Suppose it all turns into, again,
just the common, the expected
people, and places, the distance
only some change and possibly one

or two among them all, gone–
that word again–or simply more
alone than either had been
when you’d first met them. But you

also are not the same,
as if whatever you were were
the memory only, your hair, say,
a style otherwise, eyes now

with glasses, clothes even
a few years can make look
out of place, or where you
live now, the phone, all of it

changed. Do you simply give
them your address? Who?
What’s the face in the mirror then.
Who are you calling.

there come those times
in the day at night
when you replay moments
adjust positions
fine-tune dialogue
edit in your favor
those words
you shouldn’t have said
and you think yes
this is the way
it should have might have
played
and a different life
than the one you’re living
causes that lump
that tear
there

But as far as translation is concerned, naturally every writer loses in translation, particularly poets and humorists. Also writers whose writing is tightly connected to folklore are heavy losers. In my own case, I think I am a heavy loser. But then lately I have assisted in the translating of my works, and knowing the problem,I take care that I don’t lose too much. The problem is that it’s very hard to find a perfect equivalent for an idiom in another language. But then it’s also a fact that we all learned our literature through translation. Most people have studied the Bible only in translation, have read Homer in translation, and all the classics. Translation, although it does do damage to an author, it cannot kill him; if he’s really good, he will come out even in translation. And I have seen it in my own case. Also, translation helps…

I’m a native Southerner, but as a writer I think background matters most in how well it teaches you to look around and see clearly what’s there and in how deeply it nourishes your imagination.

they say that the die
is cast and I will follow
where it will lead me
new places faces abound
finally a path in sight

the well is deep
and I ponder it often
especially in early morning hours
a specialty of mine
there is a lesson to learn
and I could should learn it
so I am looking sideways
upside down
then backwards
a complicated process
this business of mine
just trying to figure out
all of it
before the ink runs dry

you’re there
in front of me
one dimensional, of course
but I remember more dimensions
the sound of your laugh
a kid’s laugh, really
but can we be held
accountable
for what we inherit
that smile
that always just happened
without planning
or thinking
a natural reaction
to life
around you
and your eyes
open, clear
looking at the world
from a distance
and yet full of mischief
whenever you laughed
the tilt of your head
the length of your neck
the way your left shoulder
dips to the side
there’s a sea behind you
on a coast
a faraway coast
a lifetime ago
your lifetime
and mine
in a world long gone
that I won’t be returning to
any time soon

Sometimes the fear of the unknown is not as great as the fear of things staying the way they are.

The books that made me want to be a writer were books like Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, where I recognized people who were somewhat meaner and more desperate than the people I grew up with, but who were much closer to my experience than anything I’d ever read before. I mean, I didn’t have a red pony. I didn’t grow up in nineteenth-century London. With Last Exit to Brooklyn, I realized that my own life and world were valid grounds for literature, and that if I wrote about the things that I knew it was honorable–that old corny thing: I searched the world over for treasures, not realizing there were diamonds in my own backyard.