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Above all, it's about finding the right way in life / a way of living / the right speed limit / Not to be biggest, best, most beautiful / but just suitably puffed up / like the balloon with a timer / a slow detonation / a way to die / A play of shadows

Åke Nordin, “For Tomas on his birthday” written for Tomas Tranströmer (x) and translated from the Swedish by Jonas Ellerström, as featured in the postscript of PRISON (x)

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WHO LIVES by Elisabeth Borchers, translated from the German by Caroline Wilcox Reul (x)

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grief she must leave him there helpless on his bed of leaves

Pindar, translated from the Ancient Greek by David Wevill (x)

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I remember my mother blindfolding me a lot. She had a way of tucking my head suddenly under her overcoat.

Charles Simic, PRODIGY (x)

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From now on all metaphors that come to mind are possible. Especially the feminine ones: el-Siq / el-Shaq the womb

Amjad Nasser, from PETRA, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah (x)

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I write you-- You have come into the world again with the haunting strength of letters that groped for your essence

Nelly Sachs, from GLOWING ENIGMAS, translated from the German by Michael Hamburger (x)

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The lackadaisical poet. Pray tell. Would it be a French dip or a French high coup? Diving naked off the Eiffel Tower.

Adrian C. Louis, “Epitaphs for Some Idiots I Have Been” (x)

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Now the world begins-- peonies in the garden, the dog to his dish, a burning car blocking traffic on I-435 in the eastbound lane--

Jo McDougall, “A Day’s Work” (x)

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from "Weeping Arms” by Anna Świrszczyńska, translated from the Polish by Piotr Florczyk (x)

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When I pray now, it's with puzzles of contingencies and a net / of addenda. I finish in a corner, my heart bound and struggling, / begging, "If it is your will, Lord, then what's the problem?" And / when I don't pray, I whine, "Why should I send a letter to my / friend who won't answer?"

Killarney Clary, WHO WHISPERED NEAR ME (x)

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It is said that the earthly object / founded by the event of an absolute word / moves vertebrally sliding endlessly / flowing in quantities of shadow toward the light

from Eunice Odio’s THE FIRE’S JOURNEY, PART I: INTEGRATION OF THE PARENTS, translated from the Spanish by Keith Ekiss with Sonia P. Ticas and Mauricio Espinosa (x)

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And water is as empty as sky, only / Easier to fall into, / Heavier to breathe.

from “IV. Hard Country” by Joe Bolton (x)

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This green lamp, of a standard make / Pours sunlight in a white lake / Over an empty page.

from “The Settlement” by David Wevill (x)

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The icon listens, pensive and sad, / knowing he won't return, the absent lad.

from “Prayer” by Constantine P. Cavafy, translated from the Greek by Paul Merchant (x)

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Dormant desire Speaking in lust's Eternal dialect Now half-forgotten.

from [Your soft voice] by George Hitchcock (x)

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from BALTICS by Tomas Tranströmer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, translated from the Swedish by Samuel Charters (x)

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True, it's strange not to live on the earth anymore, not to continue customs you were just getting used to, not to interpret roses and other such promising things as omens of future happiness, not to be what you were, cared for by infinitely anxious hands, and to put even your name aside, like some broken toy. Strange, not to wish wishes any more.

from “First Elegy” by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated from the German by Gary Miranda (x)