It sometimes happens
that the woman you meet and fall in love with
is of that strange Transylvanian people
with an affinity for cats.

You take her to a restaurant, say, or a show,
on an ordinary date, being attracted
by the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk,
and afterward of course you take her in your arms,
and she turns into a black panther
and bites you to death.

Or perhaps you are saved in the nick of time,
and she is tormented by the knowledge of her tendency:
that she daren't hug a man
unless she wants to risk clawing him up.

This puts you both in a difficult position,
panting lovers who are prevented from touching
not by bars but by circumstance:
you have terrible fights and say cruel things,
for having the hots does not give you a sweet temper.

One night you are walking down a dark street
and hear the padpad of a panther following you,
but when you turn around there are only shadows,
or perhaps one shadow too many

You approach, calling, "Who's there?"
and it leaps on you.
Luckily you have brought along your sword,
and you stab it to death.

And before your eyes it turns into the woman you love,
her breast impaled on your sword,
her mouth dribbling blood saying she loved you
but couldn't help her tendency.

So death released her from the curse at last,
and you knew from the angelic smile on her dead face
that in spite of a life the devil owned,
love had won, and heaven pardoned her.

Strut and wiggle,
Shameless gal.
Wouldn’t no good fellow
Be your pal.

Hear dat music. . . .
Jungle night.
Hear dat music. . . .
And the moon was white.

Sing your Blues song,
Pretty baby.
You want lovin’
And you don’t mean maybe.

Jungle lover. . . .
Night black boy. . . .
Two against the moon
And the moon was joy.

Strut and wiggle,
Shameless Nan.
Wouldn’t no good fellow
Be your man

^{translated by Tess O’Dwyer}

My tanks were filled with gasoline and wars. I was a lead soldier. I marched
against the smoke of the city. There were difficult moments and there were,
Hello! How are you? They were all worth the same. I had two pennies. I
could enter the city. But they closed the doors on me. I closed my soul on
them. They didn’t know what had happened. Did my soul pass by here?
Body, I said to you, how are you? I have been a lead soldier. The voice that
said it was not what it said. I almost swear by the road. But the segment,
the march loaded with clay, eyes of asphalt, hands of lime, legs of drill,
navels of cement, resounded, resounded, resounded—the anvils of the
hammer against the beams of the body—drilling, drilling, drilling me.
Marching in time, the wall and the latch, the heart, my soul, the precipice of
the trucks. And everything was black, black, black, white—like the asphalt.
And the world closed its doors—anvils and hammers against the sleeping
men—the doors of the heart, cities everywhere and little lead soldiers.

She
Who searched for lovers
In the night
Has gone the quiet way
Into the still,
Dark land of death
Beyond the rim of day.

Now like a little lonely waif
She walks
An endless street
And gives her kiss to nothingness.
Would God his lips were sweet!

“He knoweth not that the dead are there.”

In yonder halls reclining
   Are forms surpassing fair,
And brilliant lights are shining,
   But, oh! the dead are there!

There’s music, song and dance,
   There’s banishment of care,
And mirth in every glance,
   But, oh! the dead are there!

The wine cup’s sparkling glow
   Blends with the viands rare,
There’s revelry and show,
   But still, the dead are there!

‘Neath that flow of song and mirth
   Runs the current of despair,
But the simple sons of earth
   Know not the dead are there!

They’ll shudder start and tremble,
   They’ll weep in wild despair
When the solemn truth breaks on them,
   That the dead. the dead are there!