LOCUS SOLUS

The sun of Palermo after so many trips,
the cold flavor of Pernod on an open balcony...
And to continue, continue through a comfortable winter.
But the monologue with oneself bores
—even though often it may be necessary—
and loneliness is not only knowing one is alone.
It is like a well that never ends,
an old movie that makes you see interminably.
The sheer conviction (there's no lack of arguments)
that everything is useless and all is tottering...
That to live is only to have lived, and is now a lie.
Neither the portentous light that envelops the palm trees,
nor the Sicilian sea like a mineral, moving,
nor the bodies that offer passion after the flowers...
Nor the boy's fear before the revolver
—that will make the ice fall— are absolute truth.
There is a shadow always after the show.
And if it isn't new to die, to live isn't new either.