Two Poems

Delirica II

You speak (while walking) psalms
of flame,
a luminous design of
chamber music.
The forbidden fruit in your train
tempts warriors and far-flung mariners.
You speak the music of absence
touching my tendons in the mists.

My seas reflect your signs,
that sundown supplication
in your mane of hair.

You speak salt to being,
the transitory and the endless ether.
You speak to love, that radiant, luminous death.

Delirica X

A madman sniffing
at the moon
captures instances of you.

(Captured in his cymbal-clashing soul.)

A madman who can sing.

And over what comes spilling forth
in mantra and nectar,
there is a flame:

hidden in your folded
nakedness.

Neon words linger
as everything flows from resplendent
solidity.

And everywhere, forever,
fire, water, time, and breath
exclaim.

Translations from the Portuguese