Anthology - Poets J-L - M - N-S - T-Z - A - B-D

Eduardo Espina

MOTHER TONGUE

(It is written and then is heard)

The gaze dreams its being without being right.

Nothing indispensable is inversely proportional:

usage satiates the sylvan the powdered on a par

with appearance. A while ago and in the land

still landscapes. The words wonder after the

weeds in which they wouldn’t reply, and if

they are? A blinding light is all too much

and along the hall almost a situation; the house,

that mirror for sinning later. Everything new

will have a periphery of magpies, liberated

membrane where one can awake. To its anxiety

runs a valiant vision: the sacred river instead

of the homesteads, the speed of gold in honour

of the wind. Meanwhile, the tree of taboo

dared unleash goshawks over the mountains

never unique, passed the pulse from the

papyrus to the memory on the mortality of

the hour between absence and an infinite

thickness: something still to hiccough and

to the dawn bears the habitat the felicitous

sylph. Across the landscape it scratches, that’s

no small matter, and the custom of working in

brief. Now time or the concept returns to its

contest, austere authority to add to the augurs.

Behind the austral wind they attract another

uproar distracted by drawing the drama to the

hours. Between today and now have passed

several weeks, save for Sunday the interminable,

the perfume whose form was felicity. It will be

a while whilst the dawn occurs, quickly

scratching the luck of horseshoes when flush

the fresh sowing rubs the sallow in the heavens

but without ever being so: nothing simple is

similar to the next time. Or must it be the

infinite, pure end, of what and what has been

of the silence on showing there? Silent heights,

sprite of most docile nest of voice to vary with

the will of the tala tree. Lime trees, ice, years

of ñandubay as the heart of water unique gives

them chase and bramble bushes making of the

blue result and reasons for the vixens in the

closure. For such a future goes the dock-tailed

dorado, goes the bit to the beak in its bird,

swirls wild, travels to the invincible before

knowing this. Ah! for the air alone like a point

of view. Summits, soul so as to not cease to

seem, the west wind where so much is that

already was. Course of madreporas, of looking

over the same similarity of sun near the iris.

As far as disturbing outside an infinite sphere

against the frond that in canephora would travel

to see the summer awaiting the pampas-wind,

immobile plan the peace put in peril. Oh! for

the time for after the days given to the

penultimate idea they’d be given, lingua,

Walichú, night of the flat jutes, whenever

they learn on the doorstep. It’s for that for

paying beauty hearths. But not all beautifying

will talk of the oblique in the arboretum:

the bushes bathed in strawplaits, gives the

thumbs-up; the moon’s there to be explained.

In the gem of the eye squawks what’s cracked.

Inside, that which is nothing, ceases to be.

tr. the author

Wallace Stevens, A HIGH-TONED OLD CHRISTIAN WOMAN 

Eugene Ostashevsky

ENTER MORRIS IMPOSTERNAK, PURSUED BY IRONIES

6

Do not love               

It is possible that nothing is true anyway

That we live in a forest of begriffons

And that even we ourselves are begriffons, it is possible

That I am not saying what you think I am saying

And that you are not hearing what you think you are hearing,

But that we are scratching and howling on a branch in the dark

To signify our loneliness and desire for mice and other delicious vermin.

Do not love

For when you pop open a human being

All you find is forty feet of intestine

And how lovable is that?

Being a body is an indemnity and an indignity

It sags over time like a deflating balloon

If it toots your horn to embrace something that eats at one end and excretes at the other,

Why stop at people, why not direct your emotions at cows?

Do not love

For love will come to grief

And if it doesn’t come to grief, it will come to grief anyway   

Since one of you must die first

What is the point of anything when everything has an end?

The world is like

The fiddling of a deaf musician in an empty room

He finishes, bows—to whom?—and modestly leaves

And then there’s silence.

How is the silence afterwards different from the silence during?

Edward Herbert

SONNET OF BLACK BEAUTY

Black beauty, which above that common light,

    Whose Power can no colours here renew

    But those which darkness can again subdue,

Dost still remain unvary’d to the sight,

And like an object equal to the view,

    Art neither chang’d with day, nor hid with night;

    When all these colours which the world call bright,

    And which old Poetry doth so persue,

Are with the night so perished and gone,

    That of their being there remains no mark,

Thou still abidest so intirely one,

    That we may know thy blackness is a spark

Of light inaccessible, and alone

    Our darkness which can make us think it dark.

Eugenijus Ališanka

FROM UNWRITTEN CHRONICLES OF WAR

I was following a cart

achilles tendons taut like cords

were playing the march of retreat

the teeth-bitten sword

scraping over stones glistened

I wasn’t last behind me

the line stretched to the horizon

where the red setting sun blazed

the battle was one of many

I don’t even know who

we were trying unsuccessfully to invade this time

to impose a new way of life

I myself already lost

this addiction long ago

I am a good enough soldier

to follow orders tell the truth

for a long time I haven’t read any of those

whose names are written in the chronicles

more and more often I think maybe

they never existed

imagination drifted from art

into masculine occupations

sometimes I think maybe the enemy is different

maybe not ours maybe not an enemy

maybe I just stumble on a clod of clay

bump my head on the door casing

then rave through the nights

about an avatar of god on earth

avatars of a man in heaven

more often I dream of someplace warmer

somewhere in a curia or chancery

to write letters of condolence to mothers of soldiers

to make out health certificates

though I know how such a life ends

I was dragging into middle age

behind my back an inhuman fire glowed

before my eyes unconquered lands stretched

it was autumn the most beautiful season

tr. Harvey L. Hix & the author

Zbigniew Herbert

REPORT FROM THE BESIEGED CITY

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others—

they graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler
I record—I don’t know for whom—the history of the siege

I am supposed to be exact but I don’t know when the invasion began
two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn
everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time

all we have left is the place the attachment to the place
we still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses
if we lose the ruins nothing will be left

I write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks
monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency
tuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants
wednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our messengers
we don’t know where they are held that is the place of torture
thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected
the motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender
friday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender
N.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back
an attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance

all of this is monotonous I know it can’t move anyone

I avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the facts
only they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets
yet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world
that thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children
our children don’t like fairy tales they play at killing
awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones
just like dogs and cats

in the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the City
along the frontier of our uncertain freedom.
I look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights
I listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks
truly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself
the siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns
nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination
Goths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the Transfiguration
who can count them
the colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon
from delicate bird’s yellow in spring through green through red to winter’s black

and so in the evening released from facts I can think
about distant ancient matters for example our
friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize
they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice
they don’t even know their fathers betrayed us
our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse
their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful
they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity
those struck by misfortune are always alone
the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers

now as I write these words the advocates of conciliation
have won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles
a normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance

cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller
yet the defence continues it will continue to the end
and if the City falls but a single man escapes
he will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile
he will be the City

we look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death
worst of all—the face of betrayal
and only our dreams have not been humiliated

tr. Bogdana & John Carpenter

Françoise Roy

THE MAKING OF THE HEART

I

            Vena cava: the red greyhound runs loose inside your thin walls, ichor of a lesser state, dressed with innocuous poisons, eager as it is to reach the cardiac kidney (the eternal water clock, nocturlabium of the body) transmuting dark brown into scarlet.

            Both vena cava a pair of hemoducts sewn in such a delicate sewage, stems of an invisible flower—stipula cordis—unique in the guild of prey animals, carrions, gleaners and garbage collectors (carbon dioxide, what a bombastic way to say ‘waste product’). They no doubt deserve to be decorated for their cleaning labor, their luminous necrophilia. Blessed captivity for the scolopendra of the bloodstream, the brook agitating in its roller coaster the fluttering pennants of the red blood cells.

II

            Pericardium: the fabric of a translucent petal. Two-leaf case wrapping in its invisible valves the beating pearl of the heart. Satin tegument, a mesh where God has bestowed the bright-red jewel pumping the heady sap of blood.

            What effect could you ever have on the flickering almond the clockmaker from Above has entrusted you? Should you draw a veil on it to make its flesh evermore secret? Should you protect it as if the finest coating of a shield made of organdy? Should you drape it, a milky cloth, onion skin hiding the nesting dolls of the cardiac chambers, so the passing of death, peeling it, shall only leave behind—a gem shining in the very core with the glow of a sun before it withers away—the tiny bone of love?

tr. the author

Anne Hébert

CHRISTMAS

Christmas, old rose-window soiled by centuries passing, so many layers of sooty patina in the tympanums of cathedrals, masks and chimeras on the foreheads of men, honey and lime blossom in the heart of women, magic garlands in the hands of children.

Timeworn blackboard where the chalk of age-old dictations scrapes, let us erase it, ancient schoolboy, look at your sleeve turn up where the soot of the world leaves its lichen of ebony,

Woman, wipe your tears, for the promise, since daybreak, sounds the bugle of joy, may your eyes gaze frankly at the fair vessels left in the harbor, as the heart brimming with dreams rips open at sea,

Voices of angel whispering to the dozing shepherd: ‘Peace on earth goodwill toward men,’ the password sung in chorus by the great wars beating on the world’s belly, one calling the other, like the tides of the equinox breaking ashore,

The wounded rolling, twenty centuries on the move, the dead sprouting on the field of honor, crazy seeds sown at random in hasty springs; the faces of love are lost as they go along, blinking in our hands like tiny flames, loads of poppies in a huff,

Those we love, those we hate, braided together in sweet rosaries, fair onions in wind-filled granaries, memories split open, spacious rooms laid for the return of a single footstep in the staircase,

So many innocent squeezed between two gendarmes, crime engraved on their foreheads, carefully recorded by a scribe, a notary, a judge, a priest, all wisdom debased, all power usurped, all hatred legalized,

Who complains about dying alone? What child is born into the world? What grandmother, half-covered by death, whispers to his ears the soul is immortal?

Who gropes for the dark face of knowledge as the light of day rises and the heart has but the sweetness of tears as its only resort?

Heart. Sweetness. Tears. Who rinses words thoroughly in the flowing river, the ones most astray, most bandied about, most dragged around, the ones most fiercely betrayed?

Who, facing injustice, offers his dripping face, who names joy to the right and misfortune to the left, who starts the morning anew like a nativity?

Christmas. Love. Peace. What gold digger swills in the stream a heap of sand and pebbles? For a single noun shelled as a nut, the splendor of the Word comes into being.

tr. Françoise Roy

George Szirtes

CROMER GREEN AT THE REGENCY CAFÉ

I used to wonder at the old ones sitting

in cars parked neatly opposite the sea

with Sunday papers in their laps, steadily

dozing near uneventful water, knitting

in silence, reading, waiting. What was the sense

of congregating here with weathered faces

beside these terminal railings in places

that signalled departure and indifference?

The sadness of the English, I thought. Odd

how they folded in on themselves at last,

something serious must have happened here

under the jurisdiction of this grey-green god

they weren’t exactly worshipping, but cast

respectful glances at across the pier.

Out on the pier a three-legged dog beamed

happily at its master. Water fribbled and scrabbled

below the walkway, laughing at some ribald

double-entendre. Someone must have dreamed

all this at a time of comic anxiety.

Fisherman were casting their last lines.

Great towering hotels flashed gleeful signs.

The moon rose over the building society.

Boys were trying to surf into the stones

along the beach. Someone had thrown away

a paper bag which was carried by a gust

past cartons and upended ice-cream cones.

There were cups of tea at the Regency Café

and cod and chips on tables covered in dust.

There was nothing to say about this. It was

saying itself in the language of self-delight,

beautiful and formed, talking in spite

of us through its own generated grammars

in a kind of English no one actually spoke,

leaving behind a faint linguistic trace

like a historical essence, a lost grace

that no one act of history could revoke.

Now the wind was rising. Waves were barred

with patches of pure colour, each a shimmer

in the coming dusk with echoes of dying sound,

but clearly defined, the image sharp and hard.

A brilliant half rainbow was growing dimmer,

retreating to its source beneath the ground.

I could imagine being one of the old,

staying here for ever, staring past

the lit pier and searching the overcast

sky for the moon in the growing cold.

Nature was peopled with coherent signs

that anyone could read. The waitress brought

the bill and we stood up. It was a short

journey home and we should start it… Lines

of lightbulbs were gently swaying outside

and the wind was fresh from the north. Our car

waited, parked with all the rest in the drive

by the sunken gardens. Another seagull cried

below us. Lights were glowing in the bar

of The Ship and the old were still alive.

Elizabeth Bishop, AT THE FISHHOUSES

Georgi Gospodinov

THE LAST SUPPERS OF THE TONGUE

I like a piece of tongue for supper

of the speechless kind

muscular and tough

the tongue of cow or bull or calf

the tongue that’s mute and dumb

the tongue of those before us

the tongue of grandpa Whitman and my grandpa

the tongue in which he cursed

the sheep with kindness

the tongue in which they understood

the tongue of father Eliot and my own father

their acquaintance all too brief

the tongue of grandma Emily and grandma Lisa

of my own grandma when she lures

the queen-bee and the swarm

maaat-mat-maaat

the sacred tongue

(the tongue alone will do

if bees are few)

I long for such a tongue the tongue in general

and I am grateful and I’m not too

squeamish or repulsed

I keep on

eating drinking resurrecting you

just like the faithful sons

their fathers eat and drink

............................................

like this you probably attain

the tongue with every dish

tr. Dimiter Kenarov

T. S. Eliot, THE BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT

Giovanni Turra Zan

*

forgive our almost gently staying inside a conclave

of gardens to water each other and grow

to put roots into places given up to thinking

so that no move could be done anymore

an awkward flight from a spoiled reopening

however considering a bewildered song

that cannot sprout here. the created fact

you know is enough to make us merge, to catch

the necklace step-by-step where we put our

quarrels in. anywhere we’ll speak of it again

heaps of mud will shift at least and, by god, we’ll have

                                        time by our side.

tr. Roberto Cogo

Marilyn Krysl

WEST LAKE, HANGZHOU

Is that Bach? Is this evening? Isn’t Bach blue, isn’t
the lake lovely. In this heat. The air
above the water almost steams. Those boats
go slower. Dusk, one long swatch of chamber
music, laid across water. If there’s a better
way, we haven’t found it. Standing, burning,

here on the balcony, you discover you’re happy. The burning
lotus blossoms light the lake. Isn’t
this evening blue beyond belief? Better
than being in love is being here, in love. The air
holds still, giving us sweet time: a chamber
maid tinkling keys in the hall. Those boats

are nothing if not beautiful. A scattering of boats
completes a lake, your hand completes my burning
shoulder. Say the charge enters the chamber,
fills the space to bursting. Some will say this isn’t
so, lake not lovely, light and air
less than crystal clear. Doubters. (Better

to die, get it over.) Where could be better
than here: the mosquitoes don’t bite (it’s true!), boats
have no motors. The dip of oars and a Bach aire
riffling my blood. Leaves of the banana burning
like beaten brass in my fortieth year. Isn’t
this the body the gods intended? The chamber

where they lie down with us? Listen: in the chamber
of the ear a continuous tune. If there’s a better
restaurant, we’ll find it tonight. The question isn’t
when, but how good can it get. Say we let the boats
decide, flung white stones of I Ching: burn
of the day in our blood, the lotus closing, air

lifting like swallows joined at the wing, the air
beginning to cool, lights coming on, chamber
music (not bad!) somewhere below us, and the burning
bridge behind. Doing it’s always better
than not. Afterward you go on, and where there are boats
who needs a bridge? What good’s a shoulder, if it isn’t

burning? Isn’t the chamber of a lover’s arms
blue beyond belief? Isn’t a hexagram
of boats, afloat on air, better even than Bach?

Henrika Ringbom

*

On my birthday I rose early.

I stood at the helm and watched

the sunrise. It was beautiful

out on the sea. The sky blue and pink, haze,

ice in different patterns and formations.

Somebody said that I walked

through the leaves on the streets, smiling,

I could not deny that.

I was about to tell a story of misery

but it was filling with hope. Seven birds

flew into the room and I saw the child being annunciated.

I was offered several endings

like falling from a balcony,

being gangraped or driving into a rock-face.

But like a sloth crawls lazily through

Peru’s jungle from branch to branch

I carefully described one beginning after the other.

When my shame had courage to come through

I took it by the hand

and held it like you hold the hand

of one whose hand needs

holding. It was getting dark outside

and the lanterns were lit, it was time

for the party. I sat besieged in the saloon

but was lifted up by new, ephemeral and mild guests,

touched by those who were neither invited nor expected.

They said their names and a gangway lowered deeply

step by step to the shore, over the water

tr. Bill & Kalla Buchholz

Sappho, I see it still and feel it

Iana Boukova

SELF-PORTRAIT ON A BACKGROUND OF BEGONIAS

for Monty Python

A ship sinks in the square

smoke still issuing

from its chimneys

Faces pressed against the windows

guzzle down the outward scene

Somebody sells ice-cream

Somebody else has clasped his mouth

holds on so strongly that if he let go

he would surely fall break into pieces

At night those sounds start up

the scratch of pencils the distant

hem of understanding

Sounds that make you turn on the lamp

and sleep in the light

wasting electricity

You’ll say tiredness from work