roberto juarroz

From Sixth Vertical Poetry

The bell is full of wind
though it does not ring.
The bird is full of flight
though it is still.
The sky is full of clouds
though it is alone.
The word is full of voice
though no one speaks it.
Everything is full of fleeing
though there are no roads.

Everything is fleeing
toward its presence.


trans by W. S. Merwin

yannis papaionnou

Nights Without Hope (Rebetiko Song)

Late nights without hope
I walk the streets alone.
Before your shuttered window
I spend sad hours.

How I long to meet you
to find old joys again,
again to give you kisses
so black despair will leave.

But who knows where you wander
There in some foreign land.
I wonder if you think of me
or suffer for someone else.

trans Gail Holst-Warhaft

wole soyinka

The Hunchback of Dugbe

I wondered always where
He walked at night, or lay
Where earth might seem
Suddenly in labour when he sighed.

By day stooped at public drains
Intense at bath or washing cotton holes,
An ant’s blown load upon
A child’s entangled scrawl
The calmest nudist
Of the roadside lunatics.

The devil cam one sane night
On parole from hell, lace curtains
Sieved light dancing pebbles
On his vast creation egg

His cement mixer borne
On crossed cassava sticks.

Not in disdain, but in truth immune
From song or terror, taxi turns
And sale fuss of the mad, beyond
Ugliness or beauty, whom thought-sealing
Solemnly transfigures – the world
Spins on his spine, in still illusion.

But the bell-tower of his thin
Buttocks rings pure tones on the Dugbe
A horse penis loin to crooked knees
Side-slapping on his thighs

At night he prowls, a cask
Of silence; on his lone matrix
Pigeon eggs of light dance in and out
Of dark, and he walks in motley.

yi won

I CLICK THEREFORE I AM

Rather than spread open the morning paper smelling of ink
at dawn I lightly double-click onto the odorless Internet
I click the complimentary PDF that shows me
exactly the image of a printed newspaper page
The KOSDAQ has no wings now
Total short-term foreign debt of 50,000,000,000 dollars
With each click a page of the newspaper turns
I continuously click the world
With a click one world collapses and
another one rises
The sun floats up There’s a chip installed in the sun too
I look at a 12-page article: ‘The computer picks up
a wireless signal from my body in which fiber optics carrying
microscopic electrodes have been grafted into my arms’ nerve structure.’
and click onto the website of Kevin Warwick who dreams of the first-ever
human robot I am the 28,412th visitor
I have a gene I want to insert too
With my right hand’s forefinger moving the mouse around
I click onto my e-mail A message arrived last night also
I click the attached file that k of Toronto has sent
Red roses drip dew from their petals and
Bloom inside a white picket fence
The flowers sent by k haven’t wilted
I immediately click on the dialpad of the free Internet phone
I click k’s phone number
I become connected across 6589 miles
Even I may be a program that someone’s installed
Moving the slippery mouse around with my right hand I
Click on literature I click on periodicals
I click into the April issue of the literary webzine Novel
The ‘Little Prince’ on the cover who says ‘The desert is beautiful
because somewhere it’s hiding a spring.’
constantly changes the scene around him I open the window a bit more and
click onto the Internet bookstore Aladdin I look at the list of new publications
I click to order Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance at a 20% discount
and René Girard’s Violence and the Sacred at 15% off
Outside my window mundane affairs bumping around
inside a produce truck in a four-beat rhythm koong-chak koong-chak koong-chak-ja koongchak
I take up the four-beat bongjak music time and
idly looking at the street the truck is on click its map
I follow one of the routes out of Seoul and arrive at
Hwaôm Temple The sound of a wooden bell spreads out from the camellias arrayed
in front of the inner temple Hands together in prayer
I click on one of the 60%-discount coupons for a condo in the Chiri Mountains
Onto my knees under the printer
a coupon drops down like a camellia petal I
click the I attached to the camellia petal
Zero categories and 177 sites come up
as the search result for the word I
But where am I
Searching for I I click each site in order
lunacy movie India and I…splIt
…comIng out…suIng alone…And I, Inc.…
storIes I want to Impart…the earth and I….
I can hear the click of the double-humped camel’s hooves

An oasis is nearby
Continuing on I click therefore I am


trans by Walter K. Lew