Why do I melt silver in my poems? Poem by Paul Snoek

Why do I melt silver in my poems?
Why do I nobly conjure on the vertebrae of beauty?
See, this is the breaking key.

I carry truth in my blood like a complete rage,
pain I enter along the root of the wound,
goodness is purity upon my skin.

And lying in the wide bed of the judges,
I play with light and darkness like with young lions,
until the caressing fingers of splendour
open like butterflies within me.

Then my muscles are interwoven with silk
and my lips coated with closing silence.
I am raised on a sudden shield
and carried by silent slaves

to the luminous island in the dark.
There I quiver and predict rest
and I rest there porously and in luster.

Translated by Kendall Dunkelberg

From: Hercules, Richelieu and Nostradamus, Green Integer, Los Angeles