Wolf Cento
       

Under somber firs two wolves mingled
their blood, fell into the dense growth,
rustling the submarine foliage of language.

the syllables unearthed, traveling
through flesh into green waves
& all that we touch phosphoresces:

a cloud seeded with a green sun,
transforms into part of your anatomy,
out of reach of all mythology.

I feel an itchiness begin slowly.
The emptiness that swells
by being empty, like desire

in the upper leaves; the silence
of a postponed sentence.
Beyond my anxiety, beyond

my mouth & its words,
the peach glows reddish among leaves
under the sun's semaphore

There's a kind of restlessness
like a hissing that runs under my skin,
a star in its syllable socket.

I want to tremble, to shudder,
to split apart, to go on.
I cut the last leaf; you were gone.

Sources: Georg Trakl, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Nazim Hikmet, Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, Jorge Luis Borges, Sandor Csoori, Rosario Castellanos, Agnes Nemes Nagy, Odysseus Elytis, Gabriela Mistral, Kamau Brathwaite, and Yannis Ritsos.

Wolf Cento
       

With flowers in their lapels, nine
howling wolves come hungering.
A surge of wet syllables
dangles from their mouths.
Children trace their liquid howl
built out of alien words like seeds
in black earth. A woman's lock
of hair brushes their lips.
Their jaws open—coral
in the darkness. I do not know
who has opened the window.
They sing with their mouths full of earth.
The light is putting on gloves.
No blood is flowing. Just red birds.

Sources: Pier Pasolini, Leo Tolstoy, Octavio Paz, Coral Bracho, Andre Frenaud, Miklos Radnoti, Vladimir Holan, Wislawa Szymborska, Federico Garcia Lorca, AnnaAkhmatova, Tristan Tzara, and Miroslav Holub.
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Copyright © 2012 Simone Muench All rights reserved
from Gulf Coast
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission