there‘s a room in my head
where I put all the things
I can‘t say to anyone.

it’s cluttered.
broken chairs,
half-drunk bottles,
notes scrawled on napkins
with words
I was too afraid to mean.

people tell you
to let it go,
but what they don’t tell you is -
the heaviest stuff
floats right back.

the wind reads me well
I'm a nomad of time
a pulse like a prophecy
whispers myself to me

With spirit ablaze,
To tread, where everyone conspire
My truth, a flame held higher,
Yet branded still a liar.
This path, where doubts transpire,
To reach what hearts desire.
As in ages of old time's fire,
Worth on the pyre, a maiden's trial dire.
The heart's own fire, just water to the pyre,
Yet the world deems us of less significance,
Not much of a crier if you keep your distance,
We've never needed rescue, if the problem wasn't you.

Every year the desert
           (with d from devils)
advances fifteen kilometers
           (with k from karma)
dries up springs
            (with s from spirits)
dries up more and more words.
The dictionary is ever more famished -
essences on the leap
stop for a second over the abyss,
then whiten the cracked earth.
The poet watches
the pure skulls of the words;
the words, still living and hungry,
watch the poet.

By Grete Tartler, translated by Liviu Bleoca

for Roger Caillois

Water hollows stone,
wind scatters water,
stone stops the wind.
Water, wind, stone.

Wind carves stone,
stone's a cup of water,
water escapes and is wind.
Stone, wind, water.

Wind sings in its whirling,
water murmurs going by,
unmoving stone keeps still.
Wind, water, stone.

Each is another and no other:
crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:
water, stone, wind

by Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger