Deaf Things

I neither wrote nor translated this piece, and wish I could have done either. It is from the anthology of Serbian poetry translated by Charles Simic, The Horse Has Six Legs. If you don't read any other book of poems this year, read this one. The following is an excerpt (Stanza 10) of the poem Deaf Things by Momcilo Nastasijevic.

(10)
Pain
so it turned black

I want, since it happens,
for this wound
to be living to its depths.

Out of this hell
for a breath of some paradise -
out of this sin
for someone to become a saint.

For this suffering
and muddle
to have no end.

For the sake of that grace,
forever, this curse.

A Sweet Truth

A sweet truth brushes my soul, caresses my breast.

While I reach toward my heart, it dances over my hand,
trembling through my fingers, slipping past, but not dropped;
apprehended, but not grasped.

My elbow bends, extending my arm in a sweep of space,
but the truth eludes the circle drawn;
it instead imposes its own presence:
my wrists yield to its press. It buoys my arms,
giving lift to my shoulders and lightness to my head.

My torso stretches up against its force, this truth.
Its weight teeters upon my wrists and I balance the arch of my back
with a forward shift of my loins, forward
until my knees fold and my
head snaps front to keep from falling;
balanced but dropped
to my knees with a jolt,
head bowed.

The truth that shored my shoulders closes in like a shadow
of immense light: I collapse in a ball,
encompassed,
overwhelmed. Truth enters my sides,
my belly, my vessels, my glands,
my lungs until I respire its essence,
sweat its virtue,
bleed its words.


Dedicated to John Nimmiti