this local landscape - like a hawk -
in gray gloom; a diary of words
composed by the alphabet of language; the rest:
making coffee - jotting down expenses
contemplating the hills - and fish-fliers,
who, with the needle of time, stitch together days -
the constant desire to be silent - to lie at the bottom
like the fish of death -
and you feel your former smoking habit unbearably,
buying some goods

you look for a pack of Gitanes in the store for their pungent
smoke - stroking the cigarettes
and talking to them as if to poems -
denizens of the bottom - blowing away specks of tobacco -
clinging in rows on your palm - those captive women
you shut away in the harem -
of a crumpled pack in your pocket - betrayed today
by you - no one will take these
stripteasers from you - these concubines -
these buyable girls - baroque nudes

you offer bread and wine to latecomer strangers -
you don't need conversation for any reason
to consummate - again gossip and slander -
that - at last - like daily bread
grain at the speed of sound - your earthly existence
will continue as the fish of death -
and light at some point will pierce through
the soft fabric of your heart - it will cut out a paper chain
and the fact

that you scribble words by habit - you will name poems -
the ship by which homer
assembled the odyssey - and looking into the window
waiting on the ships
several sturdy irishmen - chortling in drunken banter -
low off the foam
and the very air that dangles like grapes -
with the sawdust of fresh boards - they add
a good smell - giving back yellowed rivers of beer - to the earth

Translation: 2005, Michael M. Naydan