Reed And Ink

Trades in his revolver
for a .30-06
Gets pulled over
on the way home
for speeding
Is that a rifle I see
Yes it’s not loaded
but in the back—
Step out of the car
Let me see
Don’t move
Click
Yes good thing
it wasn’t loaded

Six poems from Auslaender’s 2001 collection published by Fischer Verlag, translated by me several years ago. The translator’s dilemma: how to preserve the rhythm and feeling brought by order, while being a bridge for naturally understood meaning? Hopefully I’ve done some of that here.

Six poems

Write
one sentence
and only
one.
No writer
is that good.

The voice did intrude…
“In the manner of Pope
write a satire on William Safire
and show that he is a dope”.
After some thought I mused:
“But he is not a dope,
rather authoritarian,
who likes his power
to ne’er be contrarian
to the powers who
rope up ‘the mob’,
to which he adds and applauds.
That is his job”.
The voice in turn:
“And take the Bible literally
he does, for Jerusalem is theirs
and by heirs he means Likud—
I’ve foregone the rhyme to be rude?
I must say again,
take it literally he does,
for the God of right
is the God of might
who lords from on height
and not doves.
Inveterasco, he does”.
I wondered then too:
“Have I succeeded as Pope?
If not style then scope?
No, ‘tis probably not true,
for I have not the length
nor syntactical strength
to essay on man in view
of lack of a column
in which I could call ‘em
names for a moment or two.
‘Saddamites’ is one
that Will thinks rather fun,
and I’ll wage he’s referring
to you,
for we backed Saddam
when the Kurds he did bomb
with a noxious, gaseous stew,
and now you might call
for listening to Gaul
which he shall dare never do.
Whether Saddam or Imam
in Baghdad or Qom
his pen will ally you to,
if you disagree
with how he does see
that war is our lordship’s milieu”.

The light, five by noon,
turns autumn leaves
to a shade more blood
to air old wounds,
falling scars.
Turns out the stars
through gray woolen clouds,
concrete wooden gray,
drops of guitar
in fears,
turning silence
blue.