dezider banga

Fire

Oh Roma, Oh you my people
You my people with a face of bronze
From a fire of thousand years
Oh, how many times the world has hurt you
For your children
Not one star will be lit!?
You never built cathedrals
Fire is your church
For which you get down on your knees
With black eyes you pray
To fire you confess
You have been silent for thousand years
Above your silent lips
A forest grew
A forest of unfulfilled Romany wishes!

Trans unknown

alistair te ariki campbell

Gallipoli Peninsula

It was magical when flowers
appeared on the upper reaches –
not that we saw much of the upper reaches.
But when we did,
we were reminded of home
when spring clothed the hills with flowers.
The dead lying among them
seemed to be asleep.
I can never forget the early mornings,
before the killings started up,
when the sea was like a mirror
under little wisps of cloud
breathing on its surface, so dazzling
it hurt the eye.
and the ships, so many of them,
they darkened the sea.
But the evenings too were magical,
with such hues in the sky
over Macedonia,
so many colours, gold bars,
green, red, and yellow.
We noticed these things,
when the firing stopped and we had respite.
It was good to feel,
during such moments,
that we were human beings once more,
delighting in little things,
in just being human.

gladys campagnola

If you arrive today

If you arrive today, remember
that you have to come first to my patio.
Which flag should I wave for you to know
that truly I am waiting for you?
And how can I contain myself
so that I don't set off a serious scandal:
greeting from so far away
a brother.

Tell me which language you understand best
and I'll decide to study it.
I don't want there to be interference
although we speak in signs.

It's in this we have experience:
for centuries we began to understand.
After so much practice, perhaps with you
we'll finally see the results --.

(Oh no -- without realizing it,
without wanting to, I've made come out the bitter tone
of the person who knows all the limits
and cannot avoid them.)

Sit here. On the side, the jasmine
will scent you with white.
See how fresh the water is from this jar.
And how sweet the fruit from the guava tree.

I'm still waiting for you here, under the generous
shade of the mango tree.
It is January. It is Saturday.
Don't delay any more, my brother.

trans unknown

patrizia cavalli

Now that the time seems all mine

Now that the time seems all mine
and no one calls me for lunch or dinner
now that I can stay to watch
how a cloud loosens and loses its color,
how a cat walks on the roof
in the immense luxury of a prowl, now
that what waits for me every day
is the unlimited length of a night
where there is no call and no longer a reason
to undress in a hurry to rest inside
the blinding sweetness of a body that waits for me,
now that the morning no longer has a beginning
and silently leaves me to my plans,
to all the cadences of my voice, now
suddenly I would like a prison

trans by Judith Baumel