Writing Poetry, the Most Innocent of Occupations: Hlderlin Alfredo

Veirav
Historia natural (1980)

One day I woke up early

nagged by a poem that had been
doing laps in my head since six in the morning
one March Sunday
and I locked myself away in the study to write it down
and so give the world that trembling, that helplessness, that muted confession,
that lonely cry, that fatal structure, that rhymd sorrow, that
Sunday anguish, etc. etc.
it so happened my Parker pen had been practically
destroyed by the maid when she signed the gas bill,
the colouring pencils I'd bought in New York
the dog had taken off to play with
and to hand there was neither pen nor ink, no faggots in the chimney
or Borgesian memory I said to myself sadly,
and so grief upon sorrow
like some Romeo slapped in the mush by the neighbour across the way
like a hearse without a suited corpse
like a Hungarian general with no cavalry
like a match postponed due to rain
like a censor without pornographic books
like a jet plane without turbines or one without passengers
like a divorce without reconciliation
like a machine gun without a terrorist
like a frog without a puddle
like a noise without an ear
like a loving kiss without the other's lips
like a respectable gent with no gaiters
like a pitiful day without pity
like a nuclear war without missiles
like a language with no nouns
like a parricide without Picasso

like a soloist without solitude

like a Praying Mantis with no legs
and so, grief upon sorrow,
that Sunday I got up early to write
the poem
and I had a little problem in this our industrialised era:
I had no pen,
no pencils, no memory, no dictaphone
nothing silent to write it down
nothing to write poetry with, then,
(the typewriter out of the question
it makes too much noise with everyone asleep)
Just
this line by Cocteau I know by heart:
You know what I think about being serious?
It's the first step towards death...