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The Stolen Heart
by Arthur Rimbaud
My sad heart dribbles on the poop...
My heart drenched in tobacco spit!
They hurl jets of soup on it
My sad heart dribbles on the poop...
Under the jeering of the troop
Which guffaws in a fit,
My sad heart dribbles on the poop
My heart is drenched in tobacco spit!
Lecherous and soldierly
Their insults have debased it;
They've drawn graffiti on the bow
Lecherous and soldierly;
Oh, abracadabrish waves,
Take my heart, save it somehow!
Lecherous and soldierly
Their insults have debased it!
When they will have shot their wads,
Oh, stolen heart, how will you react?
There'll be a Bacchic accolade
When they will have shot their wads!
My stomach will surely contract
If my sad heart they degrade!
When they will have shot their wads,
Oh, stolen heart, how will you react?
(translated from the French by the editor)
On Sharing a Husband
by Ho Xuan Huong
Screw the fate that makes you share a man.
One cuddles under cotton blankets; the other's cold.
Every now and then, well, maybe or maybe not,
once or twice a month, oh, it's like nothing.
You try to stick to it like a fly on rice
but the rice is rotten. You slave like the maid,
but without pay. If I had known how it would go
I think I would have lived alone.
(translated from the Vietnamese by John Balaban)
The Unrung Ring
by Taslima Nasrin
So many things ring,
the cells of the body,
the ankle bells as they dance,
the silver wrist bangles.
As the monsoon rains fall on the window
the glass panes musically ring.
As clouds clash with clouds
lightning rings out.
Dreams ring, keeping time to their beats,
and, making a havoc internally,
loneliness rings.
Only an intimate bell on my door does not ring.
Happy Marriage
by Taslima Nasrin
My life, like a sandbar,
has been taken over by a monster of a man
who wants my body under his control
so that, if he wishes,
he can spit in my face,
slap me on the cheek,
pinch my rear;
so that, if he wishes,
he can rob me of the clothes,
take my naked beauty in his grip;
so that, if he wishes.
he can chain my feet,
with no qualms whatsoever whip me,
chop off my hands, my fingers,
sprinkle salt in the open wound,
throw ground-up black pepper in my eyes,
with a dagger can slash my thigh,
can string me up and hang me.
His goal: to control my heart
so that I would love him;
in my lonely house at night
sleepless, full of anxiety,
clutching at the window grille,
I would wait for him and sob;
tears rolling down, I would bake homemade bread,
would drink, as if they were ambrosia,
the filthy liquids of his oleaginous body
so that, loving him, I would melt like wax,
not turning my eyes toward any other man.
I would give proof of my chastity all my life.
So that, loving him,
on some moonlit night
I would commit suicide
in a fit of ecstasy.
How To Taunt An Abyss
by Matt Koeske
I pulled off the road at the scenic overlook
that teetered over the abyss where the Damned were kept.
Hey Damned! I called out,
how’s the abyss treating you?
We cannot say, came the answer,
we are only an echo ...
how’s the scenic overlook?
Not bad, it’s what the road can afford.
So what’s it like to be damned?
Not bad. What’s it like to be at the scenic overlook?
Like being nothing but a voice falling forever, I said.
How sad, echoed the abyss, sounds lonely.
Lonely, I echoed back.
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Interstices and Protuberances
by Kathleen Halme
Corn segues like greening shades of thought,
prepared to shoot abstraction from the sky,
and girls in pink and violet sweats are taught
to pull the drooping silk and so untie
the creamy ears’ alleged concupiscence.
Spilled roots and corn and silk; the boys work near.
One hidden girl stops taking silk. Intense,
she strips the green, each blade, and cups the ear.
Confirmed now, she thumbs the ivory teeth,
and stretching up to meet the torch, she bites,
and tastes her first surprise of milk-white sweet.
This is good, she thinks as she unfolds the rite
and listens for the warming schwa of growing form
she hears inside the rows, the stalks, the corn.
Deor
Weland for his skill suffered exile,
the strong-willed hero had hardships to bear,
had as his companions pain and sorrow,
winter-cold exile, and endless griefs,
from the time that Nithhad tied him in fetters,
breaking the hamstrings of a better man.
That passed over; and so may this.
Beaduhild grieved less for her brothers' deaths
than she grieved in her heart for her own hard fate,
when it became clear she was carrying a child;
she could not foresee the uncertain future
or tell if her troubles would turn out well.
That passed over; and so may this.
We have heard of the misery that Maethhild felt
who was wife to Geat, how it grew yet deeper
When her sleep was stolen by sorrowful love.
That passed over; and so may this.
Theodoric ruled for thirty years
the Maerings’ stronghold; many knew that.
That passed over; and so may this.
We have heard too of the wolvish temper
Ermanaric had, who mastered the lands
of the Gothic kingdom; he was a cruel lord.
Wrapped in sorrow and sad at heart,
Many an armed man often wanted
Ermanaric's kingdom to come to grief.
That passed over; and so may this.
A man sits restless, bereaved of joys,
feels sick at heart, secretly thinks
that his share of hardships is over-large.
He may then reflect that through this world
God in his wisdom goes on his way;
a gift of grace he gives to many,
assurance of glory, but grief to some.
I will tell you something true of myself:
the Heodenings employed me as poet for a time,
I was dear to my lord, and Deor was my name.
For many years I held a high-ranking post,
acknowledged by my master, but now Heorrenda,
a man skilled in song, is assigned the lands
the protector of fighters gave first to me.
That passed over; and so may this.
(translated from the Old English by Bella Millett)
The Meeting
by Piotr Gwiazda
They called a meeting. They canceled a meeting.
They met in the lobby. They met behind closed doors.
They brought in speakers. They brought in soda.
They discussed something. What did they discuss?
Heads will roll, said the woman in the cubicle.
Land will move, said the man in the copy room.
Someone was shouting. Someone was pleading.
Time was running out, so they took a break.
They set priorities to their agenda.
They planned, proposed, considered, compromised.
They looked for solutions to unsolvable problems.
They blackmailed, bluffed, threatened with generals.
They shook hands at the press conference
And vowed soon to arrange for another meeting.
And the heads rolled and the land moved
As if there never had been any meeting.
Elegy For The Flat Seltzer
by Emil Brumaru
I miss a rancid pussy from the boonies
Forgotten on a porch sometime in May…
I’d like to blow in it as in a pan flute
Has anyone ever made a piece of bacon play?
If possible I’d like her to be cheerless
With bangs galore and tufts a-swanky:
When I go in she should say “Aah!” and “Ooh!”
When I slip out, she should brandish a hanky
Like girls forgotten on the station pass
When trains filled with recruits depart…
Oh, Beatrice, Ophelia, Tamara!
Why do I sit forsaken like a seltzer glass?
(translated from the Romanian by the editor)
The King of Bombaria
by Sukumar Ray
In the land of Bombaria
The customs are peculiar.
The king, for instance, advocates
Gilded frames for chocolates.
The queen, who seldom goes to bed
Straps a pillow round her head.
The courtiers - or so I'm told -
Turn cartwheels when they have a cold:
... The King's old aunt - an autocrat -
Hits pumpkins with her cricket bat
While Uncle loves to dance Mazurkas
Wearing garlands strung with hookaha.
All of this, though mighty queer,
Is natural in Bombaria.
(translated from the Bengali by Satyajit Ray)
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