Lights . . . camera . . . aaak-zyun!
I can detect from these children’s faces
their desire to finish their studies.
It’s painful for me to experience violence.
(translation, poetry)
Category: Translations
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books.
Between cacti
and boulders, the car trudges
through the bypass roads (Palestinian Voices, translation)
there are no street ads anymore,
except for advertisements for death and patriotism.
this is our, no one else’s, autumn.
I’m a bit queasy from freedom,
from undercooked pasta with stew and raw water.
under artillery shelling
we are all as free as wheat,
as trees and birds,
(poetry/translations/Ukraine)
I think about the world:
a hummingbird’s heart
Its structure
so wickedly tender
(poetry/translations)
But every so often it goes berserk
And slips away from all control
It injects all sorts of liquids, starts to speak in tongues
And becomes infected with French syphilis or English rickets
Disrupting discotheques or buses filled with children
It dreams of ascension into heaven
(poetry/translations)
but how do you explain a marathon
to those who’ve never run it?
(poetry/translations)
That which presents itself
startling you
when you least expect it
must have the practised agility
of that which does not present itself
when it is expected.
(poetry/translations)
So the day begins:
searchlight; flesh cannot repel
it, drinks; partakes; that
never hurt before.
So the day begins
with Big Bang light; no way to
penetrate its skin.
No tool can pierce it.
(poetry/translations)
the opening of a cut grape
the butterfly
if it were to lightly rest upon the extremity of the grape
and pretend to drink
if it wasn’t drinking
what was to be done then?
I would have to
improve how well I see, with these eyes
improve how well I hear sounds
and so, employing my hands
I noticed
the smallest of movements
(translations)
“What do you know of killing a child?” Medea shouted, her voice trembling with the hereafter. The woman bowed her head, circling endlessly over rocky ground, stacking stones, whispering absence and omission as her weapons, searching for forgiveness that would never come.
(translations)
