Philippe Soupault translated by Marty Hiatt

Marty Hiatt is a Melbourne poet. His chapbook Rook’s Lair on a Lever was published in October 2012. Contact: martyhiatt@mail.com

 

 

 

Say it with music

The golden bracelets and drapes
the locomotives the boats
and the salubrious wind and clouds
I simply abandon them
my heart’s too small
or too big
and my life is short
I don’t know exactly when my death will come
but I age
I descend the day’s steps
with a prayer on my lips
On each floor is it friend waiting for me
or a thief
or me
I no longer know how to see anything other
than a single star or cloud in the sky
according to my sorrow or joy
I no longer know how to lower my head
is it too heavy
Nor do I know if in my hands
I hold soap bubbles or cannon balls
I walk
I age
but my red blood my dear red blood
roams through my veins
driving out memories of the present
but my thirst is too great
I stop again and await
the light
Paradise paradise paradise

 

Say it with music

Les bracelets d’or et les drapeaux
les locomotives les bateaux
et le vent salubre et les nuages
je les abandonne simplement
mon cœur est trop petit
ou trop grand
et ma vie est courte
je ne sais quand viendra ma mort exactement
mais je vieillis
je descends les marches quotidiennes
en laissant une prière s’échapper de mes lèvres
A chaque étage est-ce un ami qui m’attend
est-ce un voleur
est-ce moi
je ne sais plus voir dans le ciel
qu’une seule étoile ou qu’un seul nuage
selon ma tristesse ou ma joie
je ne sais plus baisser la tête
est-elle trop lourde
Dans mes mains je ne sais pas non plus
si je tiens des bulles de savon ou de boulets de canon
je marche
je vieillis
mais mon sang rouge mon cher sang rouge
parcourt mes veines
en chassant devant lui les souvenirs du présent
mais ma soif est trop grande
je m’arrête encore et j’attends
la lumière
Paradis paradis paradis

 

Philippe Soupault (born in 1897) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later founded the Surrealist movement with André Breton.

Lu Ye translated by Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu is now based in Shanghai, teaching at SIFT (Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade) as a professor. In 2012, he has published a couple of books, including The Kingsbury Tales: A Complete Collection and Self Translation.

 

 

 

B-mode Ultrasound Report, Gynecology Department

On it is written:
Anteversion of uterus and abnormal corpus uteri: 9.1 x 5.4 x 4.7cm
A prominent tubercle on the back wall that is 1.9 x 1.8cm
Its inner membrane 0.8cm in thickness
The appendix (on the left) is 2.7 x 1.6cm and (on the right) 2.7 x 1.8cm
With a clear and even echo

I was drinking till my belly was close to bursting, my legs weakening
And my lower abdomen turned thin and transparent, like the crepe georgette I was in
To make it easier for the instrument to explore the complex topography inside
The doctors thought they were looking at a kaleidoscope
A woman’s final file, her history as much as her geography

The descriptive language on the report, in an objective tone
Is an assessment of the most vital part of a woman
Like the remarks on a student’s performance at school in the old days
The figures accurate and submissive
Suggesting that one had to offer a monthly betrothal present
If the report were written in a figurative language
It would have to be something like this: its shape is closer to a torpedo
Than an opening magnolia denudata
With a garment of pure cotton and silk linings
Hiding nothing in her heart except the depths of her body, in a corner or a far suburb
So remote it almost resembles the western regions in the body
Connected to the outside and heights by dark channels and narrow lifts
With a door ajar, a dream of crowded kids and the courage to be ageing all the way

In a lyrical language, it would have to be written thus:
Ah, this cradle of mankind
Grown on the body of a failed woman
Stops short of germinating despite its rich maternal instinct
Ah, this church of love
Ruins of love to the nth degree, like the Imperial Summer Palace
This other heart, an organ the most solitary and empty in the body
Ah, instead of being a house, an old garden, it often feel s homeless
And does not believe in gravitation as it has an intuition, soft and moist
A memory that flies

 

《妇科B 超报告单》

 

上面写着——
子宫前位,宫体欠规则,9·1×5·4×4·7cm
后壁有一外突结节1·9×1·8cm,内膜厚0·8cm
附件(左)2·7×1·6cm,( 右)2·7×1·8cm
回声清澈均匀

当时我喝水, 喝到肚子接近爆炸,两腿酸软
让小腹变薄、变透明,像我穿的乔其纱
这样便于仪器勘探到里面复杂的地形
医生们大约以为在看一只万花筒
一个女人最后的档案,是历史, 也是地理

报告单上这些语调客观的叙述性语言
是对一个女人最关健部位的鉴定
像一份学生时代的操行评语
那些数字精确、驯良
暗示每个月都要交出一份聘礼

如果把这份报告转换成描写性语言
就要这样写: 它的形状, 与其说跟一朵待放的玉兰相仿
不如说更接近一颗水雷
它有纯棉的外罩和绸缎的衬里
它心无城府, 潜伏在身体最深处,在一隅或者远郊
偏僻得几乎相当于身体的西域
它以黑暗的隧道、窄小的电梯跟外面和高处相连
它有着虚掩的房门, 儿女成群的梦想以及一路衰老下去的勇气

如果换成抒情性语言呢, 就该这样写了吧:
啊, 这人类的摇篮
生长在一个失败的女人身上
虽有着肥沃的母性, 但每次都到一个胚芽为止
啊, 这爱情的教堂
它是N 次恋爱的废墟,仿佛圆明园
这另一颗心脏,全身最孤独最空旷的器官
啊, 它本是房屋一幢故园一座, 却时常感到无家可归
它不相信地心引力, 它有柔软潮润的直觉
有飞的记忆

 

Perhaps I am Willing

Perhaps I am willing
To be with you every day
Raising ducks.
My heart, for the rest of my life
Is a window pane
Cleaned till it shines.
Early in the morning we go somewhere near
To the simple-minded creek
The sun spreading our skins
With a deep glaze
And the healthy grass reaching over our knees.
I am willing
To listen to you every dusk
Gathering the ducks home with a whist le
When the land becomes quiet
And the sun, brilliant, beautiful.
Because of the lush water grass
Our ducks are over-grown, nearly to the size of geese
Without the red crown
The sign of the geese.
We are so poor at managing them
That these ducks have become like us
Believing only in the poetry of life
Not wanting to go home for the night, and stepping onto a great
wandering journey
Happy or unhappy
Until they move back, from artificial propagation
To wilderness
Laying liberalist eggs, one by one
In the boundless grass.

 

《也许我愿意》

 也许我愿意
每天和你在一起
放鸭子。
我后半生的心
是一块擦拭得锃亮的
窗玻璃。
我们一大早就去了不远处
那条心地单纯的小溪
太阳在皮肤上涂上一层
深色的釉彩
健康的青草漫过双膝。
我愿意
每天黄昏听你
用口哨集合起鸭子回家
那时大地多么沉寂
落日多么辉煌、壮丽。
由于水草丰茂
我们的鸭子长得太大,几乎像鹅
只是头顶上缺少红色王冠
那才是鹅的标志。
我们不擅管理
使得鸭子们全都跟我们一样
信奉生活中的诗意
渐渐夜不归宿,踏上伟大的流浪之路
哪管快乐和失意
就这样,它们从人工养殖过渡还原成了
野鸭子
把自由主义的蛋,一颗一颗地
产在无边的草丛里。

 

 

You Have Fallen Ill

Separated from you by hundreds of kilometers of a rainy land
I am so concerned about your condition
I misread weather report as cardiograph, CT, colour ultrasound or blood
                  pressure figures
I shall fast for you, taking only vegetables with little oil and rice congee
And pray for your recovery

Now that you are ill
Please take a good rest like barn grass after the rain
Flashing your tender bud in the afternoon sun
Ring me about your pain and dizziness smelling of Lysol
For life is a debt that needs to be paid off slowly
Please open the ward window and see the morning glow and the setting sun
                 over the top of the dawn redwood
And the path drifting with the aroma of dinner
Peace and quiet are the best doctors

I have so many things to warn you about but please do remember these:
You have to add a bit of laziness to your virtue
And let the dust gently settle on your desk
Make friends with tea and enemies with liquor or cigarettes
Have walnuts, peanuts, sesame, seaweeds and fish
Take a regular walk along the river
And take medications on time, not afraid of its bitterness

 

《你在病中》

我隔了上千里烟雨迷蒙的国土
惦念着你的病情
竟把天气预报误读成心电图、CT、彩超和血压数
我还要为此斋戒,只吃一点少油的素菜米粥
祈祷你的康复

 如今你在病中
请像一棵雨后的稗草那样好好歇息
在午后阳光下闪烁细细的嫩芽
把来苏水味的疼痛和晕眩打电话告诉我吧
生命原是一笔需要慢慢偿还的债务
请打开病房的窗户, 看看水杉树顶的朝霞和落日
还有那飘着晚饭花香气的小路
安宁和静默是最好的大夫

 我还有一大串叮嘱, 也请求你一一记住:
你要在美德里加进去那么一点儿懒
让书桌上轻轻落着尘土
你要与茶为友,以烟酒为敌
你要常吃核桃花生芝麻, 还有海藻和鱼
你要每天去江边散散步
你必须按时吃药啊, 不能怕苦

 

One

Now, everything has turned from two into one
One cotton quilt, one pillow
One tooth-brush, one face-towel
One chair, and photographs that contain only one person
And there is only one poplar tree outside the window as well
What’s more, I emit one egg in vain as usual every month
All these things are feminine
Shadows matching their shapes, like a widow
Sticking to her chastity, like a nun

Now, I lock my door alone, I walk downstairs alone
I window-shop alone, I walk alone, I go back to my room alone
I read alone, I have a banquet alone, I sleep alone
I live from morning till night
And have to walk to the end of my life alone
The cloth doll, covered in dust, on the bookshelf
Has no spouse, like myself
I am a divorcee and she, an old maid
We suffer from the same condition but have no pity for one another

My telephone remains silent, like a mute
Who can strike my heart’s cord in the stillness of the night?
Even my heartbeat is solitary
Creating an echo in the empty room
I am a compound vowel that cannot find a matching consonant
I am an oblique tone that cannot find a matching level tone
I am a surface that cannot find a match to strike
I am a parabola that cannot find its coordinate system
And I am a dandelion that can find neither the spring nor the wind

I am one, and I am ‘1’
With solitude as my mission
And loneliness as my career

 

《单数》

 如今, 一切由双数变成了单数
棉被一床,枕头一个
牙刷一只,毛巾一条
椅子一把,照片保留单人的
窗外杨树也只有一棵
还有, 每月照例徒劳地排出卵子一个
所有这些事物都是雌的
她们像寡妇一样形影相吊
像尼姑一样固守贞操

如今, 一个人锁门, 一个人下楼
一个人逛商店,一个人散步,一个人回屋
一个人看书, 一个人大摆宴席, 一个人睡去
一个人从早晨过到晚上
还要一个人走向生命的尽头
布娃娃在书架上落满灰尘
跟我一样也没有配偶
我离异了,而她是老姑娘
我们同病却无法相怜

 电话机聋哑人似地不声不响
谁能在夜深人静时拨通我的心弦
我连心跳的每一下都是孤零零的
在空荡荡的房子里引起回音
我是韵母找不到声母
我是仄声找不到平声
我是火柴皮找不到火柴棒
我是抛物线找不到坐标系
我是蒲公英找不到春天找不到风

我是单数,我是“1”
以孤单为使命
以寂寞为事业

 

 The International Flight

Across the city wall of the Chinese language
Through the broken limbs of the Japanese language and over the hedge of
the Korean language
Until I, with a leap into the round window of the English language
Am translated into a sick sentence

Passion covers more than a thousand kilometers an hour
There are the sun-threshing-ground and cloud-villages outside the window
It is a gale, I believe, of thirty-thousand feet that is blowing me away
Chucking the absurd first part of my life onto the earth

The International Date Line resembles a jumping rope
As I jump back from the 12th to the 11th
From today to yesterday: Can mistakes be corrected? Can love return?

 

《国际航班》

跨出汉语的城墙
穿过日语的断臂残垣,翻过韩文的篱笆
最后, 又跳进了英语的圆窗
我被译来译去,成了一个病句

激情每小时上千公里
窗外是太阳的打谷场和白云的村庄
我相信是一场三万英尺的大风把我刮走
将荒唐的前半生扔在了地球上

国际日期变更线像一条跳绳
我从4 月12 日跳回11 日
今天变昨天, 错是否能改,爱是否可以重来

 

Lu Ye, is a Chinese poet born in December 1969. She has published a number of poetry collections, such as feng shenglai jiu meiyou jia (Wind is Born Homeless), xin shi yijia fengche (Heart is a Windmill) and wode zixu zhi zhen wuyou zhi xiang (My Non-existent Home Town). She has also published 5 novels such as xingfu shi you de (There was Happiness) and xiawu dudianzhong (Five in the Afternoon). She has won a number of poetry awards, including the People’s Literature Award in 2011. She now teaches at Jinan University, China.

Three Poems by Nikola Madzirov

Nikola Madzirov was born in 1973 in Strumica, Macedonia in a family of Balkan Wars refugees. His first collection of poetry, »Zaklučeni vo gradot« (tr: Locked in the City), won the »Studentski zbor« prize for best début. In the same year he published his second book, »Nekade nikade« (tr: Somewhere Nowhere), also a poetry collection, which won the Aco-Karamanov prize. The anthology »Vo gradot, nekade« (tr: In the City, Somewhere) followed in 2004, and in 2007 he published his last poetry collection to date, »Premesten kamen« (tr: Relocated Stone), for which he was awarded the prestigious Miladinov-Brothers Prize and the Hubert-Burda Prize for Literature.

Madzirov was poetry editor of the Macedonian e-magazine »Blesok« and is the Macedonian co-ordinator of the international network Lyrikline. He lives in Macedonia and works as a poet, essayist and literary translator.

 

The Shadow of the World Passes Over My Heart

—Lucian Blaga
(translated by Peggy and Graham W. Reid)

I haven’t the courage of a relocated stone.
You’ll find me stretched on a damp bench
beyond all army camps and arenas. 

I’m empty as a plastic bag
filled with air. 

With hands parted and fingers joined
I indicate a roof. 

My absence is a consequence
of all recounted histories and deliberate longings.      

I have a heart pierced by a rib.
Fragments of glass float through my blood
and clouds hidden behind white cells.

The ring on my hand has no shadow of its own
and is reminiscent of the sun. I haven’t the courage
of a relocated star.

 

Before We Were Born

(translated by Peggy and Graham W. Reid)

The streets were asphalted
before we were born and all
the constellations were already formed.
The leaves were rotting
on the edge of the pavement,
the silver was tarnishing
on the workers’ skin,
someone’s bones were growing through
the length of the sleep.

Europe was uniting
before we were born and
a woman’s hair was spreading
calmly over the surface
of the sea.
 

Separated

(translated by Magdalena Horvat and Adam Reed)

I separated myself from each truth about the beginnings
of rivers, trees, and cities.
I have a name that will be a street of goodbyes
and a heart that appears on X-ray films.
I separated myself even from you, mother of all skies
and carefree houses.
Now my blood is a refugee that belongs
to several souls and open wounds.
My god lives in the phosphorous of a match,
in the ashes holding the shape of the firewood.
I don’t need a map of the world when I fall asleep.
Now the shadow of a stalk of wheat covers my hope,
and my word is as valuable
as an old family watch that doesn’t keep time.
I separated from myself, to arrive at your skin
smelling of honey and wind, at your name
signifying restlessness that calms me down,
opening the doors to the cities in which I sleep,
but don’t live.
I separated myself from the air, the water, the fire.
The earth I was made from
is built into my home.

 

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

Peggy Reid, M.A. (Cantab), Doctor honoris causa, Skopje, M.B.E., born Bath, U.K., 1939, taught English at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia, for twenty years between 1969 and 2006. Translator/co-translator from Macedonian of novels, poetry, plays and works of nonfiction. Lives in Edinburgh, U.K.

Graham W. Reid, M.A., M.B.E. born Edinburgh, 1938. Read English at Trinity College, Cambridge. Taught English for twenty-five years at Ss. Cyril & Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia. Widely translated both poetry and prose from Macedonian into English. M.A. thesis at Bradford University on Reflections of Rural-Urban Migration in Contemporary Macedonian Poetry. Currently lives in Edinburgh, U.K.

Magdalena Horvat (born 1978, Skopje, Macedonia) is the author of two poetry collections: This is it, your (2006) and Bluish and other poems (2010). Among the books she has translated into Macedonian are Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Fiona Sampson’s The Distance Between Us. She currently lives in Athens, Georgia.

Adam Reed (born 1978, Athens, Georgia) has co-translated/edited several poetry collections, anthologies and works of nonfiction from Macedonian into English. He taught English, Writing and History courses at University American College Skopje, Macedonia, for several years. He currently lives in Athens, Georgia.

 

Susan Hawthorne translates Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta

Susan Hawthorne is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest of which is Cow (2011). Cow was written during a 2009 Asialink Literature Residency based at the University of Madras and funded by the Australia Council and Arts Queensland. Her previous book, Earth’s Breath (2009) was shortlisted for the 2010 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. A chapbook of poems about war, Valence, will be published in late 2011. She is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University, Townsville. She has been studying Sanskrit at La Trobe University and ANU for five years.

 

 

Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta

Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta (Cloud Messenger) from approximately the 4th century CE is a poem of 111 stanzas. This poem is based on reading the first 20 stanzas of the poem in Sanskrit. Meghadūta is one of several lyric poems by Kālidāsa who wrote three plays as well as epic poems. He is one of the most important poets writing in Classical Sanskrit. Translating for Sanskrit provides many challenges, and in this version I take poetic licence in order to make the poem work in English. The Sanskrit metre in which it is written is mandākrānta, a slow elegiac metre.

 

Twenty stanzas of Meghadūta

a whole year passed and the Yakṣa pined
though he lived in pleasant surrounds
among Rāmagiri’s shady trees
and the holy waters of Sītā
yet still he ached
only himself to blame for Kubera’s curse

his mind bent by longing for her
love bangle slipped from his famished arm
with bittersweet pangs of love
he hungered on that lonely mountain top
on a windy day portending monsoon
he saw an elephant cloud rutting the cliff face

his yearning peaked as he stood
before this phantasm of elephant
dry-eyed tears welling inside
even the cheerful mind is ruffled
by the sight of a rough-skinned cloud
he wished his arms a necklace

as the month of Śrāvaṇa approached
the month of listening he prepared
to send news through the cloud ear
he made an offering of fresh kuṭaja flowers
spoke aloud his words filled with love
sustenance for his beloved

his mind bent by yearning
he clutches at cloud elements
vapour light water wind
mistakes cloud breath for vital breath
poor lovelorn Yakṣa can’t sense
the mirror from its reflection

Yakṣa speaks to the cloud saying
I know you are born into the world-wandering
shapeshifting clan related to thunder-bearing
Indra I call on you to help me most lofty one
my kin are far away and destiny tells me
to make a humble request though it be futile

rain-giver you are a refuge in sticky heat
Kubera has parted me from my beloved
and  I beg that you travel to her in Alakā
with my message where you’ll find a palace
bathed in the light of a crescent moon on the head
of Śiva standing in the outer garden

ascend the path of the wind sky-fly
so the wives need no longer sigh
at their unravelled hair imploring
their well-travelled husbands to return
whereas I in thrall to Kubera
have neglected my beloved

without obstruction follow the jet stream
how you float unlike my beloved
her heart like a wilted flower
she needs the thread of hope
to buoy up her spirits in fruitless
counting of days and nights

as the wind drives you slowly slowly
the cātaka bird sings sweetly sweetly
skeins of cranes are in flight
cloud seeded they fly in formation
like a garland aloft pleasing to
the sky-turned eye

your sky companions the gander kings
have heard your thundering gait
they long for Lake Mānasa so high
they watch for mushrooming earth
and carry food strips of lotus root
as you fly together to Mount Kailāsa

lofty mountain embraced by cloud
rain tears and farewells marked
by Rāmagiri’s receding footprints
steaming tears stream down
the mountain’s face a knot
of loss born of long separation

oh cloud listen to me
let your ears be drunk
on sound    listen follow
the path laid down
drink from bubbling streams
rest when exhausted

beneath you bewildered
women watch the crowd
of elephant clouds a shiver
of north wind carries off
the mountain tusk
beware the quarter elephants

face-to-face a sliver of Indra’s
bow rises from the anthill
a kaleidoscope of colours
in crystalline refraction
your indigo body glittering
like a glamour of peacocks

fruits of harvest grown
on moisture from you
fertile as the wombs
of women sweet sacred
smell of turned earth
climb the brow to the cloud-road

ride the spine of Āmrakūṭa
the ground awash with
your downpour extinguishing
wildfire such kindness is
returned providing refuge
for high flying friends

cloud braid lies along Āmrakūṭa’s
spine fringed with mango orbs
the mountain a curve of breast
its dark nipple in the middle
a coupling of gods looks
at the pale vastness of earth

the young wives of forest nomads
frolic in thick mountain arbours
you sprint the rim of mountain
streams riven by strewn boulders
like the cross-hatched pattern
decorating the body of an elephant

you whose rain is shed drink
the must-infused water of wild
elephants water-clumped
jambū trees obstruct your way
the wind cannot lift a solid mass
a void is light fullness is gravity

 

Stuart Cooke translates Pablo de Rokha

Pablo de Rokha (1894-1968) was born as Pablo Díaz Loyola. Despite his profound influence upon subsequent generations of Latin American poets, he failed to achieve the international fame of his contemporary, Pablo Neruda (with whom he quarrelled fiercely and publicly). In 1965 he was awarded Chile’s National Literature Prize, deemed by many at the time to be long overdue. He committed suicide at the age of 73.

 

 

 

God

He made man, he made him in his IMAGE and semblance, and he’s enormously sad and an immense man, an immense man, the continuation of all men, all men, all the MOST manly men, the continuation of all men towards the infinite, a dream, all a dream or a TRIANGLE that dissolves in bright stars.

***

How much pain, how much pain did the earth need to create you, God, to create you!.. how much pain! Gesture of the world’s anguish, of matter’s sickness and an enormous, enormous mania of enormities!

***

God, that great human caricature, God, full of empty skies, sad consciences, sad consciences and GREAT anguish, his neutered cadaver’s voice brings together and sums up, FOR man, in his common and disconcerting attitude, the moaning of every object and, in addition, the other, the distant, the other, the other, like the words of a naive child, a naive child, a naive child; bad God, good God, wise God, stubborn God, God with passions and gestures, virtues and vices, concubines or ILLEGITIMATE sons, with an office like a pharmacist’s, like any hairdresser’s.

***

The earth sculpted the earth’s ingenuous fruits for him, only for him, the earth’s ingenuous fruits, and man denied the enormous world, denied the world; who was, who was ever, who was more loved than him?… he, he was the most loved but never was anything, anyone, he never was, never, never was, never, never, never was!..

***

Tragedy of God, God, God, the major disgrace of history, the lie, the PHENOMENAL blow to the rights of life, God.

***

God answered smiling answered God, God answered the most tremendous, the most obscure, the most disastrous questions and the great question; BUT the most tremendous, the most obscure, the most disastrous questions and the great question still, still haven’t been, haven’t been, haven’t been answered yet, still haven’t been answered; God squashed the earth, oh! sacred hippopotamus, God squashed the earth with filthy feet, and the footprints survive until today, survive on the roads and in the tragic belly of the worlds.

***

He blackened, he blackened, he blackened LIFE with the black paint of dreams and urinated the dignity of man.

***

“God, God, God, do you exist?… God! God! God!..”, howl the towns and the old women, the old women and the towns across the theological plains… shut up! idiots, shut up! shut up!… God IS YOU.

***

Great absurd wing, God extends himself over THE VOID…

 

 

The Pale Conquistadors

Epic characters, epic, executive or emphatic characters, emphatic, emphatic, and souls of bronze, steel, rock, wretched bones, wiry muscles, men of concise, energetic, simple, authentic, authoritative, exact language, and RED actions, RED burning a priori, hermit-swordsmen, swordsmen-hermits, adventurers who are transformed by hunger and the thirst for GOLD, glory, dashing exploits – glory! glory! – transformed from frauds into heroes, from frauds into heroes, the power of having a soul boiling, the power of having a soul boiling, the power of having a soul boiling at SEVENTY ONE degrees in the shade.

***

Dim, illiterate, ignorant, ignorant soldiers, you predated the immense, contemporary urban estates and you were THE FIRST settlers of the dull brown, dull brown earth, dull brown, humble, agricultural, BLUSHING like a woman who is discovered naked; free to draw your daggers, you pursued two destinies: to be hung at the gallows or crowned with laurels.

***

And you’re called Pedro de Valdivia, Hernán Cortés or Francisco Pizarro, Napoleon, you’re all the same: brave, drunken swine, demented or crazy geniuses, contradictory, bilious – that is, IRRESPONSIBLE instruments of cosmic DYNAMISM and LIFE’S nocturnal forces; CONQUISTADORS, I salute you because you were a lot of dreaming-poet-leaders crossing the horizon’s SEVEN HUNDRED hardships with your absurd, painted-on, metaphorical costumes and resonant, fantastical attitudes, full to the brim with illusions, ambitions, heroic, enormous emotions, eyes full of landscapes, sleeping in the shadow of a great, distant dream as BIG as THE SKIES, and not ten cents, not ten cents in your pockets!..

 

 

Stuart Cooke’s chapbook, Corrosions, was published by Vagabond Press in 2010, and his translation of Juan Garrido-Salgado’s Eleven Poems, September 1973 was published by Picaro Press in 2007. His first full-length collection, Edge Music, is forthcoming in 2011.

 

Maria Freij translates poems by Lars Gustafsson

Lars Gustafsson (born May 17, 1936) is a Swedish, poet, novelist and scholar. He was born in Västerås, completed his secondary education at the Västerås gymnasium and continued to Uppsala University; he received his Licentiate degree in 1960 and was awarded his Ph.D. in Theoretical Philosophy in 1978. He lived in Austin, Texas until 2003, and has recently returned to Sweden. He served as a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, where he taught Philosophy and Creative Writing, until May 2006, when he retired. Gustafsson is one of the most prolific Swedish writers since August Strindberg. Since the late 1950s he has produced a voluminous flow of poetry, novels, short stories, critical essays, and editorials. He is also an example of a Swedish writer who has gained international recognition with literary awards such as the Prix International Charles Veillon des Essais in 1983, the Heinrich Steffens Preis in 1986, Una Vita per la Litteratura in 1989, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for poetry in 1994, and several others.

 

Nyårskantat år 2007

In med tenorerna i höga lägen, pukslag!
Snabb övergång från ess-moll till C-dur!

Champagnekorkarna som lättar

är som änderna som flyger upp ur vassen
skrämda utav kyrkklockor och ångbåtsvisslor

Jag har aldrig förstått varför man firar nyår
Mig skrämmer de rejält

på samma sätt som morgnar skrämmer
med sitt kalla ljus. De vill för mycket.

Varje år som vi har upplevt
var en gång ett nyår.

Vad är skillnaden emellan framtid
och förfluten tid? Ingen vet.

Vad väntar oss strax bakom hörnet?
Krig, pest och annat fanskap? Eller Eden?

Ej kan vanans nötta läxa
Evigt repas upp igen

skrev en aktad kollega,
herr Tegnér, år 1813.

Jaså kan den inte det?
Hur kan man vara så säker på det?
Vissa dagar kan man undra.

Får man skriva så i en kantat?
Det är nog fel. Kantaten är beställd.

Beställaren är optimist.
Vi antar det i alla fall.
Hans yrke kräver det.

In med tenorerna
i höga lägen, pukslag,
snabb övergång till C-dur!

Vet: denna match är inte avgjord än.
Slutsignalen dröjer.
Minuter och sekunder!

Visst finns här plats för någon överraskning.
Visst gör det så!

Sensationsmål  i sista sekunden!
Ett sådant där som ändrar hela läget!

Och i det mellanrummet,
i en hårfin spricka mellan tid och tid

där allt är möjligt, önskar jag er lycka till.
Mellan ”inte än” och ”strax”

hörs nu tydligt ljudet av
en kork som lycklig lämnar flaskan.

 

New Year’s Canto year 2007

In with the tenors’ high notes, kettle-drumbeats!
Quick transition from E flat minor to C major!

The champagne corks taking flight are the wild ducks dashing out of the reeds
frightened by church bells and steam-boat whistles

I have never understood why they celebrate new years They scare me soundly

in the same way that mornings scare with their cold light. They want too much.
Every year we have known was once a new year.

What is the difference between future
and past time? No one knows.

What awaits us around the corner?
War, pestilence and other damned nuisance? Or Eden?

The worn lesson of habit cannot
Eternally be unravelled

wrote an esteemed colleague,
Mr Tegnér, in 1813.

Oh, can it not?
How can we be so sure?
Some days make you wonder.

Can you really write that in a canto?
It is probably wrong. The canto is commissioned.

The commissioner is an optimist.
We assume so at least.
His profession demands it.

In with the tenors’ high notes, kettle-drumbeats,
quick transition to C major!

Know this: this match is not yet decided.
The final whistle is delayed.
Minutes and seconds!

Of course there is room for some surprise.
Of course there is!

A last-minute sensational goal!
One of those that change everything!

And in that interspace
in the thin rift between time and time

where everything is possible, I wish you good luck.
Between “not yet” and “soon”

the clear sound can now be heard of
a cork happily leaving the bottle.


Primtalen

De första
är mörka fästningar

som byggdes av furstar
i en längesedan bortglömd tid.

De ligger tätt intill varandra
och kastar långa skuggor,

landet omkring dem är en platt
och svårförsvarad våtmark.

De är byggda av en stenart
som ingen tid kan söndervittra

och alla de andra är byar
som hukar runtomkring dem.

Sedan blir de allt sällsyntare:

man måste rida länge över stora slätter
för att se ännu en vid horisonten.

Sanningen är att de blir allt färre
på sin väg emot de ofattbara djupen

Och doktor Riemanns skugga står
onaturligt hög och varnande

i en oändlig solnedgång

 

The Prime Numbers

The first are dark fortresses
built by princes

in a long-forgotten time.
They lie close together and throw long shadows,

the land around them is flat
and hard-to-defend wetlands.

They are built from a variety of stone
that no time can crumble away

and all the others are villages
crouching around them.

Then they become more rare:

you have to ride across vast plains
to see yet another on the horizon.

Truth is, they grow far fewer
on their way toward the unfathomable depths

And doctor Riemann’s shadow stands
unnaturally tall and cautionary

in an infinite sunset

 

Sjöarna

Sjöar utan öar
har inte mycket att säga.
De ligger där på sin plats.

Vänern
detta Mellansveriges bleka emaljöga
skulle då kunna tjäna som exempel.
Exempel på vad?
På sig själv, naturligtvis.

*

Sverige, somrarnas ljumma regnland
med tydlig doft av allt som
murknar, ruttnar, flagnar
De gamla ensamma husen i skogen
sjunker långsamt in i sig själva
och ett mossigt äppelträd
försöker berätta, men
kommer sig inte riktigt för
att komma ut med sanningen.
Berätta om vad?
Sanningen, som är alltför förskräcklig.

I somrarnas milda regnland
blir det inte så mycket över att säga.
Hörendesjön  inåtvänd.
Och sedan mörkret,
en våt och ljummen mur.
Vi signalerar över sjön
med våra alltför svaga lampor.
”Och sedan mörkret”

Logonauten lyssnade uppmärksamt.
Och kommenterade sedan
på sitt stillsamma sätt:
”Den som har stora mörka rum
inom sig, mörka som potatiskällare,
mörka som rummet mellan galaxerna,
känner sällan mörkrädsla.”

 

The Lakes

Lakes without islands
do not have much to say.
They lie in their place.

Lake Vänern
this the pale glass eye of middle Sweden
could thus be an example.
An example of what?
Of itself, of course.

*

Sweden, the land of warm summer rain
with a palpable scent of everything that
decays, rots, peals
The old lonely houses in the forest
slowly sink into themselves
and a mossy apple tree
tries to tell, but
cannot really bring itself
to tell the truth.
To tell what?
The truth, which is too terrible.
In the land of warm summer rain
there is not much left to say.
Lake Hörende turned inside itself. And then the darkness,
a wet and warm wall.
We signal over the lake
with our too-weak lamps.
“And then the darkness”

The logonaut listened carefully.
And then commented
in his quiet way: “He who has large dark rooms
inside himself, dark as potato cellars,
dark as the room between the galaxies,
is seldom afraid of the dark.”

 

En försommardag vid Björn Nilssons grav

(Midsommar 2005)

Väster Våla kyrkogård i försommarljuset
och med den vänliga sydvästvind över

Bruslings ängar som måste ha rått
den milda förmiddag på sextiotalet

när vi uppfann Monstret i Bo Gryta.
Monstret var en jättemal, och vi behövde den

för att ha något att skriva om i Expressen.
(Det var en av dessa  förargliga veckor

när inget vill hända,

världshistorien tvekar eller grubblar
på hur nästa verkligt taskiga överraskning

skall se ut och ingen stjärna hade brutit benet.)

Bo Gryta är ett djuphål i Åmänningen.
Man hittar det någon kilometer utanför

Bodarnes och Vretarnas byar, på en linje
mellan den gamla Bodahamnen, där vraket

efter en i åskby kantrad och sjunken malmjakt
skall ligga men ingen vet var, och Tandläkarudden.

Hur djupt detta djuphål är? Ingen vet.
Mången har försökt med lod och lina.

Och när linan kom upp, avbiten
lika elegant som av en rakkniv

eller kättingen de prövade i stället
lika blank och prydlig i snittet

efter vad som väl bara kunde vara
mycket stora tänder, gav man

upp försöken. Christopher Middleton
beskrev dem i sin dikt ”The Mole”.

Det blev förvisso verkningsfullt,
för ett par somrar senare kom en busslast

av engelsmän, excentriker och experter
på djupa sjöars monster. De lodade

och antecknade. Per Brusling bjöd på kaffe,
nu en äldre man som vet en del om sjön.

Över Björn Nilssons grav går sommarvinden.
Och jag fruktar att jag är den ende nu som vet

hur det egentligen gick till.

Expeditionen återvände
djupt övertygad att denna jättemal,

inte bara jättelik och illasinnad,

också är slug, mycket slug
och vet att gömma sig i dunkla djup

närhelst det kommer någon dit
som söker den.

 

An early Summer’s Day by Björn Nilsson’s Grave

(Midsummer 2005)

Väster Våla graveyard in the early summer light
and with the kind south-westerly over

Bruslings meadows that must have blown
on this mild morning in the sixties

when we invented the Monster of Bo Gryta.
The Monster was a giant catfish and we needed it

to have something to write about in Expressen.
(It was one of those annoying weeks

where nothing happens,

world history hesitates or deliberates
over what the next really crude surprise

will be and no star had broken a leg.)

Bo Gryta is a deep hole in Åmänningen.
You will find it about a kilometer outside

the villages of Bodarne and Vretarna, on a line
between the old Boda harbour, where the wreck

of an in a thunderstorm turned and sunken iron ore carrier
supposedly lies but no one knows where, and Tandläkarudden.

How deep this deep hole is? No one knows.
Many have tried by lead and line.

And when the line came up, bitten off
as elegantly as by a barber’s knife

or the chain they tried instead
as neat and tidy in its incision

after what surely could only be
very large teeth, they gave

up trying. Christopher Middleton
described them in his poem “The Mole”.

It was certainly effective,
for a couple of summers later a busload

of Englishmen, eccentrics and experts
of deep lakes’ monsters. They leaded

and noted. Per Brusling made them coffee,
now an older man who knows something of the lake.

Over Björn Nilsson’s grave, the summer wind blows now.
And I fear that I am the only one who now knows

what really happened.

The expedition returned
deeply convinced that this giant catfish,

not just monstrous and ill-spirited,

is also shrewd, very shrewd
and knows it must hide in dusky depths

whenever someone comes to seek it.

 

Ouyang Yu translates three poems by Shu Cai

Born in 1965, in Fenghua, Zhejiang, Shu Cai was originally Chen Shucai. He graduated with a BA in French literature from the Department of French Language and Literature, Beijing Foreign Languages University in 1987. From 1990 to 1994, he worked as a diplomat in the Chinese Embassy in Senega and has since been working as a research fellow in Foreign Literature Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He won the Medal of Academic Palm Knight in France in 2008. His publications include such collections of poetry as Solitaire (China, 1997) and Short Poems by Shu Cai (Hong Kong, 2004) and his translations of French literature include A Selection of Poems by Pierre Reverdy (China, 2002), Selected Poems by René Char (China, 2002), Selected Poems by Nine French Poets (Shanghai, 2009).

 

 

生日 

关于死亡
生者又能说些什么
而死者恰恰
无法叙说

“瞧,谁也躲不了
被我掂量!”
这可能就是
死神想说的话

死者已果断地死去
生者犹拘泥地活着
最大的困惑永远是
被出生,和必须死

 

永远的海子

一位朋友,心里驮满了水,出了远门
一位朋友,边走边遥望火光,出了远门
一位朋友,最后一遍念叨亲人的名字,出了远门……
从此他深深地躲进不死的心里。

他停顿的双目像田埂上的两个孔
他的名字,他的疼痛,变幻着生前的面容
噩耗,沿着铁轨传遍大地……
多少人因此得救!

兄弟,你不曾倒下,我们也还跪着
我们的家乡太浓厚,你怎么能长久品尝
我们的田野太肥沃,你刨一下,就是一把骨头……
你怎么能如此无情地碾碎时间?

你早年的梦必将实现,为此
你要把身后的路托付给我。像你,
我热爱劳动中的体温,泥土喷吐的花草……
我活着。但我要活到底。

你死时,传说,颜色很好
像太阳从另一个方向升起血泊
你的痛楚已遍布在密封的句子里
谁在触摸中颤抖,谁就此生有福!

 

母亲

今晚,一双眼睛在天上,
善良,质朴,噙满忧伤!
今晚,这双眼睛对我说:“孩子,
哭泣吧,要为哭泣而坚强!”

我久久地凝望这双眼睛,
它们像天空一样。
它们不像露水,或者葡萄,
不,它们像天空一样!

止不住的泪水使我闪闪发光。
这五月的夜晚使我闪闪发光。
一切都那么遥远,
但遥远的,让我终生难忘。

这双眼睛无论在哪里,
无论在哪里,都像天空一样。
因为每一天,只要我站在天空下,
我就能感到来自母亲的光芒。

Birthday

About death
What can the living say
And the dead just
Wouldn’t say

‘Look, no one can avoid
my measuring up!’
That may be what
God of Death wants to say

The dead have died with resolution
And the living, still living punctiliously
The greatest puzzlement remaining
That of being born and having to die

 
 

Hai Zi Forever

A friend, heart filled with water, has travelled far from home
A friend, walking as he looks towards the far fire, has travelled far from home
A friend, murmuring the names of his loved ones, has travelled far from home…
He has since gone into hiding deep in his undying heart

His eyes, stopped, are like two holes on the ridge of a field
His name, his pain, in which the face of his previous life changes
The bad news, spreading across the land along the railway…
So many are saved for that!

Brother, you have not fallen, and we are still on our knees
Our native home so richly abundant you can’t keep tasting it
Our fields so fertile bones turn up when you dig them…
How can you so ruthlessly grind time to pieces?

Your early dreams will definitely be realized, and because of that
You’ve got to trust me with the road behind you. Like you
I love the body temperature in labour, flowers and grasses in the eruption of the mud…
I am alive, but I’ll keep being so till the end

When you died, the legend has it, you looked well
Like the sun whose blood rose in another direction in blood
Your pain already scattered in the enclosed words
He who trembles in the touch will be happy for the rest of his life!

 

Mother

Tonight, a pair of eyes in the sky
Kind, honest, brimful with sadness!
Tonight, the pair of eyes speak to me: Son,
Cry, cry and be strong!

For long, I watch the eyes
That look like the skies
Unlike the dew or grapes
No, but they look like the skies!

Unstoppable tears make me glitter
The May night makes me glitter
Everything so distant
But the distant is something that I can never forget the rest of my life

Wherever they are
The eyes, wherever they are, are like the skies
For every day I stand under the skies
I can feel the light coming from Mother

 

 

Ouyang Yu came to Australia in early 1991 and has since published 55 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in the English and Chinese languages. He also edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland (since 1995). His noted books include his award-winning novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002), his collections of poetry, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997) and New and Selected Poems (Salt Publishing, 2004), his translations in Chinese, The Female Eunuch (1991) and The Man Who Loved Children (1998), and his book of literary criticism, Chinese in Australian Fiction: 1888-1988 (Cambria Press, 2008). The English Class (Transit Lounge), has been named as one of the Best Books of 2010 in Australian Book Review and The Age as well as the Sydney Morning Herald. His third English novel, Loose: a Wild History, is forthcoming with Wakefield Press in 2011, which, together with his first English novel, The Easter Slope Chronicle, will form the Yellow Town Trilogy. His latest book of poetry, titled, White and Yu, was released in April 2010 by PressPress. He is now based in Melbourne.

 

Priya Sarukkai Chabria translates Aandaal

Aandaal, ஆண்டாள், an 8th century Tamil mystic poet followed the poetic conventions of her time by requesting monsoon clouds to act as messenger to her love, the God of the Universe. Besides the literal meaning, each verse embeds parallel and inset meanings that are left to the reader to discover. Simultaneous shifts in meaning dynamize each verse into a literary trompe l’oeil. The following are translations from Naachiar Tirumozhi, a poem of 143 verses that belongs to an erotic genre of spiritual verse, not favoured by conservative Tamil Vaishnavites.

 

from The Sacred Songs of the Lady 

Song 8: Dark Rain Clouds Be My Messengers

1

Dark cloud roof unfurling beneath
           the roof of the covering sky
Do you herald the coming of my lord Tirumal from high
                    Venkata hill where the bright waterfall plunge?
My tears, luminous, stream between the full
           hills of my breasts
I am not to weep; yet he makes me break my vow,
           how does this honour him?

Vast curly vault veiling
the sky’s   star drizzled dome

Does your darkness hide
his gleaming     darkness    from which shimmer

cascades
into my body’s wet valleys?

I weep, forsaking secrecy.
How could my coursing silver illumine his glory?

My love
vast   star-filled
overcast

in separation.
Still I flow
a stream lightening –struck
leaping

to  lustrate
you
see my glory

5

Monsoon clouds you spread across
           the sky, slash
it raining torrents, you shake the honey-heavy blossoms
           of Vengadam and scatter scented petals.
Go tell the dark lord who killed the demon Hiranya
           ripping him with paws of  fury
that he has robbed me of my bangles.
                     He must return them to me now!

Dark clouds you enlarge in anger, growl and roll
across the skies rending it open

with rain, lightning bolts; you tear
flowers, spill honey, petals clot like blood on earth.

Go to the fiercest lord who plunged his claws in Hiranya roaring,
mane tossing as his bloody paws ripped insides out

tell him: I’ve grown thin with longing, bangles slip from wrists!’
He must heal me with his touch

 

engorged with anger

nails extending you kill

plunging wrists in

 

these very hands I seek

to caress me

gather my swollen ripeness in

 

as

spilling nectar

my body’s blood flower bursts

                                                                                                

7

In his avatar as Kurma, submerged tortoise, he supported
           the churning of the star –milk ocean awash
with gems; cosmic treasures bubbled out.  Descend
           clouds, down to the lotus feet of  Vengadam’s lord  and lay
there my surrender. Fragrant saffron paste covers
           my breasts — that must be wipe
on him; he must embrace
           me if only for a day or I waste away.

Splendid the Milky Way spreads
spinning constellations plucked from its depths shimmer

as the great churning begins — before
Time begins.  Lotus eyed Nayarana, the Eternal

One caused this to be. Dive deep clouds and lay
me at his crimsoned feet. Tell him of my

surrender; tell him to wash my body’s scarlet longing
for just today else I die.

Churn
churn
Time’s great ocean, each second, each eternity

churn away my adornments
churn my body’s milk
churn me red

from my ocean
churn out my truest self.
Let me rise to you my love
or let me die

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, writer and translator. Her publications include Dialogues and Other Poems (2005) reprint (2006) and Not Springtime Yet (2008)

Sarukkai-Chabria edits the website Talking Poetry and edited the anthology 50 Poets 50 Poems. Recipient of Senior Fellowship to Outstanding Artists from the Indian government, she has worked with the Rasa Theory of Aesthetics, co-founded a film society Friends of the Archive and collaborated with classical dancer Malavika Sarukkai. She has been invited to The Writer’s Center, UK; ‘Alphabet City’, Canada; Frankfurt Book Fair etc. and many literary festivals in India.  Her work is published in numerous international journals and websites, and anthologized. She is translating works of eighth century Tamil mystic poet Aandaal; writing a travelogue and a story collection; all three books are to be published in 2011.

 

Jorge Yviricu translates a poem by José Kozer

José Kozer, born in Havana, Cuba, 1940, has lived in the USA since 1960, taught Spanish literature at Queens College from 1965 to 1997, and is now living in Hallandale, Florida. Kozer is the author of 56 books of poetry and his work has been partially translated into several languages as well as published in many journals and anthologies.

 

DIVERTIMENTO (MA NON TROPPO)

La
madre
le
gritaba,
y

él, pato que era, metía la cabeza bajo un ala,

la oía cacarear, a grito
pelado desde lo alto
denostaba excoriando
excoriándolo chillaba
madre al fin que era
y con qué fin quién
lo sabrá, a voz en
cuello hendía y
hurgaba úvula
amígdalas cuerdas
vocales donde, pato
que era, el chico
supuraba, a final
de cuentas era su
madre, ¿no estaba
en su derecho? Él
se arrebujaba más
a fondo bajo el ala,
la madre le volaba
la cabeza, el chico
veía serafines,
húsares, calendas
griegas, oía vibrar
las trompas del
Señor, se santiguaba
a la manera de los
ortodoxos rusos, la
señal de la cruz a
la altura de los labios:
a qué le chillan, por
qué la madre
despotrica, esa
madre vulnerando
sus costumbres que
desde niño, ¿o no
se ha dado cuenta?
después de todo él
es él, a quién molesta
o hace daño, pero por
Dios, que baje Dios y
lo vea, se lo diga a la
madre, si es todo un
muchachón de
nótese calidad
elevada, ved su
gran amor, en
efecto, por la
Humanidad: qué
más pedir, pedirle,
y la vieja dejar de
espetarle groserías,
denuestos, gritarle
tales verracadas,
lo enciende oírla
hurgar y hurgar ahí
do el pecado se
pone más de
manifiesto ah igual
que en el Romance
del Rey Rodrigo, lo
leyeron en clase,
con qué emoción
lo leyó de pie
ante la clase, lo
aplaudieron: algunos
rieron: las chicas casi
lloran: y el amigo de
su amigo le dio un
abrazo a oscuras
que por poco lo
hace mixto lo
apachurra se le iba
la vida cuánta emoción:
y mete la cabeza aún
más bajo el ala, no la
oye chillar sus burradas,
se besan se abrasan
son Uno (fundidos) en
santo y casto Amor
que todo lo vence,
coño, sal de ahí que
te conozco bijirita,
basta ya de tus, a
quién te crees que
engañas: tú, que
nunca podrás
concebir, anda,
ve y hazme abuela,
ve, ven ya palomo
de mamá, cosona
mía, curruca, alba de
alas, buche, cloaca, mi
aguilucho sin destino
conocido, gallina
tragona (por detrás)
cresta (mamá, no seas
vulgar) vaya mota que
gastas hijo mío, ve y
mírate en el espejo,
el ridículo que haces:
sal, ven, besa y
quiéreme, quiéreme
mucho, como si fuera
esta noche y bla bla
bla la última vez,
¿ves?

cómo
y
cuánto
la
vieja,
grita,
te
idolatra.

 

 

DIVERTIMENTO (MA NON TROPPO)

His
mother
screamed
at him,
and

he, silly goose, ducked his head under a wing,

listening to her cluck, screaming
from on high
reviling lashing
lashing out at him screeching
after all she was his mother
to what end who
will ever know, her voice
on high rented the air and
searched uvula
tonsils vocal
chords where, gay goose
that he was, the boy
oozed, after
all she was his
mother, wasn’t it
her right? He
wrapped himself more
thoroughly under his own wing,
his mother blew
his brain, the boy
saw seraphim,
hussars, a month of
Sundays passed by, he heard
the horns of the Lord
vibrate, crossed himself
as the
Russian Orthodox do, the
sign of the cross
at the height of the lips:
why all the screeching at him, why
does his mother
carry on, his own
mother violating
his habits of a
lifetime, or doesn’t
she realize?
after all he is
what he is, whom does he bother
or hurt, for heaven’s
sake, let God Himself come down
and witness it, tell his
mother, he’s a big
old boy of
obviously outstanding
quality, behold his
great love, truly,
for
Humanity: why
ask for anything else, ask him for more,
and his old lady to stop
spitting rude words at him,
insults, screaming
such nonsense,
it stirs him to hear her
digging and digging right there
whence the sin resides
most
apparent oh just
as in the Ballad
of King Roderick, it
was read in class,
with such feeling
he read it standing
before the class, they
applauded him: some
laughed: the girls almost
cried: and his friend’s
friend gave him such an embrace
in the dark
that almost
neutered him squashing his
life away with such
tremendous feeling:
he ducks his head even
more under his own wing, doesn’t
hear her asinine screeches,
they kiss and burn
they are One (fused together) in
holy and chaste Love
which overcometh all,
shit, stop pretending
my little bird,
stop your, who
do you think
you’re fooling: you who will
never be able
to conceive, go ahead,
go ahead and make me a grandma,
go ahead, come here mama’s
big dove, love of my
life, white-throated honey, feathered
wings, belly, cloaca, my
good-for-nothing
eaglet, greedy
hen (aft)
cock comb (mother please, don’t be
crass) what a great hairdo
sonny boy, go check yourself
out in the mirror,
how ridiculous:
come on, come here, kiss and
love me, love me a lot
as the song goes,
tonight and blah, blah,
blah for the last time,
do you see?

how
and
how much
your
old lady,
screaming,
worships
you.

 

Born in Cuba and educated there and in the U.S., after a long career in the teaching profession, Dr. Jorge Yviricu is now Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages at California State University, Bakersfield. He has published criticism on many Latin American novelists and poets as well as his own poetry and short stories. His previous translations include Spanish versions of poems by Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Hacker.
 
 

Toby Fitch translates Arthur Rimbaud

Après le Déluge

Aussitôt que l'idée du Déluge se fut rassise,
Un lièvre s'arrêta dans les sainfoins et les clochettes mouvantes et dit sa prière
à l'arc-en-ciel à travers la toile de l'araignée.
Oh les pierres précieuses qui se cachaient, — les fleurs qui regardaient déjà.
Dans la grande rue sale les étals se dressèrent, et l'on tira les barques vers la mer
étagée là-haut comme sur les gravures.
Le sang coula, chez Barbe-Bleue, — aux abattoirs, — dans les cirques, où le
sceau de Dieu blêmit les fenêtres. Le sang et le lait coulèrent.
Les castors bâtirent. Les "mazagrans" fumèrent dans les estaminets.
Dans la grande maison de vitres encore ruisselante les enfants en deuil
regardèrent les merveilleuses images.
Une porte claqua, et sur la place du hameau, l'enfant tourna ses bras, compris
des girouettes et des coqs des clochers de partout, sous l'éclatante giboulée.
Madame * * * établit un piano dans les Alpes. La messe et les premières
communions se célébrèrent aux cent mille autels de la cathédrale.
Les caravanes partirent. Et le Splendide-Hôtel fut bâti dans le chaos de glaces
et de nuit du pôle.
Depuis lors, la Lune entendit les chacals piaulant par les déserts de thym, — et
les églogues en sabots grognant dans le verger. Puis, dans la futaie violette,
bourgeonnante, Eucharis me dit que c'était le printemps.
— Sourds, étang, — Écume, roule sur le pont, et par dessus les bois; — draps
noirs et orgues, — éclairs et tonnerres — montez et roulez; — Eaux et tristesses,
montez et relevez les Déluges.
Car depuis qu'ils se sont dissipés, — oh les pierres précieuses s'enfouissant, et
les fleurs ouvertes! — c'est un ennui! et la Reine, la Sorcière qui allume sa braise dans
le pot de terre, ne voudra jamais nous raconter ce qu'elle sait, et que nous ignorons.
Arthur Rimbaud, “Illuminations”


After the Flood

After the idea of the flood had dried up,
A hare stooped amid the clover and trembling bluebells and said his prayer to the
rainbow through a spider’s web.
Oh what precious stones in hiding, — the flowers that were already staring out.
Down the sullied main drag stalls were erected, and boats were drawn out to sea,
which staggered above as in old engravings.
Blood flowed, at Bluebeard’s, — in abbatoirs, — in circuses, wherever the seal of
God paled the windows. Blood and milk flowed.
Beavers got building. Glasses of coffee steamed in small cafes.
In the big glass house still dripping with water, children in mourning gazed at the
marvellous images.
A door slammed, and a boy swung his arms through the village square,
understood by weathervanes and clock-towers everywhere, in the glittering rain.
Madame * * * installed a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were
celebrated at the hundred-thousand altars of the cathedral.
Caravans decamped. And the Hotel Splendide was built amid the chaos of
glaciers and the polar night.
From then on, the Moon heard jackals yapping through deserts of thyme, — and
eclogues with wooden feet grumbling in the orchard. Then, in the purple forest,
burgeoning, Eucharis told me that springtime had come.
— Surge, puddle — Lather up, roll on the bridge and over the woods; — black
drapes and organs, — thunder and lightning; — ride and roll out; — Waters and
sorrows, rise and bring back the Floods.
For since they were dispelled, — oh what precious stones burrowed down, what
flowers unfurled! — ah whatever! The Queen, the Witch who lights her embers in the
cauldron of earth, will never tell us what she knows, and what we don’t know.

 

Barbare

Bien après les jours et les saisons, et les êtres et les pays,
Le pavillon en viande saignante sur la soie des mers et des fleurs
arctiques; (elles n'existent pas.)
Remis des vieilles fanfares d'héroïsme — qui nous attaquent encore le cœur et
la tête — loin des anciens assassins.
Oh! Le pavillon en viande saignante sur la soie des mers et des fleurs
arctiques; (elles n'existent pas.)
Douceurs!
Les brasiers, pleuvant aux rafales de givre, — Douceurs! — les feux à la pluie
du vent de diamants jetée par le cœur terrestre éternellement carbonisé pour nous. —
O monde! —
(Loin des vieilles retraites et des vieilles flammes, qu'on entend, qu'on sent,)
Les brasiers et les écumes. La musique, virement des gouffres et choc des
glaçons aux astres.
O Douceurs, ô monde, ô musique! Et là, les formes, les sueurs, les chevelures
et les yeux, flottant. Et les larmes blanches, bouillantes, — ô douceurs! — et la voix
féminine arrivée au fond des volcans et des grottes arctiques.
Le pavillon...
Arthur Rimbaud, “Illuminations” 

 

Barbaric

Long after the days and the seasons, the living and the lands,
A flag of bloody flesh over silken seas and arctic flowers; (they don’t exist.)
Surviving old fanfares of heroism — which still attack our hearts and heads —
far from ancient assassins.
— Oh! A flag of bloody flesh over silken seas and arctic flowers; (they don’t
exist.)
What bliss!
Blazing coals raining down flurries of ice, — Bliss! — fire in the rain of a
diamond wind, bursting through the earth’s eternally igneous heart for us. —
O world! —
(Far from old retreats and old flames, that we can hear, can smell,)
Blazing coal and spindrift. The music, shifting the abysses and shocking the
icicles into stars.
What bliss, o world, what music! And there, the shapes, the shivers, tresses and
eyes, floating. And white tears, boiling, — what bliss! — and a feminine voice
arriving at the depths of arctic volcanoes and chasms.
A flag…