Year in, year out, I've ploughed and fished: the gulls have come to depend on me. The steps have grown a thick mat of slate-green moss, Wisteria shoots out lush purple vines. Wind-blown orioles churr from tree to tree, Rain-dampened swallows swoop in and out of the buildings. I didn't realize the spring light was…
trans. Hungarian Jascha Kessler and Maria Körösy End of November, 1956: a remote acquaintance looms out of the fog. We stalk the streets for an hour. He says, “. . .First the Party drops me, then Alice too. . . .” I won't rehearse the years, the friendship, and what struck me by surprise, the…
trans. Persian Elizabeth Gray Her curls dishevelled, sweating, laughing, and drunk, her shirt torn, singing ghazals, flask in hand, her eyes quarrelsome, her lips crying “Alas!”, last night at midnight she came and sat by my pillow. She bent her head to my ear and said plaintively, “O my ancient lover, are you sleeping?” The…
I'm moved by your deep affection and regret our parting: You bid me farewell with due attentiveness and fill my goblet with wine. It's not that I can't judge when I'm dead drunk, I just dread the moment I sober up on the road ahead.
Put a blade of grass between your lips! It too is the Son of God, it too is crucified by Spring, and rises again in winter's fury: how fiery just one breath is! I was happy here, you know. We walked all one summer in the hidden paths of elder and wild strawberries; love cooled…
For years my heart asked me for Jamshid's cup. That which it held it begged from strangers. It sought the pearl which lies outside the world's shell from the lost ones who wait by the edge of the sea. Last night I carried my dilemma to the old Magus that with his vision he might…
My white hairs are terribly unfeeling: Day after day I pluck them, but they grow again. They started as a single strand of silk, Then gradually became a thousand stalks of snow. I don't avoid the sniggers of beautiful women, I'm only ashamed of the children's fright. At New Year's, I passed the half-hundred mark…
trans. Bulgarian Jascha Kessler & Alexander Shurbanov You were dying, fully conscious, having summoned the incredible strength you needed to go calmly, not crying, not moaning, not shuddering — to keep fear away from me. Your hand went softly cold in my hand, and led me gradually beyond to death, so as to introduce me….
If I follow in her tracks she stirs up trouble, and if I rest from the search she rises up in anger. And if on the road for a moment, out of loyalty, I fall on her tracks like dust, like the wind she flees. And if I seek half a kiss, a hundred taunts,…
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