I. Alone
The goodwill, huge and fragile,
One feels, a stranger in the city
Ebbs like foam on coffee, perfect
One unfamiliar morning near
The canal Saint-Martin
For despite older stones
And the light like oil in water
Hearing at midnight
An English couple on the continent
(He raging at his wife, she'd
Lost some key)
Scares me, on the other side of the wall, as
Incipient violence thrums
It's all gone to hell
Just about what it was years ago, when
The two on the other side of the wall
Were related to me
And whatever I seek here
The kiss I gave an ex-lover comes to mind
It's not unalloyed
Though cooler heads wil be doing some prevailing
And mine the first
II. With N. and Z.
Overcome by the constant calculating of
Acrostics and codes, and the
Sugar rush of picture postcards
I bend a knee at Mass
In the cathedral on a hill above the city
Of my birth
And now as then, unquiet
For the celebrant, though even-voiced and even musical
Gets all fractious, murmuring how
The state would do well to cleave to the Church
In this unquiet time
Well, I prefer and even desire
The waiter in the great square
Where places and plots are occupied by
Nothing grander than dreams dreamed
In chairs under parasols in the open air
And the bite of coffee, again
As the midday sun bears down, down
Thank you, come again
Says the slip of paper, reminding me that
Dark Velimir served us
They never said that before
Why am I surprised that
My west has met my south
And when in the same square
(Tu sais, la quadrature du cercle)
I see that the Writers' Club has
Laid on a lavish spread
(Shall we go, inquires N.)
I understand that it's the Devil
I've been looking for
Perhaps he has already stopped in,
Done his thing
Like the other Americans here
And fled
--Zagreb, June 2005
