The Transcendental Friend no. 12, 11/99

This issue of The Report features three very different poets from three somewhat different places.

Carmen Firan is a Romanian poet currently living in NYC, where she directs the Romanian Cultural Center. A widely published poet, novelist, and translator in her native country, these are some of the first translations of her work into English. (A strong selection of her poems is also available in the California journal Arshile.) Urbane, sophisticated, intelligent, Firan's poetry figures to become more prominently noticed on the American scene. Her first collection in English is coming out next year with Spuyten Duyvil, translated by Codrescu, Sheffer, Semilian, Agalidi, et al.

The second poet in The Report is Zhai Yongming. She is the Queen of Chengdu—Chengdu, that vibrant city in China's most populous province, Szechuan. Everyone in Chengdu knows that she is the poet. And some in New York, Paris and other parts of the world have come to recognize this too. Zhai Yongming is the author of, among other books, Women—although thus far no full volume of her's is available in English.

Osvaldo Sànchez (Havana, Cuba) is a poet, novelist and art critic. He currently lives in Mexico City where he is director of the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. "Slaughter the Last Deer" is the title poem of Matar al ™ltimo venado, which received Cuba's Premio David in 1981. His translator, Roberto Tejada, is the author of Gift and Verdict (Leroy Press, San Francisco).

—Leonard Schwartz

* * *

Carmen Firan

Eventually

Poetry,
a blue snake,
connects person to person,
breaking through shop windows,
coiling insidiously
around those who flee
from the streets into houses.
Poetry,
a blue snake,
binds hands
and learns how to make
proclamations in the service of power.
But wait, don't throw the mantle of clouds
off our shoulders.
Remember
in the beginning was the word,
at the end, the word distorted.
Eventually
there will only remain
poetry,
a blue snake,
insinuating itself
into our full cup of tears.

Translated by Isaiah Sheffer

It Snowed—That's All

Sometimes
He descends
through my soul—
In my chest I feel
the earth's weight
under His heel
pressing on mine.
In the lightened sky
a firm line
a sword
will fall
under it my slender throat settles.
One sudden morning
man was given to the Word
that reigned alone.
One sudden morning
you part the curtain
and see that it has snowed.
What more can you do,
what else can you do—
it snowed—that's all.
The curtain wraps itself
around your throat.

Translated by Andrei Codrescu

To the Very Last

The loved ones and those not loved
Depart one by one.
The sand slips through our fingers
To the very last grain.
Even the heart of the poet
Freezes up.
Let thy will be done
And give us not
So much death
In one single life.

Translated by Julian Semilian & Sanda Agalidi

The Same Geometry

One day we'll take things as they come
We'll see our coil of watery lines.
I'll be up on a blue stone
Taking the earth's measure
With my palm.
Creation is only unbound pride.
Punishment comes from the ancients
And from seekers of solitude
With lizards on their shoulders.
I'll pour my soul into bottles
I will bury them
Though disbelieving
The sea's saving power
Or whether any bottle-readers remain.
Subtle traces of truth
Will float like ads for Kodak
In the supersonic orange.
I'll be up on a stone
Counting the disappeared
Like coins in a teacup storm.
One day we'll pick up our things
From the place cursed by the ancients
So that we'll breathe the air
With their molecules with
All their here and there
The same flight geometry
Ash lines
On a hot stone.

Translated by Andrei Codrescu

* * *

Zhai Yongming

I, outrageous desire, charm-filled as a well,
Accidentally born from you. Soil and sky,
two made into one, you named me woman.
My body grew strong, and then more than strong.

I am soft as water's white feather
you cradle me in your hands until I contain the whole world
a wearer of mortal flesh beneath the glowering sun
I am so radiant it is hard for anyone who sees me to believe it.

I am the most gentle, the most loving,
the most understanding of women.
I see through everything/I want to seize everything
crave winter and the huge night
in which the heart is my only boundary.
I want to take hold of your hand
but frail before you my posture
is already my defeat.

When you leave me my pain
wants to vomit my heart from my mouth,
to kill you with love: is this gesture forbidden?
The sun rises for the whole world, I only for you.
With the most hateful tenderness I soak your body
from head to toe, doing things as only I can do them.

These are cries for salvation—can the soul stretch out a hand,
can the sea be my blood and raise me up to the setting sun,
does anyone remember me?
Yet my remembrance is of absolutely more than one life.

Translated from the Mandarin by Leonard Schwartz and Zhang Er

* * *

Osvaldo Sànchez

Slaughter the Last Deer

day about to darken if
I were to keep my prior quake
o the archers are in the trees
their insidious eyes now lashing
at my last deer
I'm watching and I'm
afraid I can't look after the years I was
the hunting season and those that never
happen and those I wasted
spare this last deer
stay back
I want its lunge to crack
the branches
and my eyes right before your heart
[an everwhich heart and forthcoming]
let no stampede unleash the magnolias
my last deer executioner of what
there's left to keep
and to lose
it's even likely you'd come
piercing the last shiver
with your muzzle
my roe
the archers
the archers are in the trees

Translated by Roberto Tejada