The Music Box

There’s a music box I tried to repair,
a melody playing through the red
clockwork of my heart —
There are worlds I thought
I could leave behind
that never stop sending postcards
from the past. And no matter
if the song is out of tune,
all photographs pale and torn,
they keep taking me back
to a crossroad — where everyone
has chosen the wrong path.

There are lovers broken by rules,
wedding dances stopped by wars.
There’s a woman leaving her child
for three roses on a coat of arms.
There’s a Jew tricked by a tricky star,
children gone and a mistress
crowned. Oh the trembling done
behind locked doors
leaves the equation unsolved.
I feel — suspended, I don’t know
how to grow old. Conventions
smashed like a string of pearls,
but no answer rang out, at all.

Life goes on, beautiful and strange,
I stand staring at this crossroad.
The music box turns and turns,
its love song — foreign to everyone.
Tell me, is there a flag to hold,
a desire I shall not let go —
A fire that a storm will not blow ?
Blood runs to these blue regions
of my heart, then drips unspeakably
red.

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Which of you ?

Listen Father, I lost my hunger,
I have no need of bread
any longer — Give me a stone.
I’ll leave the glass of wine
where it is, the sweet berries,
thyme and honey on the table.
In such a wide blue place, alone,
losing time, taste and touch,
an orphan inevitably turns
into a wild cat. But I never
hoped to be so mad, so gone,
to have fought so many wars,
unsheathed so many claws.
Now I long for another song,
not for this train of thoughts broken,
not for this station. There’s a line
of cliffs, I miss, ending in a lighthouse,
a wall of rock halfway up the sky,
cleared by a summer wind.
All that happens, the sea,
the city, happens under its wing.
It’s a tender chalk to lean on,
it never fears, dooms nor
cheats, and on the skin
oh it’s softer than silk.
Listen Father, keep that sugar,
I won’t lick your hand
which never took mine.
I can only stand there
untamed. Flowers and blood
are frail — this stone
holds it all. At dawn
it rocks me close and tight
in a firm touch of light.