Here’s a poem for you about trying to find the language to talk about the world we live in and if that is even possible or worthwhile. In the face of climate disasters, fascism, surveillance Capitalism, ongoing genocide, and indifference in the imperial core, we cannot lose sight of what we are fighting, and how to fight it.
“There will be no need to fear or hope, only to look for new weapons.” -Postscript on the Societies of Control, Gilles Deleuze
Another poem for y’all. This one is from the start of this year when I was homeless for a few months and couchsurfed at different friends’ houses. There are a few of these where I’m not quite sure into what project they fit. For now I’ll share them with you here.
In a Home Not Yours
If you consider the floorboards
you tread on in a stranger’s home
as yours for just a second
and feel the push of them
on the pads of your feet
the splinters dig themselves
into your callouses like
the pinprick of a unforgotten
memory digs itself out of your
mindgrave.
Unearthed layers of skin
thick ridged scar tissue
with furrowed landscapes
in the lines.
Here’s a poem for today. I wrote this for a woman I met last year and tried to help who was stuck in the endless limbo and uncertainty of the asylum system. I don’t know where she is now, her situation was very precarious and communication with her never easy. But I hope she’s okay.
And let me be clear on one thing: Borders kill people and destroy families and lives. Tear them all down, set their bureaucracies on fire. Every checkpoint and every guard is an affront to life itself.
Today I want to share an exercise in poetry translation with you. When I’m not writing, I’m usually translating in order to keep me on my toes. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about this poem by Ingeborg Bachmann, originally published in 1953. Its prescience to the current state of the world hardly needs expounding. I’m presenting you here with the original German poem first and my translation second.
Alle Tage
Der Krieg wird nicht mehr erklärt,
sondern fortgesetzt. Das Unerhörte
ist alltäglich geworden. Der Held
bleibt den Kämpfen fern. Der Schwache
ist in die Feuerzonen gerückt.
Die Uniform des Tages ist die Geduld,
die Auszeichnung der armselige Stern
der Hoffnung über dem Herzen.