Month: July 2021

the game we’re in

Standard

The Game We’re In
–Juan Gelman

If they told me to choose, I’d choose
That wellness of knowing how sick we are,
The bliss of unhappiness.
If they told me to choose, I’d choose
The innocence of not being innocent,
The purity I wallow in for my sins.

If they told me to choose, I’d choose
The very love I hate with,
This hope feeding on desperate loaves.
What’s happening here, gentlemen,
Is that I’m playing the game of death.

Original

El juego en que andamos

Si me dieran a elegir, yo elegiría
esta salud de saber que estamos muy enfermos,
esta dicha de andar tan infelices.
Si me dieran a elegir, yo elegiría
esta inocencia de no ser un inocente,
esta pureza en que ando por impuro.

Si me dieran a elegir, yo elegiría
este amor con que odio,
esta esperanza que come panes desesperados.
Aquí pasa, señores,
que me juego la muerte.

Photo by Riho Kroll on Unsplash

the secret of soil

Standard

The Secret of Soil
–Aimee Nezhukumatathil

The secret of smoke is that it will fill
any space with walls, no matter
how delicate: lung cell, soapy bubble
blown from a bright red ring.

The secret of soil is that it is alive-
a step in the forest means
you are carried on the back
of a thousand bugs. The secret

I give you is on page forty-two
of my old encyclopedia set.
I cut out all the pictures of minerals
and gemstones. I could not take

their beauty, could not swallow
that such stones lived deep inside
the earth. I wanted to tape them
to my hands and wrists, I held

them to my thin brown neck.
I wanted my mouth to fill
with light, a rush of rind
and pepper. I can still taste it

like a dare across a railroad track,
sure with solid-feet steps. I’m not
allowed to be alone with scissors.
I always find a way to dig.

Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash

 

The Edges of Time

Standard

The Edges of Time
–Kay Ryan

It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put-off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.