the terrible tundra at least.

My new home will be full

of wood, roots and the like,

while I pace in a turtleneck

sweater, repairing my bike.

I watched the palisades shivering in the snow

of my face, which has grown

preternaturally pure.

Once I destroyed a man’s idea of himself to have him.

If I’d had a samovar then

I’d have made him tea

and as hyacinths grow from

a pot he would love me

and my charming room of tea cosies full of dirt

which is why I must travel, to collect the leaves.

O my enormous piano, you are not like being outdoors

though it is cold and you

are made of fire and wood!

I lift your lid and the mountains

return, that I am good.

The stars blink like a hairnet that was dropped.

on a seat and now it is lying in the alley behind

the theater where my play is echoed by dying voices.

I am really a woodcarver

and my words are love

which willfully parades in

it’s room, refusing to move.