MY PORTFOLIO

                         I

  The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street-      corner; I have outlived the night.   Nights are proud waves; darkblue topheavy waves      laden with all the hues of deep spoil, laden with      things unlikely and desirable.   Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals,      of things half given away, half withheld,      of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act      that way, I tell you.   The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds      and odd ends: some hated friends to chat      with, music for dreams, and the smoking of      bitter ashes.  The things my hungry heart      has no use for.   The big wave brought you.   Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily      and incessantly beautiful.  We talked and you      have forgotten the words.   The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street      of my city.   Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to      make your name, the lilt of your laughter:      these are the illustrious toys you have left me.   I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them, I find      them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and      to the few stray stars of the dawn.   Your dark rich life …   I must get at you, somehow; I put away those      illustrious toys you have left me, I want your      hidden look, your real smile – that lonely,      mocking smile your cool mirror knows.

                      II

  What can I hold you with?   I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the      moon of the jagged suburbs.   I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked      long and long at the lonely moon.   I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts      that living men have honoured in bronze:      my father’s father killed in the frontier of      Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs,      bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in      the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather      –just twentyfour– heading a charge of      three hundred men in Peru, now ghosts on      vanished horses.   I offer you whatever insight my books may hold,      whatever manliness or humour my life.   I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never      been loyal.   I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved,      somehow –the central heart that deals not      in words, traffics not with dreams, and is      untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.   I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at      sunset, years before you were born.   I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about      yourself, authentic and surprising news of      yourself.   I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the      hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you      with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

Being logical isn’t just a T type thing.

Imagination isn’t just an N type thing.