NUSCH
Your eyes, in which I journey away
Paul Éluard
Nusch,
who, if not you,
not sight of you,
will let me understand
that the greatest happiness is happiness in the midst of misery?
Who do you think I think of along the streets, in offices, schools
among the pompous, the plain, the unavailable?
Of who in hospital,
among the broken, the sick, the humbled,
where time flowed like tears of piss
into the catheter?
Who if not you
lets me dream
that it’s possible to escape, for there is one to escape with?
It’s expected that I know everything there is to be known
and am ready for all,
and who, today, if not you,
tells me to always do that which
my heart says I should?
With the passing of years,
thinking of you,
as such, seems all the more risky,
though in these unending nights of cold
I always think of your delicate hands,
your slim fingers,
so as to make beams of sunlight
from another day touch me,
gently, as if
unwrapping a gift.
NOW THE OLD TIMES
And so, what you really want to tell me
is that I am now the old times. Yes,
the present does not correspond to the past,
or, what’s worse, does not let itself be invited
for coffee and cultured conversation.
The old times have acted with class: invited dialogue,
that being all that’s left within their power.
And you seem so certain,
like all those who are uncertain
of where they are going, but have glimpsed hope in the new,
and just as I mature into you.
I no longer have the right to speak,
and for the sake of my own sanity
I must submit.
2010
