[Poetry] Poem and Translation by A.Z. Foreman
- David M. Olsen
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
For the Crew of a Downed U-Boat
Can I rest the heart assured, rewind the world
in scriptured whorls; stride godly on the sea?
see Hitler's corpse hanged lively on dead camps,
pump time's blood judgment, say truth set me free?
            That would be nice: to leave the flags to rave
and me in ease. Does it make me afraid
to duck for calm in hate's deranging gale?
To loathe killed men for killers they obeyed?
            See, these are sailors in a submarine
plunged cruel in the age-cold Atlantic lie
of death told by the living what to mean.
You cannot toll those dead and do not cry
            but can you feel the human choking through?
The crests all armies of the holy wore
are nobles' lies. Say freedom set us true?
Ideas are shellshocked at the fact of gore.
            Salute the sea, then? No. Let Nazis wear
dishonor buried by three thousand high
feet of dark sea. Their buoyant fists of prayer
punch empty. Go and live. This had to die.
Symphony in Gray Major
Translated from the Spanish of Ruben DarÃo
The sea, a vast quicksilver crystal pane
reflects a rolled zinc sky's sheet metal plate
faraway there are flocks of birds that stain
the glossed background of a pale shade of gray.
The sun, a piece of glass, opaque and round
walks to the zenith at a sick man's pace;
the sea wind takes its rest in shadow, using
black trumpets for a pillow as they play.
The waves that move their bellies made of lead
seem to be moaning underneath the quay.
Sitting upon a cable, his pipe puffing,
there is a mariner musing about beaches
of some country, foggy and faraway.
He's an old man, this sea-dog. Burning beams
of Brazil-sun have toasted his crisp face.
The toughest of the China Sea's typhoons
have seen him sipping gin amid the spray.
The foam suffused with iodine and nitrate
knows his red nose from way back in the day,
his curly hair, too, and his athlete biceps,
his canvas cap, his drill shirt frayed away.
He in the midst of the tobacco smoke-clouds
discerns that country, foggy and faraway,
for which one warm and golden afternoon,
his brigantine weighed anchor and set sail.
Tropical siesta. The sea-dog sleeps,
all wrapped up in a gamut of the gray.
It seems a gentle giant paper-stump
would smudge the curved horizon's edge away.
Tropical siesta. The old cicada
tries out his senile, raucous guitar's strain.
The cricket strikes a solo monotone
on the one-stringed violin it has to play.
SinfonÃa en Gris Mayor
El mar como un vasto cristal azogado
refleja la lámina de un cielo de zinc;
lejanas bandadas de pájaros manchan
el fondo bruñido de pálido gris.
El sol como un vidrio redondo y opaco
con paso de enfermo camina al cenit;
el viento marino descansa en la sombra
teniendo de almohada su negro clarÃn.
Las ondas que mueven su vientre de plomo
debajo del muelle parecen gemir.
Sentado en un cable, fumando su pipa,
está un marinero pensando en las playas
de un vago, lejano, brumoso paÃs.
Es viejo ese lobo. Tostaron su cara
los rayos de fuego del sol del Brasil;
los recios tifones del mar de la China
le han visto bebiendo su frasco de gin.
La espuma impregnada de yodo y salitre
ha tiempo conoce su roja nariz,
sus crespos cabellos, sus biceps de atleta,
su gorra de lona, su blusa de dril.
En medio del humo que forma el tabaco
ve el viejo el lejano, brumoso paÃs,
adonde una tarde caliente y dorada
tendidas las velas partió el bergantÃn ...
La siesta del trópico. El lobo se duerme.
Ya todo lo envuelve la gama del gris.
Parece que un suave y enorme esfumino
del curvo horizonte borrara el confÃn.
La siesta del trópico. La vieja cigarra
ensaya su ronca guitarra senil,
y el grillo preludia un solo monótono
en la única cuerda que está en su violÃn
A. Z. Foreman is a poet and translator pursuing a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in the Threepenny Review, the Los Angeles Review, ANMLY, and other journals. He hopes one day to be featured in either the Starfleet Academy Quarterly or the Tatooine Review. In any case, he's most proud of having had his work featured in two people's tattoos. Most importantly, if you have a dog he'd love to pet it.
