Four Descriptions

7^TH DIE
Know, that in order to inform all people,
beasts, animals and humans,
of our death, we shall today
converse with bird-like voices,
to laud the wood, the flood and nature
intending. Did anyone exist?
Perhaps birds or officers
and even that's unascertainable
yet still one cannot cannot cannot
ignore even these cases,
birds have no elbows,
who counted their seconds.

20^TH DIE
I'll interrupt you.

7^TH DIE
What?

20^TH DIE
I'll interrupt you.

7^TH DIE
Interrupt.

20^TH DIE
I did.

7^TH DIE
I resume.

90^TH DIE
I lay all in thoughts,
observing various things,
objects. I desired.
The world around me burned.
The world around me ran.
Although when you attend to time
everything seems to run,
the mountain seems to tremble,
the sea seems to amble,
sand speaks to a grain of sand,
and the flowers and the tea in the saucer
wrestle like halibut.
The moon with the moon,
star with star,
snow with water
and snow's daughter
and bread with butter-
everywhere battles are visible
even if they are invisible.
We sleep, we sleep.

300^TH DIE
What is there in the world? Nothing is, everything only may be?

20^TH DIE
What are you saying? The raccoon is. The beaver is. The sea is.

300^TH DIE
The contents of this world
bewilder count.
Wineglass and song,
flea and flattery,
the foxes running through the forest,
poems, eyes, crane and ferret
and the automatic water,
bronze, memory, planet, star,
simultaneous and unfilled
they rock on the ledge of the wave.
We cannot see from every side
the crow or the spider,
at any given time
they lie like flies supine.
At another they sit up and wiggle.
Go catch them. Lo, they giggle.
We can't make out the world in all its detail,
each thing we see is pointless and fracted,
and all this makes me sad.

20^TH DIE
Night is ugly and black,
life is composed of lack.
Man pities man,
presses cheek to cheek,
pours tears on hands,
holds fast to his dream.
His dream is immortal.
A man lies
in bed,
he embraces a maiden.
A candle smokes on the table,
reaching for what it won't.
Wallpaper keeps its sang-froid
and evenly the glasses breathe.
The night is tranquil,

the mathematical planets twinkle.
Lust came upon this man
and so lies in the wife's embraces.
He thinks, What the hell
everything around me is good and dead,
except this maiden wife,
so well constructed and alive.
He takes some foliage in his hand
and decorates her belly
and beautifies her with musical flowers
and sings to her in noisy syllables.
But the night will start heaving
like black cream,
the candle shall wilt,
the wife shall scream.
She'll flee to the shore of the bed
where breaks the surf of the night
and the froth of the wave and change
will range before them.
Stone objects will awaken
and wooden floors
and by the ceiling like planets
divine eagles shall soar.

300^TH DIE
So there's no sure knowledge of the hour,
the hour is no detail of place.
Hour is fate.
O refresh me with iodine.

3^RD DY (ING MAN)
I want to tell the story of my death.

Already for six months the war went on.
I lay in trenches. I drank no wine.
I did not see the female petal.
I slept without dreams. I had no bed.
I heard no jokes.
Bullets buzzed by composed of metal.
The enemy's German hands
did not fear our bayonets.

The enemy's Turkish heads
were not frightened by our gods.
The enemy's Austrian torso
valued itself only so-so.
All they cared about was victory.
We captured Peremyshl and Osowiec.
Each one of us was glad,
magnate Siberian or merchant
or general...