Mario Cesariny

You Are Welcome To Elsinore by Mario Cesariny

Between us and words there’s molten metal
between us and words there are spinning propellers
that can kill us ravish us wrench
from our inner depths the most worthwhile secret
between us and words there are burning profiles
spaces full of people with their backs turned
tall poisonous flowers closed doors
and stairs and ticking clocks and seated children
waiting for their time and their precipice

Along the walls in which we live
there are words of life words of death
there are vast words that wait for us
and other, fragile words that have stopped waiting
there are words lit up like boats
and there are words that are men, words that conceal
their secret and their position

Between us and words, without a sound,
the hands and walls of Elsinore

And there are words of night words that are moans
illegible words that rise to our lips
diamond words unwritten words
words that can’t be written
because here we don’t have any violin strings
we don’t have all the world’s blood or the air’s whole embrace
and the arms of lovers write high overhead
far beyond the blue where they rust and die
maternal words just shadow just sobbing
just spasms just love just solitude’s dissolution

Between us and words those who are walled in,
and between us and words our duty to speak

~ Mário Cesariny

Translated by Richard Zenith