Poetry |

“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” “Verbal Alchemy,” “Oh Muse” & “Decreation”

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

 

We showed up late to the house of words.

 

Now we grope our way down stairs as painful

as vertebrae and search between the wall’s plastered

shards for some living syllable — sister to bread

and poverty — to bring to our lips.

Such as a name, a woman’s name.

The bone of a woman’s name lost between the stones

of these walls that once upon a time housed

flesh inside. And perhaps a jewel

a little box

a mirror you could ask

 

so many things.

 

 

Digue’m, mirall

 

Vam fer tard a la casa de les paraules.

 

I ara baixem a les palpentes escales adolorides

com vèrtebres i busquem entre el calçobre

alguna síl·laba viva, germana del pa

i la penúria, per dur-nos als llavis.

Com ara un nom. Un nom de dona.

L’os dun nom de dona extraviat entre les pedres

d’aquests murs que un dia foren habitats

carn endins. I potser un joiell,

una capseta,

un mirall a qui poder preguntar

 

tantes coses.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Verbal Alchemy

 

 

From clay I create a word that endures.

From clay, from water, from the split

reality that slowly matures

in the shadow of the word sung from my lips.

 

With two hands I knead the hard substance

until it assumes the shape of the desired word.

I take bread, the circle, pure joyousness,

saltiness, ferns, the outburst

 

of young skin and love’s flame,

and I write its verbal terrain.

This sweet yearning to spark

 

with the word the depths of the dark.

Make gold from nothing but the vital name

and let the rest go up in smoke.

 

 

Alquímia verbal

 

Del fang en faig paraula que perdura.

Del fang, de l’aigua i de la realitat

esberlada que lentament madura

a l’ombra del mot que el llavi ha cantat.

 

Pasto amb dues mans la matèria dura

fins que pren forma de mot desitjat.

Prenc el pa, el cercle, la joia pura,

la salabror, la falguera, l’esclat

 

de la pell jove i la flor de l’amor,

i n’escric la geografia verbal.

Aquest dolç desfici de portar llum

 

i paraula per pèlags de foscor!

Fer or del no-res amb el nom que cal

i deixar volar la resta com fum.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Oh Muse

 

With every inspiration, you show up.

 

But sustained inspiration

is dizzying, turns

my blood blue and drunk,

smoke-filled — and after

smoke, comes ash.

 

From time to time,

please,

don’t show up.

No open sesame 

even if the perverse genie

of my voice

entreats you.

 

From time to time,

let me unword

body and abode.

 

 

Oh Musa

 

Arribes amb cada inspiració.

 

Però la inspiració sostinguda

mareja, fa la sang blava

i èbria, l’omple de fum

–i després del fum

ve la cendra–.

 

De tant en tant,

si et plau,

no arribis.

No t’obris, sèsam,

encara que t’ho demani

el geni pervers

de la veu.

 

De tant en tant,

permet-me desparaular

casa i cos.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Decreation

 

 

Learn from crabs

the peaceful art of going backwards,

learn to unlearn,

go shoeless, digress,

surprise yourself yet again,

look at an apple until you liberate it

from the fine dust of allegory,

know nothing

about what you should know,

forget artificial rhetoric

and the boring mechanics of the atom,

look without saying I am looking,

love without saying I am loving,

leave verses unfinished,

leave verses,

leave.

 

 

Decreixement

 

Aprendre dels crancs

l’art pacífic d’anar enrere,

aprendre a desaprendre,

descalçar-se, desviar-se,

sorprendre’s i de nou sorprendre’s,

mirar una poma fins alliberar-la

de la polsina de l’al·legoria,

no saber res

del que s’ha de saber,

oblidar la retòrica sintètica

i la mecànica avorrida de l’àtom,

mirar sense dir estic mirant,

estimar sense dir estic estimant,

deixar els versos inacabats,

deixar els versos,

deixar.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Sharon Dolin on Gemma Gorga’s Work

“I believe much of Gorga’s work gestures toward the unsayable, the unsaid. My goal as translator is to create a poem in English that can sustain such moments of inquiry and transcendence. In her most recent collection Voyage to the Center (2020), a reader may be struck by the minimalism of the poems and their urge to wrest meaning from the silence.”

The four poems presented here are included in Late to the House of Words, selected poems by Gemma Gorga, translated by Sharon Dolin. Published by Saturnalia Books on October 15, 2021.

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