After a sleepless night the body gets weaker, It becomes dear and not yours - and nobody's. Just like a seraph you smile to people And arrows moan in the slow arteries. After a sleepless night the arms get weaker And deeply equal to you are the friend and foe. Smells like Florence in the frost, and in each Sudden sound is the whole rainbow. Tenderly light the lips, and the shadow's golden Near the sunken eyes. Here the night has sparked This brilliant likeness - and from the dark night Only just one thing - the eyes - are growing dark.

The one that burned the hottest is the first to die.

My verses are my diary. My poetry is a poetry of proper names.

What is this gypsy passion for separation, this readiness to rush off when we've just met? My head rests in my hands as I realize, looking into the night that no one turning over our letters has yet understood how completely and how deeply faithless we are, which is to say: how true we are to ourselves.

Women talk about love and silent about lovers, men - on the contrary: Speaking of mistresses, but are silent about love.

And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it.

For the spell is older than experience. For the tale is older than the record.