La dancantin' vizaĝon levas, Pasiva inter velkaj floroj; Ĝazband' klakigas vergojn, ostojn En gaja ritmo dum la horoj.
Nigre-vestitoj ŝin kondukas; Ilin nana sentum' blindigas: Tiel Saturno-lunoj giras Kaj en la kosmo migras.
Saturno ne aspektas, tamen, Tiel inerta, trista, fora, Kvazaŭ sur Noktvizaĝo kuŝus La tagruino glora.
The Dancing Woman
Translated from the Esperanto of William Auld The dancing woman lifts her face, Passive amid the wilting flowers; The Jazz-band clacks its sticks and bones In merry rhythm through the hours.
The men in black take turns to lead her; Dwarf senses blind them as they rotate. That's how the moons of Saturn gyre. And cosmically migrate.
Saturn, however, does not look so distant, sad, inert a sight as if day's glorious ruin lay Upon the face of night.
Julia sur Pandaterio
Sur ĉi insulo viv’ subiras lante. Dum longaj posttagmezoj morna vento apud’ la mar’ susura, agitante al mi la robon kun indiferento, miajn memorojn frotas, kaj atestas: morto, morto, morto… mort’ ne estas.
Edzin’ trifoja, nokt-frandino rava, kiu la nunon taksis solvalora, venas al tio ĉi: flutado meva, paseo vana kaj futuro plora; virin’ malplena palas kiel spirito al kiu mankas sang’ de oferito.
Kaj mi konstatas en ĉi loko kruda, kie la karno putros sub la rosoj fremdaj kaj frizaj, ke la vivo tuta - kisoj parfumfrenezaj, vino, rozoj – ĉiam malplena estis, kaj izola… Monda reĝin’ kadavris ĉiam sola.
Plej sola dum duopoj, sed mi celis mian feliĉon, kie mi nur povis kien sopiro stranga ĉiam pelis, des pli serĉadis mi, ju pli mi trovis nur malfeliĉon en la ĝojoj amaj. Ĉiam surprizis min embuskoj samaj.
Tiu estis alia mi – nur fablo aŭdita iam en fremdula revo. Kion signifas Rom’? Ja nuda sablo, rokoj, krudmana vent’, krianta mevo, dum mia korpo velkas, apatia, kaj Romo estas febro fantazia.
Ne plu la nuno gravas. Nun la tempo estas eterna, sen komenc’, sen fino, kaj mia juna karno pro la trompo kaj troa martelado de l’ destino ne ardas plu, ne plu al ĝoj’ incitas. Kaj morto mortvivantan min evitas…
Julia on Pandateria
Life on this isle sets slow on the horizon. In the long afternoons a dreary wind Along the whispering sea's shore, exciting My dress indifferently, will always grind Upon my memories, and with every breath Bear witness: Death, death, death...there's still no death.
A three-time wife, a night-time ravishing woman, who only prized the present through the years has come to this: the fluting of a gull, a past in vain, a future full of tears. An empty woman pales away as would A spirit starved of sacrificial blood.
And I conclude, here in this brutal crude Place where the flesh will rot beneath a dew Foreign and freezing, that the life of the roses, Wine and perfume-crazed kisses that I knew Was always empty and estranged. This one Queen of the world was ever a corpse alone.
When coupled I was most alone, yet sought Happiness where I could, where I was bound By the compulsions of a curious yearning. Always the more I sought, the more I found Only unhappiness in lovers' joys. I always fell for all the same old ploys.
That was a different me- a legend heard Once in a stranger's dream, and that is all. What does Rome mean? It means the naked sand, Rocks and the wind's rough hands, a crying gull, While my sapped body wilts in apathy And Rome is just a fever fantasy.
The Here and Now no longer matters. Time now Consists of nothing but eternity And the young body that I am, betrayed And hammered far too much by destiny, Can flame no more, can touch no joy or drive, And even death leaves me for dead alive.
William Auld (1924 – 2006) was a Scottish poet who wrote chiefly in Esperanto. He is the only Scottish author, and the only Esperanto author, ever to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. He edited a number of Esperanto literary journals and was the editor of a very influential anthology of Esperanto poetry, His masterpiece, La infana raso (The Infant Race), is a long poem that, in the poet's words, explores "the role of the human race in time and in the cosmos," partly based on The Cantos by Ezra Pound.
A. Z. Foreman is a poet and translator pursuing a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His work (both original compositions as well as translations from Arabic, French, Persian, Chinese, Latin, Occitan, Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew, Welsh, Irish and Yiddish) has been (or is scheduled to be) featured in the Los Angeles Review, ANMLY, Asymptote, Lunch Ticket, Metamorphoses, the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry and elsewhere. But really he's most proud of having had his work featured in two people's tattoos, and if you have a dog he'd love to pet it.
