588 Poetry entries in Mag: Articles
For Eugenio Montejo
Serene, Salinas, grows the air and decks itself in beauty and unaccustomed light when consummate music sounds steered by your knowing hand. Tr. Michael Smith …...
I Wish I Had a Master
for S.F. I wish I had a master to teach me how to live, to eat with knife and fork as well as to write poems he’d tell me how the…...
On Tao Qian
Tao Qian on Tao Qian: He likes to read and is satisfied with the most simple of explanations. When he understands what something means, he is so happy he forgets to eat. Su Dongpo on Tao Qian: He writes…...
Alterity
The rules are clear: no place to mill about. There’s no such thing as comfort for unhappy men. He leaves the tall house and passes through the eye of the blizzard, insignias unpinned, his neck exposed…...
Timon vs. Newton
Timon and Newton were arguing about fruit. Netwon said: "I prefer the apple since I discovered gravity while peacefully dozing under the shade of an apple tree." Timon shot back with stinging words: "Newton,…...
only i am
it'll happen via levels and verticals, you won't even notice before a cluster of tongues has ground you, smelt from your body a thimble for death. you have no chance without me. only i am cruelty-free:…...
Adjectival Poem
Amazing spring, warm, humid and full of backlit trees in various colors, even if it’s still unclear which ones, except for the rhododendron, which one way or another stays in shape, though it’s…...
Du Fu
Du Fu says of himself that he was a child prodigy, that he was writing poetry when he was seven or eight years old. When he’s over forty, he will be a great poet. What he can think about, he can…...
Bugging
And of course the birds go on chirping, and how! Even if they’re not chirping. Bah, wires can chirp almost as well, so it’s easy to confuse them. It’s altogether loud and sensuous, almost…...
Su Dongpo and the Trick he says he Learned from Tao Qian
The simplest way to find tranquility: keep starting over in a different way. He knows nothing about those who find tranquility, free from what surrounds them; he’s never met anyone like that. Let’s…...
Utensils Shrink
children grow, no doubt happily verbs swell before your eyes or burst their seams, everything does something to be happy inevitably. In Studio “Bernardi,” Łódź, 17 Piotr- kowska…...
Timoniad
Sing, Muse, of that misanthrope, who was homeless and forever wandering, since he had yet to chop down his fig tree. In the city he ignored the many routine evils of most men as he strove to keep alive,…...
Old-Fashioned
And then she died on us, utterly. The leg dead, the foot rough. The bend of the knee glows with emptiness. And the belly’s warmth turns to ash, a black sachet filled with down. Even the cigarette,…...
Main Character
A Man. Here he is. He has height and breadth. And something in his eye. The man picks his eye. He picks at his eyelashes, eyelid. On the whole the man has face. It could be described. How should we describe…...
The Fountain
When the inscrutable embraces sluggish time spreading its invisible light between two suspended shores rags of screams, a flight of black cloth spread a hollow vertigo down the native alley Sanctuaries…...
A Telephone Conversation
Dear little squirrel, can you hear me, do you understand what I say when I talk to you, can you feel me lifting you, as we cross the yard together in order to bury you in the ditch where the soil is soft…...
Impromptu
When the snow covers your grave you have forgotten the snow. Translation of “Impromptu.” Copyright 1994 by Rune Christiansen. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2011 by Agnes…...
from “The Horse Eaters”
You can feel dejected, thwarted, dead, even as you walk about breathing soundly. You can sense that the bat back home is considerably larger than yourself. And were your fingers to get tangled in the culture-spider’s…...
1956
So much of this happened in basements, in thick woolen sweaters, in B major but with strong passages in minor. On the outskirts. That’s where we were from but our thoughts had wings like the pigeons…...
Path of Light
Where have you come from? From the other world. And where are you going? Towards the other world. Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya “Song of the Hermit” I slept for three centuries on…...
