WORLD VOICES

THE MARROW
  BY NIELS HAV


Contents


Home
Introduction

About the Author

I Poets & Poetics

In Defense of Poets
My Fantastic Pen
The Poem
On His Blindness 1-3
Epigram

II Love

Blind Man's Bluff
Women of Copenhagen
When I Go Blind
Show Me Your Breasts
Café Pushkin
Moscow
The Soul Dance in Its Cradle

III Conclusions

Deepest Inside All
Tokyo, Encore
The Vietnamese Arises
The Conclusion
Visit from My Father
The Marrow
Encouragement

Acknowledgments

World Voices Home

The Literary Explorer
Writers on the Job
Books Forgotten
Thomas E. Kennedy
Walter Cummins
Web Del Sol



The Vietnamese Arises

The Vietnamese arises
and pisses yellow, a complete person.
After all, it is allowed
even in New York (New York) where the river naively
blends the sky's light with every thing
available to create a complex metaphysics,
and the Empire State Building (here used as a metaphor)
descends at eve to drink and bathe
its frozen flanks in the lukewarm mud.
But the East River is no illusion;
the Vietnamese is aware of that when he surrenders
the Brooklyn Bridge (actually a bridge)
to assault his mirror image.

Translation P. K. Brask & Patrick Friesen assisted by Carol Novack
© Niels Hav