by Olena Jennings
Forbidden are the plants that grow around our feet.
Forbidden are the plants that taste like lavender.
Forbidden are the plants that sting with touch.
Forbidden are the plants that fall under our weight.
Forbidden are the plants that point towards the sky.
Forbidden are the plants that can be boiled into tea.
by Snežana Žabić
I will live your futurism
If you will live mine
I see wet cement and imagine
softly imprinting my naked
back in that porridge of silicates and oxides
one vertebra at a time
by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
By noon the sun shimmers the city and I know
I should leave. But I have books to buy and stop
at the only English bookstore. Inside, the air is cooled,
It reminds me of a bookstore at home, in America.
by Ali Podrimja
Translated from the Albanian by Genta Nishku
it’s been days been years been centuries
that the person with the wound in the head
remains on the white hospital table
by Alina Stefanescu
Candlelight makes it look
as if the hand goes numb
before the throat.
You are the color technician
in a dream warning the woman
who was me before bleach.
by Nina Murray
the outside margin of nostalgia
is the last page in a used-up passport
full of exit stamps commingling their inks
a mongrel pedigree
my ghosts reduced to spectral marmosets
winged on my shoulders
I can feel them part the hair at my nape
touch my scalp with their infant-sized
icy fingers
poetry is what I would think if I wore the skin
by Aleksey Porvin
All knowledge of translation is dying in a far-off fire, but we keep trying. “Ask the birch, the river, the explosion that has taken root deep in the heart, beg for the right words, like the children beg for bread from the border guards” – where does such advice lead to? The crumbs smell like brass, the crust smells like lead and steel – everything repeats the structure of the bullet, even this old man with a metal core instead of words.
by Ștefan Manasia
Translated from the Romanian by Clara Burghelea
I took lots of photos, according to personal logic,
but the ectoplasmic entities failed to appear
on the screen. I took pictures of white, red ribbons
hanging from trees but the sudden wind
didn’t make them vibrate, in the Morse alphabet
or another code. It was sunny and cold.
by Andreea Iulia Scridon
But when the thunderstorm leaked
through my cardboard sanctuary,
like Hamlet’s, the walnut tree
(which, by tradition, we know must be
the victim of our torture, for rules are rules),
I was alone in the world,
I was alone in my life.
by Arvis Viuls
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will
One morning upon awakening he understood,
that actually his entire life
he had wanted to be a saw and nothing else,
and he decided to follow his dreams.
by Juris Kronbergs
Translated from the Latvian by Māra Rozīte
Mouths that mouth in different tongues
none are mine
none are yours
A star shines a crown glows
Nothing’s mine
by Inga Pizāne
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will
While doing a writer’s residency
I went to beach every afternoon
to look at the sea.
There was neither the beginning
nor final credits.
by Tereza Riedlbauchová
Translated from the Czech by Stephan Delbos
When she came from abroad I was waiting for her
she was startled she sat on the stool behind the door
bent her legs and hugged them she had dark blue knees
by Karla Marrufo Huchim
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese
i never knew her name
but i watched her die in the clearest instant
heard her body
open, the crack of bones
at the end of her agony,
by María Negroni
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese
When I return to my castle of origin, I will write a nocturne with a clair de lune and call it My Poetic Astronomy. I will imbue it with the excitement of the night, as it has been recorded over centuries--with its priestesses, its crimes, its waters that cross the borders of the world and disappear into nothing.
Read Moreby Teodora Taneva
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva
They remain silent
for they don’t want to share a common language
with their enemies.
They remain silent in their thoughts, silent with their eyes, their hands, their souls,
they even breathe silently, like flowers
by Georgi Atanassov
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva
Sixty years ago
In Lom they were killing all crows.
They’d sign a paper
to get a handgun
with an ammo box.
by Vania Valkova
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva
The new slaves are abundantly obedient
Socialize politely in slow-tedious style, yet
Always have their nails exquisitely done
and well charged robots full of smiles to don.
by Vladislav Davidzon
If broken, a law of mesira
is a mortifying plume
writing denunciations is no art
high incidence of illiterates
involved in
regressed resplendence
bony spinster's joints
by Diana Manole
What else do you want? The crisis centres’ phone numbers already blink
on oversized billboards
at both ends of the bridges
above six-lane highways crossing cities to prevent traffic delays
during rush hours.
