"Earlyish" (Pessoa XII.)

Outrage upon the velocipede of skid road
sea and sky the same. Ravens detect
salvage; clouds more leisurely unload.
The cough moves from suspect to glum suspect
and towers fade into mist, though darkly near.
These letters i can't read, what do they spell
at each lorn crossroad? Gallows hovering there,
with only their tribunals much invisible.

Cars come at me from ev'ry side. I'd thought
to be there already. Sxwaixwe hoards his take
across the table: what more do i got?
Steal this smoke; steal what i forsake
and what i'm running from;
catenary days lift shofar to the goaf alone.


"To speak of the future is to use a language that is forever ahead of itself, consigning things that have not yet happened to the past, to an 'already' that is forever behind itself, and in this space between utterance and act, word after word, a chasm begins to open, and for one to contemplate such emptiness for any length of time is to grow dizzy, to feel oneself falling into the abyss." --Paul Auster , writing on Royston's Lycophron in: "The Invention of Solitude," Collected Prose (pp 107-110)