THE EAR

Virgo aurus I send to you, my Lord,
in this hand made Kenneth Cole case;
my faith I place in your just dictum,
our fate in the deeds of the ethnoparler.

To lop off one pinna, my fellow citizens,
and leave the membrane unprotected tells us
that we are all affected. Thus, I ask,
in this hour, do we not all feel ravaged?

Werra or campagne, will they come along
if I promise them not a soul will be lost?
I can always claim we shall spielen a Krieg
with my brand new set of terra cotta figurines.

People will understand. An ear is an ear.
It is in our national interest to be all
ears to pin their ears back. Our three-deckers
are invisible to their radars in crow’s nests.

Good tidings they bring, my Lord. The bellum
wasn’t bello, the Porto is in ruins, but I
venture to say that we were compassionate.
And, the humanitarian aid is on the way.

We shall also, with your gracious approval,
send them other things, to show we mean well,
teddy bears, crayons, balls, generously gifted
by Toys’r’Us; also, surplus army tents.

Others have to pitch in. My advisers tell me
our requests have fallen on deaf ears, pardon
the phrase. Oh, no one will remember the ear,
only if we contained the endemic conflicts.

And kept our ear to the ground. Trying times
are before us. Successions. Secessions. People
talk of glad bags, seeing the elephants. I
want to leave all this, go to play some golf.

UHO

UHO

Virgo aurus vam šaljem, moj Gospodare,
u ovoj Kenneth Cole škrinjici ručne izradbe;
moju vjeru ja polažem u vas pravedan izričaj,
našu sudbinu u prosudbu etnoparlera.

Okljaštriti ušku, odani moji pučani,
i ostaviti bubnjić nezaštićenim kazuje
da smo svi mi ugroženi. U ovome času,
stoga, pitam vas nismo li svi oskvrnuti?

Werra il campagne, hoće li nam se pridružiti
ako im obećam ni jedan duša izgubljena neće
biti? Mogu reći mi samo spielen mali Krieg
s novim mojim kompletom terakota figurica.

Narod će razumjeti. Uho je uho. U našem je
nacionalnom interesu da smo svi jedno uho
kako bismo začepili im uši. Naši tropalubnjaci
nevidljivi su za njihove radare u koševima.

Dobre vijesti, Gospodare moj. Bellum
nije bio bello, Porto je u ruševinama,
no usuđujem se tvrditi bili smo samilosni.
K tomu, humanitarna je pomoć već na putu.

Također, s vašom milostivom privolom,
poslat ćemo ine stvari, dobrohotnost tako
pokazavši, punjene mede, bojice, balone, sve
to dar Toys’r’Us. Da, i višak vojnih šatora.

Ini će morati pridonijeti. Moji mi savjetnici
vele naši su zahtjevi pali na gluhe uši,
bože mi oprosti. O, nitko neće pamtiti uho,
samo jesmo li obuzdali endemične sukobe.

I dobro otvorili uši. Teška su vremena
pred nama. Nasljedstva. Odcjepljenja. Ljudi
govore o vrećama sreće, Pepeljuginoj ponoći.
Dođe mi ostaviti sve i otići golf igrati.