More poetry from Malta
_______
Cali (Carmel) Grima
Translated by Maria Grech Ganado
TODAY I THREW MY SOUL INTO THE SEA
Standing against a black shadow
I took a glowing stone out of my heart
and
threw it
into the kilometres of time
down into
the blue black
sea.
Was it perhaps a bird’s
feather?
Or an Egyptian
woman’s
poem?
And the sea belched
a green wave
out of its hair
and I
picked up again
what I
had thrown
away.
THE LADYBIRD
The esoteric dice of God
the game of design
the ropes of colours calling out the spirit’s names
flesh sits
eyes go far
and
the geometric corners of the ladybird
open the windows of the mind. . .
“come close to me little creature
the breath of women poets is yours
the algebra of laughter
and hands under green dust
we’ll swim freely
under
time”
WHY ARE YOU CRYING?
I smell your tears in the glass
while I drink.
. . .
the loveliest gift of my life has turned to glass
. . .
I cry from inside you
and when you’re happy I become
a dog in a grave
. . .
Cold
. . .
I run after the shadow you dreamed
with your hands and the weight of perfume
which spoke to me more than poets and the red papers
of philosophers’ kites
. . .
And I’m a dog and wag my tail
like a monk’s dog collar
. . .
A glass of holy water
to wash the light in your eyes
on these bleak slabs
. . .
Let me hug you from inside me with the last star
THE PILLOW AND THE SEA
What do you need to make an artificial
sea?
You remove a shoe put water
into a glass and drink it through your ears
You draw the curtains
and paint your eyelids blue
You draw the curtains
and draw your breath in
and leave what’s out behind the mirror
and let the mice play Ring
a Ring O’Roses on the pillow.
And glide the piano
open the last page of a book
Turn a picture upside down
so that you make the sky
the sea and where the sea is you make
the sky
and with your little finger walk on
water
and pick lost suitcases from land
and open a letter with no
letter
and you dive deep
and you dive deep
and remove the battery from the clock
and this sea which has lived 1000
years
and it’s 3 o’clock
and my name is Grima beer
I open the umbrella
and I’m lying on the pillow
dreaming of the word sea
at last
in the sea.
I DREAM OF YOUR MOUTH
I light a match
and you light a lighter. . .
What’s the difference between the salty sea
and sweet water?
I don’t know, that’s why grey exists
which separates the beauty of white from
black.
That’s why there’s a difference between
a boiled egg and a fried one.
The frying pan’s tarmac
full of oil. , ,
If you want to get hurt there’s still
space
space
. . .
Not in balloons
Not in infinity
I’m here and you’re there
and if you turn the book I am speaking
it will be you who moves the ruler
of time
between your lips and mine
. . .
Wouldn’t it be better than the sun
red and perfumed
setting to lay another day?
THOUGHTS/DREAM
Yesterday you found a key
of glass and you opened a door
and one by
one
you stripped
a row of curtains
heavy with memory’s darkness
so that I could see you in thought
in an invisible wedding dress
or in the blue smell of
a hospital waiting for
a butterfly of flesh
to emerge from you.
