Archive
Flicker and Flux: Versions of Heraclitus
by Magda Kapa and Teju Cole
The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus sounds strikingly modern. He wrote in fragments, of which only fragments survive, and this is part of the secret of his seemingly miraculous talent for compression. Not a word is wasted. Each aphorism strikes the ear like a mathematical formula: direct but gnomic, amoral and shorn of sentiment. One of the fragments might be read as an apologia for this mode of working: ὁ ἄναξ, οὗ τὸ μαντεῖόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν Δελφοῖς, οὔτε λέγει οὔτε κρύπτει ἀλλὰ σημαίνει. (“The lord whose oracle is at Delphi is neither clear nor cryptic. He signals.”)
We were interested in doing “versions” or “readings” of Heraclitus rather than “translations” because we wished to test the fragments against modern expression. We tried to find a voicing balanced somewhere between poetry, vernacular speech, and laconic statement, always with an eye to brevity. We began with the ancient Greek text, and were guided by German, English, and modern Greek translations. What we aimed for was not a word-for-word rendering of each fragment, but a statement that retained the pith of the original while plundering it for new signals. Our version of fragment 49a, probably the best known of the Heraclitean fragments, illustrates our approach.
(The Greek fragments are taken from, and numbered as in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [9 ed. Berlin 1960], edited and translated by Hermann Diels and Walter Kranz.)
1
ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων. (119)
Human being, human daimon.
2
ξυνόν ἐστι πᾶσι τὸ φρονέειν. (113)
Mind is all, and in all.
3
ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν. (101)
I have searched myself.
4
ὅσων ὄψις ἀκοὴ μάθησις, ταῦτα ἐγὼ προτιμέω. (55)
The things I can see or hear or study are the things I prefer.
5
ὀφθαλμοὶ γὰρ τῶν ὤτων ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτυρες. (101a)
Eyes see better than ears.
6
χρυσὸν γὰρ οἱ διζήμενοι γῆν πολλὴν ὀρύσσουσι καὶ εὑρίσκουσιν ὀλίγον. (22)
Goldminers mine earth mostly.
7
. . . μεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται. (84a)
Things are at ease in flicker and flux.
8
τοὺς καθεύδοντας ἐργάτας εἶναι καὶ συνεργοὺς τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ γινομένων. (75)
Even sleepers are at work on the work of the cosmos.
9
ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν. (49a)
We cannot enter a river at all. We are and are not.
*
Magda Kapa was born in Greece and now lives in translation in Northern Germany. She has worked as a freelance screenwriter and teaches Modern Greek and English. She writes poetry and short stories.
Teju Cole (website) is a Nigerian-American novelist, photographer, and historian of art. He is the author of Open City, just out today from Random House.
Two modern Greek poets
translated by Dean Kostos
ΘΑΛΑΣΣΙΝΟ ΚΡΑΣΙΝίκος Αντωνάκος I Στούς κύκλους Νά πιείς II Τροχίζει ό ήλιος ούρανό Κι έσύ στήν πέτρα III Κάτω άπ’ τό ψάθινο γέλιο IV Δούρειος V ’Αμυλο τών σταχυών της VI Στίς δήλες τών ματιών |
Sea Wineby Nikos Antonakos I In the circles To drink II The sun sharpens the sky And you in the stone III Under her straw smile IV Trojan V In silent shafts of wheat VI In the sheen of her eyes |
* * *
ΣΤΟ ΦΕΓΓΑΡΙΚώστας Ταχτσής Φεγγάρι μου |
To The Moonby Kostas Tachtses My moon |
Translator’s note: This poem begins with the Demotic word for moon and concludes with the word in Katharevousa, which I have italicized. There is no equivalent in English.
* * *
ΑΓΑΠΗΚώστας Ταχτσής Θά έξορύξω καί θά πιώ τά μάτια |
Loveby Kostas Tachtses I will pluck out and drink your eyes |
Nikos Antonakos was a filmmaker, poet, and journalist and a devoted member of the Greek Communist Party. He died of a heart attack two years ago while he was giving a speech about another Greek poet, the great Yannis Ritsos.
Kostas Tachtses’s only novel, To trito stefani (The Third Wedding, 1962) was a bestseller, and is still widely read. He was openly homosexual and a transvestite, and fought for gay rights and the rights of prostitutes. He was murdered in 1988.
Dean Kostos’s books include: Last Supper of the Senses, The Sentence That Ends with a Comma, and Celestial Rust. He was the editor of Pomegranate Seeds: An Anthology of Greek-American Poetry and the coeditor of Mama’s Boy: Gay Men Write about Their Mothers. His poems have appeared in Western Humanities Review, Boulevard, Southwest Review, Chelsea, Stand Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. He has taught at The City University of New York, The Gallatin School of New York University, Wesleyan, Columbia University’s School of Journalism, and elsewhere.
Two poems from the Turkish by Ahmet Uysal
translated by Nesrin Eruysal and Ken Fifer
Mercanyine görmeye geldim işte: homeros’un zeytin ağacı ki; çizikler atıp durdu utanmaz, gökyüzü eğildi üzerime |
CoralI came back again to see Homer’s olive tree, Shameless wild blackberries, The sky, bent over me, |
* * *
Lirik Ezgileraşkın şiirini de yazmamı * * * * * |
SongsWet-winged seagulls From a stopover between kisses, With buzzing wings It’s strange, as I grow old There’s no time to be a pessimist. From the Hittite land with one thousand gods |
Download the podcast
(Thanks to Hayri Çelebi at Ankara University for recording the part in Turkish.)
Ahmet Uysal (b. 1938 in Balikesir, Turkey) worked as a teacher and administrator at elementary, high school and vocational education schools in Balikesir, Yozgat, Çanakkale and Bursa, and later as a Ministry of National Education’s Primary School inspector. Since publishing his first poem in 1954, his poems, short stories and critical essays have appeared widely, winning numerous awards. The founder and editor of the literary magazine Stories for Children, he has written more than 120 books for children, winning both the Unesco Special Award and Sedat Simavi Foundation’s Children’s Year Special Award for Once and Twice Upon A Time (1979). His poetry books include With Waters (Yeni Biçem Yay, 1994); Long Gone Summers (Düslem Yay, 1998), recipient of the Ceyhun Atuf Kansu Poetry Award; The Silence of Suffering (Bilgi Yay, 1999), recipient of the Yunus Nadi Poetry Award; Fugitive Poetry (Imbat Yay, 2006); and Paper Marbling of September (Mühür Kitapligi, 2009), recipient of the Ergin Günçe Poetry Award. He currently lives in Edremit/Altinoluk.
Nesrin Eruysal is a literary scholar and translator of two books, Corporate Religion (Mediacat, 2002) and A Company of Citizens (Mediacat, 2005). She has published a number of articles that explore the relationship between literature and Jungian thought and is the author of “I Wish That Jewish Doctor Had Come Earlier” (Gozlem Publication Company, 2002).
Ken Fifer lives in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, and is a Professor of English at Penn State University, Berks campus. His own poems and his translations of contemporary Turkish poetry have appeared in many journals, including Barrow Street, New Letters, Ploughshares, and The Wolf (UK). He has published four collections of poetry, the most recent being After Fire.
Intellectuals in Bubbatown
I was in no mood to go to a party.
I was teaching Junior High English in a violent, all-minority school. Earlier that day, a 16-year-old student (he had been held back twice) had taken a swing at me. I’d blocked his punch and wasn’t hurt, but it unsettled me. In addition, I had just read The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno, a complex work that I loved but still don’t fully understand. De Unamuno’s humiliation and death during the Spanish Civil War had plummeted me into a full-scale depression. I suppose I thought that, if de Unamuno — the premier Spanish intellectual of his time, and the rector of the University of Salamanca — could be hounded to his death, what hope was there for anyone who loved books?
But the night was young and so were we. It was Houston, in the early 1980s, before the oil boom went bust. It was a time when dumb guys made huge amounts of money.You didn’t even have to be in the oil business. If you knew how put up dry wall, and could hire cheap Mexican labor to work for you, you could make a fortune.
Intellectuals, as usual, were poorly paid.
I was at a party with my then-girlfriend, Andrea, a graduate student at the University of Houston. We both wanted desperately wanted to be writers. I was drinking. Andrea was stoned.
Andrea knew our host from somewhere, and he welcomed us into his gated mansion. An amiable good ol’ boy who had made his fortune in plumbing, he handed me over to his trophy wife and disappeared with Andrea. His wife introduced me to a knot of her husband’s peers and disappeared.
The men were all alike: slack-jawed yet successful. They wore their good jeans, held up by hand-tooled leather belts with gaudy belt-buckles. They stood in ostrich or alligator-skin cowboy boots. They all sported gold Rolex watches, except for one fashion outlaw who apologized for wearing a platinum one. A few of them wore string ties with turquoise clasps. I was the only one wearing an ascot.
Their conversation was entirely about cars and pickup trucks. Talking about cars bores me like an auger.
Besides, I could easily imagine them as the right-wing Falangists who chased de Unamuno from the podium, shouting their slogan of “Long Live Death!”
I excused myself and went in search of Andrea.
And found her in the house, having sex with our host. They were easy to find. The bedroom door was open, and our host kept yelling “yee-haw!”
While Andrea and I did not have an exclusive relationship, I did ascribe to the notion that “you dance with the one what brung you.” But I was too depressed to fight. I found the patio bar and began some serious drinking. Sometimes having a nymphomaniac, bisexual girlfriend wasn’t as fun as it sounds.
I was still at the bar, a half-hour later, when our host found me. He grinned and slapped me on the back.
“Your gal is doin’ my wife back in house.”
“Nothing Andrea does surprises me any more.”
“Wisht I could join ‘em, but they said no. Well, I got the video camera goin’ — I’ll get to watch that later. Your gal done this before?”
I wasn’t going tell him that Andrea’s parties usually ended up with a half-dozen people in her bedroom. Instead, I said, “You know, this party is insufferably Anglo. There’s not a single person of color here.”
“Hell, you want to talk to some Mexicans, they’re working back in the kitchen. But I figger folks mostly like to stick to their own kind. Would you want to be the only white boy at a Mexican party?”
“I’ve been the only white boy at a party of Uruguayans. I liked it. It gave me the chance to practice my Spanish.” I didn’t tell him it was back East, not in Texas.
“Well, I’ll be. What’d they talk about?”
“Lot of things. Politics, mostly. Did you know that one-fifth of the adult population of Uruguay is in prison or in exile at the moment?”
“God bless America! Any of them Uruguay-icans do plumbing work? I’m always hirin’.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, I got t’ check on the party. Nice talkin’ with ya.” And he sauntered back to his posse.
I begged some coffee from the kitchen — the staff was Mexican — and sat alone in the darkened dining room. I asked myself why I was still with Andrea. We weren’t having much sex any more — at least, not with each other. I didn’t even really like her.
Gradually, I realized it was our desire to be writers that was our only commonality. She was in a writing seminar with the famous short-story writer Donald Barthelme at the University of Houston. I was too busy teaching and drinking to do much writing at all. But as long as I was with her, and she was studying under a writer who was routinely published in The New Yorker, I felt as if my own writing career was still progressing.
Then and there, I decided to break up with Andrea and stop drinking. (The former was easy. I’m still working on the latter, thirty years later.)
Just then Andrea reappeared. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “Have a nice time?”
“Yes,” I lied.
Oh, and I lied about the Uruguayan men at that party, too. They didn’t talk about politics, not unless I asked them.
Mostly they talked about cars.
Wayne A. “Tony” Conaway is a writer with only himself to blame. He deeply regrets not pursuing a career sterilizing bowling shoes. His reading for the podcast was recorded in front of a live audience on December 15th, 2010, at Michael’s Restaurant, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
Spotted Towhee: translating the guide
by Deb Scott
Click on image to see a larger version.
The artwork is a digital (iPad) sketch based on one of my photographs, taken on an urban walk. The birdcall “Che che zheeeee” is from the Sibley Field Guide To Birds Of Western North America.
Deb Scott lives in Portland, Oregon. She blogs at Stoney Moss and was one of the folks behind Read Write Poem. These days she and friends are ring-leaders at Big Tent Poetry, an online poetry prompt site. Deb’s poetry, prose and photography are published or forthcoming in a number of journals, including Ouroboros Review and tiny words. (A complete list is here.)
Mistranslating Li Bai’s “Voice of the Autumn Wind”
by Avra Wing
I got the mise en scene:
Bright moon and pure autumn breeze
making the dry leaves spin. Even
brought in the crow, on a cold branch,
startled by such dancing. Into the hard, clear night
I placed the lovers, hands clasped,
fearlessly entering the cell of memories
where other hearts would falter.
Yet I misunderstood,
about the poem and the heart—
on the wrong path between words,
I failed to see, even in all that moonlight,
that there was only one, stranded
at the onset of winter, bitter as night;
was deaf to the wind’s sharp truth:
It would have been better had we never met.
Avra Wing is the author of the novel Angie, I Says, which was made into the movie Angie starring Geena Davis and James Gandolfini. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, and her memoir chosen for OnlineOriginals.com. Most recently, her poems appeared in Apple Valley Review (nominated for Best of the Net), New Madrid, Silk Road and Tattoo Highway, among others. She is a workshop leader for the New York Writers Coalition, and an adjunct professor of English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, where she lives.
Two poems from the Spanish by Enrique Moya
translated by Nathan D. Horowitz
Ante la tumba de Søren Kierkegaard
1.
Devoto era del azul,
mas al conocer el gris de Copenhague
me consagré al sacerdocio de sus tonos.
Ahora escucho atento las voces
procedentes de la niebla.
Transcribo sus ecos con tinta de agua y memoria.
2.
La tumba de Søren Kierkegaard, vacía de crisantemos
La sombra de un árbol reposa sobre su lápida
Trozos de luz alternan con trozos de sombra
El cielo del camposanto aún está en la nevera.
Los gorriones daneses alternan sus melodías,
saben cuándo es tiempo de requiem
y cuándo, de fanfarria.
En sus Estudios estéticos, el filósofo aconseja:
“El que […] se haya perfeccionado
en el arte de olvidar y en el arte de recordar
podrá jugar a la pelota con la existencia entera”.
Nada tan efímero
como la muerte ante un retoño
bajo el cielo de abril.
3.
Sentado y sin palabras
ante un epitafio.
El mejor poema a la primavera
es permanecer en silencio un instante.
At Kierkegaard’s tomb
1.
I was devoted to blue.
But when I met the grey of Copenhagen,
I consecrated myself to the priesthood of its tones.
Now I listen carefully to voices emerging from the fog.
I transcribe their echoes with ink of water mixed with memory.
2.
The tomb of Søren Kierkegaard is empty of chrysanthemums.
The shadow of a tree reposes on its stone.
Pieces of light alternate with pieces of shadow.
The sky above the churchyard is still in an icebox.
The Danish sparrows alternate their melodies:
they know when it’s time for a requiem
and when it’s time for a fanfare.
In his Aesthetic Studies, the philosopher advises:
“When you reach perfection
in the art of forgetting and remembering,
you will be able to play games with all existence.”
Nothing is as ephemeral
as death faced with new shoots under an April sky.
3.
I sit wordlessly
before an epitaph.
The best ode to spring
is a moment of silence.
*
Verano en las tierras de Islandia
1.
En Ódáðahraun el viento bautiza
los puntos cardinales de este desierto hijo de la nada.
El silencio tiene su modo de decir las cosas,
cada pisada posee un eco profundo, expansivo.
Así que más vale entender bien lo que dice
o serás alimento de los fantasmas de la arena.
2.
Vatnajökull tiene forma de eternidad
y su infinito cubre mi mano con su niebla.
Mas intuyo la distancia entre mi alma y el glaciar
por los susurros del hielo,
por el tímido saludo del disco solar.
3.
En Kerlingarfjöll no ayuda echarle un vistazo a la brújula;
hay que orientarse por la sombra de las piedras.
También puedes cerrar los ojos
y dejarte llevar por la ventisca del glaciar.
Todos los caminos llevan a Reykjavík.
4.
La noche está allí
aun cuando nadie la vea.
2.56 am en la bahía de Faxaflói,
y el sol levita
sobre el frío verano de Islandia.
Summer in Iceland
1.
In Ódáðahraun
the wind baptizes
the cardinal points of this desert
born of nothingness.
The silence has a way of saying things.
(Each step has a deep echo, expansive.)
So it’s best to understand clearly what it says,
or else you will nourish the ghosts in the sand.
2.
Vatnajökull is shaped like eternity,
and its infinity covers my hand with its fog.
But I intuit the distance between my soul and the glacier
through the whispers of the ice
and the timid greeting of the solar disk.
3.
In Kerlinarfjöll it doesn’t help to glance at the compass.
You have to orient yourself by the shadows of the stones.
You can also close your eyes
and let yourself be guided by the breeze from the glacier.
All roads lead to Reykjavik.
4.
The night is there
even when no-one sees it.
At 2:56 a.m.
in the Bay of Faxaflói
the sun levitates above the cold Icelandic summer.
Enrique Moya is a Venezuelan-Austrian poet, fiction writer, literary translator, publisher, essayist, and music and literary critic. He has published works in diverse literary genres in newspapers and magazines of Latin America, the USA, Asia and Europe. His collections of poetry include Oval Memory (Eclepsidra Publishing, Caracas, 2000, Bilingual English–Spanish Edition), Café Kafka (Labyrinth Publishing House, Vienna-London, 2005, Bilingual English–Spanish Edition), Theories of the Skin (La Bohemia Publishing House, Buenos Aires, 2006, Bilingual German–Spanish Edition) and Before Soren Kierkegaard’s Tomb (Lilla Torg, Malmö, Sweden 2007, Swedish-Spanish). His poetry has been translated and published into English, German, Italian, Swedish, Turkish, Hindi, Arabic, Rumanian, and other languages. Enrique Moya is director of Latin American – Austrian Literature Forum.
Nathan D. Horowitz teaches English in Vienna, Austria.
Mary: A Yiddish poem by Anna Margolin
translated by Lawrence Rosenwald
Anna Margolin (pen name of Rosa Lebnsboym) was born in Russia in 1887 and died in the United States in 1952. She published only one volume of poems in her lifetime, in 1929. It includes a seven-poem sequence titled “Mary,” Margolin’s imaginative exploration of the sensibility of the mother of Jesus; below are all but the fifth poem in the sequence. Some, e.g. “Mary’s Prayer,” are in psalm-like free verse, the rhythm carefully worked out (the translator’s challenge is of course hearing and rendering those rhythms). Other poems combine free verse with intermittent rhymes, which provide a sort of punctuation, an ordering of sections within the poem (“Mary and the Priest” for example). The last poem, “Mary and Death,” is the only one consistently in couplets, though even here the rhythm and line-length vary. All of this is characteristic of Margolin, whose work moves back and forth between free verse and highly regular and rhymed verse. A recent reviewer described her poetry as “sensual, jarring, plainspoken, and hard, the record of a soul in direct contact with the streets of 1920s New York.”
Note: Yiddish does not use capital letters. These transliterations do, both for proper names and indicate the beginnings of sentences. The original Yiddish texts are not numbered;the numbers are added only for convenience.
I: Vos vilstu, Mari?
Vos vilstu, Mari?
Efsher a kind zol likhtik drimlen in mayn shoys.
Di tife shtume ovntn in shtrengn hoyz
aleyn. Pamelekh vanderndik.
Alts vartndik und vartndik.
Un zol mayn libe zayn tsum man, vos libt mikh nit,
shtil un vi fartsveyflung groys.
Vos vilstu, Mari?
Ikh volt gevolt di fis farvortslt in der erd,
aleyn shteyn in der mit fun toyik-heln feld.
Es geyt di zun durch mir vi durch a yunger velt,
dos rayfn un der duft fun drimlendikn feld.
Un plutsem yogt zikh on a breyter vilder regn
un shlogt un kusht mikh tumeldik un shver,
a shturem vi an odler kumt gefloygn,
zinkt shrayendik in mir un boygt mikh hin un her.
Bin ikh a mentsh, a blits, der umru fun di vegn,
oder di shvartse krekhtsndike erd?
Ikh veys nit mer. Mit trernshvere oygn
gib ikh zikh op der zun, dem vint un regn.
Ober vos vilstu, Mari?
I: What do you want, Mary?
What do you want, Mary?
Maybe a child brightly asleep on my lap,
in the deep and silent evenings, in the strict house
alone. Slowly wandering.
Everything waiting and waiting.
For my love to go to the man who does not love me,
silently and huge as despair.
What do you want, Mary?
To root my feet in the earth,
to stand alone in the dew-bright field,
the sun passing through me as through a young world,
the blooming and scent of the dozing field.
And suddenly a broad wild rain
pursues me, strikes me, kisses me, loud and heavy.
A storm like an eagle comes flying,
sinks into me with loud cries, bends me this way and that.
Am I human, am I lightning, the unrest of the roads
or the black, groaning earth?
I do not know any more. Tears heavy in my eyes
I yield to the sun, the wind and rain.
But what do you want, Mary?
*
II: Maris tefila
Got, hakhnoedik un shtum zaynen di vegn.
Durkh fayer fun zind un fun trern
firn zu dir ale vegn.
Ikh hob fun libe geboyt dir a nest
und fun shtilkeyt a templ.
Ikh bin dayn hiterin, dinst un gelibte,
und dayn ponem hob ikh keynmol nit gezen.
Und ikh lig oyfn rand fun der velt,
un du geyst finster durch mir vi di sho fun toyt,
geyst vi a breyte blitsndike shvert.
II: Mary’s Tefila
Lord, these roads are plain and still.
But roads that pass through fire of sin and tears
still lead to you.
I have built you a nest of love,
a temple of silence.
I am your guardian, handmaiden, and beloved;
and I have never seen your face.
And I lie at the edge of the world,
and you go darkly through me like the hour of death,
like a broad and glittering sword.
*
III: Mari un der prister
Mari, bizt a bekher mit opfervayn,
a tsart-farrundikter bekher mit vayn
oyf a farvistn mizbeakh.
A prister
mit shlanke langzame hent
hoybt oyf hoykh dem krishtolenem bekher.
Un es tsitert dayn lebn un brent
in zayne oygn, in zayne hent
un vil in glik ekstatishn un shvern
teshmetert vern.
Mari, Mari,
bald vet mit a hel geveyn
dayn lebn zikh tsebrekhn,
un farbn vet dayn toyt
dem toytn shteyn
heys un royt.
Un es veln shmeykhlen di fargesene geter
heys un royt.
III: Mary and the Priest
Mary, you are a cup of offering-wine,
a delicately rounded cup of wine
on a ruined altar.
A priest
with slender, slowly-moving hands
raises the crystal cup,
your life trembles and flames in brands
of fire in his eyes and in his hands.
And seeks to be shattered in this
ecstatic, heavy bliss.
Mary, Mary:
soon your life will break apart
in bright sobbing;
and when you are dead
you will color the dead stone
hot and red.
And the forgotten gods will smile
hot and red.
*
IV: Eynzame Mari
Tsvishn mentshn iz zi
vi in midber geven,
flegt zi murmlen aleyn
ir nomen: “Mari.”
Un gevezn Mari
un oykh gelibter man:
“vi durkh heysn tuman,
Mari,
her ikh dayn kol,
ze ikh dayn shotn,”
flegt zi murmlen amol
unter ir otem.
Un bletern veykh
dos glik dos oysgetrakhte,
un vern plutsem bleykh
fun zelbstfarakhtung.
IV: Mary Alone
Among people, she was
like someone in a wilderness,
would be by herself
and murmur her name: “Mary.”
And was Mary
and also beloved husband:
“as through a burning mist,
Mary,
I hear your voice,
see your shadow,”
she would murmur
under her breath.
And gently page through
the fate devised for her,
and turn suddenly pale
from self-loathing.
*
VI: Mari vil zayn a betlerin
Zayn a betlerin.
Vi fun a shif, vos zinkt,
varfn ale oytsres oyfn vint:
di last fun dayn libe un last fun di freydn,
un az ikh aleyn zol mer zikh nit derkonen –
oykh mayn gutn tsi mayn shlekhtn nomen.
Zayn a betlerin.
Shtum zikh sharn iber groye trotuarn,
vi der shvartser shotn fun ale hele lebns,
un far geshenkte groshn
koyfn zikh tsum shpiln
a vanzinikn kholem un a shtiln,
vos knoylt zikh zilberik in roykh fun opium.
Eynshlofn in gas unter der zun,
vi in feld a mider zang,
vi a tseflikte blum,
vos iz farvelkt un umreyn,
un dokh getlekh,
un hot nokh alts a por sheyne zeydene bletlekh.
Un oyfloykhtn mit krankn likht fun a lamtern,
zikh oysviklen fun der shtumer groyer nakht,
vi a nepl fun nepl, vi a nakht fun der nakht.
Vern a gebet un vern a flam.
Zikh avekshenken tsertlekh, brenendik un groyzam.
Un umgliklakh.
Un geyn azoy mit farvunderte oygn
durch groyse soydesdike teg un nekht
tsum hoykhn gerikht,
tsum shmertslakhn likht,
tsu zikh.
VI: Mary wants to go begging
To be a beggar,
the way on a sinking ship
the treasures are thrown to the wind:
the burden of your love, the burden of joy,
till I myself do not know who I am —
not even my good or evil name.
To be a beggar,
to shuffle along the gray sidewalks
like the black shadow of all bright lives,
and with the pennies I’m given
to buy a crazy silent dream
to play with,
coiling all silvery in opium smoke.
To fall asleep on the street beneath the sun
like a weary song in the fields,
or like a plucked flower
withered and stained
but divine
with a few still pretty, silken petals left.
To shine with the sickly light from a lantern,
to unwrap myself from the quiet gray night
like a mist from mist, a night from night.
To become a prayer and become a flame.
To give myself away, tender and burning and cruel.
And to be alone
as only kings and beggars are alone.
And unlucky.
And to go along this way with wondering eyes
through long secret days and nights
to the high court,
to the painful light,
myself.
*
VII: Mari un der toyt
S’hot mari zikh gezegnt mitn likhtikn hoyz,
far di vent zikh geneygt un geneygt un aroys.
Un avek in der nakht, vi men geyt in a wald,
vu gots otem iz nont un s’shrekt yede geshtalt.
Di nakht hot geleygt zikh veykh oyf ir vey,
geleygt zikh vi shvartser, vi lashtsender shney.
Un gegangen nokh ir zaynen freylakh un bunt
betler un shiker un vagabund.
Vi troyerike feygl, krank farlibt,
hobn kalikes nokhgehipt.
Un kretzike hobn farshemte genent
und zikh di vundn farshtelt mit di hent.
Un foroys iz gegangen farbenkterheyt
der yingling toyt mit der tunkeler fleyt.
VII: Mary and Death
Mary said good-bye to the shining house, and bent
low to the walls, bent low again, and went
away in the night, as in a wood, where you are near
the breath of God, and in each shadow there is fear.
Gently the night lay down upon her woe
like black, caressing snow.
Right after her a rabble comes
of drunks and bums.
Behind them hopped along
cripples, like birds in lovesick song;
pressing close came shamefaced bands
of lepers, hiding their wounds with their hands.
And Death, a young man full of longing, played
on his dark flute, at the head of the long parade.
Lawrence Rosenwald is the Anne Pierce Rogers Professor of English at Wellesley College. He has published scholarly and literary translations from Latin, French, Italian, German, and Yiddish, and a number of essays on translation theory, in particular on Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig’s German translation of the Hebrew Bible. His most recent book is a study of American literary multilingualism, called Multilingual America: Language and the Making of American Literature, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.
Mrs. Moshiach
With her help-opposite otherwise preoccupied,
Riding on donkeys, listening to silver trumpets,
Mrs. Moshiach emptied her collection box of dollars, euros, yen.
There was marketing to be accomplished. The world’s
Souk was offering opinions in various sizes, colors, tastes,
To sagacious and foolish buyers, alike.
Whereas some folk prefer to grind their gists on old-fashioned quems,
Most takers happily chomp pabulum, that bland stuff lacking
Sufficient nutrients; cognitive-heavy absorption takes too much time.
Accordingly, the prophetess, who dressed in ticky-tacky,
Her autogiro equipped with six forward gears,
Flew in for a day at the mall. Yellow journalism was on sale.
Home, she deigned to hijack seemingly sated media crews by dint of her
Tahini, hummus, falafel, especially, her sandwiched analyses of cultural switchbacks.
Know, extra sugar makes arak, rose-petal tea, also oishr, so much sweeter.
Women’s work remains unacknowledged. Those reporters,
Workers-for-hire, scriveners, burped politely, yet filed prescripted stories.
Her man’s campaign, in contrast, changed the course of history.
KJ Hannah Greenberg (website) and her hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs roam the verbal hinterlands. Her creative efforts are devoted to lovers of slipstream fiction, to second chair oboe players and to mothers who despair of finding the bottom of Mt. Laundry. Hannah’s newest book, Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting, is available at French Creek Press. Some of the homes for her poetry have included: Cantaraville, Language and Culture Magazine, Poetry Superhighway, New Vilna Review, and Vox Poetica. Last year, Hannah read poetry submissions for Sotto Voce and was named, by The Shine Journal, for the Pushcart Poetry Prize.
Downtown Montreal
by Éric Dupuis
Click on image to see a larger version.
Éric Dupuis (website) writes by way of a bio: “Photography is a form of artistic expression that I am passionate about. It is my way of freely exploring the surprising world we live in. Most of my recent work tends to be project-driven, developing a specific theme. One series proposes an insight on spirituality and the religious heritage, while another project explores the ephemeral character of life — a subject very close to my heart. My passion for traveling has led me to work on yet another portfolio that documents opposing aspects of the social fabric of Cartagena, Colombia.”
qarrtsiluni 