Where no question possibly remains—someone crying, someone dead—blame asks: whose fault? It is the counterpart, the day to day, the real-life, of those higher faculties we posit, logic, reason, the inductions and deductions we yearningly trace the lines of with our fingers. It also has to do with nothing but itself, a tendency, a habit,…
This is where they put all the women: the mothers, the injured, the diseased. Someone has moved into the bed next to mine: we share a water pitcher and a bar of soap. Her name is Irena. She is the color of burnt umber, tinged yellow by jaundice and alcohol. She smells of urine and…
Doesn't, when we touch it, that sheen of infinitesimally pebbled steel, doesn't it, perhaps, give just a bit, yes, the subtlest yielding, much less than flesh would, we realize that, but still, as though it were intending in some formal way that at last we were to be in contact with the world of inorganics,…
The wild snow foretelling winter the snow that whistles down the supernatural into the ordinary world the snow that covers the little matchgirl while she dreams the snow that melts in the gypsies' campfire that melts in their song that snakes over the black branches in the North of France where my aunt calls to…
The big one went to sleep as to die and dreamed he became a tiny one. So tiny as to have lost all substance. To have become as theoretical as a point. Then someone said, get up, big one, you're not doing yourself any good. You puddle and stagnate in your weight. Best to be…
The moon shines down over the public ferry, Alone, I'm overwhelmed by thoughts of home. Birds roost in the trees round Lake P'eng-li, The moon mounts high up above the boat on the Chien-ch'ang. Dead drunk, old fishermen disperse from the market, In secluded buildings travelling merchants sleep. Where is that flute playing across the…
trans. Bulgarian Jascha Kessler and Alexander Shurbanov It was in the Fall of '56 that I stood where I stand still: they're drilling 20-year old marines in diving. Dolphins leap with the sheer joy of it, keeping time in the sea with them. As for me, I stumble on in grief at the mere thought…
Don't ask how many complaints I have about her black curls. I am so undone because of her that it's beyond telling. Let no one abandon heart and faith in hope of fidelity. I did. Do not ask me how sorry I am. With one gulp of wine which troubles no one I drew…
On the river at Mu-chou, west of the water gate, They raised the oars, hoisted the sail, and we released our embrace. Today, at the sky's shore, I sit deep into the night, Heart-broken and haunted by the memory of leaving Ah Yin.
No products in the cart.