Written by
David Lehman |
The woman said yes she would go to Australia with him
Unless he heard wrong and she said Argentina
Where they could learn the tango and pursue the widows
Of Nazi war criminals unrepentant to the end.
But no, she said Australia.
She'd been born in New Zealand.
The difference between the two places was the difference
Between a hamburger and a chocolate malted, she said.
In the candy store across from the elementary school,
They planned their tryst.
She said Australia, which meant
She was willing to go to bed with him, and this
Was before her husband's coronary
At a time when a woman didn't take off her underpants
If she didn't like you.
She said Australia,
And he saw last summer's seashell collection
In a plastic bag on a shelf in the mud room
With last summer's sand.
The cycle of sexual captivity
Beginning in romance and ending in adultery
Was now in the late middle phases, the way America
Had gone from barbarism to amnesia without
A period of high decadence, which meant something,
But what? A raft on the rapids? The violinist
At the gate? Oh, absolute is the law of biology.
For the *********** seminar, what should she wear?
|
Written by
Paul Celan |
The line
that remained, that
became true: .
.
.
your
house in Paris -- become
the alterpiece of your hands.
Breathed through thrice,
shone through thrice.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It's turning dumb, turning deaf
behind our eyes.
I see the poison flower
in all manner of words and shapes.
Go.
Come.
Love blots out its name: to
you it ascribes itself.
Tr.
Michael Hamburger
|
Written by
Paul Celan |
The line
that remained, that
became true: .
.
.
your
house in Paris -- become
the alterpiece of your hands.
Breathed through thrice,
shone through thrice.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It's turning dumb, turning deaf
behind our eyes.
I see the poison flower
in all manner of words and shapes.
Go.
Come.
Love blots out its name: to
you it ascribes itself.
Tr.
Michael Hamburger
|
Written by
Peter Huchel |
For Michael Hamburger
Barn owl
daughter of snow,
subject to the night wind,
yet taking root
with her talons
in the rotten scab of walls,
beak face
with round eyes,
heart-rigid mask
of feathers a white fire
that touches neither time nor space.
Coldly the wind blows
against the old homestead,
in the yard pale folk,
sledges, baggage, lamps covered with snow,
in the pots death,
in the pitchers poison,
the last will nailed to a post.
The hidden thing
under the rocks' claws,
the opening into night,
the terror of death
thrust into flesh like stinging salt.
Let us go down
in the language of angels
to the broken bricks of Babel.
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