Nina Kossman
Untitled
*
A bomb said to a city:
“I’m falling.”
The city asked:
“Whose side are you on?”
The bomb said:
“I take no sides. I’m falling.”
The city said:
“Look around you.”
The bomb said:
“Too late.”
The city did not say anything.
*
I evoke you but you’re asleep.
I awaken you but you don’t hear.
Your sleeping breath reaches from here to there
In a majestic arc thrown from shore to shore.
When I’m near you, I’m near an ocean:
Voices, wave-like, break their will to the ear
Of the mind that only seems asleep.
The intelligence of sleep you’ve given me,
the goodness of thought that comes from
a deeper peace,
from under the static rippling the surface.
To still the surface, I evoke you.
*
See your image
steeped in my shadow
change, yet resemble you,
tighten its fingers
around my soul
faltering, yet staying,
disguised, yet true.
Fingers unwrithing,
limp on my gown:
seeing is finding
but upside down.
Translated by Nina Kossman
Page(s) 101-102
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The