The brothers were handy men who took on all kinds of odd jobs. Ragnar, the older one, was a balding, scrawny man in his fifties who suffered from rheumatism, and it showed in the way he carried himself. Jonas, the younger one, had been subjected to his brother’s tyranny ever since he could remember, and […]
Translation
85 by Catullus (translated from the Latin by David Macey)
I hate and love. Explain that star-crossed pair. I cannot. That’s my little cross to bear. Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. Return to table of contents for Issue 3 Fall 2010
1 by Catullus (translated from the Latin by David Macey)
Who gets this little, witty book just sanded smooth with pumice stone? You, Cornelius, since you put a premium on nonsense— like way back when you tried to cram, bold man, all time into three volumes: a tricky and exhausting art. So take this little jest, it’s yours; and pray the Muse will help this […]
THE YOUNG MAIDEN by Georg Trakl (translated by Daniele Pantano)
Dedicated to Ludwig von Ficker 1 Often by the well at dusk, You see her standing spellbound Drawing water at dusk. Buckets plunge up and down. In the beeches jackdaws flutter And she is like a shadow. Her yellow hair flutters And rats scream in the yard. And coaxed by abasement She narrows her […]
IN WINTER by Georg Trakl (translated by Daniele Pantano)
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 […]
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 […]
