THE CITY by Helwig Brunner, translated by Monika Zobel
Die Stadt zu Linien vereinfacht,
abgeschminkt das eigene Gesicht.
Häuser, Schritte und Gedanken
sind aus demselben Material,
Grafitstaub und Diamanten.
Die Zeit steht, senkt deine Lider,
um einmal jetzt zu sein, inmitten
der schlafenden Welt, hellsichtig
zugewandt den tappenden Fragen
der Somnambulen.
Helwig Brunner‘s work has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies in Europe and elsewhere, including New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008). Brunner has published eight books of poetry, most recently Vorläufige Tage (Leykam Verlag, 2011) and Die Sicht der Dinge: Rätselgedichte (edition keiper, 2012), as well as some novels, short stories, and essays. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes in Austria and Germany.
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The city simplified to lines,
makeup removed from your face.
Houses, footsteps, and thoughts
are made of the same material,
graphite dust and diamonds.
Time stalls, lowers your lids,
to be now for once in the midst of
a sleeping world, clear-sighted
turned toward the groping questions
of the somnambulists.
Monika Zobel‘s poems and translations have been published in Redivider, The Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cream City Review, Mid-American Review, The Adirondack Review, Guernica Magazine, West Branch, Best New Poets 2010, and elsewhere. A senior editor at The California Journal of Poetics and recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
- Published in Issue 3, Poetry, Translation
ECHOLOCATION: AERIAL SCRIPT by Helwig Brunner, translated by Monika Zobel
Echolot. Luftlinienschrift
Die Fledermäuse, an ihre Laute gedacht,
unhörbar, das Horchen also hinein in eine
Stille, die keine ist; sie ziehn den Blick
in den Dämmerhimmel, das Zickzack ihres
Flatterfluges, samtpelzige Beinahvögel,
die mit den Ohren schaun: Bilder hören.
Wenig später sind sie entzogen, entflogen
hinter die schwarze Jalousie der Nacht,
gesättigt an den Blindstellen des Echos
und ich denke sehr banal, wie wenig ich
auslote mit Worten.
Helwig Brunner‘s work has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies in Europe and elsewhere, including New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008). Brunner has published eight books of poetry, most recently Vorläufige Tage (Leykam Verlag, 2011) and Die Sicht der Dinge: Rätselgedichte (edition keiper, 2012), as well as some novels, short stories, and essays. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes in Austria and Germany.
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Echolocation: Aerial Script
The bats, reflecting on their sounds,
inaudible, thus eavesdropping on a
silence, which is none; they drag the gaze
through the twilight sky, the zigzag of their
flutter flight, satin-fur nearly birds
that see with their ears: listen to images.
A little later they diminish, vanish
behind the black blinds of night,
satiated by the blind spots of the echo
and I think how little I sound out
with trite words.
Monika Zobel‘s poems and translations have been published in Redivider, The Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cream City Review, Mid-American Review, The Adirondack Review, Guernica Magazine, West Branch, Best New Poets 2010, and elsewhere. A senior editor at The California Journal of Poetics and recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
- Published in Issue 3, Poetry, Translation
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