1.
I refute those who don’t think
and those who think I’m a thinker.
I never sought for truth.
But, if you are fond of lies,
I can spin off more than a tale.
So I leave you to your philosophy.
Just call me back, then,
as soon as you are finished.
I have never inquired after directions.
If there really were such things
my feet would always consult me
on the way they should go.
Nor am I driven to the gleam of gold:
no money pays for my share in time.
To have mine and throw it away
is good enough to make my day.
And I sing and dance as any severe worshipper of wine.
But I don’t celebrate what I got or will attain.
I’ve long given up any pretension or pretence of perfection.
So don’t imagine that I'll take part in the guys’ quest
for things which needed mending.
All wrong and pain are the by-product of men
or else exist only before our unclear conscience.
I can go delirious more seriously.
Don’t ask me either
if we are flesh besides fire.
One life is much
too much already.
If there is another death after that,
it is not likely.
But who knows for certain
other than the dead?
I guess I’ll be happy
to make their pleasurable acquaintance on due occasion.
But if it happens that nothing else happens,
why should I worry in anticipation?
For the time being, I feel fully satisfied
with this plain though transient certainty
that at least for the time being
I’m still very much alive and kicking.
2.
I admit that my anti-philosophy is also a philosophy.
It is just of a kind that won’t have us attached
to the orderly bundle
but would rather let us hang freely.
Since there mustn’t be other reasons to the world
than those it doesn’t care to tell us already,
I insist we should give it the final word.
Our idols are all very fine
but they won’t outstay us.
I don’t mean we should take our fate at face value.
For those, like me, that unfortunately nestle
much beneath the food chain’s safety level,
and who only for tastelessness or distraction
haven’t been so far devoured,
beyond any controversy,
life stinks.
And no poet or thinker might adjust or reengineer
our innate skill just not to fit.
But I also misled myself by seeking
too deep for grounds,
until one day I got myself buried
in foolproof doubts.
Later, when my remains were returned,
my recyclers found me not just the same
but also as dissimilar as before.
My essence has become that of the mirrors:
it is all of them or none at all.
And the world as a split glass repeats me.
Like a shattered Dionysus, my shards
walk for me and scatter our voices all over.
Those echoes are the brood
I was not able to make for myself.
They are my providence that chance
will not fail us. I sing only as a means to assure
that miracles, if they deign to ensue,
might ultimately favour us.
But I won’t grieve for my late substance.
Everything changes or may get changed.
I imagine it must be really great
to wake up every day having our old lady by one side,
but it sounds even greater only to realise
that each new day may bless us, god Grant,
with a surprise!
Best gait to take is wandering around
without any fixed ideas or steady grounds.
I live in all the things that once assaulted me in my wanderings
and since never again wished to go all by themselves.
As a matter of fact, I’m so small and vacant,
that I barely exist on my own.
But a city multiplies me.
All the roads in the city cross in my feet.
A city leads me
much beyond my loneliness.
With me a city makes love.
A city: myriads of stances that coalesce into unity,
like those small colourful bits
that juxtaposed in a certain arrangement
compose the bittersweet mosaic
of all what there is.
A city gathers me together.
I find and lose myself. I am every man.
Because there must be a love even bigger than the city:
the love that makes us want it ever bigger and bigger.
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