translation

the cats will know

Standard

The Cats Will Know

–Cesare Pavese

Rain will fall again
on your smooth pavement,
a light rain like
a breath or a step.
The breeze and the dawn
will flourish again
when you return,
as if beneath your step.
Between flowers and sills
the cats will know.
There will be other days,
there will be other voices.
You will smile alone.
The cats will know.
You will hear words
old and spent and useless
like costumes left over
from yesterday’s parties.
You too will make gestures.
You’ll answer with words—
face of springtime,
you too will make gestures.
The cats will know,
face of springtime;
and the light rain
and the hyacinth dawn
that wrench the heart of him
who hopes no more for you—
they are the sad smile
you smile by yourself.
There will be other days,
other voices and renewals.
Face of springtime,
we will suffer at daybreak

solitude

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Solitude

–Caroline Caddy

It’s something they carry with them
                      – explorers  night shifts  seamen –
like a good pair of binoculars
or a camera case
                perfectly and deeply compartmented.
It has a quiet patina
that both absorbs and reflects
                           like a valuable instrument
                                                you have to sign for
 – contract with alone –
                     and at the end of the voyage
                                                          you get to keep.
Sometimes it’s very far away.
Sometimes so close
               at first you think the person next to you
is picking up  putting down
                                 a personal cup
                                    a book in another language
before you realise what
– when talk has moved off
                               leaning its arms
                                       on someone else’s table –
is being
handed to you.
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

feeling of the world

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Feeling of the World
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

I have just two hands
And the feeling of the world,
But I am teeming with slaves,
my memories are streaming
and my body yields
at the crossroads of love.

When I get up, the sky
will be dead and plundered,
I’ll be dead myself,
my desire and the songless
swamp dead.

My comrades didn’t tell me
that a war was on
and I needed
To bring arms and food.
I feel scattered,
before the borders,
and I humbly beseech
your pardon.

When the bodies pass
I’ll remain alone
unraveling the memory
of the herald, the widow and the microscope man
who lived in the tent
and were missing
the next morning

that morning, more night than night itself.

Translation

Sentimiento do mundo

Tenho apenas duas mãos
e o sentimento do mundo,
mas estou cheio de escravos,
minhas lembranças escorrem
e o corpo transige
na confluência do amor.
Quando me levantar, o céu
estará morto e saqueado,
eu mesmo estarei morto,
morto meu desejo, morto
o pântano sem acordes.
Os camaradas não disseram
que havia uma guerra
e era necessário
trazer fogo e alimento.
Sinto-me disperso,
anterior a fronteiras,
humildemente vos peço
que me perdoeis.
Quando os corpos passarem,
eu ficarei sozinho
desfiando a recordação
do sineiro, da viúva e do microscopista
que habitavam a barraca
e não foram encontrados
ao amanhecer esse amanhecer
mais noite que a noite.

Photo by Ira Huz on Unsplash

vertigo

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Vertigo

–Les Murray

Last time I fell in a shower room
I bled like a tumbril dandy
and the hotel longed to be rid of me.
Taken to the town clinic, I
described how I tripped on a steel rim
and found my head in the wardrobe.
Scalp-sewn and knotted and flagged
I thanked the Frau Doktor and fled,
wishing the grab-bar of age might
be bolted to all civilization
and thinking of Rome’s eighth hill
heaped up out of broken amphorae.
When, anytime after sixty,
or anytime before, you stumble
over two stairs and club your forehead
on rake or hoe, bricks or fuel-drums,
that’s the time to call the purveyor
of steel pipe and indoor railings,
and soon you’ll be grasping up landings
having left your balance in the car
from which please God you’ll never
see the launchway of tires off a brink.
Later comes the sunny day when
street detail whitens blindly to mauve
and people hurry you, or wait, quiet.
Photo by fan yang on Unsplash

the time of love

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The Time of Love
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translation

Amor e seu tempo

Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

metaphysic of snow

Standard

Metaphysic of Snow

–Donald Finkel

migratory

Standard

Migratory Flight

–Fred Dings

refusals

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Refusals
–Circe Maia

Here’s the first fear:
being slippery and weak.
The passing without touching, touching without resting,
the barely resting.
I don’t want
to live like someone who drinks
the days, loose wine
that very quickly sours
and—without knowing how—
comes to an end.
Another fear: to become lost.
Suddenly to no longer be there, having stayed
behind at the bend.
Already they don’t see us, already they don’t hear us.
Movement between images
between shadow, between dreams.
I don’t want
this making false progress,
in reality, stillness, arrest without appeal
in reality, death.
Finally, this fear
difficult to talk about, right now:
smoothness of paper, gleam of wood,
silence all around . . . in silence flies
fine fear, needle of the present
moment.

Translation

Rechazos

He aquí el primer miedo:
ser resbaloso y blando.
El pasar sin tocar, tocar sin apoyarse,
el apoyarse apenas.
No quiero
vivir como quien bebe
los días, flojo vino,
que muy pronto agria
y—sin saberse cómo—
se acaba.
Otro miedo: perderse.
De pronto ya no estar, haber quedado
atrás, en un recodo.
Ahora ya no nos ven, ya no nos oyen.
Movimiento entre imágenes
entre sombra, entre sueños.
No quiero
ese avanzar en falso,
en realidad quietud, detención sin remedio
en realidad, la muerte.
Por último, este miedo
difícil de decir, ahora mismo:
lisura de papel, brillo en maderas,
silencio alrededor . . . Vuela el silencio
fino miedo, aguja del instante
presente.

lost country

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Lost Country of Light
–Todd Davis

But I am not trying to get to heaven.
I am trying to get to earth.
– Christopher Camuto

June sun, so longed for in December,
paints a burning light upon my neck
as I hoe the garden or pick raspberries
along the ditches. By early afternoon
I’ve had enough and retreat to the trees,
into broken shadows dim as the back
of the closet where I put things
that shouldn’t be forgotten: the field
where my grandfather planted beans;
the last cow my family owned;
the hay rake that turned the cut grass
into windows; the bell on the back porch
my grandmother rang when she heard
her son had died in the war.

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

bramble arm

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Bramble Arm
–Vicki Feaver
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Photo by Pauline Bernfeld on Unsplash