Rainbow? Nobody's seen it these last forty years,

which means 'the end of the world' or something in this vein.

Do not go down to the shelter. When love is

word for word the magic power that divides life

by way of loss and delight - like a siren

piercing the memory before an air-raid of flashbacks -

we are in Germany on the French border.

The dream of a continental war is growing bigger and bigger.

Nocturnal emissions of factories, the glowing skies,

the discord, and yet its style is so elusive, the poem

has to be pushed this way and that before it ends

in the hands of an unknown addressee.

It never was like that. It really was like that.

Will you be him? Strange rendezvous - the emerald

on your neck and the shadows on your eyes - is it a smile

or a mourning crepe for the word that's died?

The emerald, so that you don't forget yourself

for ever? So that the poem should stalk you

like a shadow and veil your eyes, this poem -

a shadow thrown upon the truth from the deeps

of a tear, of a splinter of light, of a glassy full stop

that ends the talk of shattered mirrors?

Be here when it's all over, in the silence of 'All clear!'

Haven't we been cruel, getting involved so

light-heartedly in that dark life without a word,

when you've pulled the ground from under my feet

and the sky got carried away with snow? Love

is not that word, nor any other. A poem

declares it like a blitzkrieg.

Translated by Wiesiek Powaga