Transcript (English)

Transcript 38 Malta

in this issue

More about the author

Transcript is a
Literature
Across
Frontiers
publication

POETRY: Antoine Cassar

Amsterdam Hotel

Translated from the multilingual original by the author

       I remember you well in the Amstel hotel,
     l'argent, la chair, la pluie, mazlení toute la nuit,
        torri f'għar, wunderbar, caballos en tropel,
your sweet surrogate skin, die eeuwigheid van de zee…

           Te huur: taparsi amour. E rieccoti qui,
   the sky is red with light, the dike about to swell,
    arrière-pensée qu'émerge d'une île où je ne suis
pas - u hemm baħri tal-art qed jegħreq f'nofs ta' dell.

Let our love be the verse, let your lips be the curse
which will make our pain better, will make our pleasure worse

No suenan ya las ruedas, no truena ya el reloj,
ruxxmata ħsejjes tnixxi tintraxx minn għajn il-moħħ

Denk ik: „Naar vriendschap zulk een mateloos verlangen”.
The mermaids of the south care not for those who sang them.

Amsterdam hotel

I remember you well in the Amstel hotel, the money, the flesh, the rain, tender caressing all night, tower in a cave, wonderful, horses in a mad rush, your sweet surrogate skin, the eternity of the sea…

For rent: pretend love. And here you are again, the sky is red with light, the dike about to swell, a hidden thought emerging from an island where I am not - and there's a sailor of the land drowning amid a shadow.

Let our love be the verse, let your lips be the curse which will make our pain better, will make our pleasure worse

The wheels no longer sound, the clock no longer thunders, a swarm of noises oozes, is sprinkled from the spring/eye of the mind

I think: "Such a boundless longing for friendship". The mermaids of the south care not for those who sang them.

Four rocks

From Atlas (a work in progress), translated from Maltese by the author

[...]
And then,
somewhere behind the letter M,
a speck-sized speck,
four rocks –

at the top, Gozo,
if you like, a reclined almond,
sweet in spring,
in autumn salty,
if you like, a dagger of bronze,
if you like, the eye of a Phoenician woman
guarding the Mediterranean.

A little this way, beautiful Comino,
a two-humped camel, sitting down
slowly churning his jaw,
as he lowers his head to drink from the lagoon
I fear he may choke in the plastic coral.

Right at the bottom, crumbled Filfla,
in ancient times an altar of giants,
yesterday sacrificed thump after thump
in the name of the gods of war,
yet today she still salutes us
with the hat that she has,

and in the slight splash across the water,
Malta,
call her a pearl, call her a blasphemy,
call her a pebble surrounded by foam,
call her a salty solitude
or a fish reeking from her head,
her tail up, sandy,
her belly marble-hard,
with one eye above the water
towards the foot of Europe,
the other eye hidden,
she is like a dizzy saddled bream
attempting to flee from herself,
from net to net she swims
perhaps she’ll find a little space,
from net to net she swims
until she dresses the net,
swims on the wrinkling waves not knowing where to turn,
swims not knowing where to go.
[...]

site by CHL