The field gleams white and cold. The sky is lonely and vast. Jackdaws circle above the pond And hunters descend from the forest. A silence dwells in black treetops. A firelight flashes from the cottages. Sometimes a sleigh rings in the distance And slowly the gray moon climbs. On the ridge a deer bleeds softly […]
Poetry
HOHENBURG by Georg Trakl (translated by Daniele Pantano)
No one is in the house. Autumn in rooms; Moon-bright sonata And the awakening at the edge of the twilight forest. You always think the white face of mankind Far from the turmoil of time; Green branches bend willingly over something dreaming, Cross and evening; The sounding one is enfolded by the purple arms of […]
MY MOTHER’S DEATH HAS A NAME by Ana Istarú (translated by Mark Smith-Soto)
my mother’s death has a name many names with first names and surnames I know no one sweating bent over with pain will go from door to door calling out where is the high school girl the one they killed with their trigger fingers the town’s powerful men the ones who wrote around her neck […]
MANGER by Ana Istarú (translated by Mark Smith-Soto)
The scent of thought, of meadow, of manger. Let the universe pass with its cape of sparks. Let it roll in the incline of purple winds. Let it tear its forehead like a drunken crooner. I listen to this crumb of bellowing crystal, the glow spilling from such slender lips, small cupful of flesh, little […]
TO THE PAIN OF CHILDBIRTH by Ana Istarú (translated by Mark Smith-Soto)
Hello, pain, let’s dance. Today you will be my short-lived lover. Your ship’s siren, your sonorous rings in my mouth, I know, I know. Oh, Jehova’s beast, your bite’s point-blank. Hello pain. Let’s dance, what the hell. Soon I’ll watch you burn, rabid, alone in your parade and I, spilling froth from my breasts, delighting […]
HOMETOWN 故乡 by Xiao Qiao (translated by Cindy M. Carter)
A hometown is a nose bleed (or construction-site cement coursing through your parents’ veins) a warm current that even time cannot resolve Picking up a piece of the past is like picking up a fragment of bone, unearthing night’s dark flesh A hometown isn’t fertile soil (but it is a ferry) a poor and humble […]
MOONLIGHT 月光 by Xiao Qiao (translated by Cindy M. Carter)
The moonlight at my door is white. It flashes by like weaponry. A shattered scenery resolves into sweet and sharpened drops of candy. Bit by bit, they prick the slightly-slanted corners of your eyes. 我门前的月光很白 像某种兵器一闪而过 破碎的景象慢慢坚实 变成甜蜜的有点尖锐的球形糖果 一颗一颗 刺穿你微微倾斜的眼角 Return to table of contents for Issue 2 Winter 2010
CACTUS (THE IMMORTAL PALM) 仙人掌 by Xiao Qiao (translated by Cindy M. Carter)
The Chinese word for cactus, 仙人掌, translates as “Palm of the Immortals.” The cactus grows not from immortal arms, but vainly from the sands, thirsting for a surgery: Oh cut me, cut me open, let me hear the water gush from me… Comes a western trader, peddling wigs as sleek as silver, whose merchant-eyes pierce […]
From PENNILESS POETS OF ISLINGTON selections from the collection by Geoffrey Gatza
the singular affair of the aluminum crutch In that one historical event—the most important event in human history it was in a cabin all gold and bronze with the fading ferns a game score card you know he wouldn’t fake a war injury with a new film every few years. In 1903 which I am […]
THIS ESSENTIAL DRIFTING: collaborative work by Megan Gannon, Miles Waggener, and Joshua Ware
Viscera in the spillway: a china-box elongated, or italicized by antennae, search lights heliotropic with smooth-tongued, fraternal flumes for the low-flying, forgetful of what would be no more important than drinking tap water in a floodlit room, a nearly offensive, comatose flux a split-level fracturewarned-against, rolling in a science teacher’s open hand. Coiled liquid in […]
