Ernst Herbeck
THE SWORD
For you dear Heij sacred sword .
with willing deep pillored.
with the old testament.
armoured the sword on self.
but no it won't go further.
than up to into me.
Translated from the German by Melissa Monroe
Aleksandr Kushner
UNTITLED
In the morning, the drafts in the blinds and the curtains
occupy themselves sculpting quick busts and live torsos.
How they rustle and clap! And I love their exertions,
their world piled with uranids or bulged like Colossus.
First a knee - then a shoulder, imprisoned in linen,
pushes out; they stamp and shove in hopes of escaping
from the cloth of that jail, but they'll fail to get in and
see the room, too weak to rip the light pleated draperies .
World of giants! Angered by their blinded condition,
they are doomed to swell up all morning with blisters;
first they sag, then rise back to a kneeling position,
stuck to doorknobs or catching the edges of pictures.
It's like Pergamum's altar, with air for a lining!
No one needs to climb to the quarry for marble .
They will battle all morning; now one is sent flying,
grabs another, they tumble. Remember this marvel.
