Translation
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Five Poems from Yuan Changming Translated from the Chinese by the Author
My Crow
Each crow you have seen
Has a quasi white soul
That used to dwell in the body
Of one of your closest ancestors
He comes down all the way just to tell you
His little secret, the way he has flown out
Of darkness, the fact both his body and heart
Are filled with shadows, the truth about
Being a dissident, that unwanted color
Hidden in your own heart is there also a crow
Much blacker than his spirits
But less so than his feathers我的乌鸦
你瞥见的每只乌鸦
都有颗半白的灵魂
它以前的栖身处是
你最直系的一位祖先
它不远万里飞来，只是要告诉你
它的一个小小秘密，它如何飞出
黑暗，它的心身如何充满阴影，以及
它作为叛逆者不受欢迎的肤色
在你自己的心中也有一只乌鸦
比它的精神更黑
但比其羽毛更淡刊于《字花》2015年夏季期
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Two Poems by Pietro Federico “New Jersey” and “West Virginia” Translated From the by Italian John Poch
photos by Giovanni Chiaramonte
WEST VIRGINIA
The shack is like a bone half-buried
in the forest of West Virginia.
The two of them live there married.
How black the pigment of their skin
and the hollows of their mouths.
The wrinkles at the corners of their eyes
radiate like wind-struck tears.
Their clarity the only thing clear.
Angels.
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Two Poems by Manuel Vilas “Vampire Apprentice” and “Stockholm” Translated from Spanish by John Yohe
Vampire Apprentice
(La Caleta, Cádiz)I don’t remember anything anymore, and I am gratefully alone.
I like to walk along the beach with an ice-cream in hand, a Magnum,
white chocolate, sometimes I think of myself as a benevolent vampire,
indignant about the strict morals of proud subterraneans,
and I slip into the beach movie theatre, and watch whatever,
and when I leave I drink a lemonade and watch the stars on the sea
and think that the actor in the movie who played Pablo Neruda
was more handsome and taller than the real Neruda, -
Two Poems by Immanuel Mifsud “The Beginning of December” and “Behind Your Door” Translated from the Maltese by Ruth Ward
THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER
I dream
of sleeping in tepid water
as I did many winters ago;
of a hot bath,
of afternoons,
nights
of lovemaking in water,
of sleep,
of shapes emergent from liquid;
of the dark,
of silence,
myself and water:
water and myself
becoming one.
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Dream Time: The Art of Christian Veschambre
all paintings are oil on canvas
Seeing a painting by Christian Veschambre for the first time can feel like you’ve been drawn into the vortex of an alternate universe. Figures emerge from a sandstorm unaware someone – us – is watching. They appear in profile or in movement, as if the force of the wind is sculpting them mid-action, sweeping away layers of stone and sand. We get the sense they’re not meant to be seen. When staring out from the canvas – as do some – they are as if startled, ready to frighten,
