The dog’s bark
from the distant bank
tearing through the fog
~
In the bitter taste
of my morning tea
the sweetness of your lips
~
Fearless
in the face of change…
dewdrop on the leaf
~
Le cœur humain…
piège pour des ailes
vastes comme les cieux
~
The one I forgot to be…
in autumn’s playground
a child in the wind
Man of silence
replete on himself…
a world of billowing clouds
~
In the still water
my soul is taking
the shape of a cloud
Comme les poètes
je retrouve ma vie
dans le silence du poème
~
Like freshly fallen snow
where no foot has tread…
her face in my heart
~
Nuit d’automne…
à marcher comme toujours
seul sous les étoiles
The winds are fickle
but the flower knows
the heart of the wind
The nice guy, so desperate to give, chases all the women away. His giving, in fact, is a weakness and a selfishness — through it he seeks to validate himself. But the validation will not come to him who is weak in his heart. And the less the validation comes the more neurotic the need to give becomes. His giving seeks to manipulate the woman into giving him back the validation he seeks. But no woman will have this because he is not a man who can stand on his own. The nice guy, however, should not revert back to the bad boy type, so craved by the feminine; he must reach into his instinct and come to his strength through his weakness. He ought to become himself, create his boundaries, and become able to stand on his own.
The discipline of the flower is opening up to the light. That is my discipline too, as a poet, a lover, and a man. Man is conscious depth; his discipline is opening and giving his life direction through the sea of light.
~ ~ ~
There is a friend to whom you come closer even when you go into a different or even an opposite direction. Such friendship, what is its touchstone: a mutual commitment to the growth of the heart.
* * *
We do not simply stumble upon new books; they stumble upon us and call us out too. It is a meeting, and the space of the meeting (depending on its depth) spills out back and forth throughout our life, reshaping, transforming, metamorphosing, down into the cradle of our birth and up into the darkness of our tomb.
* * *
The poet, today, is an outcast destined to live in the shadow of a socially unjustifiable existence. The intellectual atmosphere of his time renders him mistrustful even towards the sacred fountain of his inspiration. And so he finds himself in the peculiar position where he cannot turn away from poetry nor completely give in and surrender to it — he does not believe in his own existence. He suffers, and his suffering is incommunicable. He suffers in silence. Yet this silence and suffering are preparing something in him too; even now, something is rising out of him. This intuition alone makes his existence bearable, and fills him with the awe of being a poet. He will go unseen like a flower on the wind. But poetry, her, the midwife of the heart, has already taken something out of him and planted in the garden of eternity. He will go unseen, but the poem shall survive.
Through the gray mist
the red gleam
of a smoldering pomegranate
~
A l’entendre respirer
mon cœur doucement rassemble
la couleur de l’aube
Returning from the fields
the light of the moon washing
the dust off my face
~
Sur une branche de lune
l’oiseau perché écoute
le silence de la terre
~
From the empty chairs
her silhouette watching
the dark rolling sea
Les parois de mon cœur
dans ton souffle se sont fondues
en une vague de lumière
~
The walls of my heart
in your breath have melted
into a wave of light
Toutes les formes du monde
à l’aube sont mêlées
à la lumière de ses yeux
~
…زهرة من دخان
قصيدة تتأوه
على أطراف الخريف
All night long
this longing for you
brews inside of me
like song in the bird
waits for the dawn
With nothing to show
standing at the crossroads
of the autumn of life
~
My life the mesh;
poetry, the burning flame —
praised be this dying.
~
The love I wanted…
in my open palms
the light of the moon
~
Borrowed from silence
the words I wanted
to give to the moon
Dawn…
my poem slowly taking
the color of her eyes
~
As the day passes I think of you
the way the wind envisions
the face of the sky
~
The wind is silent
but I can still hear
your voice in the sky
~
Haleine des étoiles…
mon poème s’entrouvre
à l’insondable nuit
~
Meditating on light…
her face, slowly,
unveiling my soul
Her fragrance
is a knife
held to my neck,
however I move
I am gone…
~
Her silence weakened me
and I hated it until I learned
it was the only force capable
of revealing me to my bones,
shaking open my truth
on the altar of the world.
~
Let us kiss
until nothing of us remains
except the light
of the first star
~
Rain falling at dawn,
I am awake
writing shattered notes
to an unknown lover
~
I am waiting for you
on the other side of silence,
covered in dew
and holding out
the scarlet fire of my heart.
~
Aux moments silencieux
je retrouve mon destin,
fleur couleur du vent,
fraicheur de l’aube,
les yeux de mon bien-aimée
lumière du monde.
~
My poem is a painting
in which her soul is blushing;
my poem is an attempt
to touch her light
with shivering fingers
and an aching soul;
my poem comes nearest to her
when it is silent.
Ecoutant le silence
et la chandelle qui tremble
au souffle des étoiles
~
Fuyant dans les herbes
le haïku du poète mort
un jour d’automne
~
Ma vie s’écroule…
il ne reste de moi
que ce poème d’amour
~
Fleur dans les herbes…
poète mort un automne
foudroyé d’amour
~
Brume dans les feuilles jaune…
de la vie il ne reste
que l’éternité d’amour
Petite sœur
aux yeux clos,
le soleil c’est toi
~
Little sister
whose eyes are closed,
the sun is you
Lune dans la fenêtre…
chambre allumée
par l’ombre de la mémoire
~
Le poème…
un morceau de lumière
tombant de ses yeux
Rooted in Love 