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When -Pierre ReverdyA prisoner in this space perpetually narrow With my left-over hands left on my eyelids With none ofthe words that reason can bring itself To invent I play the hell-game That dances on the horiwn. Space in darkness makes it better, And it may be there are people passing through meThere may even be a song ofsome kind The cloud fills itselffull ofhovering holes The needle loses itself In clothes-covered sharpness The thunder stops shortA few more minutes It's too late I'll start to shake: too late ever to act to act at all: This is the thing as it will be. All around, chains are gritting on each other Like blackboard chalk every tree In the world is going to fall. The window opens to summer. A Saying ofFarewell -homage, Nordahl GriegYou 've dressed yourselfso white for it! And you poise As on the edge ofan undersea cliff, for departure. We two are the only ones who know that this lost instant Is not lost, but is the end Oflife. "It's as though we were dying, this calm twilight." Head-Deep in Strange Sounds: Free-Flight Improvisations from the unEnglish / 410 No; only you. I hang on watch, High up in Time. Step offand fall as the wind rolls the earth Over you like a wave. I am left on duty with the heart Going out over everything, no sleep In sight braced, monster-eyed, Outstaring the shaken powder offatigue mistBy your clothes and mine white-bled Raging with discovery like a prow Into the oncoming Never. Three Poems with Yevtushenko 1. I DREAMED I ALREADY LOVED YOU I dreamed I already loved you. I dreamed I already killed you. But you rose again; another form, A girl on the little ball ofthe earth, Naive simplicity, curve-necked On that early canvas ofPicasso, And prayed to me with your ribs "Love me," as though you said, "Don't push me off." I'm that played out, grown-up acrobat, Hunchbacked with senseless muscles, Who knows that advice is a lie, That sooner or later there's falling. I'm too scared to say I love you Because I'd be saying I'll kill you. For in the depths ofa face I can see through I see the faces-can't count themWhich , right on the spot, or maybe Not right away, I tortured to death. You're pale from the mortal balance. You say "I know everything; I was all ofthem. I know you've already loved me. I know you've already killed me. Three Poems with Yevtushenko /4 II ...

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