In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
In like a lion, out like a lamb is a proverb used to describe the month of March as it opens with the roar of winter winds and closes with the soft breath of spring. The poems in this curation represent this transition in their search for balance, for a calm after the storm, ‘for a river that will gentle the cruelest voice.’
On Falling Leaves
In a light wind, dead leaves falling from the oak look too much like a
flock of birds flying south for winter to evoke the usual sadness.
And I Was Alive
And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree.
It was all leaflike and starshower, unerring, self-shattering power,
And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?
What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,
All hover and hammer,
Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.
It is now. It is not.
(4 May 1937)
Translated from the Russian by Christian Wiman
The Silver of Our Moment
by Liliana Ursu
Ignorant, the snail crosses both good and evil,
the sensations of each, as it caresses earth,
sometimes warm and tempting, sometimes
cold, devoid of answers.
Its journeys embroider silver lace
on truths, half truths and lies–
a work of art
by such a slow, insignificant creature,
easily crushed
by the wickedness of the powerful,
by negligence or accident.
I watch it advance with the same sweet patience
it uses to carry itself
along blades of grass, the bent stems
of the pansies, through the perfume of May roses,
but also over pink granules of poison
scattered by people for creatures larger than it
and considered more harmful.
The sheen of silver left on
the poison
is as perfect, as bright as that
on the roses.
We adorn each sin
in the silver of our moment,
unaware of the angel
blushing, hastening to renew our path
with pansies, with sunbeams, with roses.
Translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin and Tess Gallagher
I Know the Truth
I know the truth! Enough of the old truth–out!
No need people, with so many people on earth, to struggle.
It is evening–see–it is nearly night.
What speaks to you–poets, lovers, generals?
The wind bows low, the earth bathes in dew
and soon sky, starry blizzard will rest.
And under soil, soon sleep, we all will,
who never, on earth, let each other sleep.
Translated by Lisa Wujnovich
Film Viewed on Coney Island
Like a dragonfly shimmering within a jar, such is the woman held by your gaze. From her open hands there blossoms three flames. Petals that turn into thorns, thorns that turn into amethysts. At this hour, the violet of gasoline is the most sensible perfume; fire encircles the drawings of her body: mandorla. Slowly, the flame crosses her soul, which is ours as well. Lights respond to the tongue’s sweet beckoning. In silence, the union ascends. Breath is a light. It is fitting that this fire never be extinguished.
Such is what I witnessed on the island that evaporates at dawn.
Translated from Spanish by Anthony Seidman
From 15 Flower World Variations: Song of a Dead Man
Original Author Unknown
I do not want these flowers
moving
but the flowers
want to move
I do not want these flowers
moving
but the flowers
want to move
I do not want these flowers
moving
but the flowers
want to move
out in the flower world
the dawn
over a road of flowers
I do not want these flowers
moving
but the flowers
want to move
I do not want these flowers
moving
but the flowers
the flowers
want to move
English version by Jerome Rothenberg (org. Yaqui)
PI Issue 17
“Today some kids…”
by Gino Gogli
Today some kids threw stones from the street
towards the place where I taught my class.
My assistant caught them
when they turned the corner.
He brought them to me, he said that he’d take them
to jail. They looked puzzled. More than criminals
they looked like those who practice
incomprehensible rituals
that they’d seen others practice.
They were as natural as trees bent by the wind
until they broke, never questioning
their being.
A soft jealousy spread through me for a ritual
unconscious life, far from awareness of self or others,
finally cured of always seeking answers.
Like those boys, like trees, like their seeds, destined to become
more trees bent by the wind.
Translated by Marcelo Atanassi
PI Issue 17
Riparian
by Sandra Alcosser
If we wash our legs with frozen water
Watch it rill down hairy flesh — oh the power
Of the body to refresh — to lie down at night
Wake again among harebells and bees, lichen
Speckled boulders, mists of sweet white
Clover — if we cock our pollen hats
Like Leonardo da Vinci and sketch
Riffles come to nurse the thirsty
Rubble, we can lean back, sieve
Our tea among secretive
Rocks— soak away the meanness
Of a year’s duplicity — no one can reach
Us here — no human noise —
A river will gentle the cruelest voice
PI Issue 22/23
Spell to Be Said Upon Departure
What was come here to do
having finished,
shelves of the water lie flat.
Copper the leaves of the doorsill,
yellow and failing.
Scarlet the bird that is singing.
Vanished the labor, here walls are.
Completed the asking.
Loosing the birds there is water.
Having eaten the pears.
Having eaten
the black figs, the white figs. Eaten the apples.
Table be strewn.
Table be strewn with stems,
table with peelings of grapefruit and pleasure.
Table be strewn with pleasure,
what was here to be done having finished.