poetry in translation

the game we’re in

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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

lesser life

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Lesser LIfe
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translation

Vida menor

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

popocatepetl

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Popocatepetl
–Isaac Berliner

Popo—
laying stolid with a plumage of stone,
crying from your body, with a quiet scream,
are thousands of years.in the bluish dawn of rose,
the sun hides its whitish head
with rainbow stripes,
like a hair band.Winds—
hidden monsters in the gallop,
throwing themselves onto you, yelling as they pillage,
humming songs and whistling
from unknown lands.

what secrets,
stored in the passing of generations,
are hidden inside you?

what scars
stapled in blood,
are engraved in individual stones?

Carry me inside your body, Popo,
stone-like,
conveying
your mysteries in my silence.

Popo—
furtive hoary giant,
the sun throws you a ray
in the darkening moments of dusk,
enlightening you fully.

I see in you now
ancient generations gone,
their blood spilled
from your vertebral column.

What plethora of travelers wandered on your silvery skin?
Have you counted their steps?

At your knees
death announces its journey,
and on your back,
this frigid, whitish inscrutability
pours . . .

 

field of flowers

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Field of Flowers
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translation

Campo de Flores

Photo by Darlene Lu on Unsplash

i will have to begin

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I Will Have to Begin
–Yehuda Amichai

I will have to begin to remember you
When someone else begins to discover you, the inside
Of your soft thighs above the stockings and when you laugh,
Developing the first pictures for his future dreams.

And I will have to forget you.
When someone else begins to remember you
When some other elses begin to discover you.

And my life is empty like a flower when they plucked
All its petals: yes, no, yes, no, yes.

And to be alone is to be in a place
Where we were never together, and to be alone is
To forget you are like this: to want to pay for two
In a bus and travel alone.

Now I shall cover the mirror like your pictures
And lie down to sleep. The birds of the sky will eat
The flesh of my sleep. The dogs will lick
My blood inside. You won’t see a thing outside.

prose poem

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Prose Poem
–Aleš Debeljak

Your story’s simple. You won’t see many loved ones when
you return, like an otter surfacing in a lake to catch its
breath. You won’t find words for short greetings, the seasons,
unsuccessful missions, white phosphorous lighting the
passion in soldiers’ eyes, a distant whistle on steep hillsides
you never climbed, children’s cane baskets floating silently
across a river basin, the way you have a constant burning
pain, the constellations discovered in a premonition,
Oriental love songs, the disappointment of everything we
were and will be. Believe me: this is your story. Later, I’ll tell
it again — only better.

Photo by Daniel Tong on Unsplash

describing paintings

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FROM Describing Paintings

–Adam Zagajewski

But we’re alive
full of memory and thought,
love, sometimes regret,
and at moments we take special pride
because the future cries in us
and its tumult makes us human.

convolution

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Convolution

–Odysseus Elytis

house on stilts

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Untitled

–Bella Dizhur

Here is an island. Here is a house on stilts.
A black log house,
With a window open wide.
Green waves wash up to it,
But no one lives inside,
Not for many years.
Only I live here,
Drying seaweed
To cook for meals,
And I have lived for thousands of years.
But there where I used to live,
Where they used to love me,
They think that I have died,
They mourned and then forgot me.
But I live on and on …
under the thundering green,
I call my friends to meals
on a voiceless telephone.

Original
-Белла Дижур

Вот остров. Вот дом на сваях.

Черный бревенчатый дом

С раскрытым настежь окном.

Зеленые волны его омывают,

Но в нем никто не живет

Вот уж который год.

Лишь я одна здесь живу,

Сушу морскую траву,

Варю из нее обед

И мне уже тысячи лет.

А там, где я раньше жила,

Где раньше меня любили,

Решили, что я умерла,

Оплакали и позабыли.

А я все живу и живу…

Под грохот волны зеленой

Друзей на обед зову

По оглохшему телефону.

Photo by Guillaume Baudusseau on Unsplash

spring

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Spring
–Elfriede Jelinek

april breath
of  boyish red
the tongue crushes
strawberry dreams
                                  hack away wound
                                  and wound the fountain
and on the mouth
perspiration white
from someone’s neck
a little tooth
has bit the finger
of  the bride the
                                  tabby yellow and sere
                                  howls
the red boy
from the gable flies
an animal hearkens
in his white throat
                                  his juice runs down
                                  pigeon thighs
a pale sweet spike
still sticks
in woman white
lard
an april breath
of boyish red

 

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash