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Steve Benson
When I read them I'm obliged to project myself
the original author's thrill writing and
the expanse: trees, sky, tremendous dogs fighting:
for me this is to read. There exists no best
translation, however one admires the vain effort
none makes to make it all the same, somehow authentic if not
perfect (meanwhile sickening of the original!).
Oh yucky repetitious pretensions of mind! move outside,
out of sight! get your jaws wide! eat
Mother Nature! Know the ways of the city drag.
Contemplate a while cigarettes and boiling coffee.
Dig cold air! Shut down contraptions (like radio)
and ramble determinedly about — out! Time comes
your guilt will crack, eyes see nameless birds,
when i read translation, i poke around the words,
not at them, guessing at a reality not hinted at
but encoded by some prisoner from another world—
nobody's perfect; but i relish the quest for the
peculiar nature of some original writer, un-
known to us but through his function: images
thoughts perhaps of trees cows judgings ravings—
oh i'm an impotent feeling self-important fool—
consume the country, become one with it, i say to myself!
and becoming one with it belch and forget it!
no more nervous city twisting and coiling of coffee
and smokes, no more routines, schedules or lack of them!
what the fuck!— i'm internally shaken by these
desperate thoughts, my hand sticks in my throat,
it's when reading them, I just have to imagine
the excited writing of the one author
and its openness (streams, thickets, wrestling dogs) -
that's reading - there is no right translation,
just absurd efforts to make it the same in main
respects - oh noble boring iconoclast! get
to the country, open mouthed, chew on miles of hay!
don't you know as long as you're among these
people of cities you'll smoke and burn coffee?
the air is cold! we hate radio. turn it off
and march outside at your leisure, sooner or later
you'll break that guilt, look at rooks and starlings,
stop trying to crease the grass so much in your fingers,
they are not machines! just eat, open your mouth, eat!