Poetry

In Flight

Poplars, embankments, the Loire behind them. The upper Danube's not so broad, from river to river the light's so different. One doesn't need geography for feelings. Birds fly up the branches. Watch us. Feelings are vulnerable. Strange bodies rub together, our bodies. Someone plants a kiss between navel and shame. A doorknob turns on a…

Poems From A 1984 Diary

trans. Yiddish Ruth Whitman 3 I'll set out for Beer Sheva and go to the Bedouins and ransom a donkey from them, no matter what it costs, Is it my fault that the slave trade still goes on with God's creatures in Beer sheva? I'll prepare an apartment for him, invent a name, tell him…

Eight Fabliettes

trans. French Norman Shapiro 1. The Little Pup Little pup sat eyeing bone, One he used to call his own. Burly hound came swaggering up, Snatching bone from little pup. Sky watched hound dine on said victual: Didn't care one whit or tittle. Pup's still little, as before; Hound's still hungry, wants some more. 2….

From West Beirut

September 1982 (in connection with non- standard and negligent building in Lebanon) And it so happened that a soldier in the reserves      accidentally            pulled the latchet of a cannon — and a multi-story building five kilometers away fell heavily      on its occupants, eighty-five casualties. Only a few were rescued from the      ruins: an old…

The Beautiful Summer

trans. French Lisa Sapinkopf The fire haunted our days and consumed them, Each greyer dawn its blade wounded time. The wind knocked death on our bedroom roofs, The cold never ceased encircling our hearts. It was a beautiful summer, faded, cracking and dark, You loved the softness of the summer rain And you loved death,…