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Luis Filipe Sarmento [Portugal]

               *1   Give me the fruit of innocence – whilst I breathe, I gaze at myself in the mirror’s entirety – if indeed it has been catalogued in the scientific archives of ethnic groups. They say no, as if they did not understand that evidence does not keep in its registries menus of ephemeral sensations. The nobility catalogued in the West does not recognize innocence as a sensible and visible value. Let us consider its wonders – since innocence is an immaterial asset of little worth – what they add to the subtraction of their nature as cheap magicians ; the dull language of pretence; the immoderate plundering of blood traded in the commerce of values added to the gluttony of misery; (the absence of a Book is telling) pacts & regime pacts for a unifying perspective, perhaps the bellicose side of terror, of those inept at assessing innocence. Investing in the feast of ignorance, they peddle market-stall gods, tribunes of accusations...
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Ko Un [South Korea]

  201   A mouse listens to a scops owl’s cry. By day a dog with nothing else to do listens to a calf lowing.   I listen to Uighurs talking. While coming from far away, far away, from that unbounded place on the western shore of Qinghai Lake, meaning having vanished, only the sounds remain.   I listen to ethnic Koreans’ Chinese. I listen to English. I listen to British English and Californian English respectively. In the state where meaning is nullified only the sacredness of sounds remains.   Meanings, interpretations, truths that are this planet’s catastrophes, you’ve worked hard for thousands of years. Now be off with you.   Farewell.   I listen to your words as the call of a goose by night, only as the fossils of sounds as a snail or a butterfly listens to my words.   Meaningless consonants and vowels ! Reality in the origin, sounds !   (from “Untitled Poems”)       I Will Sing   I will sing. When I suffer pain I wi...

Nathalie Handal [Palestine / France / USA]

  The City                                  —after C.P.Cavafy   You tell me: I’m going to another country, another city, another body. Perhaps my heart will stay uncertain, and I will destroy my history but I am leaving. Even if on every street, I find the ruins of our bodies, I’ll roam like a restless soul anyway.   I tell you: You won’t find a new country, new city, new body. You’ll return to roam the same ruins, same streets, same quartiere , return to complain in the same room of the same house, return to the memory of our intertwined bodies. You will always end up in Roma: I will always remain in you. And maybe late, you’ll see, what you destroyed is worth more than all the worlds you wasted your time in.       Intermezzo   You can’t trespass an open wound   the smell of September on the breast of a lover   you desired but can’t remember, ...

Miodrag Jaksic [Serbia]

  One’s Own Position in the Sky   With the thought that you accomplish me with a perfect creation you unnoticeably entered my dreams. I’m glad. We connect the incompatible, by a light gesture of hand, invisible thread of the lit dreamology. We sow. By the balance of pleasure and restlessness. By the balance of blossomed will. The harmony from field grasses and urban smog. Like, unstable, this summer is. Originating from as far back as the Old World. Sprung. By dreaming you reinforce you position in the sky. By dreaming you draw away from life. By participation of the spirit, in dreams, you find your goal. You are like all others, truly. Women I love. Even when you don’t recall your dreams, you keep the feeling of dreaminess. You know whether you are warm or cold. You feel dreams, always. In the part between the body and soul, in the inter-step with them, dreams have arranged their volume. They made time easier for you. They filled in the space for you and filled you with them...

Victor Rodriguez Nunez [Cuba]

4   between two hummingbirds                                               oscillating in the breeze beneath the tame sunflower light nightburned in the intense split of the pitcher we left outside shyness perfumes                              with basil cunning the horizon will fail but the light undresses in the maples   a hummingbird is allayed                                           on the steel curve behind its...

Andonis Fostieris [Greece]

  The Verb ‘’ I Write’’ I write I wrote I’ve written.   Fine up to here.   But the future is lacking. Unidiomatic the imperative. And the indicative is optative Euphemism.   An irregular verb, really. Intricate.   Who can learn it?     A Poem   Since no definition Is definite And since of the thousand versions None answers             What             A poem is, I imagine three more words Won’t be too heavy:             Rhythmically             Cogitating             Feeling.     Thus We   Like Cynegeirus, the brother of Aeschylus. You know.   Who when the Persians retreated from Marathon To the safety of their ships He obstructed a trireme by sticking H...