dennis brutus

Mario Benedetti

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively

They hanged him, I said dismissively
having no other way to say he died
or that he was a dear friend
or that work wove us most intimately
in common tasks, ambitions, desires.
Now he is dead: I dare not think
of the anguish that drove him to where he was
or the apin at their hands he must have faced
or how much he was racked by my distress:
now, it is still easiest to say, they hanged him
dismissively

veronica volkow

The Washerwoman

She feels her hands, scabrous as fish,
blind fish striking against the rock,
incessantly against the rock for years and years;
she watches the night pierced with eyes,
humid, slippery glances,
the mute faces shifting, disappearing,
brilliant glances of girls,
the dazed look of exhausted mothers.
The day ends and people return to their houses
and water runs from the faucet monotonously as a song,
the water has lost the shape of pipes,
lost the memory of its mountain source
and has pounded out its course,
besieged by obstacles
like the feet, like the eyes, like the hands.
She looks at shadows people drag along,
shadows on the walls, corners, the streets
fugitive ink that marks beaten roads,
desperate roads, laborious,
looking for only, perhaps, a fidelity.

trans by Forrest Gander

mario benedetti

Tactic and Strategy

My tactic is
to look at you
to learn how you are
to love you as you are
my tactic is
to talk to you
and to listen to you
to build with words
an indestructible bridge
my tactic is
to remain in your memories
I don't know how
nor
with what pretext
but to remain with you
my tactic is
to be frank
and to know that you're frank
and not to sell to ourselves
simulations
so that between us
there is no curtain
nor abyss
my strategy is
in contrast
deeper and
more simple
my strategy is
that one of these days
I don't know how
nor
with what pretext
you finally
need me.

jules supervielle

Rain and the Tyrants

I stand and watch the rain
Falling in pools which make
Our grave old planet shine;
The clear rain falling, just the same
As that which fell in Homer’s time
And hat which dropped in Villon’s day
Falling on mother and on child
As on the passive backs of sheep
Rain saying all it has to say
Again and yet again, and yet
Without the power to make less hard
The wooden heads of tyrants or
To soften their stone hearts,
And powerless to make them feel
Amazement as they ought;
A drizzling rain which falls
Across all Europe’s map,
Wrapping all men alive
In the same moist envelope;
Despite the soldiers loading arms,
Despite the newspapers’ alarms,
Despite all this, all that,
A shower of drizzling rain
Making the flags hang wet.

trans by David Gascoyne