Coining

I would like, observing silence, to deserve
The gift of speech. Dangling between what is meant
And meaning it, in obverse or the reverse
Clattering, clamoring
To be the tone I sing.
And not to sing, but then behold
The shining standard of the gold.

Gloria

Filling my cup with a Massic strain I would like to draw out
Something of time who teaches all men to bear up
Sorrow in her joy. Watch the air peel the walls, the bulbs
Flicker and the candles gutter, while the slow rot
Of mildew wastes linoleum away -- even incorrigible
Metal must decay. But I also wanted to say
How lovely is the word dancing on so many lips
Which is unobscured long in doubt and this even the sun
Reveals though not aid-less in his course. Here
The ruler of the cosmos measures stars
And drags the revolution of the days,
Here the everlasting cycle of the same
Repeats the meaning of time’s holy Name.

In-der-Welt-Sein

I would like to course through things,
Listlessly sustaining, like a sap,
Spreading with equal freedom,
Is taken up and stretched
Through the various parts,
Then renewed in their relation,
Of which a flourish remains
My inauguration.

Exegi Monumentum

I indulge, while the remnants of vapor are purged,
In this expedition
From the interior
To the external where the world
Is, a monument of time achieving grace
By the method of presenting a peculiar face.

Interests

Lifting things, carrying things,
Pushing, pulling, spreading
Things dissected in their mutability, changed,
Exchanged, ordered and ranged.

Torah

How can the joy which is not of others fill
One surrounded by heedless arms?
I have not heard the voices of their children
Mouthing the same words and calling for God.
But the words! I have found a tone or a strain
Of thought and followed its trail into light
That washed everything. Nobody stirred
In the grove where crickets sing. A glance
Will do me in while I wait for the visitor
Who carries his books in a hungry heart.

Origins

The stained cup, rough-
ly worked with age, is better
Than the freshest white
It could contain. Old things
Bear up with their history,
Because each dent and crack
Brings news of what has passed.

Solicitude

I have taken another day.
This lingering suits me
And wears on me.
When the passage of days
Will have worn me away,
Where will I wander? What ghost,
Or prophecy, will be my host?

In these thoughts there is no profit,
Whether they be spoken or unspoken;
Only my surroundings have a voice

To call me such a name,
Though from day to day,
It is never the same.

Dass Sie Ist

If I could offer up the daily incense
By laying on myself its altar
Never altering, I would be
Well-served and should deserve
You well who only in a nameless
Naming dwell, unknowable

The mind infinity cannot conceive:
What tears will stand as messengers
Of the exile bringing your prophet across
The unspeakable bounds? What hymn
Is not a lie if it will never penetrate
The sound that covers up the coverings
Upon the shore of beings? For the absurd

Because it is absurd I will declare
The story that will never have
A history -- only do not let me
Utter it in any word.

Wahnsinn

I want the present moment to enfold me
In the present’s own eternity;
I want the sound of present things to hold me
And I want their light to show what will console me.
I want the cycle of the days to end:

I want to live the hour that will be my friend.