Issue 26: Jamie Osborn translates five poems by Mara-Daria Cojocaru
Shock moulting
I had, once, a sparrow in my hand. I
Took a little sand, two spoons
Of seed, here, an unassuming creature. Und
So war ich. And you think loss won’t hit you
Twice. I had, then, the sparrow in my
Hand. He began to scrape and to bathe
I let him with pleasure, and began to flutter. So
Mein Herz. And you think loss
Won’t hit you twice. I held stock still, I
Was afraid, for the sparrow, for myself. I
Baked more bread, I hated much and everything
Turned to dust. Shed but for a single feather
Longed to change luck for happiness*
And always sparrows, sparrows, always dust
*Glück for Glück
Death of a young queen
Bumblebee, majesty, thou putt’st me under the silver lime
To death. Too cold, the day. Granted
Bladder gall, what a waste, what a difference
It makes that they depart from this life while I simply
Lose mine: the thought,* brittle, just gone forever
Turned to dust. Breath catches in late blossom, I blow
Blisters of air, find sugar-spots on my skin. From which
I wanted to feed her. Gladly I’d become provision
If it did the queen any good. Counting these little creatures
Inside me. Exodus of the intestinal bacteria. And I now call
Good the changing of the guard beneath my skull
Who am I to inter myself beside you, in the shadow
Of your death, and to dispose that on my grave
Honeysuckle, and plumtrees, should bear fruit
*Feeding trail
Fetiţa in the Wunderkammer
Take your father’s delicate goat and ride, pure of soul
Cat clasped against your heart, into the world – who
For all that’s good, crammed it so full? The entire
Celestial contraption unfolding itself already
Schema of divine intuition. A finely carved
Plum pit. Erkäntnüß des apfelrunden Kreises, take
A bite and tug the nobles, bivalves out from deep
Under the sea under the net: string of pearls, amateurist’s
Loves in sandwich-paper from when the world was still
Fat, folded to heaven and hell. Become soul, undyingly
In love with yourself. Fetch the phial filled with liquid dragon-farts
Inject it into yourself, into the goat, flee the Leveller, whose
Pickled horse apes Pegasus, gryphon-hacked. Just
As well, death is a human thing after all, and you on your goat
Are the fastest
Note of absence
On the beach at Pte. Ste. Cathérine
I impart of myself to
The eggshell of your self-
Liberating, much lamented
Hatchling. Open water
Return into the sea
Time remains
The bow wave of our
Consciousness: now
Waking-wet, thrust reverser
The shark already singing
The requiem before we
Submerge into a tinier
Eternity, in a
Skin at times thicker
Coming to our senses, in the demilitarised zone
Beautiful morning, against the sky lie finely
Chiselled structures of ice, masterpiece in May
A slice of sun, still pale as the
Moon, behind it the divine intestine, irradiated
Atmospheric endoscopy or historic
Pincushion. We, anyway, put the planes aside there
It is so beautiful, we could pluck ducklings. In the dream
However an elk bit me. I lay a finger on
The I-know-not-what: whether the swallow’s
Dance can be compared to the bat’s. And whether we
In the development of buds could prop-
Agate ourselves. Go by all means
Wakeful into the next night
Mara-Daria Cojocaru is a German poet who lives in London. She grew up in Munich, was nominated for the Leonce and Lena prize in 2015, awarded the Kunstförderpreis Literatur by the Bavarian State in 2017 and is nominated for the Lyrikpreis Meran 2020 (postponed). Her next and fourth book of poetry is forthcoming with Schöffling & Co. in autumn 2021.
Jamie Osborn’s poems and translations of poems have appeared in New Poetries VII (Carcanet), PN Review, the TLS, Blackbox Manifold, Modern Poetry in Translation and elsewhere. He lives in Norwich.
Copyright © 2021 by Jamie Osborn, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
