Issue 30: Charles Bernstein

Manifold

1.

deep night, waves sleep

I watch bright, white Li Po moon 

blank book, no account

                                 after Huang Fan

2. Don't Say I Didn't Say So

Even if didn’t or don’t

Or couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Radishes just five bucks

a kilo, but is that even

a good price?

3. Donna — Me Pregnant

Donna –– me pregnant –– percolates vogue desire

dune accident — OK. Soviet efforts

Eddie, sigh, alters, OK, eh –– tomato amour

sigh, OK –– low negs, pose ever satire

Ed, ah!, presents cognoscenti cheer

Percolating no spare, OK, Om, debased core

4. Farther

Should both the last two lines

of the quotation be indented

a little farther than the preceding

lines?  But the last line a few

spaces farther to the right than

the penultimate line? Or do

both the last two lines have

the same left margin with each

other, but farther right than

the preceding lines?

for Robert von Hallberg

5. I kiss the bow and the arrow

I kiss the bow and arrow, kiss the knot,

in which so sweetly Love is wound

and kiss the chains in which I’m bound,

aureate chains that tangle into clot.

Love’s charmed fire, its torch, forget I not,

so pure an ardour in my soul so crowned:

such honeyed ardour, every pain is drowned,

so living’s burning, burning sweetly hot.

Long ago, in teary wails’ discontent

I complained of Love, yet not had I found

that arrows of bliss would be sharp torment.

Now, immortal Lord, I to thee lament

and beg you, all, to forget my torment

“you, who heard as rime this scattered sound.”

Faustina Maratti (1680 – 1745)
translated by Charles Bernstein with Carla Buranello

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