JANUARY by Sara Uribe, translated by Toshiya Kamei
ENERO
en las calles hay testigos que juran haberme visto caminar por ciertos sitios dicen que vivo ahí del otro lado de la palabra que tengo un jardín donde en lugar de flores todas las noches siembro olvido pero no los conozco y no sé si mienten o si la memoria es un rostro un ojo de murmullos que nos sigue y nos acecha cuando los días son más oscuros y la vida apenas comienza
On the above left, listen to the original version of “January”…
Sara Uribe was born in 1978 in Querétaro, Mexico. She is the author of Lo que no imaginas (2004), Palabras más palabras menos (2006), and Nunca quise detener el tiempo (2007). English translations of her poems have appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Harpur Palate, and So to Speak, among others.
JANUARY
on the streets there are witnesses who swear they have seen me walk around certain places they say I live beyond the other side of the word that I have a garden where instead of flowers every night I sow oblivion but I don’t know them and don’t know if they lie or if memory is a face an eye of murmurs that follows us and lies in wait when days are darker and life barely begins
- Published in Issue 2, Poetry, Translation
EDGE by Sara Uribe, translated by Toshiya Kamei
FILO
en el filo del tiempo pronuncio tu nombre una y otra vez como una suerte de conjuro pero todos saben que una palabra pierde sentido si la repites muchas veces que una palabra es demasiado frágil como para no romperse como para no rasgarse con el filo inverso del silencio así que mi voz se desvanece entre los hilos invisibles del sentido y sólo queda en el acero solitario del lenguaje una sombra una traza que se dispersa
On the above left, listen to the original version of “Edge”
Sara Uribe was born in 1978 in Querétaro, Mexico. She is the author of Lo que no imaginas (2004), Palabras más palabras menos (2006), and Nunca quise detener el tiempo (2007). English translations of her poems have appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Harpur Palate, and So to Speak, among others.
EDGE
on the edge of time I chant your name over and over again like a spell but everyone knows a word loses meaning if you repeat it many times a word is too fragile not without breaking not without tearing with the opposite blade of silence so my voice disappears among invisible edges of meaning and what only remains on the solitary steel of language is a shadow a trace that scatters
- Published in Issue 2, Poetry, Translation
ON THE SEPARATION OF ADAM AND EVE by Timothy Liu
It’s unknown when they were first
parted, only that they were painted
on panels by Goltzius circa
1611. Deprived of his companion
in paradise, Adam showed up in 2003
at a French auction and was sold
to a New York dealer, a branch
of hawthorn in our forefather’s hand
clutched to his chest, the bottom edge
of the painting cropped just above
where his nipples would’ve shown—
his life-size figure mirroring back
who we are, sprigs of hawthorn
crowning his curls, all sold in turn
to the Wadsworth Atheneum the following
year. Exactly when Eve showed up
in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Strasbourg
is beside the point. What counts is when
you turn the panels over, the markings
match. Never mind that they were made
for one another, his head turning
to his own left, hers to the right,
offering up an apple to his mouth
if only she could move it from one frame
to the next. Nor will his hand ever touch
her breasts, nipples angled up, her tresses
flowing free. The curator of the Wadsworth
claims it’s been centuries since this pair
was last seen together, other paintings
in their vast collection still searching
for their mates, often victims of scheduling
or financial restraints. Best hurry up
while there’s time—our reunited couple
on view from Feb. 14 to the end of May.
Listen to Timothy Liu’s reading of “On The Separation of Adam and Eve” below…
Timothy Liu’s poem refers to Dutch master Hendrick Goltzius’ panels Adam and Eve, painted in the early 17th century. The paintings were briefly reunited for an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg in the spring of 2010, after over a century apart. Image courtesy of The Wadsworth Museum.
FIRST MEMORYby Timothy Liu
My mother in a stupor,
stumbling down
the hallway in panties
soaked in blood—
my hand leading her
back to bed.
ANONYMOUS by Timothy Liu
MAKE ME JUMP INTO THE AIR by Cat Richardson
After David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream”
Listen you’re a moonage marvel,
a Bowie from the Bayou with a snake
in your pant cuff. You carry an electric
swamp around you like a cloak
of wet stars.
Skinny legs, I’ve seen you leap
over cars without a running start.
I’ve seen you become a diving bird.
You dipped into the water and came
up with a flayed goat’s head in your
claws. Picked the flesh off, you did.
Start a fire. I’ll send smoke up
to the smallest gods.
That might not sit right with you,
friend, you’re a complicated
little splinter, but get low with me:
I’m an alligator I’d make fine
leather goods. You’re a space invader
so set me loose in the pulsar’s pool.
Keep your toes sunk in the bog
bottom. It’s the only way
to lose this freak parade—we’ve
got a long way to go before the ground
reaches the sky, and you’re all
I’ve got in this radiant swamp.
Listen to Cat Richardson’s discussion of “Make Me Jump Into the Air” below…
A POET FORGETS HIS LIBRARY by Cornelius Eady
For Jack Agueros
Look at all those lovely books.
What are all those books to me?
Words are wriggle-fish in an endless sea.
I over-hear them talking,
Sometimes I think
They’re talking about me.
All this time, all this time
All this time at sea.
They say it has no memory.
A poet forgets his library.
Something was written long ago.
A voice I should know says it was written by me.
Something like a hymn, almost holy song,
Some face on the cover, but they’ve
Got it all wrong.
Tell me what this nonsense
Has to do with me?
All this time, all this time
All this time at sea.
They say it has no memory.
A poet forgets his library.
My name they say, is a man beloved,
A man with a printed history.
Here I sit, and here they try
To read it back to me.
What’s this accusation?
The hell is poetry?
All this time, all this time
All this time at sea.
They say it has no memory.
A poet forgets his library.
Words written by: Cornelius Eady
Music composed by: Bernie Heveron
Vocals: Cornelius Eady
Guitar: Marvin Sewell
Everything Else: Bernie Heveron
Listen to the song “A Poet Forgets His Library” below…
Cornelius Eady describes his hybrid music/poetry project and the specific inspiration for “A Poet Forgets His Library,” dedicated to Puerto Rican poet and activist Jack Agueros…
STRANGE GOSPELS by Cynthia Cruz
I was locked in the linen closet, lost
In ruffles of gingham tatters and my sky
Bleached hair. I wore the
Paper crown. I wore the flimsy red
Tiara. I let them
Pin them wings on me.
The palace, I say, is burning.
And snipers masked in mandarin felt masks.
In my room, I can hear them
Breaking off of daddy’s ancient CB:
One day she’ll be a looker.
Someday, a knockout.
But all I see when I look in the mirror
Is a bright blue sky filling with F16s.
Listen to Cynthia Cruz’s reading of “Strange Gospels” below…
THE ANGELS by Maria Hummel
They have not come for you. They will not blister
the day with light and swords. The room remains
a room, and not a portal. The syringes
hold no messages, not even plain
emptiness. The food trays, when you eat food,
rattle if I move them, and, if left alone,
sink beneath the ice of grease. The good
doctor is pregnant, and strokes her own
belly when she speaks. In a thousand years
no one will remember any of this.
The hospital will be a ruin. Your
tubes twisted in a dump, or burned. But if wrists
are stumps, hands are trees; I lift yours to learn
how the wind moves. Hold them to know where it turns.
DEAR SUBURB, by David Roderick
Some blunt hammering set me off,
that and the teeth of a saw.
I left behind my sweater,
the remains of a sandwich, my camera,
some paperweights, my lament. I left behind
a few weak coals I’d blown alive.
This happened somewhere
off one of your forgotten roads,
just past a farm stand where customers leave
a little corrugated shed
with the smell of rotting corn-silk in their clothes.
The important fs are focus, flatness, and frame.
As I walked toward a harvest
of photographs you vanished
in the pinhole just beyond
my reach, like an owl in its darkest seat.
Listen to David Roderick’s reading of “Dear Suburb,” below…
AUBADE IN PIECES by Victoria Lynne McCoy
Even as I deliver my body
to the subway’s tenebrous mercy,
I cannot un-know this:
each time daylight invades
our limbs, the sun marching
its restless armies up the sheets,
my love will put entire states between us
and there’s no telling
when the map will tesseract
itself to bring him back.
~
Always his breath that first
breaks me. His chest a hum
of lightning bugs. Lethal
little darlings. His fingers
swarm my thighs. He leaves
teeth prints to miss him by—
Praise this skin
its miracle cells, their blessed
forgetfulness.
~
Under my pillow, a mason jar
where I collect my name
each time it burns his mouth
open, fireflies
in the summer porch of him.
I pin their wings down.
I sing to them of the hour
before the wolf comes.
Listen to Victoria Lynne McCoy’s reading of “Aubade in Pieces” below…
MAP (7) by Ye Chun
7. Olympia, Washington
The Pacific Ocean shovels coals in the distance.
My drunk friends drop pebbles at me as I lie
on the couch losing water. Be happy, be happy, be happy.
I’m trying to see spring sprout, mountain that smells like green apple,
grass younger than me, to see the pink sweater
I wore when the sun sprinkled pink dust and I practiced
xiang gong to make my body fragrant,
not the speeding lines of the steel tunnel,
a hand gridding its fingers on my ribs.
I’m trying to breathe, to reach water or an address.
In the white house
with white windows
who spends the night?
The dead say: don’t
talk so loud
I can hear you
even before the words are said
In the woods
there is a bird
whose feathers
have every color
in the world
You’ve seen it
You’ve gathered
every name of it
in your throat