The Future by Rainer Maria Rilke

The future: time's excuse
to frighten us; too vast
a project, too large a morsel
for the heart's mouth.

Future, who won't wait for you?
Everyone is going there.
It suffices you to deepen
the absence that we are.


Translated by A. Poulin

Testament to/of brothers

Over written word, over written truth
wrists were bound and rooms were shut.
Wednesday chilly mourning,
they cried out- they were cut.
Sons of crescent moon,
peace, peace to you!
Allah is the only God,
His Son took hell by coup.

Three men, three hours,
they were kept, my Christ-
oh how beautiful were their feet!
Hidden in shoes of well worned peace.
Bleeding at the mouth,
Ceasing of the heart,
Naked did they come,
naked they depart.

Sauls of Malatya will you wait and hear?
Since you carved martyrs with pain and gore.
Their sound is gone out, to all the land-
and forgiveness rests at your front door.
They died in love,
for glory, in praise.
For the crucified King,
who was buried, then raised.

Creature of nothing

Rolled, sat and smoked
this rhetoric for so long,
and yes
it might be the death of us
if I don't stop thinking
and rest
without this ugly crisis.

Dreamt the heart away
leaving as it did,
following the debacle
with vicious stubborn time.
Wishing for x, whishing for y
in following cycle
questions turn to crime.

Joy, to feel it
touch and taste,
numbness is my ruin.
It grows on fingers, tongue and eyes
callused head to toe
Suffering loss of gumption
I lack the steady "No."

Freedom is exposure,
cut of the callused scars.
they bleed dark thoughts
set free from locks of darkness.
they bleed bright thoughts
set loose from locks of bleakness
red fountains of deliverance

Salvation is my food
Sustenance from blood
Free of form, chains–infliction
A vampire is not numb.
No longer nothing (sweet pain, what joy)
G-d save this sovereign vampire
and be my sacred signum.