From: AMORGOS: THE MOURNER'S COURTYARD

They taunt me: `The sun still
rises.' Lies. Worms play pranks
on the stars. Horses spring from ant hills.
Bats eat birds and cast rank sperm.

In the mourner's courtyard night is eternal, black,
rivers of tears are puked by the forest,
the devil's on his way to ride the hound pack,
in a welling blood well swim the nestless rooks.

In the mourner's courtyard eyes are dry,
brains are frozen, hearts are stone,
frog flesh clusters on spidery
teeth, avid locusts at the vampires' feet scream don't drone.

In the mourner's courtyard black grass grows,
but one night in May there blew a breeze,
like a step, light, trembling on the late spring meadows,
or a kiss from the lips of the foam-tressed seas.

If you thirst for water we'll mangle a cloud,
if you hunger for bread we'll slaughter a nightingale,
but first wait till the wild rue speaks out loud
in flower, the mullein blossoms and the night sky flashes in gale.

But the breeze vanishes, the lark goes,
and the face of May, the moon's whiteness,
a step - light, trembling on the late spring meadows.
the lips of the foam-tressed sea and their kiss.