Status Updates From Poemas y fragmentos

How could a person fail to ache,
Queen Kypris, always for the one
she loves and, more than anything,
wishes to welcome back again?

Please keep your eagerness in check,
since you have called me here, in vain,
to stab...desire...release...offspring...

‘I want to tell you something but good taste
Restrains me.’
　　 　 ‘If you wanted to express
Some noble or gorgeous thought – that is, unless
Your tongue were keen to utter in hot haste
Some shameful slur, "good taste" would not have
dressed
Your face in red, no, you would have professed Whatever you would say upfront and straightaway?’



I don't know what the right course is;
Twofold are my purposes.

The gorgeous man presents a gorgeous view;
The good man will in time be gorgeous, too.



Neither the honey nor the bee
For me . . .

Star clusters near the fair moon dim
Their shapely shimmering whenever
She rises, lucent to the brim
And flowing over.

Nightingale,
All you sing
Is desire;
You are the crier
Of coming spring.

A ripe red apple grows, the highest of them all,
Over the treetop, way up on a tapering spray,
But apple-gatherers never see it – no,
Rather, they do see it is far away,
Beyond their reach, impossible.
This matter stands just so.

　　　　　　　　　　. . . because
The people I most strive to please
Do me the worst injuries . . .

May gales and anguish sweep elsewhere
The killer of my character.



You were at hand,
And I broke down raving –
My craving a fire
That singed my mind,
A brand you quenched.



Cold grew
The spirits of the ladies;
They drew
Their wings close to their bodies.