Short Poems

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.


Translated by Robert Hass

Don't unveil the face,
Don't glitter the scene.
Don't try to test my race,
The race not in reign.

Poems have order, sanity
aesthetic distance from debris.
All I've learnt from pain
I always knew,
but could not do.

Look, don't kill that fly!
It is making a prayer to you
By rubbing its hands and feet.

If you’re rigid in your thinking,
you’re not really thinking.

Don't imitate me;
it's as boring
as the two halves of a melon.


Translated by Robert Hass

Forsaken, fucking in the cold,
eating each other, lost
runny noses,
complaining all the time
like so many
people
that we know

Bàn míngqǐ mǎshàng cūn qiáo,
Huā luò méi xī xuě wèi xiāo.
Rì duǎn tiān hán chóu sòng kè,
Chu shān wúxiàn lù tiáoyiáo.

Dogs is mighty useful beasts
They might seem bad at first
They might seem worser right along
But when they're dead
They're wurst.

Døer jeg — nuvel! jeg frygter ei;
Naar du er til, saa lever jeg.
Døer du — som Skjæbnen vil!
Du lever dog, naar jeg er til.