the candle flickers
the ice melting in the glass
nothing seems to help
like things did to stop the past
from playing havoc with sleep
memory
Darkness by Ahmet Hasim
On this dark night of love
Wildly the nightingale sings,
Has Leyla left Mejnun?
I thought the Wild voice sang of parting pain.
On this dark night of love
I felt my grief, remembered you,
Burned like the love-lorn nightingale’s sad refrain.
translated by Bernard Lewis
dancing in the dark: for JK wherever she is
he can’t remember the song
just the image
her naked dancing
candles the only light in the room
he’s sitting on the floor
leaning back against the couch
the dog asleep above him
and her hips sway
the light playing shadows
where lust lives
and he will bury his head soon
immersed in shadows himself
and hips will be joined
on that floor
that rug
lost in what should have lasted forever
but is only a memory now
Ordinary Autumn Evening by Dong-Jip Shin
On an ordinary autumn evening
Ordinary fruit is better.
Sometimes ordinary words
With no peculiar savor
Suit me better.
Hearing in memory
The last car depart,
I step over
The membrane of sleep,
And a fruit falls in my dream.
I will ask the wind
That departs in the morning
To what depths the fruit has fallen.
unknown translator
Your Hair Dried Last by Yehuda Amichai
Your hair dried last.
When we were already far from the sea,
when words and salt, which mixed on us,
separated from each other
with a sigh,
and your body no longer showed
signs of terrible antecedents.
In vain we forgot a few things on the beach,
as a pretext to return.
We did not return.
And these days I remember the days
on which your name was fixed like a name on a ship.
And how we saw, through two open doors,
a man thinking, and how we looked
at the clouds with the ancient look
we inherited from our fathers
waiting for rain,
and how at night, when the world had cooled,
your body held on to its heat a long time
like a sea.
A Song of “Hand-in-Hand” by Ou-yang Hsiu
The sun sets on the dike where I walk,
As I sing alone the song of “Hand-in-hand.”
Then I remember the one whose hand I once held,
And everywhere I look, spring is radiant and green.
In Autumn Morning by Sowol Kim
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.
a haiku: before you
awake and asleep
my mind goes back to a time
your face before me
A Purple Cloud by Sowol Kim
A purple cloud drifts away
and the sky begins to clear.
The snow fallen steadily in the night
bursts the pine grove into blossoms.
Millions of flashing flakes
dazzle in the sunlight.
I gaze on them forgetful
of what happened during the night.
A purple cloud drifts away.
from Conversations in Sicily by Elio Vittorini
Still smoking I went outside. Cra, cra, cra, shouted the ravens flying through the ashen sky. I went down into the street, went along the street of that Sicily which was no longer a journey, but motionless, and I smoked and cried.
“Ah! Ah! He’s crying! Why is he crying?” shouted the crows among themselves, following behind me.
I continued my walk without answering, and an old black woman followed behind me too. “Why are you crying?” she asked.
I didn’t respond, and I went on, smoking, crying; and a tough guy who was waiting on the piazza with his hands in his pockets asked me too: “Why are you crying?”
He too followed behind me, and still crying, I passed in front of a church. The priest saw us, me and those following me, and asked the old woman, the tough guy, the crows: “Why is this man crying?”
He joined us, and some street urchins saw us and exclaimed:
“Look! He’s smoking and crying!””
They also said: “He’s crying because of the smoke!” And they followed behind me with the others, bringing their game along too.
In the same way a barber followed behind me and a carpenter, a man in rags, a girl with her head wrapped in a scarf, a second man in rags. They saw me and they asked: “Why are you crying?” Or they asked those who were already following me: “Why is he crying?” And they all became my followers: a cart driver, a dog, men of Sicily, women of Sicily, and finally a Chinaman. “Why are you crying?” they asked.
But I had no response to give them. I wasn’t crying for any reason. Deep down I wasn’t even crying; I was remembering; and in the eyes of others, my remembering looked like crying.
translated by Alane Salierno Mason
Leonard Durso 