Could you for a while cuddle this little bug,
this hug- less kitten in the cold
this mess in distress?
Could you hug who he is this lost,
nude like a woman in her morning dress
all dressed and wrapped in her faithfulness?
Could you hold this palpitating heart
this flame falling apart
this faint worm of warmth
tending to disappear
crawling and melting in its flares,
from the candle of these eyes
thawing away
tear by tear?
Could you let me feel your warmth?
Could you harbor me in your arms?
Could you shield me from the kerf of these harms,
regardless of who and where
I would be
in the bottommost of this bottomless sea,
over the reflection on my jasmine tea?
Could you wake me up
in the compass of this coffee cup
from Kafka 's nightmares of estrangement?
Could you tell me that I haven't mutated
to a bug unplugged from your hug
crowing on the doomed dome of my room? (1)
Could you tell me that I
metamorphosed instead,
to a glorious insect
and transmuted
to a beautiful butterfly,
in the Dorian Gray's black eye
that apes
it's face
of hideousness in its place?
Could you tell them
that even I am the ugly duckling
the hideousness and disgrace,
is not mine, _for I am a swan_
is their own face
that in their head
projects conversely
instead?
====
(1)
It is about "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. The major character wakes up and notices that he, over the night, has transformed into a giant, unsightly, hairy bug: The ultimate depiction of alienation. no author of a poet would ever be able to find a better angle in describing alienation as the doom of the industrial world. Kafka seems here, has found the ultimate angle.
