Youwon’t believe this – a postcard from Paris –

Parisdes Rêves,

the Paris of dreams.

What,you say you think it’s London,

and the cat on the window sill

staring forever like an ancient Egyptian

is not Parisian? This can’t be. There are no

such cats in London. And no

such pair of lovers lying on the grass – what an embrace!

HydePark, you say?

Andthe fire eater?  

Itseems like his heart is burning. In London?

Andthe one blowing soap bubbles

like shiny little lies in sunlight –

where did he come from? And this river, so gray

that a passerby on the other side seems not to exist at all?

Andthose people sleeping on the edge of the dock

who knows if they’ll sail off soon – where to –

are they Londoners or Parisians, uh?

TheThames? Not the Seine? And anyway how can it be

that you answer while I’m writing a postcard

and say just the opposite,?

Youmean to say I’m not there at all, that we two are here

next to each other, still close,

weaving a dream?

Araised arm may be lowered

a salute – withdrawn.

A mouth filled with shrieks is also capable of speaking.

Wild shouts may turn into laughter.

It isn’t absolutely necessary to clean sidewalks withtoothbrushes.

Yet Vienna is beautiful, a spotlessly clean city

with arich past. Many musicians

livedthere, actors, a lot of authors.

A city with much to be proud of.

On the Heldenplatz the sparrowschatter,

thetraffic hums.

A hangman doesn’t have to be ashamed because he was

a hangman. And theDanube

is not really blue.

In a certain sense goodness is boring, Kafka wrote,

 without consolations. Be seeing you.

Youcan live with one arm, one leg, one lung

one kidney, no legs, no arms, one eye, no eyes.

Ilive with one heart.

Ididn’t want to say it. I don’t know why I did.

Nowthey’ll come with thin, sharpened fingers

to poke, probe, decree: a total lie –

Iknow, I know. I

eat, sleep, work, listen to music.

“Fromthe pure thoughts that arose before blessed-be-his-name

he created angels. And from thoughts of disaster

he created demons.”

Whatnonsense. What terrible nonsense.

Whenflying over gray cumulous clouds, in dim, late light, one imagines

how easy it would be to go, a light step swallowed unheard noeffort,

to lie down and never rise again, an airy body, floating,almost bodiless –

a soft landscape of death, the depths of death, the death-sunsinking, the hills

            of the underworld

are made of down – images, images. I’m not a cat. Ihaven’t got nine lives.

Forwhat, what’s this all for?

Idon’t know. The truth is –

what terrible nonsense.