Scorched Maps by Tomasz Różycki

Scorched Maps

I took a trip to Ukraine. It was June.

I waded in the fields, all full of dust

and pollen in the air. I searched, but those

I loved had disappeared below the ground,

deeper than decades of ants. I asked

about them everywhere, but grass and leaves

have been growing, bees swarming. So I lay down,

face to the ground, and said this incantation—

you can come out, it’s over. And the ground,

and moles and earthworms in it, shifted, shook,

kingdoms of ants came crawling, bees began

to fly from everywhere. I said come out,

I spoke directly to the ground and felt

the field grow vast and wild around my head.

(Translated by Mira Rosenthal)

Errata by Charles Simić

Errata

Where it says snow 

read teeth-marks of a virgin 

Where it says knife read 

you passed through my bones 

like a police-whistle 

Where it says table read horse 

Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle 

Apples are to remain apples 

Each time a hat appears 

think of Isaac Newton 

reading the Old Testament 

Remove all periods 

They are scars made by words 

I couldn't bring myself to say 

Put a finger over each sunrise 

it will blind you otherwise 

That damn ant is still stirring 

Will there be time left to list 

all errors to replace 

all hands guns owls plates 

all cigars ponds woods and reach 

that beer-bottle my greatest mistake 

the word I allowed to be written 

when I should have shouted 

her name   

A Small Heart by Zbigniew Herbert

A Small Heart

the bullet I fired

during the great war

went around the globe

and hit me in the back

at the least suitable moment

when I was already sure

I had forgotten it all—

his transgressions and mine

after all I like anyone else

wanted to erase the memory

of countenances of hatred

history consoled me

—I was battling violence

but the Book told me

—I was battling Cain

so many patient years

so many years in vain

I washed soot blood

hurt in mercy’s stream

so that noble beauty

the glory of existence

perhaps even the good

might have a home in me

after all I like anyone else

had a longing to return

to the bay of childhood

the country of innocence

the bullet I fired

from a low-caliber gun

despite laws of gravity

went around the globe

and hit me in the back

as if it wished to tell me

—nobody gets anything

for free

so now I sit in solitude

on a sawed-off tree trunk

in the exact center point

of the forgotten battle

gray spider I spin

bitter meditations

on memory too large

and a heart too small

(Translated by Alissa Valles)

 

After a Death by Tomas Tranströmer

After a Death

Once there was a shock

that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.

It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.

It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.

Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat

but often the shadow seems more real than the body.

The samurai looks insignificant

beside his armor of black dragon scales.

(Translated by Robert Bly)

Token Loss by Kay Ryan

Token Loss

To the dragon

any loss is

total. His rest

is disrupted

if a single

jewel encrusted

goblet has

been stolen.

The circle

of himself

in the nest

of his gold

has been

broken. No

loss is token.

The New Noah by Adonis

The New Noah

                         1

We travel upon the Ark, in mud and rain,

Our oars promises from God.   

We live—and the rest of Humanity dies.   

We travel upon the waves, fastening

Our lives to the ropes of corpses filling the skies.

But between Heaven and us is an opening,

A porthole for a supplication.

"Why, Lord, have you saved us alone

From among all the people and creatures?

And where are you casting us now?

To your other Land, to our First Home?

Into the leaves of Death, into the wind of Life?

In us, in our arteries, flows a fear of the Sun.

We despair of the Light,

We despair, Lord, of a tomorrow

In which to start Life anew.

If only we were not that seedling of Creation,

Of Earth and its generations,

If only we had remained simple Clay or Ember,

Or something in between,

Then we would not have to see   

This World, its Lord, and its Hell, twice over."

                         2

If time started anew,

and waters submerged the face of life,

and the earth convulsed, and that god

rushed to me, beseeching, "Noah, save the living!"

I would not concern myself with his request.

I would travel upon my ark, removing   

clay and pebbles from the eyes of the dead.

I would open the depths of their being to the flood,

and whisper in their veins   

that we have returned from the wilderness,   

that we have emerged from the cave,

that we have changed the sky of years,

that we sail without giving in to our fears—

that we do not heed the word of that god.

Our appointment is with death.   

Our shores are a familiar and pleasing despair,

a gelid sea of iron water that we ford   

to its very ends, undeterred,

heedless of that god and his word,

longing for a different, a new, lord.

(Translated by Shawkat Toorawa)

Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shining trees,—

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

“I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!”

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?