Satirical Lettrillia IV

We present this work in honor of the 150th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Manuel Bretón de los Herreros
Spanish
1796 – 1873

 

Whene’er Don Juan has a feast at home,
I am forgotten as if at Rome;
But he will for funerals me invite,
To kill me with the annoyance quite:
Well, so be it!

Celeste, with thousand coy excuses,
Will sing the song that set she chooses,
And all about that her environ,
Though like an owl, call her a Siren:
Well, so be it!

A hundred bees, without reposing,
Work their sweet combs, with skill enclosing;
Alas! for an idle drone they strive,
Who soon will come to devour the hive:
Well, so be it!

Man to his like moves furious war,
As if were not too numerous far
Alone the medical squadrons straight
The world itself to depopulate!
Well, so be it!

There are of usurers heaps in Spain,
Of catchpoles, hucksterers, heaps again,
And of vintners too, yet people still
Are talking of robbers on the hill:
Well, so be it!

In vain may the poor, O Conde! try
Thy door, for the dog makes sole reply;
And yet to spend thou hast extollers,
Over a ball two thousand dollars:
Well, so be it!

Enough today, my pen, this preaching;
A better time we wait for teaching:
If vices in vain I try to brand,
And find I only write upon sand,
Well, so be it!

Translation by James Kennedy

The Seed

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.

Emilio Ballagas
Cuban
1908 – 1954

 

Playing hide and seek
The seed is hidden.
(Deep in the earth
a blind star beats.)

How scared you must feel
inside the dark land!
(The children look for her and she
beats deep, hidden.)

But they call her the trills
the sun and spring;
shy she looks out and soon
add two green wings.

Pictures on the Walls

We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Green March Day.

Ikram Abdi
Moroccan
21st century

 

You washed from the colors of the rainbow
You stare woefully in the strangeness of your face
Bored of the daily that ambushes you
But there you go
And the broken steps of time
you ascend
To inhabit the cities of your suspended strangeness
To rest on a cold soil

Nocturne Among Grotesqueries

We present this work in honor of the 60th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Luis Cernuda
Spanish
1902 – 1963

 

Body of stone, morose body
In woolens like the walls of the universe,
Body like the birthdays of the races,
Like edifices overwhelmingly innocent,
Like the shyest waterfalls
White as the night, while the mountain
Rips up manic shapes,
Pains like fingers
And pleasures like fingernails.

Not knowing where to go, where to go back to,
Seeking those merciful winds
That wear away the wrinkles in the earth,
That bless those desires cut out at the roots
Before flowering.
Their great blossom, like a child.

Lips want that flower
Whose fist, kissed by the night,
Opens the doors of oblivion lip by lip.

Translation by Reginald Gibbons

Dulce et Decorum Est

We present this work in honor of the 105th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Wilfred Owen
English
1893 – 1918

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

You Will Be Served in Your Glass

Abu Madyan Shu’ayb
Algerian
1126 – 1198

 

Hard times,
Sea that hides its secrets,
Harbinger of the visionary.
Cast your pretensions aside
And take your measures.

You, who believed
That in wounding others, you would be saved,
And that misfortune would only come to others,
This time, evil has spared you.
Above all, don’t fool yourself where you shouldn’t.

Reason before unleashing your words:
All questions engender a response.
Never does a claimed right die
When there are men behind it,
Even if it appears farther than sun and moon.

You who evoke only in mocking
The weaknesses of others,
The day will come when yours will be displayed.
You who make evil the reason of life,
Don’t forget that you bathe in absolute shame.

You,
Sedentary without a home,
That riches that surround you will one day go up in smoke.
Very slowly the coming days will diminish your life,
Like wine dismantles reason.

It’s time to leave,
The caravan’s moving, and the horsemen as well,
And you are doing nothing for this voyage,
Too sure, you don’t really know what awaits you,
The days to come will scarcely give you reason.

Translation by Sylvia Mae Gorelick and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte

Fall Song

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.

Napoleon Lapathiotis
Greek
1888 – 1944

 

Autumn, I loved you when the leaves fall
And leave the branches naked for winter’s icy bites,
When the evenings flee, the poms are apple red,
And lonely are the nights…

And stand I now and ask: what fate and what storm,
While alone sailing the abysmal depths of mort,
Strangely and hopelessly has brought me now forlorn
A beggar in your court…

And when the dinner ends and night falls,
And quietly, like books, the light dies in the sky
I come back looking for my lost peace of old,
Like a charity from up high…

I loved you fall, when the leaves fall and
Leave the branches, and lonely is each night.
But did I really love you – or is just the shiver
Of the coming winter’s icy bite…

Translation by Alex Moskios