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1 " I jump from a buildingAs if I were falling asleep,The wind like a pillowSlowing me down,Slowing me down As if I were dreaming.Surrounded by air,I come to a stop,And stand like a touristWatching the pigeons.People in offices,Wanting to save me,Open their mouths.'Throw me a stone,' I yell,Wanting to fall.But nobody listens.They throw me a rope.And now I am walking,Taking to you,Talking to youAs if I were dreamingI were alive. "
― Mark Strand , Reasons for Moving
2 " Violent Storm" Those who have chosen to pass the nightEntertaining friendsAnd intimate ideas in the bright,Commodious rooms of dreamsWill not feel the slightest tremorOr be wakened by what seemsOnly a quirk in the dry runOf conventional weather. For them,The long night sweeping over these treesAnd houses will have been no more than oneIn a series whose endOnly the nervous or morbid consider.But for us, the wide-awake, who tendTo believe the worst is always waitingAround the next corner or hiding in the dry,Unsteady branch of a sick tree, debatingWhether or not to fell the passerby,It has a sinister air.How we wish we were sunning ourselvesIn a world of familiar viewsAnd fixed conditions, confinedBy what we know, and able to refuseEntry to the unaccounted for. For now,Deeper and darker than ever, the night unveilsIts dubious plans, and the rain Beats down in galesAgainst the roof. We sit behind Closed windows, bolted doors,Unsure and ill at easeWhile the loose, untidy wind,Making an almost human sound, poursThrough the open chambers of the trees.We cannot take ourselves or what belongsTo us for granted. No longer the exclusive,Last resorts in which we could unwind,Lounging in easy chairs,Recalling the various wrongsWe had been done or spared, our roomsSeem suddenly mixed up in our affairs.We do not feel protected By the walls, nor can we hide Before the duplicating presenceOf their mirrors, pretending we are the ones who stareFrom the other side, collectedIn the glassy air.A cold we never knew invades our bones.We shake as though the storm were going to hurl us downAgainst the flat stonesOf our lives. All other nightsSeem pale compared to this, and the brilliant riseOf morning after morning seems unthinkable.Already now the lightsThat shared our wakefulness are dimmingAnd the dark brushes against our eyes. "
3 " The bluish, paleface of the houserises above melike a wall of iceand the distant,solitarybarking of an owlfloats toward me.I half close my eyes.Over the dampdark of the gardenflowers swingback and forthlike small balloons.The solemn trees,each buriedin a cloud of leaves,seem lost in sleep.It is late.I like in the grass,smoking,feeling at ease,pretending the endwill be like this.Moonlightfalls on my flesh.A breeze circles my wrist.I drift.I shiver.I know that soonthe day will cometo wash away the moon'swhite stain,that I shall walk in the morning suninvisibleas anyone. "