Four Poems

Translated by Nicholas Friedman

To Eros

Here at the edge of the sea, I captured you
by the scruff of your neck while you were readying
the arrows in your quiver to strike me down.
I saw your floral crown, set on the sand.

I gutted out your belly like a doll’s
and took a close look at your phony gears;
and picking through your mess of golden pulleys,
I found a secret trapdoor that said ‘sex’.

I held you, sad and tattered on the beach,
and showed the sun, exposer of your exploits.
A ring of panic-stricken sirens watched.

The moon, your patroness of trickery,
began to climb her white way through the sky,
and I threw you to the wide mouth of the waves.



Oh, Let Christ Sleep
...