The Gift : Li-Young Lee

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

~ Li-Young Lee

(Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from 'Rose')

Maya C. Popa : Dear Life..

 

Dear Life

I can’t undo all I have done unto myself,

what I have let an appetite for love do to me.

I have wanted all the world, its beauties

and its injuries; some days,

I think that is punishment enough.

Often, I received more than I’d asked,

which is how this works—you fish in open water

ready to be wounded on what you reel in.

Throwing it back was a nightmare.

Throwing it back and seeing my own face

as it disappeared into the dark water.

Catching my tongue suddenly on metal,

spitting the hook into my open palm.

Dear life: I feel that hook today most keenly.

Would you loosen the line—you’ll listen

if   I ask you,

if   you are the sort of  life I think you are.

~ Maya C. Popa

Before You Came.. ~ Faiz Ahmed Faiz

 

Faiz Ahmed Faiz with Alys Faiz

Before you came things were just what they were:
the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed,
the limit of what could be seen,
a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine.

With you the world took on the spectrum
radiating from my heart: your eyes gold
as they open to me, slate the color
that falls each time I lost all hope.

With your advent roses burst into flame:
you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress
who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot.
You lacquered the night black.

As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine:
one was my tear-drenched shirt,
the other an aching nerve,
the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing.

Now you are here again—stay with me.
This time things will fall into place;
the road can be the road,
the sky nothing but sky;
the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine.

~ Faiz Ahmed Faiz 

(1911 ~ 1984)

Translated from Urdu by Naomi Lazard

Hilda Hilst : Nameless Songs

 

Hilda Hilst

May this love neither blind me nor follow me.

And may it never notice me.

May it spare me from being pursued

And from torment.

From only being so that he knows me.

May the gaze not lose itself among the tulips

Because such perfect forms of beauty

Spring from the glare of shadows.

And my Lord inhabits the glimmering dark

From a clutter of ivies on a high wall.

 

May his love only make me discontent

And tired of tiredness. And may I

Shrink before so many weaknesses. Small and soft

Like spiders and ants.

 

May this love see me only in parting.

~ Hilda Hilst

(1930 ~ 2004)

(Translated by Lavinia Saad)

The Unknown Citizen : W.H.Auden

'Study For A Head' : Francis Bacon 

The Unknown Citizen

A Poem by Wystan H. Auden

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.