Month: September 2013

Six O’Clock by Nazim Hikmet

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Morning, six o’clock.
I opened the door of the day and stepped in–
a taste of young blue greeted me in the window,
the lines on my forehead remained in the mirror from yesterday,
and behind me a woman’s voice came softer than peach fuzz
and, on the radio, news from my country,
and now, my greed filling and overflowing,
I’ll run from tree to tree in the orchard of the hours,
and the sun will set, my love,
and I hope that beyond the night
the taste of a new blue will await me, I hope.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

advice on being a writer from William Saroyan

/ zdunno03 / 5 Comments

The most solid advice, though, for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai

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They amputated
your thighs off my hips.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
each from the other.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
and loving invention.
An airplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

In Autumn Morning by Sowol Kim

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Under the far-off, pale-blue sky
rows of grey roofs flash.
The wind whines in the wood
through the ribbed trees.
Mists invade a mountain village
barely visible in the distance.

The rain has chilled the dawn air.
The stream freezes, studded with fallen leaves.
Memories coming alive in tears
whisper comfortingly to my soul
that cries wildly like an infant
cut with a knife.

Wasn’t there a time
when you were happy and light-hearted?
How the voice soothes,
a salve to my bruised heart.
I cry and cry at the voice,
without shame or hate.