Poem

Uljana Wolf

Side by side

S

still, it would be sinful, you say, not to speak of swans: six is silence, seven love, and in the end there’s a one-wing surplus. seems silly perhaps, but fairy tales save us many a swan song. so i say: consider the woodpecker’s third eyelid sliding supportively across its pupil. with its help, you can strike home any point without eyes popping from sockets. and after that first flutter of hard knocks, the silence cannot hurt you at all.

Translated by Susan Bernofsky

SEE SIN SIN~~~~N SENSE SIGN STILL

you mean it would be a sin not to mention the swans here. sex is silence, love—uh—seeping. at the end blips remain to be seen: a flag, a fling. we winged it! maybe not sensible, but without fairy tales, longer hair/langour/longueur of sense. death sentence. off from that i see the specter’s bird lid: how it shoves sideways before the lens. which was to be proven: one can throb for everything, the eyes don’t fall out of the head, the stillness, even after the worst flattening blows, could move the nothing: not not not not. in its end, its bedeutung. signed, hölderling.

Variation/alternate translation by Traver Pam Dick (previously unpublished)

see – sin ~ ~ ~ ~n – sense – still

eine sünde, meinst du, wäre, schwäne hier nicht zu erwähnen: sechs ist schweigen, liebe sieben, und am ende bleibt am see ein flügel über. vielleicht nicht sinnig, aber ohne märchen wäre lange sense. darauf ich: siehe der spechte drittes lid, wie es sich seitwärts vor die linse schiebt! erwiesen ist, man kann damit auf alles pochen, die äugen fallen nicht aus dem kopf, die stille, nach dem ersten, flatternden klopfen, rührt einen nicht.