Il-lejla nheżheż ix-xafra ta’ sikkina
bejn snieni
u noħorġu niżfnu t-tango
taħt il-kordi tal-kwiekeb maqrusa
li jroxxu stalletti ta’ dmugħ.

Fih riħa ta’ dmija vjola
il-ħarir ħamrani daqs in-nar.
Ħalli mxeblek fuq ġbinek
nokklu spanjol milwi ganċ.
L-imrewħa taħbilek il-qaws ta’ ħuġbejk
mimlija malizzja.

Illejla nonfħu spirti tal-peprin
f’ħalq il-mewt.
Daqs il-mewt ikidd il-pjaċir
li jivvampja fil-vini.
Doqquli…mhux għodwiet sofor ċlampu
bid-dija sfumata
imma ħmura ffukata fi ljieli ġamrin.

It-tango fiħ passju tal-ħajja mal-mewt,
azzar ittemprat qed jinħema
jintlewa trabokk.

It-tango fih liwi ta’ fraxxnu jitgħawweġ,
jitbaskat f’nirien mingħajr tmiem.
It-tango fih riħa ta’ nċira tinħaraq,
fih żlieq fuq għadajjar ta’ demm.
Ħruxija fih it-tango daqs ir-rum
u żegħil bħal ta’ kobra.

It-tango korrida mal-barri tas-sess,
bħal ponta li tidħol bil-mod
bla ma toqtol.

It-tango fih skoss xħin ix-xafra
tkun waslet biex tinfed il-qalb.

Fit-tango
hemm żugraga qed tagħqad,
tisfuma fil-bjuda l-pjaċir ta’l-orgażmu
ġol-għaxwa tal-Mewt.

Tonight I’ll grasp the blade ‘twixt my teeth.
and we’ll take to the floor
to dance the tango
under the plucked strings of the stars
dribbling daggers of tears.

Silk, red as fire
smells of violet blood.
Curved on your forehead,
let down a Spanish curl like a hook.
Your fan hides the curves of your eyebrows
full of malice.

Tonight….we’ll blow spirits of poppies
in the mouth of death.
Like the agony of death is the searing pleasure
that flames in the veins.
Play for me, music…not of the jaundiced mornings
dense with the subdued glare,
but of the intense redness of the nights of ember.

Tango is a Russian roulette with death,
it is tempered steel being forged
into a snare.

Tango is the bending of oak
scorched in endless fires.
Tango has the smell of sealing wax being burnt,
the skidding upon puddles of blood.
Tango has the pungency of rum
and the seduction of the cobra.

Tango is a bullfight with sex,
like a barb slowly penetrating
without killing.

In the tango there is a jerk
when the blade is at the point
of transfixing the heart.

In tango there is a spinning top
transfusing the orgasmic whiteness of pleasure
into the ecstasy of death.

Jiena d-deżert għatxan tal-Ariżona.

Bi nhar ħuġġieġa ta’ nirien imdendla.
fuq baħħ etern.
Ramel mikwi jinkalja
igerref u jingiref.
Xtieli muxgħara jriegħxu bit-tixwik,
kaktus iniggeż qalb il-fwar li jitla’
bhal ħolma mriegħda minn ġol-art ħamrana.
Ħolma donnha miraġġ.
Ħolma ta’ għatx.
Treddin id-demm idamdam ġol-qorriegħa,
idamdam biex jinħeles
f’għejun bla xaba’.
Il-bogħod skeletri mtertqa
jitriegħdu z-zkuk imqarqċa.

Jiena d-deżert għatxan ta’l-Ariżona.

Bil-lejl ħolma ta’ serħ u poeżija.
Il-ward tal-kaktus jitla’ f’għaxwa ħamra.
Iz-zkuk bajdana
b’dirgħajhom imberrħin jinbidlu f’arpi
tal-fewga ħelwa.
Bħal karba ta’ kitarra
imkebbsa b’dawl il-qamar
minni
għanja tinsilet.

I’m the parched Arizona desert.

By day a blaze of flames dawdling
over an everlasting emptiness.
Desiccated sand cauterizing
busily scratching and being scratched.
Garigue vegetation thistle-stiff.
Cacti prickling amid fumes mounting
like a dream curdled off the ruddy earth.
A dream like a mirage.
A dream like thirst.
Blood rounding up with a tam-tam in the scalp
a tam-tam for the freedom
of insatiable fountains
In the distance barkless trunks
tremble like dismembered skeletons

I’m the parched Arizona desert.

By night a dream of rest and poetry.
Cacti blooming in a red swoon.
White branches
with their arms wide open becoming harp-strings
for the candied breeze.
Like a guitar groan
kindled by moonlight
out of me
a song is drawn.

(Translated by Peter Serracino-Inglott)

There is a stairway built of clouds with stardust encrusted.
Wave upon wave heavenwards ascending…
the vision of the kingdom
like multiple choirs of cherubim and seraphim ascending.
Upwards go the hierarchies merging.
At the basis of everything
is earth and dust.
Next comes the vegetable realm,
the birds, the beasts and the fishes.
And then lording on top comes Man,
like Jacob dreaming
at the foot of the flaming ladder
which leads into the goldmines of the heavens.

From the pupil of the sun
Beethoven
plucked a granule.
He seized a planet from a universe
burning and yearning with the pangs of release.
He partook of an ember basking in the forge
and he flattened it with the shattering of jackhammers.
With his eagerness
he milked it of its form and he parched it
to liberate its quintessence,
to yield its energy from its core…
to sprinkle a shower of brilliance..
to flail
a wastage of comets
from nothingness to nothingness.

Blood
has in it the intensity
of cobalt suns
crushed in measureless crucibles.

Blood has in it globules and moons
bathed in a red salty sea:
a primeval ocean.
Blood blind and deaf
apprehends the moment of truth
in a trigger about to be pressed.
Blood senses the threat
of the sharpened horns of a bull.
Tongue cannot formulate
the feel of lips trembling
on eyebrows in the lukewarm kiss
of a moving warbler,
but blood senses and intuits.
Blood transmits the heritage of human seed.
In blood there is dew and milk,
in blood there is fire
and fire in blood.
In blood the master-key.
In blood the tesserae of a mosaic.
In blood, ghosts and gods.
In blood, the past and the future
In blood, the call of the drums
resounding with the most distant days.
In blood, the tamed
blinding lightning flash
of cognition in the inspired mind.
In blood there is the muted mutter
of mountain foundations uttering electronic sound
of granite cymbals.
The silence of lazy seas
there lies in the blood,
the malice of the seas irked
by the yoke of the mind.
Sweet are the grapes of blood sucked
by mouths pursed by revenge wreaking.
Blood is the trophy
for which the bird of prey siddles with desire.
In blood lies the shudder
of the Lord’s kiss under the apple tree.
There is no logic in blood.
Blood like the owl
finds its way in the dark.

Blood
has the intensity
of cobalt suns
crushed in measureless crucibles.

I looked at a leaf
with the thousand faceted eye of an ant.
In front of me was spread the tapestry
in which I saw
the green blood of vegetation pullulating.
In the tracery of veins intertwined
I could see the gothic architecture
of a thousand ribs supported on a main pillar…
a film which filters green light
like a stained glass window in a cathedral..
the geometry
which supports the stars in equilibrium
and maintains the points of a diamond
in equipoise.

Chiave di violino

Flashy soap bubbles flutter out of the flute.
Reeds tremble
and sea samphires twitter in the stream
in the gushing water.
Feminine scent pierces nostrils like a dagger.
In the mind’s pool
a violet streak is run by a rose.
Smudges of reddish hues abound
indigo, violet, rose and lilac.
In eye-catching flounce
the moon like a bride
is wrapped in a halo white and silken.

Chiave di basso

The canyon snorts the echoes of a waterfall
like the buzz of a double bass.
Tough corns grate the spine’s gamut.
Forests catch fire and furious beasts bolt.
That’s not cherry
those are red berries of venom.
Hollowed out bastions cringe
until they burst into nothing.
A monotonous bumble bee
drones out a hoarse trombone note.
Walk on and mind you don’t fall
That’s a branch behind your ear, not a sword.

(Translated by Peter Serracino-Inglott)

You roam the Andes
where the morning rays kindle your beak.
The solid granite supports you
when your wings do not flail the air.
Below you yawn the dark chasms.
The plumes that cover you are silky black
like the satin of queens.
Your beak heralds the coming of dawn
and your eyes are kindled by the sunlight.
Your curled and tempered talons
are whetted on the grinding stone of cruelty.
Your ruthlessness is betrayed by your defiant look,
lawless, amoral and untrammelled.
The freedom of the sky bathes you in it;
no limitation hampers you.
For you darkness is not a snare
hiding a thousand hungry jaws.
Nobody seeks to know your acumen
and to gauge the power
in your brawn and your backbone.
Your are a god that needs no other god.

On the isle of Patmos entranced I climbed,
on the peak of song where the winds gripped me
like the autumn leaves in whorls
And a resonant voice bade me to write
a paean about the sweet delirium of life
that weeps with the exultation of living.
There is a hidden motive force in creation.
The beads of life are strung on a vein
filled with the same blood.
The hubbub of Life’s restlessness is pervasive.
Like the beating of drums
the voices of volcanoes resound,
spluttering fiery mud.
Like nymphs the cataracts groan
enveloped in a veil of spray.
On the sharp pointed rocks
the sea is lost in a swoon
seething with sadism.
There is a hidden force that goads Life.
From the moist earth like a dream
vegetation stirs and shoots up.The dark fingers of the conifers
tickle the breeze
that hungers for the phosphor of the thunderbolts.
The lusty grass covers every nook and cranny.
Knotted are the thick roots of the olive tree
like awesome cobras that know no rest!
What do they seek in their sleepy contortions,
wrestling against damp rocks..?
All creatures sing the same song
as the wind vibrates the pipes of an organ
pressed by the pulse of a giant.
There is a covetous attraction in the womb of the earth
which would embrace everything.
The ocean gravitates therein
as well as the peach that falls in its mellowness.
But Life throws up its challenge.
Through the inert clod, through the mud,
from the rancid compost of the leaves
the stem grows upright.

Like the clear notes of the oboe in stillness
rises the cypress erect on the horizon.
What boundless exuberance there is in nature,
in the climbing ivy that covers the walls,
in the solid oak, in the araucaria,
in the fingers like antennae probing the breezes,
in the cactus with the beaming prickles,
in the jasmine like a woman with her hair undone
whispering a dream of whiteness !

What power in the horns of the bull enveloped in steam
emanating from the ringed nostrils…
in the knotted flesh on the horses haunch…
in the terrible forge of the lion’s jaw
with the tongue convoluting like a flame !
What frenzy urges the ants that bustle
like a bagful of beads strewn about..
and the herons that migrate in tens
like oarsmen of the celestial ocean,
and the blue fish that twist in the sea
like silver ducats..!
What freedom does the bean seek
when, underground, it divests itself of its husk?
From what does the snake flee
when it abandons its skin in a cave…?
What urgency crazes the silkworm
to free itself from its chrysalis ?
Like a colourful rocket exploding
in expanding haloes
Life seeks in its stride, renewal and dominion through regeneration.