Andrea Durlacher
Translated by Anna Rosenwong

It’s something no one regrets.

Menacing rituals arrive like an avalanche

and social norms.

Their arrival scares off any afternoon idle.

Shut the doors.

We’re cast down defeated in moonlight.

In turn

the reckoning.

*

I hope the moon

doesn’t draw us toward violent times.

I was never violent

and I won’t turn violent now.

As for you I love you moonless

in the sin of your own courage.

*

The letters of each syllable sink

in my room monsters surge back to life from a word.

Isolated birds

in scattered cages.

I remain.

I regard my thoughts.

Image: Eloisa Ballivian

Martín Gambarotta
Übersetzt von Timo Berger

Hier ist das Wasser anders, die Schuppenblätter

der Artischocken sind anders, alles ist

im Wesentlichen anders

aber der, der eine Flasche aus dem Kühlschrank fischt

und sie auf die Arbeitsplatte stellt, ist

grundsätzlich derselbe.

*

Ihr, die ihr euch für die Konfrontation

entscheidet, ihr die ihr euch für

die Konfrontation entscheidet, ihr

die ihr euch für die Konfrontation entscheidet

Ihr die ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet, ihr

die ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet, ihr, die

ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr euch für den Zweifel entscheidet, ihr

die ihr für den Zweifel entscheidet, ihr, die ihr für den Zweifel

entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr die für die Anomalie entscheidet, ihr

die ihr für die Anomalie entscheidet, ihr, die ihr für die Anomalie

entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr millimetergenau eure Handlungen

messt, ihr, die ihr millimetergenau

eure Handlungen messt, ihr

eure Handlungen messt.

*

Fünfzehn Monate, drei der Monate

um den Rest der Monate zu entschlüsseln

deine Monate, das … Read More »

Martín Gambarotta
Translated by Alexis Almeida

Here, the water is different, the artichoke

leaves are different, everything is

in essence, different,

but he who takes the bottle from the refrigerator

and puts it on the table is

basically the same

*

You who choose

confrontation, you who choose

confrontation, you

who choose confrontation.

You who choose reverberation, you

who choose reverberation, you who

choose reverberation.

You who choose dubitation, you

who choose dubitation, you who choose

dubitation.

You who choose anomaly, you

who choose anomaly, you who choose

anomaly.

You who measure your actions

milimetrically, you who measure

your actions milimetrically, you

who measure you actions milimetrically.

*

Fifteen months, three of those months

to decode the rest of the months

your months, which is to say north of those

months there was nothing.

*

You who are able to materialize, you

who are able to materialize. You who are able

to materialize.

*

You who don’t understand the benefit

of having spent long hours, entire days

with binoculars watching birds and

recording their names … Read More »

Anja Kampmann

About the Sea

The horizon is the concern here the

distance applying color the bright crackling

of surfaces of light and the spreading

of the light as it surges the sea

within its broad chest the putrid sludge

of the fishmeal factories the sea of romantic

fires on the gravel beaches travelers

now losing themselves forever

in a distant view the sea in the harbors, the docks

the container areas licking the sea

beneath cranes all heaving the

homesickness nightwards the sea of moray eels

lurking back behind a rock

the sea of the deep with a hidden image

for the dreams of the sea

that vanished in the sea bottomless

the trenches above it all a mosaic of flakes

streaming tough thick field of dirt the sea

that is so well concealed gasping for air within

its broad chest and snatching at

itself.

translation: Wieland Hoban

*

borderland

we had thaws in the brighter hours

we knew no cold only the ladders

led … Read More »

Zheng Chouyu
translated by Qiaomei Tang

I traveled through the South Land
A longing face blooms and fades like the lotus flower with the seasons
The east wind is yet to arrive, the willow’s March catkins are waiting to fly
your heart is like the small, lonely, walled city
like an alley of blue-green cobbles facing the setting sun
the crickets are not crying, the windows are drawn in March
The hooves of my horse clatter — it’s a beautiful mistake
I’m not coming home, I’m only passing through

 READ THIS IN CHINESE

Image: Zhang Daqian, Sceneries of Jiangnan

7.
There was an old person whose zeal
Made him bug-eyed and tense at the wheel.
He wasn’t much fun, and they said he was un-
representative of their ideal.

* *

19.
There was an old man from Sichuan,
Who directed the kids on his lawn.
He was rather aloof, and would sit on the roof,
And descend only when they had gone.

* *

40.
There was a young person named Wheeler,
Preserved in a jar of tequila.
“I’m a gnat! I’m a gnat!” was the comment of that
Hymenopterous person named Wheeler.

* *

52.
There was a young man from St James,
Who consigned all his work to the flames.
When asked why he did it, he sadly admitted
It’s one of his dumb little games.

* *

69.
There was an old man from Seattle:
Four fifths of his life was a battle.
He argued and … Read More »

The Problem with Travel

Every time I’m in an airport,
I think I should drastically
change my life: Kill the kid stuff,
start to act my numbers, set fire
to the clutter and creep below
the radar like an escaped canine
sneaking along the fence line.
I’d be cable-knitted to the hilt,
beautiful beyond buying, believe
in the maker and fix my problems
with prayer and property.
Then, I think of you, home
with the dog, the field full
of purple pop-ups—we’re small
and flawed, but I want to be
who I am, going where
I’m going, all over again.
 
 

* * *

 
 
Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds

My ex got hit by a bus.

He wrote me in a text to tell me this.
____Now will you talk to me? I got hit by a bus.

He even sent me a link to the blurry footage on the news.
I never wanted to see him come … Read More »

BERGMAN’S SUMMER WITH MONIKA

At work, she’s a game
guys play between loading boxes,
her home, cramped, noisy.

She and her lover sail
under a high arch
into an archipelago,

summer brief,
a match blown out.
Food gone, she returns

to the mainland
with child.  To the dark.
Winter.  Bored,

she looks for men.
Sun, jailed in snow–
others raise her daughter.

MOONFLOWER ON THE PORCH

I dream I’m with another man.
Who I meet in the Boscov’s
furniture section
on a bubblegum-colored couch.

I say I already have a guy.  He says
so what?  Startled, I wake up,

you still sleeping.  Life
gets normal again.  Cats.  Coffee.
The Dave Clark Five a needle drop away.
A late summer moonflower’s
ghost on the porch.

PESSOA MEETS WHITMAN ON HEAVEN’S PATIO

Good evening, friend.  How long
have you been here?  Over 100 years?
I understand you.  And
misunderstand as much.

We’re comrades.
Didn’t we sleep together once,
share a dream, ecstatic,
scary?  I wanted it to return,
but you were revising in New Jersey.

Have you seen God yet?
I … Read More »

KATABASIS SUITE

* *

Image: “Hoy viernes 122″ by Sergio Jiménez. Curated by Marisa Espínola for Espacio en Blanco. (More)

YOU HAD GLITTER ON YOUR FINGERS

I can hug the old refrigerator before they take it away.
I can write that you had glitter on your fingers and that burning glitter smells like a fairy tale.
I can bite the cat’s tail.
I can bite my husband’s beard, because it is mine, because it is mine and tastes like fruit.
I can cry and say that I’m crying, and not feel embarrassed by my pink cheeks.
I can be sappy.
I can dance naked with the windows open.
I can paint each nail a different color.
I can clean the house only once a week.
I can refuse to read the news.
I can refuse to hear the planes.
I can refuse to feed the mosquitoes with my thick, viscous blood.
I can invent a lullaby for deaf children, the only thing missing is a voice, the only thing missing is a long … Read More »