Pocket Poems

inventory
By Jan Heller Levi

what do we have
what do we see
what do we see without seeing
what have we gained
what do we have left
who is the mother of all our fathers
how does she accompany us
what are our questions underneath our questions
how will we make our griefs our tools

PI Issue 17

We Have No Sleep
By Nikola Madzirov

All forms of farewell without touching
have been forgotten. We think of tomorrow,
as we feed the swans
with yesterday’s bread. From our memory
flows water enough to sustain several
fields of wheat. We watch how the rain
repeats itself immaculately, stealing
the dust. We have no sleep,
belong to no one night
nor any candle can lengthen
our shadows onto the walls of the wind.

Translated from the Macedonian by Peggy and Graham W. Reid

PI Issue 27/28

The Mosquito
By Michael Kruger

Maybe it is excessive
to memorialize the mosquito.
But even the mosquito holds,
by the sip of my blood, a stake in the history of anxiety.

Translated from the German by Monika Zobel

PI Issue 17

Dadaism vs. Surrealism
By Angela Marinescu

Put your fingers between my legs.
I can no longer stand the act of sex
which seems to me dadaist, whereas
fingers wander a precise surrealist
collection agent what I hate the most
but I need pleasure like I need air, now, when
thrust on the peak of solitude
and all my generation stays in You

like a lead soldier on duty

I don’t know what else to do
but to write slow and free
like soft rain
of spring.

Translated from the Romanian by Martin Woodside 

PI Issue 17

The Bottle in My Purse (an excerpt)
By Elena Salamanca

Two feet planted in a place
Where nothing happens.

And I don’t need anything to happen.
Calm can also be an aspiration.

But today
I could be that sad drunk crying for the bottles he sees everywhere
Like buildings of an unknown city;
I could break the bottle in a brawl:
A blade intended to be used as a weapon, the police would say
A crime of passion, the press would say.

But I’ve already dynamited the bridges
And smashed the china.

PI Issue 27/28

Mawu of the Waters
By Abena Busia

                           I am Mawu of the Waters.
                      With mountains as my footstool
                             and stars in my curls
I reach down to reap the water with my fingers
              and look! I cup lakes in my palms.
              I fling oceans around me like a shawl
                          and I am transformed
                               into a waterfall.
                         Springs flow through me
                         and spills rivers at my feet
                             as fresh streams surge
                                        To make seas.

PI Issue 7/8