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Noon Passes in this Twentieth Century
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
My pretty wife sleeps in a hospital bed.
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
My young wife's pretty eyes are dying.
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
I watch the helpless hands
I watch the helpless eyes
Of all the sad doctors.
You build great aeroplanes,
You build lightning missiles,
Force powerful energy
Into small bombs.
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
O men men men
Can you promise nothing but death
To we who settle this planet?
O men men men
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
Why can't you kill
a microbe
devouring
the heart
of my pretty wife
of my young wife?
Noon passes in this twentieth century.
From Poetry Review Vol 59 No 4 (Winter 1968/9). Translated by Zdzislaw Zazula.
Камень. Камены.
A swan engages in self-reflection.
The gardens of Leto do not commemorate Niobe.
Riven, the vernal ice drifts on the Never River.
Eva my daughter has a fever. Her face looks thinner.
She ate bread and butter my daughter.
She wants me to lie next to her, so that she may grab onto the sides of my head
and drift off to sleep.
Vater. Water.
She wakes up, goes to peepee. I hold her over the bowl.
I try to wrap her in a bathrobe. No, I’m schwitzing. I do not need it.
I’m not cold, I’m wet.
She sneezes, a Popel hanging out of her nose. Der Popel, but die Pappel.
Ich sah meine Pappel, and so on.
She “reads” Asterix and is delighted when I tell her that Ave is Eva
spelled backwards.
Papa, says Eva holding a brownish apple, schmeiss this weg. I schmeiss it weg.
We live in Berlin.
she means / I know how long it has been / since you touched wild grass / she means / stay there / let me WhatsApp you a photo / of the hoa táo in my garden / she means / I’ve been sewing masks / using the pattern from Huế / look / I used cornflower print for this one / I’ll mail it to you / she means / I kept your letters / from the first time I left home / she means / last week a woman like me went out / came back / with a bruise on her cheek / she means / do you remember our houseful of guests in Bạc Liêu / how I fanned their backs / with a palm leaf / she means / do you have enough bún tàu / khoai lang / are you taking your medication / she means / I’m still on sick leave / there were two cases on my ward / and my chest hurts / she means / I don’t think I can work anymore / my knees are not strong like yours / she means / I’ve never felt as beautiful as you / she means / my cousin in Saigon says the peach blossoms have come / she means / I know why you fold so many cranes / she means / I never thought we’d be old women at the same time / she means / don’t leave yet
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