From bitterness that’s flowing in the boughs
From bitterness that’s flowing in the boughs,
From gusts of wind that shake away the dust
From wax-white legs, from shouts of criminals
Among the scrub in chain-mail shirts soaked through,
From time, which streams from eyes, and from the fear
That only ever leaves us for a moment in
The lowest depths of an embrace, the place
Where we completely die, or so it seems
When we have moved beyond our bodies’ bounds,
And from the horizon, colourless as chalk,
And from the sandy rustle of a paper,
From a friend, who’s bellowing at you ‘Hallo’,
From melting snow, and drunks on metro stations,
And from fate, whose odds are all or nothing,
From those footsteps pounding on the fourth floor,
From the kettle, that’s already boiling dry,
From the empty evening stretching out before me,
From my pathetic words, ‘Don’t leave me!’
From the hundreds of mouths all judging me,
Love is my shield: on it they’ll bear me home
From gusts of wind that shake away the dust
From wax-white legs, from shouts of criminals
Among the scrub in chain-mail shirts soaked through,
From time, which streams from eyes, and from the fear
That only ever leaves us for a moment in
The lowest depths of an embrace, the place
Where we completely die, or so it seems
When we have moved beyond our bodies’ bounds,
And from the horizon, colourless as chalk,
And from the sandy rustle of a paper,
From a friend, who’s bellowing at you ‘Hallo’,
From melting snow, and drunks on metro stations,
And from fate, whose odds are all or nothing,
From those footsteps pounding on the fourth floor,
From the kettle, that’s already boiling dry,
From the empty evening stretching out before me,
From my pathetic words, ‘Don’t leave me!’
From the hundreds of mouths all judging me,
Love is my shield: on it they’ll bear me home
Translated by Emily Hardiment
Page(s) 237
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