Mankind owns four things
that are no good at sea:
rudder, anchor, oars,
and the fear of going down.
translsated by Robert Bly
poetry
The Tomb of Little Su by Li He
Dew on the hidden orchid,
like crying eyes.
Nothing ties a love knot,
flowers in mist I cannot bear to cut.
Grass like the carriage cushion,
pines like the carriage roof,
the wind is her skirt,
the waters, her pendants.
A carriage with oiled sides
awaits in the evening.
Cold azure candle
struggles to give light.
At the foot of West Mound
wind blows the rain.
translated by Stephen Owen
I Planted In Your Body by Tristan Tzara
I planted in your body darling the flower
That will scatter on your throat cheeks hands petals
And your breasts will burst into bud tomorrow–spring
I like your eyebrows and your eyes shiny like metal
And your arms which curve like snakes, waves, sea
From your body I’d like to make palaces, architectural gradens
And monumental earthly gardens
And to bury myself in your flesh when I die
And in their ground to bury myself when I die
In your hair I breathe the scent of grapes of oranges
In your eyes in black I see a sun and zest for eating on your lips
With your teeth you’d like to tear flesh from soul
And your nails to turn into claws
I’d love to bite your breasts like bread is bitten into
By hungry men who pick up coins from the pavement
I’d love to flower your gaze with architectural gardens
And to line your thoughts with earthly dreams, mamia.
translated by Julian Semilian & Sanda Agalidi
The Soul of the Village by Lucian Blaga
Little girl, put your hands on my knees.
Eternity I believe was born in a village.
Here every thought is more slow
and your heart pulses less frequently,
as if beating not in your chest
but deep in the earth somewhere.
Here the thirst for redemption is met,
and if you have got your feet bloody
you can rest on a clay bank.
Look, it is evening,
The soul of the village hovers around us,
like a shy smell of cut grass
like a drift of smoke from thatched roofs
like the frolicking of young goats over high graves.
translated by Peter Jay
poem written during WWI by Dimcho Debelyanov
At daybreak on the dusty meadow road
a swift horse shakes its ferocious mane–
a young lad’s returning his home again.
Ah where’s the nook where I was born?
In the meadow waste, ey far in the dark
a flickering fire–travellers settle for the night,–
‘mid laughter’s din they’re going home.
Ah where’s the nook where I was born?
It’s been three days, the rain doesn’t stop,
sullen autumn lowers over the earth–
pain and darkness squeeze my heart.
Ah where’s the nook where I was born?
translated by Christopher Buxton
Spring of Night by Lucian Blaga
My beauty,
in the evening when you hold
my head in your lap,
your dark eyes are the spring
from which night flows over valleys,
mountains and plains
to cover the world
with a sea of darkness.
So black are your eyes, my light.
translated by Andrei Codrescu
Give Me A Body, You Mountains by Lucian Blaga
I only have you, my temporary body–
I don’t adorn you with blue and yellow flowers–
your weak mud is too small for the terrible
soul I carry.
Give me a body, you mountains,
you seas,
give me a body capable of bearing
my madness in full!
Big earth, be my trunk,
be the chest for this furious heart,
be the shelter for the storms that toss me,
be the vessel of my stubborn self!
My great footsteps will then be heard
in the vast cosmos–
I will be unstoppable and free,
the way I am,
holy earth!
When I make love
I’ll stretch all my oceans to the sky,
they will be rolling, vigorous arms
to take and bend his waist,
to kiss his bright stars.
When I hate
I’ll smash under my stone feet
the poor trembling suns
and perhaps I’ll smile.
But I only have you, my temporary body.
translated by Andrei Codrescu
A Day by Tudor Arghezi
Yesterday kept following me, all agog,
Like a starving dog,
Thinking it was leashed to my life with a belt,
With a rope or something–that is how it felt;
But reaching statues at a vacant lot
It turned back, seeing it was not.
Helpless and homeless it got lost
Though for a long time of rains and of frost
It had clung to me step by step, until today
At midday.
Whoever’s lost a day–long as his life has been–
Must seek it swiftly. Night is falling. Fog is setting in.
translated by Andrei Bantaş
Going-Back by Ion Vinea
Not today, not tomorrow: yesterday.
Where are the hours lost forever?
I long for the fading looks,
Voices call me like ghosts
Through the timeless remembrance.
I want the bleeding of the exhausted sun to come on lakes,
at sunset the buffalo bellowing,
the rustle of the gardens among the walls,
the wax fruit fragrance in the winter cellars,
the semi-darkness with perfume of camphor in the drawing room,
in the mirrors of waters of forgetfulness
and where the brother pasted away among torches.
I want the footsteps of my father climbing the stairs,
the brass gong to announce the supper,
I wish, mother, to hear my name, gentle and real,
whispered again
as it remained floating in the rubble of the thought.
I wish to close the magic in the house with the iron bar placed on the gate,
to trim in the niche the icon lamp
and alone in the dead area
Priam will bark in the night to the cold zodiac signs
until late, ominously, deserted,
while in the sheets scented with lavender water
I will fall asleep forever.
tranlated by Liviu Georgescu
from To Speak About Changes Was to Speak Love by Yehuda Amichai
We did not stay long enough together
to erect for ourselves a lovers’ monument.
translated by Yehuda Amichai & Ted Hughes
Leonard Durso 