***        ***        ***

 

WHEN I took my pen in order to feel life’s flavor at least a little

It seemed as if nice words, nice thoughts had been used up.

Having sprawled out my final poem on the previous page

It is like I have gone somewhere and am absent.

 

Or I was never born.

As if I’d died with having had the chance to see this moment.

 

When I strangely missed myself, who I imagine

To be a living being either of ancient times or the future, -

The universe is empty and untouchable.

Then in Hell as in Paradise there is no time to feel sad.

 

                (1998)

 

 

DESIRE AND ME

 

Someone going far away with head hanging down,

In his left hand a solitary rose constantly bobbing up and down,

Being thought of

Is my desire! Please go

 

Holding a lamp through the night,

My words like dew blessing your path.

Please go scaring up the dense curtain

Opening before you, closing after you.

 

Now there is no time, no space

To dream of tomorrow.

Goodbye.

Goodbye…

 

I was not true to my desire.

My desire to me was the very same.

 

                (1995)

 

 

***        ***        ***

 

FALL grows from fall, winter from winter.

More cold, more winter…

Age increases upon me, and I am reborn.

The former boy would no longer be recognized.

 

The path ahead is weighted down and wrinkled in thought.

Laugher from my true soul is diminishes.

Even though I follow my naive hope,

“Spring’s coming,” that flies up into the cold air

And smile like a child

 

That is not laugher, but a mocking smirk

That stimulates heaven’s irritation.

 

More winter…

 

                (1997)

 

 

FLOWERS OF DEATH

 

This smell has no equal.

This color doesn’t exist anywhere else.

One cannot label a smell like this good or bad.

Color like this cannot be described with words…

 

Thousands of flowers with no smell and no color sway

On a steppe so still that not even a hair moves.

Eternal calm and an infinite dream

Follow the echo of the tiniest sigh.

 

Oh, this is definitely that dream!

Flowers are too familiar by their previous color and smell.

And Death is actually just like life

Boring, absolutely nothing fascinating about it!

 

                (1998)

 

 

***        ***        ***

 

MY eyes nave not yet seen

Cat’s tail, snake’s eyes, snake’s heart…

One hope slitters out of my happiness.

In its place recently dead corpse

 

Arrives lukewarm and, in my soul,

Weeps softly and grows cool;

For me, who will never see it,

Eyes are unnecessary!

 

I want to close my eyes until all visible objects are gone without a trace

And sit completely alone in utter darkness!

Instead of all the holy things that came out chokingly from my insides,

I want to kiss the naive one dying in my soul!

 

                (1996)

 

 

THE FUTURE

 

                Thinking of future is a great pity,

                                A waste of thought…

 

Having slept deeply resting my head on the ground

Woken up in the realm of the sky

Delightfully raised myself up

Are the visible signs of my surroundings

 

Really poor like this?

 

Oh! My dear childhood,

That one morning you thought

Your future was me –

Am I really?

 

That time which never was

Will never be found by us.

My feeble childhood,

There is no future for you.

 

Having slept deeply resting my head on the sky

See me wake up on the ground.

At that time we two

Won’t recognize each other.

 

                (1997)

 

 

VAGRANT TRAIN

 

Having closed my eyes to hear the first sign of daybreak,

Somewhere’s sound of a vagrant train knocking its path

Is disruptive, dying away to an unknown somewhere

Like a naive love of five, six, seven years ago.

 

Lost train invisible in thought

Its chugging-with-sadness chases out echoes and grows dim.

 

At this early dawn, what early rising train is this?

To where does it intend to escape from this sleepy life?

Where is such an easily reached place?

 

                (1998)

 

Translated by Lisa Fink