Now stay here a little
For you aren’t water yet:
As you haven’t become water, which doesn’t think about its flow,
Let your veins expand into the waters of time
Become a pebble shaped like yourself in the current
May time wash you
May it slowly, painlessly engrave you
Stop. May these extraneous voices of yours flow away

For, in any case…
Or don’t you know,
Each time it touches you,
The world turns you into a sow bug

Every time you curl into a ball, the crowd
Is astonished and touches you, marvels and harms you:
For this reason,
Until they die, sow bugs
Speak mostly to their own bodies

Of the bull’s strength, of the squirrel’s elation
Of the dolphin’s kindness and the albatross’ splendor
Of the turtle’s time and the black swan’s grace
Of all those animal-shaped virtues,
What remains with you at the end of this painful journey
Is a wise, indistinct sow bug
That responds to the world’s admiration
By hiding within itself

Look, you’re finally a sow bug!
The world, when it tires of marveling, will remain
A spoiled, forgetful, ignorant child
As for you:

MEAGRE ARMATURE
SKIN THAT SPEAKS TO ITSELF
SEALED GLOBE
ROTTEN SMILE LOCKED INSIDE A FACE

This tossing and turning thing you call “life”…
Finally turns into a sow bug…
Just like that…

House of the Edge

Retreat to places that smell of soap
Go to wet balconies
Wrap your hands in cool, damp gauze
Scrub your flesh stark white
Purify your tongue and all you’ve seen
Gather your illuminated words onto snow white paper

Retreat from the war zone, you can’t manage,
The deaths in this zone are contagious
Full of crumpling and scuffling maggots,
I say flesh has gone wormy—
What difference does it make
If it’s yours or someone else’s!

In mid-afternoon, wander rooms, plunge into the sun’s dust
Look at people passing by a cat
Listen to voices
Lend an ear to the universe and beyond
The voice is in the spine’s hissing, humming flute, blow!
Collect it, collect it within yourself
Let the crowds be distracted
By the war zone’s daily news

Record their voices,
This way, one day, someone
Will understand that they, just like you, are existed,
That if one is to stop at the edge of hell
This is the only way to stop

They’ll understand
That one mustn’t come too close to any hell
Be it inside, or outside with the crowds

For, what has charred never burns again
Doesn’t flame up, no light leaves it
A person must always flare as if they’ll burn again

The place to stop is neither inside nor outside hell,
But at the spot where Inside and Outside resound simultaneously:
At the edge between Inside and Outside
No voice resounds Inside
The voice that resounds Outside is inaudible

None of the voices in this zone
Outlast time
All things fall into the time in which they materialize
And, just as a sand dune swallows a skeleton,
Voices are swallowed by their own time