Poetry

In the almost empty cafe I light a cigarette, taking pleasure in blue hieroglyphics the smoke makes. This is the first free time I've had to myself in months. In Egypt the beautiful, leathery flesh of a mummy aches for the sun's nonpartisan appraisal. New arrival, at the next table, an old man—in a voice…

. . . the bird on a branch painted by some Sung academician is a symbol to express what we might call the bird-on-bough aspect of eternity. The Arts of China, Sullivan On a branch somewhere in eternity a bird sits, each feather one silhouette of the brush laid flat on the page, each leaf…

I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money. . . — from a Tina Turner song When Celina arrived the floor was on fire. You could tell by her hips and her mouth she was built for the tango. Glasses of clear amber danced the tables on the tango rhythm. You could tell this place…

Return deep in the night, drunk out of my mind, I'm helped stagger through the tasselled door-way, still      unsobered; pass out cold: wine stench blends with the scent of musk      and orchid.                  I wake up with a start:                  HA! HA! HA! I've always said,            ”How long can a man live?”

How beautiful the letters are      we never get mailed compared to the letters we send and how astonishing the answers: The unexpected words that fall together      all by themselves forming perfect solutions to problems      we only then discover. For instance, I knew nothing about Venezuela before I began writing these lines and now I've already…

           Bell and drum cold,            pavilion tower dark, moon shines on the golden well by the ancient pawlonias,            deep compound locked,            small courtyard empty,      fallen flowers pink in the fragrant dew.            Misty willows sombre,            spring haze light, lamp behind the crystal window in the tall pavilion;            quietly rests against…

trans. Norwegian Nadia Christensen The railway station has laid its ears to the tracks Every window is open this summer night. The sky And the train. Like a far-away cry . . . Come Crossings. Stratospheric bells. Signal lights coupled to the sunrise. An undertow of rumbling trains cutting gaps in valleys and time ….

trans. Hungarian Jascha Kessler and Maria Körösy You're so brave, you camp-followers of Cain — after Baudelaire, yet! Shit-shoveling first father, your visa was validated when that cretinous cudgel whammed the wandering flock's shepherd, that day-dreaming pastor, the smoke of whose sacrifice could rise up, while yours charred on the ground. Murder — sanctified as…

Little girls riding bikes on the sidewalk back and forth past each other, scampering in rapid figure-eights on their small bikes. I don't have words that ride bicycles But sparrow-light fluttery joyful dart like drops of clear laughter from leaves after rain . . .