Issue 13/14

From Paul Celan's Chapbook of Poems in New Translation
by David Young, to be published in Poetry International # 13/14

IN MEMORY OF PAUL ELUARD

Put the words in the dead mans grave,
the words he spoke in order to live.
Cradle his head among them
let him feel
the tongues of longing,
the tongs.

Put the word on the dead mans eyelid,
the word he refused to speak
to the one who said thou to him,
the word
his hearts blood rushed past
when a hand bare as his own
knotted the one who said thou to him
into the trees of the future.

Put that word on his eyelid:
maybe
his eye, still blue,
takes on a second, stranger blue,
a second blue,
and the one who said thou  to him
dreams with him: we.

-- Tanslated by David Young