Four Poems From Nathaniel Rounds

LITTLE LORD FONTANEL

To Bob--whom everyone knows, or would like to.

(Chapter XII--Of lions habituated to seize deer, and eagles ordered to seize wolves.)

1.

Clouds on the horizon. Six sirens wailed. Mother, in alarm, wept tears of
blood and milk. A bearded thief--baneful and watchful like the guileless
snake--removed his victim's signet ring and took to hiding in the lake.

Did he feast upon the catfish? Were his pockets full of scones? Did he
bring to water's surface gilded leopards carved from bone?

2.

William Reuben's fight with jaundice is made obvious in this
single-surviving portrait (drawn by a street artist on Rue St. Denis) and
even in this rough oil pastel we can see that he had few days left to rework
the Táin Bó Cúailnge as a performance piece (a dining car crashes through a
supermarket window) accompanied by three minor notes plucked upon a piece of
bailing wire nailed to a knacker's door. It was just as well. The northern
lights unveiled themselves as William drove his taxi into the Montreal
night.

3.

Marty Volkslied sings in his mirth loving way: “Three peremptory cheers for
fine-feathered Feagh and his keeper, Fortunato!”

Fortunato opines to Feagh (between breezy inhalations of laughing gas):
“Never again shall we confide in our bought sons. One shall do one sort of
work while the other does another. The worm fence shall divide them.”
Feagh’s fat face spreads into a crapulous smile.
“Never again,” he crows. “Not ever, no never, never be it so! Not ever
again, de facto! Make the bought boys work the worm fence! Farm out the
fault line! Never again, both in poor and fine weather, never again shall we
speak them whatever!”
“Stick with me,” coos Fortunato. “Stick with me, little Feagh, like a
cockroach to turd.”
“Like a cockroach to turd,” chirps Feagh. “Like a cockroach who listens to
larvae in turd I shall act on your low-spoken, venomous word!”
Darkness lingers within bright sons.
‘Neath the eaves Noel whispers to Bo:
“Go skip-bomb the wordmongering, tinhorned Jack and hear his sad chide chime
in a flashflood of flatulent timpani over the Seven Seas.”
Meanwhile, as Bob lies browning in the noonday sun, Marty Volkslied sings
outside the door:

“Buffo’ floribunda, tabula rasa,
band organ marches and
Washington pie, our
tabourer with calfskin and fife
trolled rosy-colored,
third-hand hymnals rife
with cloying clumps of storm cloud
leavened
through homage to promised wassailer’s
third heaven.

“Three turns of the crank
as he caroled the town,
singing ‘Riddle-me-roundelay, Old Mr. Brown!’”

4.

Two boys--one aged six, the other eight--
contest over woolly mountains
and scorched field
with aerial evocations to Popeye.

Their bed gives final warning of
earthquake
while the youngest pees conspiratorially off
the edge into
darkness,
making a trip to the bathroom (where Dad,
his face a
torn map of blood, alcohol and vomit)
unnecessary.

5.

Inside a back street car wash in New Orleans,
two bayou smithies
hold their war criminal firmly
by his coat sleeves of Scottish tweed--
a cleric pinned down in his own clipper
by the pirate boys Lafitte.

The cleric recalls a scene
from a nature program,

in which a lion devours a fawn.
Beads of red light trickle
over portholes draped in steam.

The cleric removes a breastpin--
a tree-of-life
from the Field of Gold,
asking that his life be spared.

“We’re sorry,” intone his captors
gravely, “but we cannot process your plea
at this time.”

Inside a back street car wash
in New Orleans,
a fawn nibbles on a timid lion.



KINGDOM OF FEZ (RUINS)

1.
Half past four/
Walking out the door/
Gonna sell a diamond
And a '57 Ford.
Oh, money….

2.
That’s daddy striding waving smiling goodbye
into the bicentennial parade
tambourine and baton Pinto wagon papier-mâché float
Budweiser blanket spread out on the hill
and in the persistence of memory/
mid-jump/
I unsnap my parachute
waiting for peace to bleed through

3.
Jumped out of bed in my burning pajamas/
Swam a roaring river and jumped a train/
In six months time I might poke around in Eden/
In six months time I might be dead again

4.
POETRY KILLS

PACKAGED IN A FACILITY THAT PROCESSES EGGS, WALNUTS, AND PEANUTS.



Pain

Tome 5


And Zachery Snowfield
the Incredible Breathing Speed Dancer
who earned twenty six dollars every two weeks
mopping the floor in a portrait studio
took a job in a shipyard in Kittery, Maine.
He signed on to a ship and was returning from Havana
when a storm blew him off the mainstay
and into shark infested waters.
A sharp-eyed deck hand threw him a lifeline.
Zach thanked him with a boot to the head.
"There's a mermaid out there," he growled.
"Name is Vonny Hedlund.
She was writing down her phone number
and everything. Best thing that ever happened to me
and you had to mess it up."
He was reunited with her on a second trip
and they got married in Walled Lake, Michigan
during a Hewett Theater dance marathon contest.
They were team no. 6 3/4.
The sailor groom and his mermaid bride
would go on to win thirty-two contests across the country
until they were banned from nationals
on account of Vonny’s fish tail.
Their wedding cake was ten feet tall,
850 pounds and required 2500 spectators to help eat it.
No further events are recorded until thirty-six years later
when Zach was killed in an electrical fire
at the Transcontinental Toe & Heel Tap factory.
A Harrington rod implant correcting his scoliosis
was retrieved from the ruins
and used to identify his remains.
Vonny was left penniless and took a cleaning job
in a tuna fish cannery near Gate 5 on San Francisco Bay.



Shining Steel Tempered in the Fire



Wrote the only literate bobbin boy from #7 room:

“Dear Mr. Henry Quackenbush, Factory Overseer:

I’m leaving this note to inform you

that the loom fixer, the sample weaver,

the mill right and the finish percher

have gone home.



“We have stripped your bobbins,

cleaned off your looms,

swept your floors,

turned off your boilers

and overhead lights,

padlocked your file drawers and cabinets,

boarded your windows and barred your doors.



“We have spread storage cloths over

your mill housing furniture,

torn the final page

from the company calendar.



“We have blotted our names

from the final census

of the United States.

“We’re boarding a fast train

fueled with mummies from antiquity,

and are heading home to

Quebec, County Clare

and the tribe of Reuben.



“Our attorney, Mr. Moyse,

shall plague you by requesting

an independent audit on your heart.”



Thought the old overseer,

pulling at his stiff collar

while reading this note,

“My last sol has passed through my hands!

May the spent purple dyes from the dye house

pour down

into the mighty river of water of life

and poison their last fish.

I’ll spend my days weaving baskets

while imbibing Rod McKuen

in paperback,

Schlitz beer on ice and Perry Como

singin’ Dirty Old Town with a

western swing,

then have my cracked nut fastened

to the house of Dagon.”




A Canadian/American filmmaker and poet, Nathaniel Rounds has appeared in Scrivener, Pottersfield Portfolio, and presented numerous experimental movies in films fests. He's currently involved in preserving the lost video tapes of poet Milton Acorn.

Three Poems by Li Po (李白) in New English Translations

Inscribed At Summit Temple

Night, I stay at Summit Temple
I lift my hand and touch the stars
I dare not raise my voice
For fear of disturbing the occupants of heaven

題峰頂寺

夜宿峰頂寺
舉手捫星辰
不敢高聲語
恐驚天上人


Before Wine

Wine
In gold cups
A beauty from Wu, 15, on a dwarf horse
Her lashes painted indigo, her boots of red brocade
She stumbles on the words, but sings coquettishly
At the banquet, drunk, she presses against me --
"Behind the curtain of nenuphar, I could never resist you"

對酒

葡萄酒
金叵羅
吳姬十五細馬馱
青黛畫眉紅錦靴
道字不正嬌唱歌
玳瑁筵中盃中醉
芙蓉帳裏奈君何


Autumn, Leaving Qingmen

Frost falls on Qingmen, into the river trees empty themselves
Plain cloth sails in autumn wind
Fine sliced perch not journey's end
For my love of famous mountains I go to the land of Shan

秋下荊門

霜落型門江樹空
布帆無恙掛秋風
此行不為鱸魚膾
自愛名山入剡中


Translated by Andrew Haley


Li Po (李白) the Banished Immortal, celebrated Tang Dynasty poet, was born in 701 in present day Kyrgyzstan to Chinese exiles. He achieved great acclaim before his death, despite a life of itinerant wandering. One of the Eight Immortals of Wine, he was a legendary drinker and is said to have drowned drunk in the Yangtze trying to embrace the reflection of the moon. He was returning to his childhood home in Sichuan Province after a thirty-five year absence. He was 61.

Four Poems From David McLean

the bolts (after Hölderlin)


if i could also stand there
like him under god’s grayest thunder-heaven
not only bare-headed but totally naked
as a child born to die again, after
life’s brief morning of pain, and if i
could catch with my bare fingers
the rays and bolts themselves, naked too,
i would indeed wrap them lovingly in song
as he wanted, but not to give the people
as god’s forwarded love,
but humble to lay them under your feet,
for only from your earth
grows my heart’s tree truly green.


Psalm (after Trakl)

god's golden eyes opened so slowly in our skulls
and all the madmen are dead in our lost paradise
where the son's of Pan do not labour
except through the laborious twitching love of panic
that swoops black onto the shoulders
of your suffering, faithful as a dog
and homeless as every resounding sound of glasgow.

and we work together to bury the stranger
with the gaunt giant she chose to lay so close beside her,
and here the old asylum grows ever bleaker
remnants of humanity scarred and scored
by the fishwives of psychiatry
inscribing another's sad stumbling nothing on loving yellow,
the raiment of sudden pain fraying away her hemmed days.

as it were our childhood again
every church gapes ever open
this drugged sunday school that taught a generation
my thousand dead secrets
and love still just dust-balls behind god's fridge
where your truth has found me
still dreaming fragile beauty

and inscribing legends for your blind girl's eyes,
for i am the student who stood behind you on the staircase,
the expressive wrinkles on the night's lonely face
a change of time, a change of place


born a man

(i) was never born a man (i) was born a baby
the man came later with the brackets and the loneliness
and now (i) lives in a gym -
an (i) is always homeless


remembering dismembering


tattered fragments flown as proud as the bravest banners
in self-dismissive missives, our pauper's remittance
where we are all desolate stuffed men, miserly in our misery,
our remembered carapaces leaning together hollow as time,
hollow as the idiot ticking seconds of love's tacky alarm-clock
like a million cockroaches chuckling their way to death's pay day
when the glowing soil shall be rewarded for the roots we grubbed
with our decay's dark love.

another lover's lonely "Aubade" tolls the knell of whining this decaying day
as god's convenient rot subvenes on the only eternal,
that cold diurnal round of complacent complaint
waiting the iterative disdain of another generation of impatient patients
dreaming charity, the distant fingers falling mourning on life's alien shore,
(this girl still, this planet)
and only time travel is in our bloods, the hour's tortoise hosting
shelly courage, each painful pace our path's patent disgrace;

and we prop up our meanings on piles of lies, sifted through the maternal filters
thick as sedge, those viennese wafers of vision he gives us still,
the child's blind eye unseeing everything, the little pitcher's pictures
stamped on our grafted skeins of dying where the cordial seeps
freely through the baby's, always already ageing, withered veins,
and our life is a runaway carriage and some It seems to hold the reins.
It gives, Being gives, and we are never there to witness
and give what we should give, only our testimony, solely truthfully

but still your wisdom grows like dusty wine in some Israel's best vineyard
where words ferment their lament through years instilled suffering
listed in your every word, the ones i whisper at night silent by your side
our lives on pause, unseen, unheard,
and we deem a meaning therein, that foreign soil we suppose
our bodies may, some latter day, having died, laying, lie in,
a time for death in love's black and luscious loam, a time for final truth
for reason's unbelieving eschatology, for only Death says sooth.

and Death shall open his great black book that records the sad and final things,
for Everyman rides forth his thirsty day as life's only known knight at arms
and lives a love alone and palely loitering, for at death's door we loiter all
here in this winsome world where the sedge is still withered on the lake,
still withered drier on love's empty lake, and no birds are heard to sing.


David McLean was born in Wales in 1960. He attended Balliol College in Oxford where he took a BA in history in 1982. After working for a lawyer's firm in Brixton, south London, he moved to Sweden in 1987, having become father to a daughter with a Swedish woman. Leaving her in 1990, he remained in Sweden until the present. He worked for many years in health care with older people, the senile, and cancer patients. After this McLean studied philosophy and history of ideas at Stockholm University, taking an MA in 1999 with practical philosophy (ethics) as major. Phenomenology and existentialism are primary interests in that field. At present he lives with his partner Amanda Boschetto who is half-Italian, though she writes poems in Swedish and sometimes English. They have no children but many kittens. Both suffer from the personality disorder known as borderline, although McLean no longer shows any symptoms.

Four Graphomuñecos From Vadim Bystritski

te encontré en el parque de noche
donde del mármol te erguiste
pisoteé tus flores
y tiré piedras
que a veces
tu rostro eludió
a-a-a patadas
quebré un banco
y con un madero
de nuevo te combatí
mezclando insultos
a la lista de asesinados
sequé a sorbos todo el agua
de tu fuente
me oriné a tus pies
me abondané a otras decadencias
hasta despertar los pájaros
después te acerqué
para cerciorarme
si había vida
entre tus párpados
enrojecidos

…

abracé a mis padres y vecinos
al contar este cuento
del largo viaje
de los niños de Hamelín
como embrujado
seguía el gaitero
a aquellos lejanos lugares
hasta que acalló
su intrumento musical
aún sin poder tornar
para huir
sino
mirar
por
horas
en esta dirección
y cuando aprendí
a andar así
y
cómo podría atravesar
la misma distancia al revés
y así llevé
una mala noticia
que otros niños
no volverán

…

quiero ser un huérfano
o un eneano
con todo mi caudal
apretado en un gran bolso
dondequiera andar
capaz
de vez en cuando
de en él huir

…

yo que sé
por qué la luna
no tiene nada más que hacer
que esparcir su luz
sobre una pierna solitaria
que no sabe más
que dar un paso
y otro



Born in 1966 in Kazakhstan, Vadim grew up in Azerbaijan and was educated in Russia (Saratov State University, Philology of Romance and Germanic Languages). Since 1989 he has resided in Los Angeles, California where he attended Pasadena City College and Cal Poly (Pomona). It was at Cal Poly that Bystritski wrote his manuscript Graphomuñecos. The poems appearing here are some of the few surviving poems from that book. In those days Vadim understood graphomania as an aesthetic notion opposed to that of voice: graphomaniacs write not with another voice, but in another language. It is a new language that is responsible for changes in writing style.

Five Poems From Martins Iyoboyi

The Promise

These are my underlined agenda,
No doubt, I dare outline, about its potency.
Those before me cannot be said to be proud,
Much less the brains which computed, refined
These carefully considered opinions! –
Your opinion, I would say, pertaining the
Low nation-state, even the filth in it.
Now, just for convictions, those men,
Names word-wasting, even rabble-rousers,
Possessing the wand of thorough insight,
Advancement, not absent, even vision!
Now, pause a moment, come down to these things;
Shelter, even mendicants could be choosers!
Ridiculous, you might express, but I
Wholeheartedly, my mind’s bosom portray,
No more dead speeches, from disguised aspirants,
Just your concord and the people bloom!
Mark the word, more houses; I repeat, excuse
Me, beggars, when I finally sit, shall
Even, without fear (which shook in the past)
Come out and justice demands, you know,
Human right I’ll provide, in fuller scale!
Even in dreams, I see the convicts free,
No more shall those shackles bind them in jail.
Wonderful promises, no doubt, bear these
In your mind, I would tell my wise men which,
Provided you mind in satisfying colours; I
Say many (this key sector people look forward to)
Their fears I abolish, for how there
Holds costly learning in our own country!
Much folly this is, even decree this to
Tertiary sense. But, you know, a price
Is all I demand. You know this, your verdict.
Now on June 12, the people play their one role.
O.K, here (this is the dove), our symbol.
Only stuff the in-scripted box with wads.
Our ticket only depends on your performance.
I present here four thousand naira, just
Minute, but manage this, a token of
Things ahead. Greater things shall duly come;
Light, water, free medical care, name it!
No more praise singing which leads to nothing.
Take my word and give me your heart, no more
No doubt, my victory shines even now,
Remember: dead talk yields vain promises!



Beloved

Mother educated us to beware,
Of brimming tawdry enlightenment
Against antique satisfaction
Vortexes of gay brightness,
Across oceanic assets,
To ebullient shores,
Replete with boundless bounties
Took unawares yearning animation
To our demerits.
Those killing intrusions
Moonshine, without peace
Into moot jinx,
You are yet the beloved
Still in green optimism
Vim of dispirits ancestral –
Countenances speaking amalgamation
Bruised by new white fangs.


There Are No Foes

There are no foes but the leaders
who have assailed us with their bitter hate,
there is no poverty but the stolen wealth where the
nation bleeds to enrich foreign lands.
The leaders have tasted many a vice
and like vermin destroy the tissues of the land.


Hopes Harmattan Day

Yesterday, aliments defaced the earth,
Twigs derided, unsung of green
Nostalgia keeps beneath hope of afflatus
And cursory gazes become rancid
Hopes harmattan day
Succulent, demanding,
Inanimate flowers galvanized
By nimble caresses.

And fruits burst in binds
Truth leading the target
As onlookers, the mass, the applause
Cast, leading the encomiums
Pregnant glances raise the banner
Of union and progress.



That Fallen Brick

Let that ‘disaster’ consume
Yet inter deep the thing undressed
Lest ages oppress sharp disintegration
Beside the falling walls.

Where personable countenance asleep
Dreamt of victorious minds to come

I will gulp in careful gulping
Lost erudition, departed,
Now in the slivers of broken banks.

Catching phrases of wizened souls
And the pluck of forgotten falls.
Consume them, posterity
If a hothead portent hound
That put in the bleak-home of oblivion
These fertile means of my father.

Martins Iyoboyi was born in 1972 in Ebelle, in the Esan speaking part of Edo State of Nigeria. Losing his father at a tender age, indigence and want had compelled him to work as a farmer, insurance and tax agent, a teacher and a newspaper correspondent. Through dint of hard work and extreme sacrifices, he was able to educate himself at the Bayero University Kano, where he graduated with honours in Economics.

A prodigious reader and writer, his first book Gods Of The Idols, a play, was written when he was seventeen and since then he has averaged the production of four works a year. He has over forty works (poetry, drama and prose) which have not been published. He has always delighted in just sharing his works with a few of his friends without any concerted effort to have them published. However, it was not until late 2006 that he decided to have some of his poems sent to magazines for consideration. These therefore are his first published works to date.

Five Poems From Andrew Baron

Standing at such remove

Fixed (or moving) Standing

at such remove and from its hover the bird dives deep breaks

surface of the water the depths

of its hunger.

In a magazine in a waiting room I saw a photo

of home. Some kids were driving

through the desert and spotted

something on the scorched horizon. A television.

We saw it. A missile

hit a school (mostly children) and all talk was of how missiles

don’t hit schools the living screamed

out the back of our minds for their dead.

We turned it off, locked

the doors and fucked not to

stand at such remove.

Stand moved.

Dive deep.

Robert Creeley

If it would

have been

a convenience store it would

have been

open

all the time: there off the freeway and kept

by those we forget,

and outlive. Night

would have meant another fluorescent bulb there’s

no point here nothing

To champion or condemn we

could have gone in

anytime.

goodbye Robert Creeley, and thanks.

Letter I

Dear Dru,

God is good.

The ground is so saturated

here the roots come loose,

a tree falls into their bedroom

and the couple on the news swears he’s the only thing

that saved them. Empathy

wakes us from the comfort of our atheism: I’m happy they’re alive.

I’m writing to tell you I’ve

discarded all gods but yours, ours.

All shades not present at the creation

when you shaved a candle onto the open phone book and left

me to read there in the sun, all artifacts

without this pulse are dust. Nothing

but what holds us through this distance, your voice

on the phone in a motel parking lot in the middle of the night

before I hang up and go inside, listen half-awake

to a man

on a velvet stage

scream

for all to know what God is.

Good.

Untitled

I see you

at times

as if through that classical veil, layed

by whatever illness or injury keeps

me poised on the edge

of elegy.

A rodeo clown can stand, transfixed

at the edge of bullshit

or can go on

averting the beast that would gore.

I give you this—

strong love

and in our weakness make

love strong.

Thanksgiving

A stone, a carcass, a chisel, a knife:

We’ve carved so

many turkeys

and left carcasses as witness of our joys.

Thankful it’s not worse, that chiseled

in stone the names of our own, our victims

and a monument too imposing to chisel out

again.

again. again.

It’s happening again

this war in which they’ve used no napalm,

no carpet bombing of a land whose destruction

is the first and last we’ll ever hear

of it’s ever having lived. Again, thankful

for our hatred of these lies.

They say we’ve failed to give solutions.

They say we’re desperate to cohere.

So here:

Let’s chisel out a meal together from the breast of a dead bird

and carve our thanks in stone.

Andrew Baron studied at University of Salamanca and the University of Utah, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Romance Languages. His translations of poetry from French, Italian and Spanish appeared in the collection All Echoes and Shadows: A Selection of Poetry in Translation. He currently works as a Latino community organizer in Portland, Oregon.

Andrew Baron estudió en la Universidad de Salamanca y en la Universidad de Utah, de donde recibió un Bachelor of Arts en Lenguas Románticas. Sus traducciones ingleses de poesía en francés, italiano y castellano aparecen en All Echoes and Shadows: A Selection of Poetry in Translation. Baron trabaja como organizador en la comunidad hispana en Portland, Oregon.

Poetry by Danila Davydov in New English and Spanish Translations

A Short Epistle for Ulrike Meinhof

I don’t know why I am writing you

I don’t know much about you

I read your book and some other stuff here and there

I don’t know

It seems to me that your problem is analogous to mine

It seems to me that you weren’t really a “terrorist”

This word became a favorite of many

Long after your death

I live in Moscow and don’t know German

Drink and when I do

It becomes impossible to think over the details

So here I am drinking

Not wearing any pants

Just sitting, drinking, staring at the television

I’d rather you not see what they are showing

Nothing decent is ever on

And it isn’t because the world has become worse

Or because the television is a piece of shit

But simply

Because death takes its toll everywhere

I am a quiet person by nature

I don’t like cruelty

But when they torture children, old men, dogs, cats

I also want to kill

I am a quiet guy from the intelligentsia

I strain to imagine how it is possible to hurt another

But I know I could get into a brawl or kill someone

And this seems wrong

Ulrike! Tell me that it’s all in the past

Tell me: everything’s fine, that I shouldn’t over dramatize

But you don’t speak a word a word a word

Because you are not here

Translated by Peter Golub

Una Breve Epístola Para Ulrike Meinhof

No sé porque te escribo

No sé mucho de ti

Leí tu libro y otras cosas por aquí por allá

No sé

A mi me parece que tu problema es análogo al mió

A mi me parece que realmente no eres terrorista

Esta palabra se hizo favorita de muchos

Mucho después de tu muerte

Vivo en Moscú y no sé hablar alemán

Tomo y cuando lo hago

Se me hace imposible pensar en los detalles

Pues aquí estoy tomando

Sin llevar pantalones

Solo sentado, tomando, mirando la televisión

Preferiría que no vieras lo que se muestra

Jamás se ve nada decente por televisión

Y no es porque el mundo se hizo peor

Ni porque la televisión es una mierda

Sino simplemente

Porque la muerte se cobra por todos lados

Soy una persona callada por naturaleza

No me gusta la crueldad

Pero cuando torturan a niños, viejos, perros, gatos

Yo también quiero matar

Soy un hombre tranquilo de la inteligentzia

Me cuesta imaginar como es posible lastimar a otro

Pero yo sé que podría pelear o matar a alguien

Y eso me parece mal

Ulrike! Díme que todo está en el pasado

Díme: todo bien, que no debo exagerar

Pero no hablas ni una palabra ni una palabra ni una palabra

Porque no estás

Traducido por Andrew Haley

Danila Davydov (b. 1977) received his candidate of science degree in philology from Institute of Literature, Moscow. He is the author of dozens of articles on Russian poetry and literature. He was the editor of Brother's Cradle: The Debut Anthology of Poetry and a contributing editor to Nine Measurements: An Anthology of New Russian Poetry.

The transcript of Peter Golub’s interview with Davydov is available at Foundation Pit.

New English and Spanish Translations of Russian Prose Poetry by Julia Idlis

Untitled

And there were no living, nor dead along the banks of the river, only the ancient fishermen growing stone-faced; each with his magic wand in an outstretched hand, watching the sun melt in the distance.

And each one silent and crude; below a mass of feathered fish, and each one wept, the hand closed tight, and said:

Old man, who looks upon us from the heavens, you handed us willow branches, ox sinews, he who disdains us, what will you do, when we stop living? Therefore, we hold two-ended sticks, and on each end – death; they crack and bend, the yokes, are almost scale; by them we measure, whose death is heavier and closer to the earth – theirs or ours, - and because the son dies daily, he drowns on the cross in words of forgiveness in an astral emptiness.

He says: father, father, I was swimming well enough, but you took me into your hands, away from the river’s breast, and now I do not know who I am, take pity on me, have mercy, I am still two-thirds holy water.

The father replies: don’t thrash in my arms, I love you, won’t let anyone have you; you will have water salted with fine down, hot unction, a sand frying-pan. Those who hear me will be full of your spirit, with worn-out shoes, washed-out names; but you won’t remember a single one of them, because we all wear the same face, not one of us is without sin, and I with them. Since there is nothing to feed my children, except your flesh.

And there were no living, nor dead in the river, and the feathered fish beat at the end of the golden hook; the rods whined, bending, almost touching the water; the river stood naked, recognizing its plight. And only one, who saw, the vermillion sun melt away, and there, he dug himself into the soft or wet sand, heard a fin idlely beat the air, he lay down quietly, and thought about the cesarean river, watched, hiding in the empty rush, how the spring gave birth to water.

Translated by Peter Golub

Sin Titulo

Y no había ni vivos ni muertos por la ribera del río, sólo los ancianos pescadores convertiendose en caras petreas; cada uno con su varita mágica en una mano extendida, mirando el sol fundirse en la distancia.

Y cada uno silencioso y brutal; bajo una masa de peces emplumados, y cada uno lloró, la mano en un puño apretado y dijeron:

Viejo, que nos observa desde el cielo, qu nos pasaste las ramas del sauce, los tendones del buey, él que nos desdeña; ¿qué harás cuando ya no estemos vivos? Entonces, sujetamos los palos de bífidos – y en cada extremo: la muerte. Ellos crujen y se tuercen, los yugos estan casi a escala; por ellos medimos quién tiene la muerte más pesada y mas cercana a la tierra – ellos o nosotros – y porque el hijo muere cada día, se ahoga sobre la cruz en palabras de perdón en un vacío astral.

Dice: padre, padre, estaba nadando bastante bien, pero me tomaste en tus manos – lejos de los pechos del agua, y ahora no sé quien soy, compadecéme, ten piedad de mi, aun soy dos tercios de agua bendita.

El padre resonde: no te retobes en mis brazos. Yo te amo, no dejaré que nadie te posea; vas a tener agua salpicado con finas plumas, caliente unción, una sartén de arena. Aquellos que me escuchan se llenarán de tu espiritu (con zapatos gastados y nombres desteñidos), pero no recordarás ni a uno solo de ellos, porque todos vestimos la misma cara – ninguno de nosotros es sin pecado, y yo estoy entre estos. Como ya no queda nada con qué alimentar a mis hijos – exepto tu carne.

Y no había ni vivos ni muertos en el río, y el pez emplumado pelea en el extremo del anzuelo dorado: las cañas silbaron, doblandose, casi tocando la agua; el río se quedó desnudo, reconociendo su vulnerabilidad.

Y hubo sólo uno, que vió el sol bermellón fundirse, y allí, se enterró en la arena blanda y mojada; escuchó el sonido de una aleta mientras batía el aire, se recostó tranquilamente; pensó en el río cesáreo, y, ocultandose entre los juncos vacíos, miró como la primavera parió el agua.

Traducido por Roger McDonough y Mariana Calandra

Julia Idlis was born in 1981 in Kaliningrad, Russia (former Koenigsberg). When she was young her family moved to Moscow, where she now lives. She received a B.A. in philology from Moscow State University. She has stayed at MSU to work on her Ph.D. Her candidate thesis deals with screenplay adaptations of literary works by Harold Pinter. She is also a journalist working for polit.ru, with a range of publications on topics such as literature, film, and fashion. She has published two collections of poems: Fairy tales for... (St. Petersburg: A.B.K., 2003) and Air, Water (Moscow: ARGO-RISK 2005); her third collection is due out at the end of 2006.

Tres Poemas de Viktor Ivaniv

La Guardia de los Hermanos

Él caminó, una llama delante de él,
Pareció haberse aparecido detrás de un hombro, despues del otro
No había mucha gente, no había sol, antes de la demolición
De la casa, ellos se quedaron todo el día delante de Pokrov
Enviaron círculos
Y salieron de la tierra
Frente a los que se quedaban ni un techo

La última vez que ellos cruzaban por senderos hechos de humo
De casa en casa para sentarse en las ventanas de los altillos
Hasta la rodilla en mierda, alrededor de las esquinas inaccesible de tierra,
Sentir con el propio culo el enfriamiento de los techos
Y ver las lámparas incandescentes en los cuartos pálidos
Escupiendo desde arriba en sus propios vecinos.

La última vez estirándose metódicamente enfrente de la ventana
Mirando el desfile abajo—mirando el patio, la flota—
Quizás alguien este mordiendo, embestiendo a la cutícula rota la campana
Donde como un espantapájaros el barco fue atrapado
Contando--Cuántos pasos, Contando las medidas con su cabeza
Mientras que el cambio fluye de la bolsa, cae

Lápiz de labio, espejo, gomita, forrós, medalla
Y todo meticulosamente catalogado; cuando el inodoro sea abierto,
Soltando el grito distante del tranvía
De repente el efecto de algún moho mortífero
Y un hombre atónito yace en su cama
Cuando el reloj es cambiado a la hora de Moscú—
Parecen como unos pescados secos—
Él querría partir a la vida de ultratumba.

Tu amigo se sienta sobre un montón de cosas
Como si una estrella amarilla fuera cosida a su pecho
¿Ha llegado alguien? O algúna noticia
Como si esperara la orden: ¡dispérsense!
Como zapatos en pies distintos entre
La plaza desierta, la luces encendidas
Sobre sus cabezas y ahora entendemos todo lenguaje
Sea tan amable de encender un fósforo, dénos alguna luz
Primero "huellas," "una mancha no lavada," "tu empleo?"—
Pero en la casa una brisa empieza,
Los relojes miran, sus gargueros no se pueden ver
Un par de idiotas con caras redondas

De abajo del vidrio la fatiga crece
Estando de pie sobre el estomago
Hay dos preocupaciones: se necesita un jabot, el corte no pega
Y el techo podría caer como una ola;
Ellos miran…

Pronto envejeceremos, y caminamos sin nuestras cosas
¿Cómo dividir la herencia entre los gemelos?
¿Dónde busca la gente con tiroides enfermas?
¿Dónde deben poner su mirada?
Arriba de las barreras y los escudos enchapados
A lo largo de las calles empapeladas y las fronteras de la vereda
Es imposible de no estar pasmada la última vez—
Debajo de la mirada constante, como un crucifijo alrededor del cuello
En público, o en nuestros cuartos privados
Un asesinato, cometido en el Último Día

Traducido por Andrew Haley


Quimera

El canto dulce puede oirse en el bosque iluminado
La voz de Lemeshev rodó desde algún lugar lejano
Una ráfaga de viento llevó y transformó las palabras, el canario
se hizó eco de sí mismo, como si fuera de abajo de una tumba
El repiqueteo rítmico de una bola rebotando
Mezclada con un canto como si…
Como si fuera de una garganta singular
Estos fueron los hijos de las aves corriendo hacia adelante sin mirar
Regresando al posted, retirando sus regimientos
Cada uno de ellos, no solamente Volodya Pinigin
Desconociendo que él estaba puesto encima del terreno uliginoso
Una serpiente de repente se deslizó a travez de la tropa de niños abatidos
Podría haber aparecido como esto
Si alguien los hubiera mirado por el ojo de una cerradura
El repiqueteo de la bola hubiese parado inmediatamente, un cuco
La llamada durante los días de cuentos fatigosos
Aquellos sólo van a entenderme, cuando hayan
Visto y escuchado el llanto del canario ansioso en fuga
Con ojos desviados hacia el suelo los hijos agrupados apretadamente
Abajo, aflijido por horribles hipos Volodya
Anduvo gateando de la tierra
La mañana siguiente yo me atreví a la colección de miradas crudas
Cuando Volodya y Vladyka1, los dos nombres que se me ocurrió
Yo participaba en el desfile y miraba a los pioneros
Mientras ellos llevaban narcisos para su líder en un cuadro funeral

Traducido por Meghan Bolden


Casa. Desde Debajo de la Mesa.

Como un arbol dulce
Pasando sobre un trineo
Todo parece estar en puntillas
Y viandas para cerditos
O huele a alcanfor
O rasgan las almohadas abiertas
Las ventanas al reves
Sol cayendo en estomago

Me siento mal abrieron el vinagre
Las voces mudas en el ruido
Que es mas embarazoso que una picadura
Donde salta la pulga una puntada se muda
Estan jalando
Este trineo y pinta algo
Que Dios bendiga el sueño mientras pela la piel
Una balena por un tabernáculo de mierda

El cura gordo está en su kiosko
Huele a miel pescado cera
Y la nariz de botón de la chica gira
Gira en su cara pecosa
Hay una pipa inglesa abajo de la mesa
Y los angeles vaguean por los cielos
Charlando, pero no son maleducados
Esperando la muerte obedientamente

Papa y yo nos levantamos nuestras cabezas
Esta es nuestra escuela
Corremos a casa bajando la escalera...
Y de la sangre
Nuestros ojos grandes abiertos, soy grande
Pero somos tímidos
Despues de que toda nuestra sangre gotea sobre las tablas
Acá estamos con un labio roto
Sacar un cigarillo
Aun podemos sonreir
Ojos bien cerrados como el oro

Traducido por Andrew Haley y Mariana Calandra


Viktor Ivaniv (b. 1977) is a poet, essayist, and prose writer. He received his Candidate of Science degree in Humanities from Novosibirsk State University. He is the author of Gorod Vinograd (ARGO-RISK: Tver, 2003). His work has been included in: Nine Measurements (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2004) and Brother's Cradle (Moscow: Mezhdunarony Fond "Pokolenie", 2004). His short fiction was nominated for the Debut Prize in 2002. He now lives in Novosibirsk where he helps edit the online journal Dragoman Petrov .

Peter Golub Reading in Buenos Aires 14.12

Pablo Neruda's Los Enemigos in a New English Translation by Roger McDonough

The Enemies

Here, they brought their guns filled

With powder and ordered callous extermination,

Here, they found a people singing, a people reunited

By necessity and love,

And the skinny girl fell with her flag,

And the once-smiling boy rolled wounded to his side

And the dazed town watched the dead fall

In fury and pain.

Then, there

Where the dead fell, murdered,

They lowered their flags and soaked them in blood

To raise them again in the face of their murderers.

For these our dead, I ask for punishment.

For those who spilled blood in our country,

I ask for punishment.

For the executioner who sent us murder,

I ask for punishment.

For those who prospered from our slaughter,

I ask for punishment.

For he who gave the order that caused our agony,

I ask for punishment.

For those that defended this crime,

I ask for punishment.

I don't want them to offer us

Their hands - soaked in our own

Blood: I want them punished.

I don't want them as ambassadors,

Or living comfortably in their homes:

I want to see them tried

here in this plaza, here in this place.

I demand punishment.

Los Enemigos

Ellos aquí trajeron los fusiles repletos

De pólvora, ellos mandaron el acerbo exterminio,

Ellos aquí encontraron un pueblo que cantaba,

Un pueblo por deber y por amor reunido,

Y la delgada niña cayó con su bandera,

Y el joven sonriente rodó a su lado herido,

Y el estupor del pueblo vio caer a los muertos

Con furia y con dolor.

Entonces, en el sitio

Donde cayeron asesinados,

Bajaron las banderas a empaparse de sangre

Para alzarse de nuevo frente a los asesinos.

Por estos muertos, nuestros muertos,

Pido castigo.

Para los que de sangre salpicaron la patria,

Pido castigo.

Para el verdugo que mandó esta muerte,

Pido castigo,

Para el traidor que ascendió sobre el crimen,

Pido castigo.

Para él que dio la orden de agonía,

Pido castigo.

Para los que defendieron este crimen,

Pido castigo.

No quiero que me den la mano

Empapada con nuestra sangre.

Pido castigo.

No los quiero de embajadores,

Tampoco en su casa tranquilos,

Los quiero ver juzgados,

En esta plaza, en este sitio.

Quiero castigo.

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s poem “The Enemies” appears in his 1950 Canto General – which Neruda intended as a poetic encyclopedia of Latin American history. Neruda died 12 days after the September 11, 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. A communist all his life, Neruda served as Chile’s ambassador to France during the short-lived presidency of Salvador Allende.

Roger McDonough is a freelance journalist and graduate student in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was present at the October 6 reading of the above poem at a mass demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo to demand the safe return of Jorge Julio López, a key witness in the first trial against perpetrators of state violence during Argentina's so-called Dirty War. López's testimony helped secure a life-sentence for former Buenos Aires Police Commissioner Miguel Etchecolatz, who was ultimately convicted of "genocide." López was kidnapped and tortured under the Argentine military dictatorship. One day before the sentencing of Etchecolatz, 77-year-old López disappeared once again. He remains missing.

El poema “Los Enemigos,” del poeta Chileno Pablo Neruda, aparece en su Canto General, de 1950. El libro intenta ser una crónica o enciclopedia de toda Hispanoamérica. Neruda murió 12 días después del golpe militar encabezado por el General Augusto Pinochet del 11 de Septiembre, 1973. Neruda, que fue un militante comunista durante toda su vida, sirvió como embajador de Chile en Francia durante la breve periodo presidencial de Salvador Allende.

Roger McDonough es periodista independiente y estudiante de postgrado. Actualmente, vive en Buenos Aires, Argentina. Presenció en el acto del 6 de Octubre, en la Plaza de Mayo – donde se leyó este poema como cierre de la manifestación por la aparición con vida de Jorge Julio López. Lopéz fue testigo clave en el juicio al represor Miguel Etchecolatz, ex-director de Investigaciones de la Policía de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. El testimonio de López, un albañil de 77 años, fue fundamental para condenar a reclusión perpetua a Etchecolatz el 19 de septiembre de 2006. López fue secuestrado y torturado durante la última dictadura militar. Un día antes de la condena de Etchecolatz, López desapareció nuevamente. Actualmente sigue desaparecido.

New Poetry from Annunziata Zoiti-Licastro

The Da Vinci Cod

This is a true story. Only the facts have been changed.
Baccala, pesce storko, what confusion
both stinky fish English call haddock or cod.
The da Vinci code on the Catholic God
neglects Leonardo was celibate, painting urges out al fresco.
Is it Mary Magdalene by St Peter or to the sex binary a [sexual] protest?

If Magdalene was Jesus' wife then why sit close to the Rock
who was married elsewhere, so keeping 1st century distance?
The facts in that fiction are codswallop the facts in this poem
are all fiction but the fiction is fact to the millions of tourists now
searching for the Knights Templar treasure in Europe.
Don't be scared of Leviticus in Rome the emperors
were doing as they liked: baccanalia, baccala, baccanico.

Magdalene was called a prostitute so how many?
Were the disciples included? Were men indicted for breaking
moral codes, did they hide behind 5 loaves and 2 cod?
Where's her progeny or did she have a collapsed uterus
Too many abortions, eating parsley till she vomited?
Did Jesus' mother Mary outcast Magdalene
What of Mary's cousin Elizabeth or mother Sarah?
Did Mary's father Joachim let her hang around a…?

IVF can make virgins mothers what's not to believe
they were making yoghurt and cheese before us
when was the last time we built a a Stonehenge or pyramid
who knows what was lost in the dark ages.

Annunziata Zoiti-Licastro is an Italian-Australian interested in documenting the dialect from her Calabrian heritage through prose, poetry and film. She has a BA in Professional Writing and Literature and a Graduate Diploma in Media Studies (Film) from Deakin University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Arts (Creative Writing) from the University of Melbourne.

Un Nuevo Poema de Andrew Haley

Súplica

Estoy laso de estaciones

Los enmendados

El amputado

Bajando del metro zoo de apariciones

Hacia la Visión asido por ti

Jehová de procesos

Jehová del pozo de sangre sin fondo

Jehová que cancela Jehová

Jehová de dados abortado Jehová

Jehová cuyas cuerdas no tiemblan

Ni para Princeton ni para Jehová

Jehová que borra el principio antrópico

Del pizarrón con un maremoto

& lleva los trastos y el pizarrón

En la garganta de Jehová

Jehová la gorgona

Jehová que traga

Jehová nueve vidas

Jehová clavado a la calavera de monja

Jehová ignorante de Jehová

Jehová que gira el mismo colmillo ciego

Hacia Papa o Legión

Jehová cuyo rostro es la conjetura de un cirujano

Jehová quemado irreconocible

Jehová doblando con vergüenza

Esconder cara quemada horrenda en el teléfono

Jehová un horror con ojos que se asoman

Jehová nunca ser resucitado

Jehová con ojos como instrumentos apuntados

Jehová calavera lisa menos cola de caballo

Jehová nene de cualquiera crecida hasta el fuego

En el cristal aleatorio de la tridimensional por Tiempo

Jehová reconocible en el torcimiento

De boca y ojoshuecos hacia la vergüenza atroz

Tu cicatriz de mi vida

Herida exaltable

Gotera de amor de mi corazón

Máxima brecha de piedad

Para corazón para humano

Desagüe del albedrío de estar pesado

Dejar el universo dar fin

Dejar las heridas dar fin

Dejar el punto final la bala desdén

Estoy alargando incapaz yo ––

Jehová que hizo un mundo de dolor y tierno

Estoy laso de encontrar en todas las vueltas

Las bajas de vivir

No puede haber en el mundo

Un espacio tranquilo

Donde lo tierno puede demorarse mientras

Las rabias continúan

Un lugar en el corazón de la aglomeración

O afuera en el cimarrón

Un lugar como la ternura

O un lugar así común



Andrew Haley es escritor nacido en el oeste de los Estados Unidos. Actualmente, vive en Buenos Aires, donde está escribiendo su quarta novela. Es autor de Octopus, Liar y Transference. Sus poemas aparecieron en Quarterly West, Good Foot, Wavelength y Western Humanities Review.


Andrew Haley is a writer born in the western United States. He lives currently in Buenos Aires, where he is writing his fourth novel. He is the author of Octopus, Liar and Transference. His poems appeared in Quarterly West, Good Foot, Wavelength and Western Humanities Review.