Poetry
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Excerpts from “The Cloud in Trousers” by Vladimir Mayakovsky (translated from the Russian by David Lehman)
The Cloud in Trousers
(From Part One)
Hey!
Gentlemen!
You who,
next to me,
are rank amateurs
in the realms
of sacrilege,
mischief,
and mayhem —
have you laid eyes on
the most terrifying thing
in the world –
my face
when I am totally calm,
cool and collected?I fear
my ego
isn’t big enough
for the rest of me
which
is struggling
to emerge
as a full-born youth
from a Madonna’s womb. -
“Of Trips, Of Fires,” by Edgar Rincón Luna, Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Of Trips, Of Fires“Only strangers travel owning everythingI have nowhere to go”Leonard CohenI drink a cup of coffee
you drink a cup of fire
behind our eyelids
two tears hit like rain
old photos go through the dust
a cemetery of ashes
a patio filled with our old cadavershave we really built this wasteland for us?
is the tattoo of sand on the skin ours? -
“Crepuscule” by Daisy Bassen
Vanity is important as snow,As the deer in the yardThat is covered by snow, unpockedWith boot-prints. She was more beautifulAs a fawn. I wanted her to be mine,To come every twilight and look at meBecause we were alike somehowAnd it was worth the risk to stand there,Like an India ink etching, a meal for a coyote.But I was irrelevant or perhaps deer do not seeVery well when night is coming, -
Three Poems by Vladimir Gandelsman, Translated by Olga Livshin and Andrew Janco
MOM, RESURRECTED
Wear your coat. Wear your hat.
You’ll get sick. Don’t do that.
Call your mom. Call your mom.
A storm is coming. A storm.Get some bread on the way home.
Get up. It’s five minutes till. Hello?
I got you a delicious treat.
We’ll be able to pay for heat.That’s for the holidays. Why did you open it.
What did you do this time. What did—
Just go away. Just beat it, all right?
Daddy and I waited all night. -
“The Author Dedicates These Lines to His Beloved Self” by Vladimir Mayakovsky (translated by Val Vinokur)
The Author Dedicates These Lines to His Beloved Self
Heavy.
Like six blows.
“Caesar’s unto Caesar––God’s unto God.”
But where is a guy
like me
supposed to go?
Where is my lair prepared?If I were
still little,
like the Great Ocean,
I’d get up on my wavy tiptoes,
caress the moon with the tide.
Where can I find a beloved,
someone just like me?
She wouldn’t fit into the tiny sky!O if only I were penniless!
Like a billionaire! -
“Crisis” by Gerardo Deniz (translated by Mónica de la Torre)
Evangelista Cicindelli had no dark side. In vain
they spoke to him about Teilhard de Chardin, about mysteries,
the mysteries of the sea,
of life,
unexplained by positivism. In vain
they tried to shake his stool enameled white,
they spat in the histological preparations while he was out having lunch.By the rocky edge,
the ruinous and unfinished mansion, without windowpanes
so you can face the threatening sea
and welcome the wind carrying saltpeter and saliva, excoriate
the water’s torso,
and welcome your name between the clamor of the wind,
