Poetry

trans. Italian Jonathan Galassi Don't ask us for the word to frame our shapeless spirit on all sides, and blaze it in letters of fire, to shine like a lost crocus in a dusty plain. Ah, the man who walks secure, a friend to others and himself, uncaring that high summer prints his shadow on…

When I grow up and you get small, then — (In Kaluza's theory the fifth dimension is represented as a circle associated with every point in spacetime)      —then when I die, I'll never be alive again?            Never. Never never?            Never never. Yes, but never never never?            No . . . not never…

trans. Italian Ruth Feldman Sir, starting next month Please accept my resignation And, if necessary, find a replacement for me. I leave a lot of uncompleted work, Whether from laziness or practical difficulties. I should have said something to someone, But no longer know what or to whom: I have forgotten. I should have given…

trans. Czech Ewald Osers Life taught me long ago that music and poetry are the most beautiful things on earth that life can give us. Except for love, of course. In an old textbook, published by the Imperial Printing House in the year of Vrchlicky's death, I looked up the section on poetics and poetic…

Only my enemy for all time, The abominable black queen, Has had nerve equal to mine In helpin her inept king. Inept and cowardly mine too — that's understood: From the very start he's crouched Behind his row of plucky pawns, Then fled across the chessboard, Askew, ridiculous, with little stumbling steps. Battles are not…

ALLEGRO NON TANTO It's getting dark. But don't turn on the light. I like to look at your eyes      in the dusk. Tell me then! How's Vienna? Do they still sell in the market bunches of lavender, that sweet fragrance of bygone loves from the end of the millenium? My mother used to put them…

You mean that — halfway through, With the game all but over — you would like To change the rules of play? You know perfectly well it's not allowed. To castle under threats? Or go so far — if I am not mistaken — As to replay the moves you made when you began? Come…

The rain had long since stopped. In the pilgrimage church in Moravia, where I had sought shelter from a storm, they were chanting a Marian song which stopped me from leaving. I used to listen to it back home. The priest had genuflected at the steps and left the altar, the organ had sobbed and…

trans. Italian Alan Williamson You are life, you are death come with the wind of March onto the naked earth— your shiver grips, and holds. Blood of the young year, first anemone or spring cloud, your lightly passing footfall violates the earth. The way of sorrow opens. Under a poor sky the earth lay motionless…