Gurcharan Rampuri (born 1929) has been writing poetry in Punjabi for six decades. Author of ten volumes of poetry, he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1964. He has won many awards, and his poems have been translated into many languages, including Russian, Hindi, Gujarati, and English. His Collected Poems appeared in India in 2001. Many of his lyrical poems have been set to music and sung by well-known singers such as Surinder Kaur and Jagjit Zirvi. He has won numerous awards in both India and Canada, including the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Punjabi Writers Forum of Vancouver, as well as the 2009 Achievement Award for Contributions to Punjabi Literature from the University of British Columbia.
Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English at Ohio University, is a freelance writer, editor, translator, and book reviewer. He has authored and co-edited well over a dozen books, including The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance; Indian Literature in English, 1827-1979: An Information Guide; India: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing; Conversations with Ralph Ellison; Postcolonial Theory and the United States; The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman; and Interviews with Edward W. Said
Judy Ray grew up on a farm in Sussex, England, and has lived in Uganda, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Currently she lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is a volunteer ESL teacher. Her books and chapbooks include Pebble Rings, Pigeons in the Chandeliers, The Jaipur Sketchbook, Tokens, Tangents, Fishing in Green Waters, and To Fly without Wings.With poet David Ray, she has edited Fathers: A Collection of Poems (St. Martin’s, 1997).
Ghazal
Love smiles when it stumbles.
A star shines throughout its fall.
It takes an age to numb just one pain.
The next moment awakens another hundred.
How can one sleep when longing for the absent one,
And who will sleep on the night of love?
Sadness is my only companion.
Who would befriend me in my melancholy?
The peacocks cry even as they dance.
The swan sings even as it dies.
Beauty yearns for love
as surely as the moon goes around the earth.
One thought contains the universe.
The moon illumines a dewdrop.
Ghazal
I have just burned your letters.
Look, I have bathed in the fire!
Through this pilgrimage to the grave of love
I have revived forgotten pains.
The smooth dark night of your hair –
my fingers have caressed its lush shadows.
I have spent a tearful night
and the dawn is red-eyed.
I have consoled my weeping heart
by imagining scenes of intimacy.
The stars want an encore
though I am done telling my tale.
Life is both sorrow and music,
and I just sang your song.
To light up a glimpse of you in my dreams
I extinguish my own lamp.
Songs, Promises, Tears, Hopes
have won over my estranged lover.
Pet Lies
Lies, lies, lies all the time, repeated
until they become today’s truth.
A lie sits in the seat of power,
lies are armed with daggers,
lies have many followers.
The platform sure is crowded, in thick fog,
with the confused old holy man in command at the center.
A deafening racket blasts all around
and dark clouds of ruthless death
overshadow the skies.
Brutality, rage, fear and helplessness prevail,
but we cannot escape the need for food.
The terrifying abyss of need has deepened.
Death lies in ambush at every corner.
There is someone walking toward me,
but I don’t know if he is friend or foe.
Should I trust his smile, or is it poison?
I will not make eye contact with him,
weighed down as I am by guilt
of sins I didn’t commit.
These cheats and cowardly braggarts
keep on throwing dust in the people’s eyes,
leading them on with deceitful, well-rehearsed lies.
Professional politicians on the one hand
and the ruling elite on the other,
together they have built their empire of lies.
Opportunists
Yesterday’s friends are today’s foes.
Even a brother has a sinister look about him.
Now he accuses with stinging words.
Blood relationships are meaningless.
Today, venomous arrows, daggers, poniards, lances
are plunged into the hearts of one’s own.
Yesterday’s enemies are in close embrace today.
With wounds from the sword healed,
these sycophants ignore the poison of hate in their hearts
as they dance to the pipes of self-interest,
kiss and lick each other.
Labels pinned on one person yesterday
are now used for another.
Those who were called corrupt
are now held to be virtuous.
It is easy to line up arguments
to justify any good or bad deeds.
Since the dead will not return,
who will want to lose today’s profit for their sake?
In pursuing a dream of ideals,
who will ignore the weight of power?
Who will sacrifice national interests
and ignore the lines that divide communities?
Who can beat these sharp villains in glib debate?
So what if they commit awful deeds?
Today
Yesterday was bearing
a dream called Today.
Revolutionary fervor for the dream
powered a restless sleep.
The enchanting dream
smiled like a golden dawn.
The cursed mother committed
a horrendous crime, killed the newborn dream.
Then with a wild laugh
she went alone and buried the baby.
Yesterday bore Today,
but Today also had a dream which the mother killed.
Featured poet, Judith Beveridge has published four books of poetry: The Domesticity of Giraffes (Black Lightning Press, 1987), Accidental Grace (UQP, 1996), Wolf Notes (Giramondo Publishing 2003), Storm and Honey (Giramondo Publishing 2009). She has won many awards for her poetry including the NSW Premier’s Award, The Victorian Premier’s Award and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. In 2005 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for excellence in literature. She is currently the poetry editor for Meanjin and teaches poetry writing at postgraduate level at the University of Sydney.
This poem was video translated at the Memoria del Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín, Colombia. The International Poetry Festival at Medellin was founded by Feranando Rendón "to oppose terror with beauty, to bring poetry face to face with violent death. We interpreted the love of poetry and the will to live of thousands of people, at the right moment." (Poetry International Web, July 2007) In 2006 the festival was awarded the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize.
La poeta australiana Judith Beveridge interviene en el curso del IX Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín, leyendo un poema que contiene una dura metáfora sobre la melancolía y la hecatombe. Judith Beveridge nació en Londres, en 1956. Vive en Australia. Ha publicado los libros de poemas: La domesticidad de las jirafas (1987); Un paracaídas de azul (1995) y La gracia accidental (1996). Ha ganado diversos premios de Poesía en Australia. Se ha desempeñado como docente de Literatura y como colaboradora habitual de revistas y periódicos en su país. Fue incluida en la Antología de Poesía Contemporánea de Australia, editada por Trilce Editores, Bogotá, 1997.
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) was born in the small northern-Chilean town of Vicuña. She rose from near-poverty to acheive a significant international reputation not only as a poet, but also as an educator, a diplomat and a journalist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
La Bailarina
La bailarina ahora está danzando
la danza del perder cuanto tenía.
Deja caer todo lo que ella había,
padres y hermanos, huertos y campiñas,
el rumor de su río, los caminos,
el cuento de su hogar, su propio rostro
y su nombre, y los juegos de su infancia
como quien deja todo lo que tuvo
caer de cuello, de seno y de alma.
En el filo del día y el solsticio
baila riendo su cabal despojo.
Lo que avientan sus brazos es el mundo
que ama y detesta, que sonríe y mata,
la tierra puesta a vendimia de sangre
la noche de los hartos que no duermen
y la dentera del que no ha posada.
Sin nombre, raza ni credo, desnuda
de todo y de sí misma, da su entrega,
hermosa y pura, de pies voladores.
Sacudida como árbol y en el centro
de la tornada, vuelta testimonio.
No está danzando el vuelo de albatroses
salpicados de sal y juegos de olas;
tampoco el alzamiento y la derrota
de los cañaverales fustigados.
Tampoco el viento agitador de velas,
ni la sonrisa de las altas hierbas.
El nombre no le den de su bautismo.
Se soltò de su casta y de su carne
sumiò la canturía de su sangre
y la balada de su adolescencia.
Sin saberlo le echamos nuestras vidas
como una roja veste envenenada
y baila así mordida de serpientes
que alácritas y libres la repechan,
y la dejan caer en estandarte
vencido o en guirnalda hecha pedazos.
Sonámbula, mudada en lo que odia,
sigue danzando sin saberse ajena
sus muecas aventando y recogiendo
jadeadora de nuestro jadeo,
cortando el aire que no la refresca
única y torbellino, vil y pura.
Somos nosotros su jadeado pecho,
su palidez exangüe, el loco grito
tirado hacia el poniente y el levante
la roja calentura de sus venas,
el olvido del Dios de sus infancias.
The Dancer
Now the dancer is dancing
the dance of losing what she was.
Now the dancer lets it all fall away,
parents, siblings, orchards and idylls,
her river’s murmur, the pathways,
the story of her home, her own face
and her name, and her childhood dreams,
as if letting everything that she was
fall from her neck, her breast, her being.
On the edge of the day the solstice curls
around what remains dancing in a delirious swirl.
Her pale arms are winnowing away the world
that loves and detests, that kills and jests,
the earth crushed into a bloody wine,
the night of the multitudes who don’t sleep,
the pain of those without homes in which to rest.
Without name, race or creed, without relation
to anything nor to her herself, she shows her devotion,
beautiful and pure, with flying feet.
Shaken like a young tree in the tornado’s eye,
the proof emerges and cannot lie.
She isn’t dancing the albatrosses’ flight,
birds covered with playful waves’ salty bites,
nor the uprising and the defeat
of reeds pummelled by the wind,
nor the candles that the wind perturbs,
nor the smiles of the tallest herbs.
They didn’t baptise her with this name.
She broke free of her caste and her flesh;
she buried the soft song of her blood
and the ballad of her adolescence.
Without knowing it we throw our lives
over her like a poisoned red bodice
and she dances like this, snake-bitten,
the vipers swarming over her freely,
leaving her to fall as a forgotten
symbol, or as a garland smashed to pieces.
Sleepwalker, becoming what she despises,
she keeps dancing without thought of the changes,
her expressions and myriad contortions,
exhausted by our own exhaustion,
blocking off the breeze because it doesn’t cool her,
unique and electric, vile and pure.
We ourselves are her panting chest,
her bloodless pallor, the crazy scream
thrown to the east and the west,
the red fever of her arteries,
she has forgotten the God of her infancies.
Stuart Cooke’s translations have also appeared in HEAT, Southerly and Overland. His translation of Juan Garrido-Salgado’s Once Poemas, Septiembre 1973 was published by Picaro Press in 2007. A chapbook of his own poetry, Corrosions, is forthcoming from Vagabond Press.
Born in 1935 in Limlingerode, a hamlet in the formerly East German part of the Harz Mountains, Sarah Kirsch is considered one of the most luminous figures on the reunited German poetic horizon. She has written several collections of poetry, and has been critical of socialist regimes and anti-semitism. Her awards, include the Georg Büchner, the Friedrich Hölderlin and the Petrarca Prizes; her credo is to live like a poem.
Raben
Die Bäume in diesen windzerblasenen
Das Land überrollenden Himmeln
Sind höher als die zusammengeduckten
Gluckenähnlichen Kirchen, und Wolken
Durchfliegen die Kronen die Vögel
Steigen von Ast zu Ast kohlschwarze Raben
Flattern den heidnischen Göttern
Hin auf die Schultern und krächzen
Den Alten die Ohren voll alle Sterblichen
Werden verpfiffen schlappe Seelen
Über den Wurzeln und ohne Flügel.
Atempause
Der Himmel ist rauchgrau aschgrau mausgrau
Bleifarben steingrau im Land
Des Platzregens der Dauergewitter
Die aufgequollenen Wiesen die Gärten
Verfaulen und Hunden sind übernacht
Flossen gewachsen sie tauchen
Nach jedem silbernen Löffel der
Aus dem Fenster fällt wenn augenblicklich
Behäbige Marmeladen bereitet werden
In Küchen bei gutem Wetter durchflogen
Von Bäurinnen Heu im Gewand Dampf
Im Hintern auf Rübenhacken am Mittag.
Süß langt der Sommer ins Fenster
Süß langst der Sommer ins Fenster
Seine Hände gebreitet wie Linden
Reichen mir Honig und quirlende Blüten, er
Schläfert mich ein, wirft Lichter und Schatten
Lockige Ranken um meine Füße, ich ruh
Draußen gern unter ihm, die Mulden
Meiner Fersen seiner Zehen fülln sich zu Teichen
Wo mir der Kopf liegt polstert die Erde
Mit duftenden Kräutern mein eiliger Freund, Beeren
Stopft er mir in mein Mund, getigerte Hummeln
Brummen den Rhythmus, schöne Bilder
Baun sich am Himmel auf
Heckenrosenbestickt er den Leib mir – ach gerne
Höb ich den Blick nicht aus seinem Blau
Wären nicht hinter mir die Geschwister
Mit Minen und Phosphor, jung
Soll ich dahin, mein Freund auch aus der Welt –
Ich beklag es, die letzten Zeilen des
Was ich schreibe, gehen vom Krieg
Ravens
the trees in these wind-blown
skies rolling over the land
are taller than the churches
hunched up like clucky hens, and clouds
fly through the tree tops the birds
move from branch to branch coal-black ravens
flutter down onto the shoulders
of pagan gods and croak up
the elders’ ears all mortals
dobbed in weak souls
above the roots and wingless.
Breath Pause
the sky is smoke grey ash grey mouse grey
lead grey stone grey in the land
of sudden showers of continuous thunder
the bloated meadows the gardens
rotting and dogs during the night
have grown fins they dive
after every silver spoon that
falls from the window when instantly
portly marmalades are being made
in kitchens flown through in fine weather
by farmers’ wives with hay in their pants
steam in their bums on turnip fields at noon.
Sweetly summer reaches through the window
Sweetly summer reaches through the window
His hands spread out like lindens
Serve me honey and spiralling blossoms, he
Puts me to sleep, throws light and shade
Curly tendrils around my feet, I
Love resting under him outside, the depressions
Of my heels of his toes are filled into ponds
Where my head lies the ground cushions
With aromatic herbs my hasty friend, berries
He stuffs into my mouth, tigered bumble bees
Buzz the rhythm, fine images
Build up in the sky
He embroiders my body with wild roses – oh
I’d love to not look up from his blue
If there weren’t brothers and sisters behind me
With mines and phosphorous, young
Am I to leave, my friend, the world too –
I lament the last lines of what
I write run to war
Landaufenthalt
Morgens füttere ich den Schwan abends die Katzen dazwischen
Gehe ich über das Gras passiere die verkommenen Obstplantagen
Hier wachsen Birnbäume in rostigen Öfen, Pfirsichbäume
Fallen ins Kraut, die Zäune haben sich lange ergeben, Eisen und Holz
Alles verfault und der Wald umarmt den Garten in einer Fliederhecke
Da stehe ich dicht vor den Büschen mit nassen Füßen
Es hat lange geregnet, und sehe die tintenblauen Dolden, der Himmel
Ist scheckig wie Löschpapier
Mich schwindelt vor Farbe und Duft doch die Bienen
Bleiben im Stock selbst die aufgesperrten Mäuler der Nesselblüten
Ziehn sie nicht her, vielleicht ist die Königin
Heute morgen plötzlich gestorben die Eichen
Brüten Gallwespen, dicke rosa Kugeln platzen wohl bald
Ich würde die Bäume gerne erleichtern doch der Äpfelchen
Sind es zu viel sie erreichen mühlos die Kronen auch faßt
Klebkraut mich an, ich unterscheide Simsen und Seggen so viel Natur
Die Vögel und schwarzen Schnecken dazu überall Gras Gras das
Die Füße mir feuchtet fettgrün es verschwendet sich
Noch auf dem Schuttberg verbirgt es Glas wächst
in aufgebrochne Matratzen ich rette mich
Auf den künstlichen Schlackenweg und werde wohl bald
In meine Betonstadt zurückgehen hier ist man nicht auf der Welt
Der Frühling in seiner maßlosen Gier macht nicht halt, verstopft
Augen und Ohren mit Gras die Zeitungen sind leer
Eh sie hier ankommen der Wald hat all seine Blätter und weiß
Nichts vom Feuer
In the Country
Mornings I feed the swans evenings the cats in between
I walk over grass pass by the ruined orchards
Pear trees grow in rusty ovens, peach trees
Collapse into grass, the fences have long surrendered, iron and wood
Everything rotten and the woods embrace the garden in a lilac bush
There I stand with wet feet close to the bushes
It has rained a long time, and I see the ink blue umbels, the sky
Is spotty like blotting paper
I’m dizzy with colour and smells but the bees
Stay in the hive even the gaping mouths of the nettle blossoms
Don’t pull them over, perhaps the queen
Suddenly died this morning the oaks
Breed gall wasps, thick red balls will probably soon burst
I’d love to lighten the trees but there are too many little apples
They effortlessly reach the crowns and cleevers
Grab me, I distinguish reeds and sedges so much nature
The birds and black snails and everywhere grass grass that
Moistens my feet fat-green it squanders itself
Even on the tip it hides glass grows in broken mattresses I flee
onto the artificial cinder path and will presumably soon
return to my concrete city here you’re not in the world
spring doesn’t let up in its bottomless greed, stuffs
eyes and ears with grass the newspapers are empty
before they arrive here the wood is in full leaf and knows
nothing about fire
Peter Lach-Newinsky is of German-Russian heritage, Peter grew up bilingually in Sydney. His awards include the MPU First Prize 2009, Third Prize Val Vallis Award 2009, MPU Second Prize 2008, Second Prize Shoalhaven Literary Award 2008 and the Varuna-Picaro Publishing Award 2009. He has published a chapbook: The Knee Monologues & Other Poems (Picaro Press 2009). His first full-length collection is The Post-Man Letters & Other Poems (Picaro Press 2010). Peter grows 103 heirloom apple varieties in Bundanoon NSW.
Mario Licón Cabrera (México, 1949) has lived in Sydney since 1992. His third collection of poetry, La Reverberación de la Ceniza was publshed by Mora & Cantúa Editores in 2005. His work features in an architecture and poetry installation, Metaphors of Space, at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival. He has translated the poetry of Dorothy Porter, Judith Beveridge, Peter Boyle, J.S. Harry, Robert Adamson, amongst other Australian poets, into Spanish. His collection, Yuxtas, a bilingual collection (Spanish/English), written with the assistance of a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts/Literature Board. These poems are selectedtranslations from Michael Brennan’s latest collection, Unanimous Night, which is short-listed in the NSW Premier’s Literary Award.
Carta a casa /2
Llegó Noviembre.
Meses más cáldos en gestación,
bandejas con tuberculos a la vista, tulipanes,
azafrán, lirios, robustas y doradas ofrendas
limpias de la negra tierra del norte,
nombres tan brillantes y extraños como un rezo:
Azul Delft, Juana de Arco, Remembranza,
nombres, los misterios ordinaries,
La señora de John T. Scheepers, Groenlandia,
Perico negrot, El récord del portero,
cada quien a la espera de ásperas manos
para regresarlos a la tierra oscura,
para ser enterrados
en paciente incertidumbre,
y esperar
hasta el fin del invierno.
Letter home
November already.
Warmer months finding form,
trays of bulbs laid out, tulips, crocus,
lilies, fat and golden offerings
brushed clean of black northern earth,
names bright and strange as prayer : Delft Blue, Jeanne d’Arc, Remembrance,
names, the ordinary mysteries, Mrs John T. Scheepers, Groenland, Black Parrot, Doorman’s Record,
each waiting for weathered hands
to give them back to blind earth,
to bury them
in patient unknowing,
and wait
until winter’s end.
Carta a casa /3
Debo decirles, que no hay nada como el hogar.
Ninguno de ellos piensa que soy un forastero.
Me reciben en sus casas con manos
toscas y me brindan deliciosos manjares.
Después de cada comida, ellos frotan mis cejas
y mi barba, y secan las lágrimas
que por meses han corrido por mis mejillas
al viajar de pueblo en pueblo.
Me dicen que ellos son forasteros aquí,
y en la fresca atmósfera nocturna
cuelgan sus palabras por tal cosa,
entre la suava caricia de la barba
y los tiernos ojos del más viejo de ellos.
Me dicen que pronto me dejaran,
pro que en su ausencia debo seguir con los banquetes
que alguien vendrá y yo debo recibirlo,
no debo hablar de más, pero sí alimentar al invitado
y después secar sus lágrimas. Antes de irme debo decirle
que está en su casa, que él aquí no es un forastero.
Ellos dicen, ninguno de estos es forastero.
Ellos dicen, que esperaran por mí en el próximo pueblo
con sus manos gentiles y sus alegres ojos,
que el tren me llevará allá, y en el camino
podré escuchar el llanto del hombre viejo
y dejar a la tierna noche tocar mi rostro,
podré recordar los manjares caseros,
y esperar a que el silencio tenga lo suyo.
Dicen, cuando nos encontremos en el próximo pueblo,
ellos me lo explicaran todo. bare
Letter home
I should tell you, it’s nothing like home.
Not one of them thinks of me as a stranger.
They welcome me to their houses with rough
hands and feed me delicious feasts.
After each meal, they stroke my eyebrows
and beard, and dry the tears
that have run down my cheeks over months
travelling from town to town.
They tell me they are stranger here,
hanging their word for such things
in the cool night air, between the beard-stroking
and the young eyes of the oldest among them.
They say soon they will leave me,
but I am to keep feasting in their absence,
that someone will come and I must invite him in,
I must not say too much, but feed him and afterwards
dry his tears. Before I leave, I must tell him
this is his home now, that he is no stranger here.
They say, none of this is strange.
They say, they will wait for me in the next town
with their gentle hands and playful eyes,
that the train will take me there, and on the way
I can listen to the old man’s crying
and let the lightness of night find my face,
I can remember the feasts from home,
and wait for silence to have its fill.
They tell me, when we meet in the next town,
they will explain it all.
Carta a casa /4
Estás cerca,
tu aliento agitándose
entre los cedres
de ochocientos años de edad,
piedras
erosionadas
por cosas invisibles,
particulas de arena
y rocas,
flotantes
en la brisa,
la insignificancia
definiéndolo todo,
aquí donde un poeta
observó
nada
más
que el paso
de una estación,
y el aire otoñal
entibiando
el aliento,
y así
continuamos
nuestro ascenso lento,
un millar y
cuatrocientos
cincuenta escalones
tallados en piedra
de esta montaña,
erigiéndose,
nombrando el templo
donde nos sentamos.
La vista,
el valle
que emerge,
hojas castañs
dadas
a un frío filoso y quemante,
el verde profundo
de los árboles añejos
en total quietud,
la brisaa ancestral
ahora corriendo veloz,
invisible y suave
a través de las piedras
suave a través
de la superficie
de nuestros ojos,
partículas
invisibles
interminablemente
borrando
cada
cosa.
Letter Home
You are close,
breath drawing
fast amongst
eight hundred
year old cedars,
stones
weathered bare
by invisible things,
specks of sand
and rock,
carried
on the breeze,
insignificance
shaping everything,
here where a poet
noted
nothing
more
than a season
passing
and autumn air
warmed
on breath
and so
we continue
our slow ascent
one thousand
four hundred
and fifty steps
of stone hewn
from this
mountain
rising
naming
the temple
where we sit
the view
the valley
appearing now
russet leaves
given
to a sharp cold fire
the deep green
of ancient trees
holding still,
the ancient breeze
running fast now
smooth and invisible
across stones,
smooth across
the surfaces
of our eyes,
invisible
flecks
endlessly
erasing
each
thing.
Carta a casa /6
La primavera empiiza su lento striptease.
La gente con menos ropa cada día.
Los pesados abriigos de lana dan paso al algodón,
a las líneas curvas de caderas, pechos y nalgas.
Escucho la música que me enseñaste,
esa que se ubica lentamente entre cada cosa.
Esas palabras extrañas –Gentileza, amistad,
afecto –todavía más extrañas al decirlas
en la lengua que se habla aquí.
Sentado percibo el oleaje de la gente,
a ratos saboreándolo con una sonrisa
o con el trunco lenguaje
que estoy aprendiendo, confíanza
y gentileza hablan por todas partes,
Atento escucho expresiones de mi país
transformándose en otro lenguaje
entre amigos conversando
amontonados, la percusión suave
de una pareja joven, protejiéndose
del crudo ambiente invernal.
Desplazo mis dedos a lo largo de palabras
como si cada palabra fuera una plegaria.
Letter Home
Spring starts its slow striptease.
Each day people are wearing less,
thick woollen coats give way to cotton,
irmer lines of hips, buttocks and breasts.
I listen for the music you taught me,
one that settles slowly between each thing.
Those strange words — kindness, friendship,
care — stranger still spoken
in the language spoken here.
I sit sensing the tide of people,
sometimes testing it with a smile
or with the broken language
I’m learning, trust
kindness speaks anywhere.
I listen carefully to idioms of home
rising in another language
between friends huddled
in conversation, the gentle percussion
of a young couple sheltering
from late winter air.
I run my finger along words
as if each word was a prayer.
Besmellah Rezaee(Hamta) was born in Afghanistan and is an Australian Afghan who currently studies a double degree in Law and International studies at the University of Adelaide. In addition, He works as a Publication officer for Karawaan Organization; he is the executive Director of “Sokhane-nau” magazine, and hosts a show in radio Adelaide called ‘Dialogue’ every Sunday. He is the founder and president of AATSA (Association of Australian Tertiary Students from Afghanistan) at the present and also works as an interpreter with Multilingua ltd.
اینجا کابل است!
اقیانوس درد
ساحل غم
قصر دارالمان، کوه آسمایی، پل آرتن، زیارت سخی1
روزگاری مهد:
حاکمیت، غرور، محبت و نیایش بود!
سیاهی وهم آلود جهل
بر کوی و برزن
بر در و دیوار
بر آدم های این سر زمین
سایه افکنده است
کبوتران “سخی”2 رنگ باخته اند
“افشار”3 هنوز بوی خون میدهد
“ده افغانان”4 سینمای حرص و هوس شده است:
اینجا یکی در پی لقمه نانی
روزش آغاز و شبش پایان ندارد
و دیگری در پی لحظه هوسی
شبش آغاز و روزش پایان ندارد
دریای کابل
بی آب و ماهی و موج
در سکوت ابدی محبوس شده است
کودکان اینجا
بعد از زمان خویش به دنیا آمده اند
آنها علم را در دست فروشی فرا میگریند
“گودارد”5 هم مرده است
تا اینبار نیوریالیزم را در کابل احیا میکرد.
اینجا کابل است ! کابل!!!
1 نام جاهای معروف در کابل
2 سخی نام زیارتگاهی است در کارته سخی کابل
3 افشار نام منطقه است در قسمت غرب کابل که در جریان جنگهای داخلی کشتار دسته جمعی و قتل عام مردم در آنجا صورت گرفت
4 نام جایی در مرکز شهر کابل
5 جین لوک گودارد نویسنده و فیلمساز معروف فرانسوی بود که در بنیان گذاری مکتب بنام آتیریزم و فرنچ نیو ویو سهم بارز داشت
This is Kabul!
The ocean of pain
the shore of sorrow
the Dar al-Man palace, the Asemani mountain, the Arten bridge, the Sakhi shrine (1)
a time of cradle:
there was sovereignty, pride, kindness and benediction!
Damn the war…
the fearful blackness of ignorance
has cast a shadow
on every quarter and on every district
on the door and the wall
on the people of this land
The pigeons of the Sakhi have lost their colour (2)
Afshar still reeks of blood (3)
Dah Afghanan has become a cinema of restriction and caprice (4)
Here a person seeking a bite of bread
never starts the day nor ends the night
and another seeking a moment of caprice
never starts the night nor ends the day
The seas of Kabul
without water or fish or waves
are exiled in eternal silence
The children here
have been born after their time
and will be educted in the future through hawking
Godard is also dead (5)
to once again revive neorealism in Kabul.
This is Kabul! Kabul!!!
[author’s footnotes]
(1) names of famous places in Afghanistan
(2)Sakhi is a name of a shrine in Kabul
(3)Afshar is a name of a district in west of Kabul where massacres took place during the civil war
(4)the name of a place in central Kabul
(5) filmmaker
Ali Alizadeh
Ali Alizadeh is an Iranian-born Australian writer. His books include the novel The New Angel (Transit Lounge Publishing, 2008); with Ken Avery, translations of medieval Sufi poetry Fifty Poems of Attar (re.press, 2007); and the collection of poetry Eyes in Times of War (Salt Publishing, 2006). The main themes of his writing are history, spirituality and dissent. His current projects include a nonfiction novel about the life of his grandfather (to be published in 2009) and, with John Kinsella, an anthology of Persian poetry in translation.
Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng is a poet, literary translator and publisher. Since 1997, Ng has been at the helm of firstfruits publications. In 2005 he won the Golden Point Award for Chinese Poetry. In 1991 his first book of poems were awarded Best First Book by the Taiwanese literary journal “The Modernist”. His poetry has been featured in journals in Singapore, India, Malaysia and Taiwan, and anthologized in China and Singapore. Ng is one of the awardees of the Singapore National Arts Council Arts Creation Fund 2009.
Yeo Wei Wei is a teacher, literary translator, and writer. Her interest in translation began during her PhD in English at the University of Cambridge. Her translations have recently been published or are forthcoming in journals in India, Taiwan, and the U. S. She is currently working on a translation volume of Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng’s poems (to be published in 2010). She lives in Singapore.
书虫
毛毛虫
吞吐一部份诗行
成可口香叶
一部份张贴在蛹
的内壁
取光
Bookworm
The caterpillar
Munches a few lines
Tasty leaves for its repast
Lining the walls of its cocoon
With the uneaten parts of the poem –
Therein and whence
The light.
家事
（一）灯火
水退以后
额头火红
犬吠声
篱笆好
一片月
住下， 就是一生：
彩电
蕃薯
枪声
女人
齐齐蹲下
凝视远方的老鼠
时间似猫眼
（二）马戏
独眼牛
在杜撰的钢索上
平衡祖先
了无新意的
困境
猪在肥
水灾在雷
(三) 晚餐
武装
革命结束之夜
摸着石子
过河回来的元帅们
晚餐生蚝
佐以京戏：
黑猫 白猫
穷追老鼠
From Family Matters
1. lamp light
After the flood recedes
foreheads red as fire
dogs barking
sturdy fences
a sliver of moon
To stay is to settle down, a lifetime:
colour tv
potatoes
gunfire
womenfolk
neatly crouching
time spies on mice in the distance
with watchful cat eyes
2. circus act
One-eyed bull
on the steel wire of fancy
calibrates the ancestors’
unoriginal
circumstance
pigs fatten
floods follow suit
3. dinner
In fatigues
the night the revolution ended
stepping on stones
the generalissimos cross the river, returning
raw oysters for dinner
peking opera for company
black cat white cat
hunt in vain for mice
十二月
如常的警笛声
果核纹路分明的下午
天蓝如此
下课以后球就会滚到另一边
雨后无辜的蘑菇
则不免让人分心
地表, 板块, 土拨鼠: 松动的日子
说不定难免就是
湿翠的菊花无端开落
december
the police siren makes familiar rounds
through the seed grooves of an afternoon.
thus the blue sky surveys:
a ball rolls from one end of the court to the other, after class.
mushrooms, newborn after the rain,
daintily lead the eye and mind astray.
these days of unwinding, a palpable reprieve tingling soil and sundry:
earth’s surface, tectonic plates, groundhog.
moments, perhaps, for spectatoring and speculation:
chrysanthemum flowers, bursts of moistened jade, bloom and fade, just so.
父亲素描
晚年
他的脸开满菊花
南中国海过的眼睛
不再潮汐
耳，继续路往天籁
鼻穴， 深埋梁祝
嘴， 沉默得很大声
唯双眉翔不出
翔不出
铁蒺藜，以及
铁蒺藜那边的泥土
Portrait of My Father
In the twilight years
His face bloomed into chrysanthemums.
The eyes that crossed the South China Sea
Were weaned off the tides.
The ears followed still the trail of nature’s sounds.
The nose, buried deep in the legend of the butterfly lovers,
The mouth spoke loudly without words.
Time and again his brows made the mad flight
Flailing again and again
before the barbed wire fence,
exiled by the barbed wire fence,
from the land over there.
想起杜甫
– 纪念与梅剑青同游悉尼的日子
风停了废墟开始浮出水面
急急急带雨: 床在异地, 前世是码头
天空系在脑后, 我们是风里来火里去的云
高人江湖满地, 踢踏过唐人街, 已是中年
猿声多一阵少一阵, 人倚斜了天涯
啸过冬天漫长的边境
哀伤的头颅内住着完整的瓷
Remembering Du Fu
– in memory of the time spent with Boey Kim Cheng in Sydney
After the wind died down, ruins rose from the water.
The rain poured, making haste, making haste:
our beds are remote from home; our past lives, a quay.
Sprawling behind the mind is the sky –
while we who have no care, we clouds blazing through wind and fire,
what care have we for the masters? Already there are too many in the world –
enough that Chinatown was our playground until middle age caught us playing truant.
Marking the rise and ebb of monkey cries, man leans to rest and the horizon slants.
Ranting and raving along the borderlines of winter;
The pained skull shelters a piece of porcelain, perfection no less.
Note:
In July 2006 I was in Sydney for the launch of Boey Kim Cheng’s book After The Fire: New and Selected Poems. It was a holiday as well as a work trip for me. We spent quite a lot of time traveling by car and we listened to his CDs of Du Fu’s poems.
Jorge Palma, poet and storyteller, was born in 1961 in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he still lives. For many years he has worked for newspapers and radio stations, and has also run creative writing workshops, both poetry and prose. His poetry collections are Entre el viento y la sombra (1989), El olvido (1990), La via láctea (2006), Diarios del cielo (2006) and Lugar de las utopias (2007).
Peter Boyle (b. 1951) lives in Sydney. His first collection of poetry Coming home from the world (1994) received the National Book Council Award and the New South Wales Premier’s Award. Other collections include The Blue Cloud of Crying (1997), What the painter saw in our faces (2001) and Museum of Space (2004). His most recent book Apocrypha (2009) is an extensive collection of poems and other texts by a range of imaginary authors.
Un Rio Ancho Con Sabor A Otoño
Del rojo al verde
se muere el amarillo G.Apollinaire
Tú que tienes la precisión
prendida en la solapa:
¿a cuánto estamos hoy?
El olor de la tierra húmeda
trae en los bolsillos
noticias del mundo:
del rojo al verde
se muere el amarillo;
de mi casa al mercado
se mueren los niños
en el desierto.
Los noticieros hablan
de la guerra
y el cielo avanza.
Los noticieros hablan
de tormentas de arena
en el desierto
y los pájaros emigran
en mi cielo de otoño.
Mientras enciendo un cigarrillo
mientras la ropa
se seca al sol
se mueren los niños
en el desierto.
Del rojo al verde
se muere el amarillo.
Y las casas son abandonadas
por sus dueños,
y las viudas dejan flores
en la mitad de las camas
y se marchan,
se cubren la piel
con sus trapos de viuda
con sus pañuelos de luto
con sus ropas de humo
y caminan
por el borde del cielo
y caminan por las orillas
del mundo.
En mi patio con macetas
caen flores del cielo
y caen también
pájaros atravesados
por el sonido de la guerra,
y se despiertan las madres
bajo otro cielo
y en los mercados
las frutas, los pescados,
los pregones, no tienen
sonidos de luto,
ni hay viudas huyendo
a las fronteras
ni hay temblores de tierra
ni nadie sacude vidrio molido
de las mantas
ni los curas barren los escombros
de las catedrales y las iglesias
ni en mi cielo de otoño
contemplo esta mañana
la inmensa peregrinación
de ataúdes y pañuelos
que en algún lugar del mundo
se desatan; el polvo, la arena,
el desierto abrasador,
donde dicen estuvo el Paraíso
el Paraíso anhelado
a punto de perderse,
donde un niño sueña todavía
que tiene brazos
una familia, y sus piernas
inquietas de doce años
corren por las inmensas
arenas y salta, busca
nubes, desafía las leyes
de la física, soñando
por las tierras de Ur
a la sombra monumental
de las ruinas de Babilonia.
Del rojo al verde
se muere el amarillo.
Entre tu pecho
y el mío
se muere el amarillo.
entre tus alas y mi sueño
se muere el amarillo.
Entre tus piernas
y las mías
se muere el otoño,
a cuatro metros del cielo
por venir
a cuatro gotas de lluvia
o de rocío
a tres días de un disparo
demoledor y ciego
a dos minutos de la gloria
o el fracaso
a un segundo que aguarda
goteando el alba
tu boca de luz
tu llama
para contrarrestar acaso
ese grito que vuela incesante
entre dos ríos que llevan
la muerte
ese aullido que cruza el cielo
las tormentas el calor
un grito que cruza
el desierto, tu pecho
tu morada
y golpea como un puño
de acero
las ventanas de mi cuarto,
aquí, en mi pequeño cielo
de otoño,
demasiado lejos
de los hombres recién rasurados
que no volverán a sus casas,
de las mujeres
que conversan en la puerta
de un mercado
sin saber que esa noche
dormirán con la muerte;
de los que cantaron
en las duchas
por última vez, hermosas
canciones de veinte siglos,
y no supieron nunca
de nosotros y este río
ni del nombre del río
que nos nombra y atraviesa
con su mansa identidad.
Aquí en el Sur,
donde envejecemos
mirando los ponientes.
Wide river with autumn fragrance
From red to green
yellow dies.
G. Apollinaire
You with the latest essential
glittering on your lapel,
do you even know what day it is?
In my pockets
the smell of damp earth
brings news from the world:
between red and green
yellow dies;
between my house and the shops
children die
in the desert.
The news speaks of war
and the sky moves forward.
The news talks of sandstorms
in the desert
and birds migrate
in my autumn sky.
While I light a cigarette
while the clothes
dry in the sun
children die
in the desert.
From red to green
yellow dies.
And the houses are abandoned
by their owners,
and widows leave flowers
on the middle of their beds
and walk away,
their skin covered
in widows’ rags
in handkerchiefs of mourning
clothes of smoke
and they walk
along the sky’s edge
and they walk by the shores
of the world.
On my patio with its pots
flowers fall from the sky
and birds fall
transfixed by the sounds of war,
and mothers wake up
under a changed sky
and in the marketplaces
fruit, fish,
the cries of people buying and selling,
don’t bear the weight of any
sound of grief,
there are no widows
fleeing to the frontiers
and no earthquakes
and no one removes ground-up glass
from their shirt-sleeves
and priests don’t sweep rubble
out of churches and cathedrals
and in my autumn sky
this morning I don’t contemplate
the enormous journeys
of coffins and handkerchiefs
that in some place in the world
will fall apart; dust, sand,
burning desert,
where they say Paradise was,
the longed-for about-to-vanish Paradise
where a child still dreams
he has arms
a family and legs,
the restless legs of a twelve-year-old child
who runs across immense sands,
leaps, looks for clouds,
defies the laws of physics, dreaming
in the lands of Ur
in the tremendous shadow
of a ruined Babylon.
From red to green
yellow dies.
Between your breast and mine
yellow dies.
Between your wings and my sleep
yellow dies.
Between your legs
and mine
autumn dies,
in four metres of sky
where four drops of rain
or dew
are falling,
three days from a blind
blast of gunfire,
in two minutes of glory
or disaster,
in one second of watching
dawn fall drop by drop
your mouth of light
your cry
to counterbalance perhaps
the scream soaring without pause
between two rivers
that carry death,
this howling that comes to us
across skies
storms dry heat,
a scream that crosses
the desert, your heart
your dwelling place
and like a steel fist
pounds against
the windows of my room,
here, in my small
autumn sky,
too far
from the freshly shaven men
who will never return home,
from women
chatting in a shop door
not knowing that tonight
they will sleep with death,
from those who have sung in the shower
for the last time, beautiful songs
gathered from twenty centuries,
those who never knew of us
and this river
or the name of the river
that names and crosses us
with its gentle identity.
Here in the South
where we grow old
watching the sunsets.
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