This empire, copious in lindens,
dark monarchy of myrtle, like the shadow
of an eagle, like keys, stone, hinge
of nothingness, when august, the twilight,
draws a dragon over the trees. At night, the clouds
shed their colours: grave-red,
shrine-blue, the green
of gelid eyes. A formless cloud,
immense, body poised, lips breathing
in the tremulous protectorate of velvet.
This breath is no hostage of the dominion
of shadows, no hostage of fingernails
or talons at night, coffer of silver
or cup on the console. Lenten fabrics,
algor and shadow in tatters. Hear
the howls beneath the axle,
see the blood of the owls? Tomorrow,
when the vulture’s blind eye cries at noon,
like a triumph of bodies, and in the graves
the snowstorms have shrouded
the spear tips of the crosses, the pale
specter of my memory will utter
vanished shadows of candelabras, wounded clangor
of waters and mirrors, droning copper,
furtive chalice of eyes that close
and lay waste to expired brilliance, the wick
Bright like an indigo lance,
the armor of night will discern
below, where the waters advance,
the face of the horse, taciturn
in the mirror with a mournful glance.
The sky draws closed: an urn
cut from impossible glass.
At midnight, alone,
the bodies, wretched dwellers,
do they feel this cold, like stone?
In the sepulchral cellar,
in the marrow of the bones,
flesh torn to tatters,
might Lucifer moan?
With blue sulfur ablaze,
with the blush from soirées,
with my eyes cut away,
with my body enslaved
– ashes, castoff raiments – say:
does it please you to gaze
as this dead vessel strays?
In a guise of silk and dust, autumn
strikes the crumbling shutters, and the old doors
off in eternity – fire suspended in a charred
prison, like the zephyr under the darkened vault,
like the impress of sun, of a scratch in black sky –
speak now of the stiffening of hands, and my mad
summer, and insatiate winter – wolves and waste –
winter, old sparrowhawk of the gypsum fields, mossy
like the touch of bodies, iridescent nacre,
the nude skin, warm and taut, of belly and breast,
cork masks of the old burnt forest,
when the curtains collapse under motionless blue,
and, sterile in the church grounds, the works of iron nails
no more graze the proud golden curtain of evening.