Anthology - Poets A - B-D - E-I - J-L - M - N-S
Tadeusz Pióro
SOME METHODS OF CROWD CONTROL
The bells are ringing, shouldn’t we kneel?
As for me, I’m all for a pint,
let the children be taken shopping.
They need trousseaus, one and all,
before the war goes bust, said the minister,
making me blush and squirm
for an hour in front of the telly.
The landlady asked about dreams
and I told my first lie involving
three dogs and a swarm of bees.
My parents are very poor, they wrapped my body
in straw, then who knows what bliss
as long as we kill the mayor
who thinks we know nothing.
I spoke of my murky life and her eyes
responded in kind, as if there were no choice
between innocence and experience.
A hundred feelings pressed upon my heart.
So often is the enemy politically neutral
due to natural faithlessness and boredom
en route. Twice two makes death
and you talk of some route.
Impress your fellow travellers, dress smart,
don’t get wet, all the children will wave
and frighten flies away with their hats.
I spoke of death to the children
with an ease granted by profound conviction.
They did their best to go somewhere
and we all fit into the pantry
after a suitable interval.
That’s where only sinful books are read.
For fear of police raids, poets follow politicians,
making their lives into well-managed works of art,
encoded and hidden in any old glove. Couriers come
from the city regardless, men hang their rifles
on trees, young people play a game of flowers
trendy in the Dark Ages. I could have shot you like a fairy
princess in Venice, where Liszt
had his gloves chewed up by groupies,
and his shins, and trouser-legs.
An Englishman salvaged the cuff-links,
but we are unsure what that means.
A handsome secretary with a cigarette
might know, but is sure never to tell
my father in law how attractive you are,
sleepless in suburban areas or large
plots of land known as graveyards,
where the dead are frequently buried
and village churches stand proximate.
So how is it a lover of Paris
ran for the boondocks?
Was it her mother or our last kiss?
Will it be fair, my son?
The road is bad and wet.
All drink together, curse and patrol.
There is silence behind closed doors.
No smoking, no soft radio moans,
no drumming of fingers on sills,
no Ronsard. Scare or wipe out.
Both our cannons are in danger.
The barmaid’s eyes despatched me
to a small town ignored by novelists.
We arrived by train in moonlight,
emitting moral hints from spike-tips,
ashamed of the hour and that beastly bliss.
My second-in-command, a modest man
of seven acres, burdened by contraband
family, bombarded by things and allegories,
grew impatient with Homer as I read him.
Who are we reading for? Let’s meet
the actresses and pay their expenses.
Please, not today, they are too much moved,
they’d think we’re sleepwalking
and choose a gypsy life in New York City.
Harder to know why there is so much gold
underground, if you would just dig a little,
encouraging the young ones with your fingers?
Where do the police find their brains?
Blink three times if they suit you.
Privates and NCOs are to masturbate
in such situations, but we lack
the manpower to make sure they do
unflinchingly, and the buffeted, lip-smacking squirrels
making eyes at wild strawberries
never leave their sights.
Very funny, as long as we don’t leave
the graveyard, for there is nothing like nature
if you stay single and don’t panic.
A saner man would simply go to Paris.
Her dad played the guitar,
delivered flowers to police stations,
which is partly true, but some vases
were needlessly annihilated
in a matter of hours.
William Shakespeare
SONNET 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look’d but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
Tariel Chanturia
A DISAPPOINTED THOUGHT
A poem needs a heart. A poem needs a liver.
A poem needs a tear, and plenty of your blood.
A poem needs a leg. A poem needs a hand.
A poem needs a brain and a forehead as well.
A poem needs dollars. Rubles are also needed.
True poetry needs sex. And a poem comes next.
A poem needs fury. A poem needs a fist.
A poem needs Barbie for a granddaughter’s smile.
A poem needs wine, fruits and vitamins as well.
Plenty of sleepless nights and from time to time a nap.
A poem needs anger. A poem needs poison.
Centuries (a lot), and a couple of seconds.
Surely, at night—surely, at noon,
Devotion of somebody’s, devotion of yours.
A poem needs poetry. A poem needs candies.
A poem needs honesty.
A poem needs cedar. A poem needs oak.
A poem needs a heart and a bullet in that heart.
A poem needs a mountain. A poem needs a valley.
A poem needs a wife (sometimes a second wife).
A poem needs a breast and a dagger through that breast.
A long and quiet sleep. A dead mom’s lullaby—so sweet.
A poem needs sheep and a shepherd for that sheep.
I do know what a poem needs
Have no idea who needs a poem?
tr. Manana Dumbadze
Emily Dickinson
I DIED FOR BEAUTY, BUT WAS SCARCE
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
‘For beauty,’ I replied.
‘And I for truth,—the two are one;
We brethren are,’ he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Tsvetanka Elenkova
THE WOUNDS OF FREEDOM
Some buy leather leads for dogs of a definite length. Others prefer automatic leads with a reel. You let the dog run at will but you decide when to retrieve it. I set mine free. But two or three times it ran away and came back covered in wounds, so now I set it free but only in my yard. My dog howls at the squirrels, in the evening at the moon. And when we pile firewood next to the fence it climbs up and jumps over it. And again comes back with wounds. After that I decided to keep it on a chain. For my dog to be free of wounds.
tr. Jonathan Dunne
C. P. Cavafy
ITHAKA
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
tr. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard
Tua Forsström
THE SNOW WHIRLS OVER TENALA CHURCHYARD
The snow whirls over
Tenala churchyard
We light candles so that
the dead will be less
lonely, we believe they are
subject to the same laws
as ourselves. The lights twinkle restlessly:
perhaps the dead are longing for
company, we know nothing of
their doings, the snow whirls
The dead are silent as cotton.
A flock of thin children who
inaudibly take one step nearer
They look at us closely for a
moment: is it because they’ve
forgotten, or remember? The snow
whirls over Tenala churchyard
As when you fly in
over a city at night at
low altitude: the lights become
motorways, the headlamps of
the traffic, you arrive
from somewhere
Soon you are driving along a
road, one of the twinkling
lights in the whirling snow
tr. David McDuff
Jane Hirshfield
IT WAS LIKE THIS: YOU WERE HAPPY
It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.
It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.
At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?
Now it is almost over.
Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.
It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.
Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.
It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.
Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.
Uwe Kolbe
INGREDIENTS OF SLEEPLESSNESS
It was the gnat, I heard it.
And it was—didn’t the grass grow there
between two wars?
It was similar to the reason why I seriously left the city
for the first time.
And it was, that love rejected
to be as simple as a flick of the wrist,
beautiful like a word game,
funny and inexplicable, like the attacking
cat, which, after the attack, continues
to walk elegantly in moderate pace, or
to clean itself, licking the paw with the tongue,
then stroking the back of its head with the wet paw,
with this inimitable care.
It was, that the noise of my city
destroys the remains of the old plaster,
tips the last grey-brown
of the fire wall on to the monstrous lorry,
that nearly ran me over yesterday.
It was, that remnants of the former certainty
decomposed each other, the new one
remains private, the heavily pounding heart
—in our part of the world this is the result
of excessive consumption.
It was, you wake up and mumble,
will you close that window.
tr. Ramona Lofton
Wolfgang Hilbig
BERLIN: SUBLUNAR
Time has returned to Berlin
and impostors parade along Oranienburger Strasse
around midnight pointing at the sky: time
has returned from exile.
The whole city in the bonds of silver gray magic
the full moon rolls: and we the marionettes of its light—
Unrealities that brilliantly inform us.
We and the dead
strolling over shadow trenches
we grant each other immortality once more.
O this strong glowing dust among investment ruins
and what an April so briefly before the third millennium
we don’t want to go on counting
the green waters in the old buildings slowly burn away.
tr. Brian Currid
Valérie Rouzeau
*
Where my father where behind the cloud above the crane that’s lifting loads up high to build a high-rise building?
Where inside the murmur of the trees and people passing under trees who feel a drop of water sometimes falling on their hands?
Where on the roof of the house with the turtle doves and the rag doll that’s hopelessly lost?
Where on the swing that’s swinging all on its own just brushing the weeds?
Where it’s all oh where too high up there my father as you were ware ware?
tr. Susan Wicks
Stevie Smith, NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING
Valerio Magrelli
*
And what if
these turns of the key
never ended?
And what if I were locked out
left turning the key my entire life?
And what if I lost the key?
I make copies of my keys
make copies of my copies
what I spend to multiply them
helps subtract from each its value,
my Valerio. In the verses’ profile
I reproduce
the keys’ toothed silhouette.
tr. Anthony Molino
Antonella Anedda
*
If I’ve written it’s for thought
because my thoughts are troubled about life
it’s for those happy beings
close in the evening shadow
for the evening which at a stroke
collapsed on the napes of necks
for every creature that backs away
pressing its spine against the railings
and for the waiting on the tide—without a cry—endless.
Write, I say to myself
and I write to press onwards more solitary into the enigma
because eyes disturb me
and the silence of footsteps is my own, mine the desert light
—light of the moorlands—
on the earth of the avenue.
Write because nothing is protected and the word wood
shakes more frailly than the wood itself, without branches of birds
because only courage can excavate
patience in the heights
until it takes the weight away
from the meadow’s black weight.
tr. Jamie McKendrick
Vasyl Makhno
A FESTIVAL OF POETRY
10 poets
listed in the program
recite their verses
before an audience of 10 perhaps 100
a symphony of languages resounds:
Ukrainian with its erotic shrieks of violin
the sounds of Arabic fluttering like linen cloth
the marching rhythms of German drums beating in your chest
the jazz trombone of English spitting out saliva
an oboe digesting in its stomach Spanish pronunciation
the gallant saxophone of French
arousing sexual fantasies in not quite nubile girls
there is no conductor
and the orchestra is at times off beat
the translations are hideous
for they were prepared in haste
the organizers as always are pressed for time
the other 10 poets who will read tomorrow
listen to those 10 who are reading today
they’re yawning and fatigued
thinking about beer and local girls
about the exchange rate
about those few poetesses who came to this festival
and are sorry to note that the age of women’s poetry
steadily approaches retirement age
and what can a woman write after menopause?
regrettably they do not invite as yet to festivals
the young Akhmatovas—Sylvia Plaths—Ana Blandianas—
obviously waiting for them to grow older
which does have a logic of its own
in the country hosting this festival
there is an economic crisis
therefore the hotel is swarming with cockroaches
and the ageing waitresses in the restaurants
elicit no particular interest
poets donate their books to other poets
knowing that no one will ever read them all
for it’s impossible to know all the languages of the world
therefore this ritual reminds one
of the conversation between the deaf and the blind
after the destruction of the Tower of Babel
oh, finally the last one on today’s program is reading
soon we’ll have supper
and a chance to talk about the kind of poetry
that offers no bait to the locals
because all of them are busy solving economic problems
via cell phones
the hall is gradually emptying
as some walk out for a smoke
others for a beer
still others to take a respite at the hotel
the black hole of poetry
is compressing from the number of verses
so as to swallow
—and this is the funniest of all—
the poetry itself
which lately has been serving only poets
just like those ageing waitresses in the restaurant
who have long ceased to be of interest to men
the formula of poetry
expresses that 10 + 10 = 0
though according to mathematicians zero is likely the most important number
in mathematical calculations
and its black hole contains enough energy
to swallow itself
like the dragon of mythology
that devours its own tail
forming with the shape of its body a magic circle
from which there is no escape
tr. Orest Popovych
Frank O’Hara, TO JOHN ASHBERY
STAR
I could never rise before
it was time for me to rise
though I constantly shot off
in my dream of rising
I held everything so close
it became fragile
A complete lunar eclipse
on my birthday
washes me with great
transformative energy
The moon is not greater
than Stella, who rose